Five kids down…only one left to go!
All posts by michelene
Elliot Receives the Waterford Book Award
Every year during the school graduation ceremony, Waterford gives a book award to the top male and female student in the 11th grade. With a rigorous class schedule that included AP Calculus, AP US History, AP Art and Honors Spanish, Elliot managed to earn a straight 4.0 each semester and was chosen to receive the award. He didn’t know he had been chosen until they called his name and he got to go up and walk across the stage at Abravanel Hall!
Deck Project
Why pay someone else, if you can do it yourself? That’s what I was thinking when I decided to power wash and stain our deck. I watched someone do ours a few years ago — it didn’t look that hard, and I’ve watched a few youtube videos — I’m set right?
Now that I’ve done it, I can tell you that it was not as easy as it looked, and I’m sure it didn’t turn out as well as it might have if I had paid to have it done. Of course having said that, I have paid plenty of people to do a not so very good job, so I guess I got my “not so very good job” for free right? Actually, I think it turned out okay — it was just a tiring job for someone who thinks she is younger than she really is!
Memorial Day
It was cold and rainy, but we still had fun visiting four different cemeteries meeting up with Grandma and Grandpa at a couple of them. We have a few family history “traditions” and I’m glad the kids have always been willing to visit the ancestors!
We wandered around the Murray Cemetery for quite awhile looking for a specific ancestor only to discover that while he was indeed buried there, there has never been a headstone!
Stake Musical
After many many rehearsals, our stake put on three performances of Broadway Our Way; a collection of various numbers from several well known Broadway musicals (see playbill). The people in charge did an excellent job and definitely had a lot of vision! I’m still impressed with how well they pulled the whole thing off. They built a revolving stage and an additional stage out on the gym floor with surround seating.
In Fiddler on the Roof, Alan, Clark and I were townspeople (a papa, a mama, and a son). Clark was front and center linking arms with another guy as they took turns tossing each other into the air.
In The Music Man, Alan and I were in the opening scene when Harold Hill first arrives in River City on the train. (We both had speaking parts!) Then we were all townspeople and then Alan turned into a quartet member and I turned into a Pick-a-Little lady where I got to do a lot of fast singing and dancing (not easy for an old lady like me!)
Clark was also in the Freedom number from Shenandoah, where he got to dance barefoot and swing a cute girl around, eventually landing her on his hip!
It was very fun and we are glad we did it, but it was also very time consuming with 3 rehearsals a week. The best part was meeting and making new friends throughout the stake. Thanks to all the family and friends who came to see us!
April Birthdays
Madeleine is no longer a teenager! She hit the big 20 this year! You know your kids are grown up when they ask for things like a voice recorder and the Chicago Manual of Style for their birthday and actually get super excited when they get them!
As we often do, we celebrated Madeleine’s and Alan’s birthdays together — this time on Madeleine’s actual birthday. But I did make Alan halusky (his favorite dinner) closer to his birthday — which by the way started out with four inches of snow on the ground!
BYU Graduation
We have another BYU graduate in the family! Phillip graduated April 22nd with a BA in Graphic Design and a minor in English. It was fun to go down to Provo for the festivities. Thursday was the big commencement ceremony in the Marriott Center. By coincidence we ended up sitting fairly close to Phillip and were able to find him and wave to him. Elder Richard G. Scott was the main speaker and gave an excellent talk.
Friday we attended the College of Fine Arts convocation in the DeJong Concert Hall, which had probably only 75 graduates on the stage, and yet we were never able to find where Phillip was sitting! We took some pictures afterwards and then headed home for a celebratory dinner.
Prom Night
The Waterford Prom and the Hillcrest Prom were on the same night so Elliot and Kelsey had to choose and decided to go with some of Kelsey’s friends to the Hillcrest dance. Kelsey’s sister took the professional looking photos and I took the standard unprofessional “stand by the stairs” photos! Kelsey’s dress was awesome and Elliot looked pretty good too!
Hope for spring…
You have to be brave and tough to get through spring in Utah!
Percussion Recital
As part of preparing to perform in the annual Day of Percussion that is held every spring, Clark was able to perform his piece Nocturnal Opus 70 by Benjamin Britten in a Waterford percussion recital. It was a long piece originally composed for the guitar, that took many months to prepare and was very challenging to perform. He did a great job! He also received good marks on his performance at the Day of Percussion Festival.
