Festival of Choirs

Our high school holds a gigantic festival of choirs the first week of December.  They invite all the 8-12th graders who are in concert choir at school to participate.  (invite might be the wrong word...more likely a requirement, but fun none the less).  In order to share the concert with all the families and everyone who would like to attend, they repeat the concert 3 times!  It makes for a long weekend, but the concert is lovely.  This was Joel's first year and Carolyn's third year.

This picture doesn't do the concert justice.  Each group goes on stage alone and then there are many times where different choirs sing together and several songs where EVERYONE sings.  They have an adult orchestra accompany the choirs.  It is pretty amazing.  During this picture, everyone is getting ready to sing.  There are kids in the aisles, kids in the wings, kids everywhere (600 kids I think).  During one song the oldest singers have candles, it is lovely.  Clearly there have been no atheists protesting, because there are mostly Christmas hymns.  There was one Hanukkah song thrown in for good measure.  A couple songs in foreign language including Latin and 2 in an African language.  Pretty cool experience.

Our last story-book pumpkin

Anna presents - Hedwig!

Click on the links below to see former story-book pumpkins.  I can't locate Pigwidgeon or the other character we made that year.  (not even sure if it was Ron or Harry!)  I have some missing photo CDs, actually - organizing those beasts is on my "to do list" now that my department is fully staffed and I am going to be working only 3 days a week!!!!

2011 Storybook pumpkins


2012 Storybook pumpkin

June Fun

June was  a month fun of activity for the family......here are the pictures......in no particular order!

Joel, Anna, Joel's buddy and I went to the State Capitol.  It was amazing inside (I had never been).  This adventure was to fulfill a requirement for Citizenship in the Nation merit badge.

After seeing the Capitol and the Ola Miller Babcock building (another Citizenship  requirement.....visit a location on the National Historical Register....The Ola building was conveniently located near the Capitol.....it was a former Iowa Historical Museum and now houses the State Library and legislative offices....not too exciting) we went for lunch at Tacopocalips for lunch.  This cool piano lives on the corner of a downtown street.

June included a bunch of baseball for Joel.  He finished his regular season and now is practicing for the All Star games that will take place this weekend.

Joel unofficially won the "most hit by pitch" award on our team.....ouch......taking one for the team.

Actually on May 31, Carolyn had her buddies over for a post-finals, end of school celebration.  Then at 3:00pm they anxiously found out their Show Choir placements for next year.  Carolyn was excited to be place in "Yet to be Named"  the newest (obviously, given that it has no name) show choir for our school.  I wanted to write a letter to the director, thanking him for making her (and therefore the house) so happy for the summer.  In the end she would have done fine in any choir, but she would have stewed over the summer until show choir camp started if she was placed in a lower choir.....at least I have a very good guess this would have been the case!

Vacation Bible School.....Maker Fun Factory......Carolyn and Joel were crew leaders and Anna had her last year as a participant.  Yep - she will be a crew leader next year - crazy!  Matthew stayed home and cared for the puppy.  (He named the dog a crazy Pokemon name, but we just called the dog "bear")  Joel isn't in the VBS shirt picture below as he left for Scout camp before I took a picture.  (The girls wore their shirts on Sunday to sing a song for the congregation.)  Bear went back for his surgery and I am sure was adopted the next day.....so cute....but all puppy!

Joel was the official Bugler for his troop at scout camp.  It was at Family Night that I realized how badly his trumpet was damaged since I last saw it.  We have since bought another trumpet, but will save the story for another day!

We play more board games in the summer than the entire school year.  One new game for 2017 is Telestrations.....pretty entertaining.  (Think of the "telephone game"  (where on person starts a story and passes it along.......but instead of words use pictures)).

Four Person Chess, another new game for the summer.  I find chess a challenge, this game is over the top hard.  Luckily, I have 4 kids and it isn't called Five Person Chess

Here is Matthew at University of Iowa Orientation (actually at the beginning of the month, followed very closely by Wisdom teeth removal)  Here he is with a real periodic table of the elements.  Right up his alley, although he isn't going to take chemistry until Spring.  

Graduation

Matthew graduated from Ankeny Centennial High School on Saturday May 27th.  

We missed out on formal photos after the event because rain was starting.  Matthew already is unzipped in this photo!

My sister Mary is Matthew's Godmother.  She has been  at all his special events!

Gerry and Debbie (Ken's sister) flew in from Michigan for the celebration.

My brother Steve came from North Carolina and helped Mary transport my folks from Burlington.  (They played in a golf tournament on Friday in Burlington.)

Grandpa and Grandma McCleary came for the celebration.

Cousin Julie, Mary and Gary were here!

Grandpa and Grandma Schilling too!

Proud parents

Family photo (2 in 2 months (Easter too)) it might be a record.

Matthew will keep working at HyVee for the summer and go to the University of Iowa Orientation next week.  He will try-out for the Marching Band at the end of orientation.  He will start at Iowa this August.

Matthew's first graduation party

We had an Open House Sunday, which exceeded expectation!

Matt and a few buddies

Table of memories

Randy and Carolyn (Randy is our Youth Minister - Matthew is going to the boundary waters with Randy and a crew) 

Matthew greeting people

 Our neighbors and my walking buddy and her daughter (also a former baby-sitter of ours)

My cousin Amy (1st cousin once removed :0)

More friends

The Schmidts came!

 I think Matthew was thrilled and everyone had fun.  Next week our family will come for the graduation (party number 2, which is a little less stressful!).  Matthew has one more day of school!

Baseball time

Joel started his 10th season of baseball.

Not kidding, I counted.  His first year he was one of those little fries where the whole team runs after every ball that hit.

Joel is a Dodger this year.  He is playing Intermediate Little League (6th and 7th graders).

As expected, he is playing his best baseball ever.  Unfortunately, his team has lost every game!  The good thing about being on a less than stellar team, is that you look pretty good if you have some skills.  He has gotten to pitch much more than he ever did last year and more than he would if he played with a bunch of super-stars.  To be honest though, it is tough to lose.every.game.

Oh well, there was a soccer team like that one year and this year his basketball team was fantastic.  You win some, you lose some!  You probably learn more by losing.  It just isn't as much fun.  

Anna turned 10!

Anna hosted her first slumber party.

We had a bonfire.

 She received a sweet gift!

 Had yummy cake!

Of course there was much crafting (tie-dye, etc.), but I don't have a picture and some of it needs to be finished this summer!  Luckily, that is not too far away!

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

Meet the Family:

Logainne Schwarzandgrubenierre (in the middle) was an excellent speller!  Carolyn (Carla Grubenierre) was an awful mother.  (Her one line was "we hate losers").  Her on-stage husband's character was Dan Schwarz (a hen-pecked man).

The musical was absolutely hysterical. From what I understand, the original has some "adult themes", but our 8th and 9th graders did a clean version that had me laughing out loud and even crying during one song.  (The one participant sang a song that asked, "If I win, who will be my chaperone in DC?"  (Her mother was in India and her father was working late during the bee.  She took the bus to be in the bee.)  Anyway if you can see a middle-school version of this musical - I highly recommend it!

Our community theater is doing the same show next fall, so Carolyn and I will go watch, but I think Anna will need to stay home as it might not be so tame.

Anna's 4th grade concert

Anna is smack-dab in the middle of the photo.  (White and blue.)  She was an expert on the recorder, practicing frequently.  Occasionally the recorders (we had a couple from sibs) went missing (Matthew was to blame, as he would hide them when the other kids would get mad that she played non-stop.)  Next year - flute!

Easter 2017

Many pictures are worth a few thousand words!

 Matthew had his traditional Easter Egg Hunt.  (We did find a few eggs weeks later in a bush Ken trimmed!)

   

 Ken's parents came for a visit.

A hard to come by family photo!

Rhythmic Momentum

One of Carolyn's favorite things is show choir.  It has been over for awhile now, but here are some pictures of her group.  They were an all girl group of 9th graders.  It was somewhat of an advantage in competition, because most groups were co-ed and there were separate awards for single gender prep-groups.  (In the big pic, she is in the back on the right in blue).

Here are her best buddies.  It is so great they have each other!  Next they might not all be together because there will be 5 Show Choirs next year!  It is a no-cut activity and definitely one of the more popular activities at our school.

Here is just Carolyn, before I reminded her that we paid thousands of dollars to straighten her teeth!!

There are those beautiful teeth!