My Candid AC Graduation Day Shots

A few of my for fun hobby candid pics from a after graduation party that the Irwin family so kindly hosted at the Locher's home.  Wow, a big thank you is definitely in order to those two families.  I was feeling just a little tired, and stayed in one spot for most of the time enjoying the opportunity to chat with the Heath's, The young Brandon's :-), Mrs. Beezley, and Eagle, but I think there may have been around 50 or 60 people including kids as a rough estimate headcount.  I didn't get a pic of hardly anyone, but it's b/c I did stay in one spot for most of the time, but at least I shot a few pics.  They really put on a spread which took a lot of time, effort, and $$ I'm sure, so a few pics were in order to have to remember.  :-)  T'was a nice way to get many together after graduation ceremony in one place.  The weather was a blessing all day yesterday.  Rain was in the forecast, but it didn't come until this morning.  Awesomeness would be my word of choice.  Anyway, we really appreciated all of the hard work that went into this gathering.

ABOVE:  The lovely graduate, Erica I. and Kyle C.

BELOW:  Big brother Bret I.  :-) telling guests they can eat!  He graduated AC 7 years ago.  Wow, seems like yesterday!

 BELOW:  Not to forget little bro Nick I, a big AC Senior this fall.  :-)

What a great boss who was willing to cook burgers and hot dogs for well over an hour on his family's grill for the big picnic.  He cooked them for everyone there which was no small task.  They tasted delicious. 

 Mrs. Heath's handy watermelon culinary artwork!  Sometimes I may think that I'm creative, but then I spend a little time with Mrs. Heath and realize SHE'S the artistic one.  Keeps me humble.  Mrs. Heath = pro/ Me = amateur!  :-)!

 More of Mrs. Heath's culinary art skills.

 BELOW:  Mrs. Irwin getting the food ready.  Instead of saying I didn't take a good pic at all, we'll just say that the sun sabotaged my photo!  :-)!

A FEW CANDID SHOTS from AC GRAD 2016

I was sooooo happy for this class.  They really did become like little brothers and sisters, and many helped my family out a lot within the past year with my parents being ill.  So happy for Joel and everyone.  Joel is one who definitely did things quietly in service, but he would come out to our property and keep it mowed on top of everything else that he had to do, to ensure that the outside didn't turn into a jungle granted that my house theme is safari.  ;-)

BELOW:  No recording is allowed of speaking during things at AA for obvious reasons, though graduation may be a little more lenient on some things, but still it's better to be safe than sorry, and I'm definitely no one special, so after the ceremony was over and the Senior class was exiting the hall, I caught a treasured clip of them exiting at least.  I'm sure you all can tell how fond I am of this class.  :-)  You can click on the bottom right box to make it bigger.  I shot many more pics of the Sophomore and Senior class which may appear on my brother's protected password site of Peacefulstorms.com.

 ABOVE:  Victoria T.'s proud family

BELOW:  The lovely Elyssia!  Piano lessons really bonded us this year.

 Lovely Danielle and Kieren U.  :-)

 Lovely Arianne

 One of my photo regrets was not getting a pic of little bro Justin Goodearl.  I didn't even see him afterwards.  Too many people.  Here's a written congrats to him!  :-)

 My niece's first or second...can't remember if she went last year......AC graduation experience.  I think she liked it.  She kept telling me "Aunt" over and over.  I guess she wanted me to know that I was her Aunt.  I thanked her for reminding me of who I was.  :-)

BELOW:  ......and then to come into work the next morning and find that Paulette has left you some "desert roses" on your desk leftover from her table decor that she put together for Graduation Brunch with her chosen "desert shall blossom as a rose theme" the previous day makes for a beautiful new work week.  

 I might not have gotten a good shot yesterday at the party of the lovely hostess, Mrs. Irwin, but seized the opportunity when she came into the office this morning.  (below)

 Beautiful week!  Excited to see the IA graduation next.  :-)  Back to work first, though.  :-)

Sweet and Sour Moments the Week before AC Graduation w/Friends.

It's that "sweet and sour" or "bittersweet" if you prefer, ;-) time of year at AC when graduation is within days, and it is time for many of the AC students to move away from college and part ways going different directions and places to "start their lives."  I get to know some of the students really well, and they become like extended family siblings, so it's exciting to see them taking their education out to share in the right way, yet it's sad b/c you know you won't be able to call them up or email them to ask if they want to come over or go out etc, and you know you'll never see them pass by your desk, or maybe I should say run by your desk with their busy schedules to make sure they make it to class on time, again.  Usually the next time that I see them is a year or two later, and they are either married with a child, or without one, or still single just coming into town for a quick visit usually on a weekend of a big activity, but it's only for the weekend b/c they have to get back to their jobs and lives, and it's not the same though it is positive because they have grown in their lives, and it's nice to see them as adults living their lives properly.  A few of us took advantage of a few free hours we had earlier this week and ate out kind of as a way to say a pleasant "time to say goodbye." :-) We were happy to run into the Irwin's at the restaurant who sat at the booth adjoining to our booth.  Victoria, Danielle, and Erica will be so missed along with the rest who are moving on.

Food from our goodbye dinner

BELOW:  The lovely Underwood family from a far away country here for both of their children's AC college graduation.  I met them years ago randomly on a plane in Denver and didn't even know who they were, and it was before Danielle was at college, and we coincidentally had assigned seats on the plane right next to each other, and we had both just flown into the USA from two totally different countries that we had been on vacation in, and connected in Denver.  Wild card meeting!

BELOW:  The sweet Olsen Fam here for their fam, Arianne's AC grad.  Arianne has become like a little sister.

BELOW:  My week is not too busy since I'm not a high school or college student about to graduate, oh you didn't know that! ;-), and I don't have any family graduating, so in the evenings this week since most of the activities are for grads and their families around here, I'm taking advantage of the extra time and practicing the piano.  I've come a long ways on the Chopin Waltz Opus 69 No 1 since I started it.  I have the first page down and am now moving to the second page.  It's three pages long.  I won the battle with the tricky fingering, and once that battle was won, the song itself wasn't nearly as complicated as it seemed.  Below is a video of that progress.  Elyssia gave me a looooong...it's 8 pages with all of the movements.....Beethoven piece, Sonata 20 G Major Opus 49 No 2, to learn as I finish learning this Chopin piece to tie me over while she's gone on the Senior trip and transitioning before we crank up lessons again in a few weeks via video!  Exciting!  She said that overall this semester I'd grown in not "pounding" the keys as much but being more gentle with them, and I've learned to add a little more emotion into my playing in which I apparently severely lacked before which is a big technical accomplishment.  I still have to work on doing both things way better though.  Having Elyssia as a piano teacher is definitely a fruit of her AC career here in which I'm grateful.  Mr. Mark Jenkins was her piano teacher here through the AC music program, and ironically, he's the one that gave me my piano years ago, so what a blessing AC has been with the students passing down what they've been taught.  His piano is being put to use now along with his lessons that he gave Elyssia.  I told her jokingly that she should start a bigger business of teaching online students since that is popular these days, and call her online studio "Fur Elise."  ;-)  If you're not into music enough to get that pun, google can help you.  ;-)  Looking forward to AC grad in a few days, a private grad party afterwards, and then IA grad.  Great week ahead in honoring graduates for many!

Clothing Design

Gladys W. is one of the most sharing friends that I am blessed to have as a friend.  She inspires me to step up my game and share.  She got me this skirt as a gift, so the goal is to design just the right top, preferably, velvet, to wear with this skirt.  I have a top that I can wear now with it, but I'd like to design one specifically for this purpose.  The question is the matter of time to design and sew it.  Shouldn't be too hard once an idea comes to mind.

Mother's Day

For Mother's Day, the grown "children" and the one still a child grand daughter came over and visited mom.  Sophia was the entertainment, of course!

CCoatsofManyColours! Fun Fact

Royal Purple Kneeling Pillow

Fun CCoatsofManyColours! fashion fact:  Purple has been the most popular color of sales for various designs over the years.

Developing Talents: Piano Practice Videos #5

ABOVE:  Still being submitted to learning Bach pieces

The month of April was pretty much taken up in cleaning, studying, traveling, etc.  This meant that developing the piano skills was put on hold, so 3 weeks went by with no lessons or practice.  I finally had lessons last Sunday, and woke up before the sun came up at 6:00AM and practiced for 2 hours straight in trying to cram in three weeks of neglected practice.  The cramming was a bad idea.  I was so tired by 9:30am at the lessons, that I was pretty much out of it, and my brain was done with practice and decided to go on "sleep mode" like a computer does.  Elyssia said that while I would be playing I looked like I was panicking.  LOL!  What a wild lesson.  Kids, don't try this at home.  Cramming for piano does not work.  LOL!

Anyway, here is my piano practice videos in trying to get back into the swing of things.  One of my goals this year is to develop the talents that God has blessed me with that I am aware of as best as I can while I still have the opportunity to grow.  I've made a list of the things that I would like to accomplish.  Being a sports success is NOT anywhere on my list.  As much as I would like to say I'm athletic, I'm not, so the plan this year is to focus on the things that I can do.  After Elyssia graduates we will continue my lessons online via video which is a popular way of taking music lessons these days. .........still a long ways to go with piano.

BELOW:  Stick a fork in this Chopin Waltz......passed on this song and "upgraded" to a way more difficult one.

BELOW:  The next Chopin Waltz assignment that I've only just begun to learn.  The fingering is difficult and tricky, for me at least.  One thing that I like about having a teacher is that she picks the songs, so it "forces" me to learn a variety of songs that I might have not challenged my own self.

 BELOW:  A Mozart piece that I have not looked at for awhile, but had to whip back out this week.  I pretty much have this song learned, I just have to commit it to memory and smooth it out some more, and add the proper technical things to it which is difficult being that I'm more of an artistic type person rather than technical.  That's the biggest challenge that I face in piano, putting the technical aspects into it.