My Niece's Very First Dance Recital!

I'm not a proud Aunt?  NOT--yes I am!  I'm soooo happy that my brother and sis in law put Sophia into ballet dance lessons.  She absolutely loves dancing and has been moving her legs and feet since she could crawl.  She is one blessed little girl.  She participated in her very first of hopefully many more to come, dance recitals.  It was her first overall recital as well.  There will be piano and more recitals in her future if all goes well as planned.  It is pretty neat that her first performance was on the stage of Armstrong Auditorium.  If I can say so myself, I think she did very well.  Hats off to her fab teacher, Sarah P.  That's a great teacher to choreograph such young em's to a dance on stage all together.  The niece was a little nervous right before the show, but a total little girl of excitement afterwards.  She had a huge smile on her face and asked her number #1 fan club...aka her Daddy, Mommy, and her Aunt who were at the show, and later on that day her Grandpa and Grandma who had lived streamed her performance if we enjoyed her performance.  The answer was YES!  When I was a kid at Ambassador College Big Sandy my parents gave me the option of either the music or dance program.  Those things cost money.  I chose music, but Sophia is sooo blessed that she will be able to be involved in both soon thanks to the HWA performing arts program.  So happy for her as well as the rest of the fam!

 ....The little swan beginning to be in flight with the help of her parents.
Neat Fact:  Sophia's Daddy use to stand in front of this same exact sculpture as a kid after big events at AC Big Sandy.  Little did he know that his daughter would be doing the exact same thing.  Special!

Hopefully the fab Irish dancer's won't mind me posting this video clip of the dance recital finale.  I absolutely loved this performance.  I thought it was great!  It's always neat to watch dance contagions in which they had in this dance.  I hope there are many more dance recitals.  It was so much fun to watch the ballerinas and the Irish dancers give back to us what they've been working on all year on the big stage in a dance recital!

New Play Time Fun

Not a great picture b/c she was walking, but this is a memorable one b/c my niece's latest play time, at least in Aunt Carolyn's house, is pretending to be graduating A.C.  She came over the other night, got some faux flowers and said she was "congraduating" AC as she put it as she walked back and forward.  She asked to borrow a formal dress that I had, but I told her maybe later on that.  ;-)  I am guessing that she is mixing the words congratulations and graduating together.  Not bad for an almost 4 year old.  Then she asked me to say her name, so I said her full name...then she said "no, no, you have to say with high distinction" as she walked.  She said the word distinction really well.  LOL!  I wish I had gotten that on video.  I told her way to have high academic plans for college.  I thought this was neat since she obviously was inspired by the real graduation.  I didn't get a pic of this, but she went on to go through my purse, found my passport, and held it along with the flowers and said that was her diploma.  This new play time fun went on for about 15 minutes.

A Fun A.C. Graduation Party

A few pictures and a fun video from Sarah I.'s A.C. graduation party at the Jacques home.  Thanks to Jeremiah and Breanna Jacques for including us in this memorable evening of kosher fun in honoring Sarah I's big achievement in life.

 So happy for Jack W. too, below center, who also graduated A.C. 4 year program this year.  His homeland is about to be more blessed with more "Wood".  :-)

A Fun Aunt/Niece Shot A.C. Grad Weekend

Just because the niece requested a photo.  She said she couldn't wait to see A.C. graduation to see all of the pretty "wedding dresses."  :-)!  Just imagine how excited she'll be when she really understands how special graduation is. 

Ashlynn and Olivia's IA Grad Party

A pic of Ashlynn M. and Olivia A., two lovely IA 2018 graduates, taken a few days before their graduation from high school at a private graduation party hosted by their families with family and friends present.  Thanks very much to them for a great gathering honoring these two lovelies!

BELOW:  VIDEO of horseback riding at the grad party on Ashlynn and her grandmother's horses.

 

 Ashlynn's gift for AC from her grandparents!  Sweet gift that will be so useful!

Dad's Memoirs!

ABOVE:  A pic of my dad in his prime working in the Ambassador College kitchen in Big Sandy, Texas in the 80's.
My Dad's finished memoirs!  A few family members and friends have asked to read it, so with my father's permission, I found it easiest to just post it in PDF form.  MPC was so kind to print him a few personal physical hard copies too, but that's up to him what he does with them.  I learned a lot about my family history I wasn't aware of and am thankful for it.  With both of my parents older now, I am thankful for this.  My family is definitely nothing extraordinarily special except for God's great master plan in us, and we as everyone else human have had our down moments, but it's definitely a for fun read especially for the family and close friends.  It's a family treasure to have.  One thing that I've learned in life is that if you know where someone came from, you tend to understand them more.  I wish I had memoirs on everyone.  :-)  Thanks so much to everyone that helped put it together for my dad....Jeremiah and Breanna Jacques, Mr. Hilliker, Aubrey Mercado, Zachary Bush, Philip Nice, and others that I'm probably not even aware.  They didn't have to, but they so kindly gave of their time to help my dad with this.  Thanks to my Dad for taking time to write them so my brother and I will know from where we came.  Anyway, just click on the below cover and scroll down to read if you so desire.

Piano Update

Still heavy into piano lessons.  There is so much to learn and I still have a long ways to go.  This semester has been solely piano theory.  My teacher had me to buy several books on piano theory and on accompanying choirs.  She gives me tests and written assignments.  To keep me motivated, she also has me working on a super hard song that I can only play if I strictly follow certain theory rules that's forcing me to grow as practical application is put to use.  There were some things I needed to brush up on, and some advanced theory I just needed to learn period such as transposing...AKA math patterns...an example would be with hymns when sometimes the advanced pianists will go up higher to another key on the last verse....that I am learning.  For me, this is more difficult than the concert piano training.  This is some brain hurting material.  I am learning so much though.  Mr. Malone and Mr. Jenkins are so kind though....I really need to practice playing the hymns period, and with a singing audience :-), and they invited me to play at the AC students hymn sings.  At one point I was thinking maybe I should just wait until next fall semester, but I start that this month in April.  It should be fun, and a push for me to get on the hymns so that I can be of more service for God in this way.  I'm a little nervous, but that's normal and after I've done it one or two times nerves should vanish.  I have the piano accompaniment hymnal that I'm using...it's different for the pianists than the regular singing one.  Thankful to Mr. Malone and Jenkins for taking the time to make this one for pianists!  Also, my niece, Sophia, turns 4 in a few months, so technically she only has one year left before she can start formal piano lessons with Mr. Jenkins!  I am sooo excited for her.  She already wants to start so bad..she begs to "practice" with me sometimes, so if she keeps that enthusiasm, she'll do great!  Probably end up being much better than I!  :-)

ABOVE:  A taste of what my lessons are like from a clip I took a few weeks back.  My teacher lets me record while she is instructing on some things so that I can go back over it during the week.  A quick video clip of learning a warm-up for choir accompaniment opportunities w/a choir accompaniment book.  There are so many different combinations to know, but once you get the general theory of it, it's easy.  Transposing an entire song, on the other hand, is so hard to me, at least.  Obviously that is my teacher's hand and not mine.  :-)!  Just thought it would be fun to share a small taste of my piano lesson experience.  :-)

BELOW:  Sophia, ever so lightly...so much so you can barely hear her; sings Row, Row, Row Your Boat in my "fun room."  It's hard to tell kids who haven't had any formal training yet to sing louder b/c then they'll usually shout too much.   Totally prefer the "muted" version.  :-)

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