Happy Easter!

It wouldn't be Easter without an Easter Egg hunt.... my good friend Megan is on the ball when it comes to this and she organised an Easter Egg on the green space  right outside our front door. It doesn't get any better (or any easier for me!).

Nicholas was not too bothered about collecting eggs. He rather enjoyed swinging his basket and watching them fall out. 

Kate was much more into the egg collecting!

This is a cute picture - Kate and her playground buddies Arhan and Claire sat down together to compare their loot. 

 Ellie was in on it too - she looked very fetching in her Easter Bunny specs which she wore all morning.

Adam is on an overnight camp with Jeff; although he is nine he is not yet too old for Easter Eggs because before he left he gave me specific instructions to save him some eggs and hide them for him when he gets home. The trick now is keeping them away from Kate and Nicholas until that happens!

Concert time!

Friday and Saturday of our trip were concert time for me. On Friday we did a concert at the Allen Performing Arts Centre, which was totally fun. It was interesting to put two choirs and two orchestras together - and actually I was surprised by how easy that turned out to be! It was also great to do our thing for an audience that had no idea what to expect - and we never met an audience that we didn't wow. Adam has been asking for a while to see a concert rather than be in a concert, and this was his chance. He and Ellie both loved it.

Straight after the concert, the rest of the family went off to get ice-cream ( I mention it only because in three trips to Texas I have never yet made it to Braum's ice-cream - I'm a little bitter) while for me it was off into Dallas for a late night rehearsal at the Meyerson Symphony Centre before our big performance on Saturday. Here we are in rehearsal - picture courtesy of Jeff's phone!

Do we look like we've already played a three hour rehearsal and a concert that day? The rehearsal went late - we weren't done until well after midnight. The Meyerson was an amazing hall - the acoustics were so sharp and clear. Even though I was totally exhausted it was just a pleasure to play there.

The concert at ACDA on Saturday was absolutely spectacular. If there is any such thing as a perfect concert, I think this might have been it.

Our normal audience is heavily made up of doting parents and grandparents, and we know that musically they are not really that aware of some of the nuances of what is going on. Every time we play Riu Riu Chiu somebody will start clapping at what they think is the end...but it is not the end, and after a grand pause and key change we go galloping on to the actual end. This was the first time we had performed for an audience composed of trained musicians. I don't know what the general feeling was among the choir and orchestra, but personally I thought that they would be more critical and hard to please than our normal audience. And so there was that extra edge of anticipation that goes along with that.

In the event, exactly the opposite was true. They were so enthusiastic, and we got four (yes, FOUR!!!) standing ovations. In a program that only had eight numbers in it anyway due to the conference time constraints. I think because they were musicians they really, truly appreciated and understood the quality of both the arrangements (which are superb) and the performance (which was pretty darn good!). 

One of the things that I loved the most from that concert was that at the end of a piece, especially one with a pretty spectacular finish, they waited to applaud. So we finished our last piece, 'How Great Thou Art' , and then - nothing. Except the echoes of the sound reverberating around the concert hall. For about three seconds. Until the conductor brought his arms down and then there was a crash of applause. It. Was. Magic. I loved it. Loved it! It was the last number, and we knew that it had been a great performance anyway, but then that extra three seconds to just savor it before it was all over... it was a gift. I will always remember that moment!

I am so glad that we went on this trip. I wouldn't have missed being in that concert for the world!

Spring break in Dallas

About nine months ago I got an email saying that MCO were going to take the combined Orange County, CA and East Valley, AZ choirs and orchestra to the American Choral Director's Association conference in Dallas, which was a big deal for the choir! Given that Jeff's parents live in Dallas I knew that there would be a possibility that we could go... but Jeff was not working at the time and so we waited to see what would be possible. The last time that the combined choirs and orchestra went somewhere it was to Salt Lake to record Messiah in America two years ago, and I didn't go, and sat at home the whole week with a nursing baby Nicholas knowing that I had made the right choice but still being sad that I wasn't there and experiencing it all. So this time, once Jeff was gainfully employed again we decided that we would make it happen. We pulled the kids out of school for a week and I am so glad we did! We didn't know it, but that week was spring break in Dallas and so the kids got to hang out with their cousins for a whole week. It was great for them! They had loads of fun.


We weren't very touristy - the kids just wanted to go over to Aunt Julie's and play on the trampoline. Every day. And got mad at me on days when we didn't make it over there. But we did drag them into Dallas one day to go to the Arboretum. It was a beautiful spring day, and well worth it!

All the cousins!

The residents of Texas Town

The arboretum was spectacular - which would have given me lots of opportunities to take beautiful pictures of the children in front of the flowers, if Adam had not informed me that he had earned his photography belt loop and was going to take the camera for the day. I have a lot of pictures of fish in muddy ponds. And just about every green plant, with or without blooms, that was growing there. He was fairly indiscriminate in his picture taking and took about 200. I think this picture of Ellie must have been one of mine.

About half way through the Arboretum was a little gazebo on top of a hill that was perfect for hill rolling. We stopped and the children rolled and rolled and rolled all over that hill.

Then Jeff decided he would roll down the hill with the kids.

And then he taunted me and said I couldn't do it because I was over 40.... which meant....

that I rolled down the hill too. It has been a long, long time since I have been stationary and the world was not done anything so stupid. I lay there with the world spinning around me and decided that I am just fine with being over 40, and will not be taunted into anything ever again. I felt sick for about four hours! I have no idea why the kids think it's fun....

Nicholas mostly had a great time that day. Though he did spend much of it shouting 'Waiyo! Waiyo!' ('Water! Water!') and having to be physically restrained from flinging himself into the nearest fountain. Here he was attempting to crawl away from the restraints into the water...

We had a lovely day! And we had a lovely week just hanging out with family and being all together. Jeff has been crazy busy at work for ages and was in need of a break, and this was perfect. And then, at the end of the week, it was concert time at the weekend for me. We did two concerts, one on Friday and one on Saturday. I will have to blog about that separately, I think there might be pictures on Jeff's phone that will take me a while to find. But it was SPECTACULAR! And just capped off our whole trip perfectly.

I am so glad that we went! It was a wonderful holiday for all of us... kids got to play with cousins, Jeff got to relax, and I got to go and be in the most amazing concert. We all got just what we wanted and needed!

Pinewood Derby

 Last week - just before we went out of town - was the Pinewood Derby. Adam loves the Pinewood Derby, and making up the car is always a real production in this house. It takes ages. This year, Adam got to play with power tools on his car! 

He was really proud of it when he was done. It was a pretty snazzy looking car, it had a big fin on the back end and a driver, which was the one thing that Adam really insisted on.

There are no pictures of his car in action. Jeff had to take all four children to the Pinewood Derby by himself, because I was at the last unmissable rehearsal before the choir and orchestra went to the ACDA conference... and I cannot fault him for not taking any pictures. I wouldn't have either. In fact I probably wouldn't have gone by myself!

Adam's car placed 1st, 2nd and 3rd in his three races. I don't think he really cared about the placements, he had had a blast hanging out in the garage with his Dad and staying up late to get it done. Which is more important than winning! 

Worms! Worms! Worms!

This morning I planted our garden - tomatoes, courgettes, and cucumber. We already have some bell peppers going strong - they are supposed to be annual plants but these are heading into their third summer and I just picked bell peppers off them a week ago, so I'm leaving them where they are to do what they do!

I am pretty excited about this year's garden, because this year I have compost! And not just any compost, but vermicompost!

Last summer at the fair Jeff bought me possibly one of my best presents ever - the best present ever was the Kindle, but this was a close second.

Although this may look like a nifty little outside sidetable, it is not. It is a worm bin! I throw in all of our food scraps - ends of carrots, tops of peppers - and the worms turn it into beautiful compost. There are approximately 1,000 red wigglers in that bin, and they are supposed to be able to eat though half a pound of kitchen waste a day... though I have to say I don't think mine eat that much. Anyway, they do produce compost and worm tea, and so I have high hopes for this year's garden! I will spare you a photo of the compost - you would have to really love worms to appreciate that.


Last year I picked 55lbs of tomatoes and canned most of them into pasta sauce, pizza sauce and salsa. And we are still eating it. We will start to run out at about the time the new tomatoes start to produce. I am amazed that we still have jars in the pantry. I had no idea when I canned it how long it would last, but I  haven't bought any pasta sauce in six months (and we eat pasta just about every week). And so although last year I was sometimes known to grumble when faced with another six hour stint in the kitchen to get a batch of canning done, this year I am excited for it all to start again. This year I will properly appreciate the value of what I am doing!

So here's to my lovely compost, may it make my tomatoes grow and grow!

Kitchen progress

Our kitchen is coming along slowly but surely, so I thought it was time for a kitchen update post!

All the cabinets are in and set. Toe-kicks are on, and the only thing missing at this point is handles. I know what I want, it's just a question of finding them and then waiting six months for Jeff to put them on.

 Here is one end of the kitchen with fridge and microwave back in place.

In order to make the cabinets fit the space we had to put a three inch spacer next to the microwave.

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Except... it's not a spacer! I seriously love this!

Here's the other length of the kitchen.... just ignore nappy Nicholas. We have a dishwasher again is the important point! After a month with no dishwasher, and then a couple of weeks with no sink, I am very very grateful to have a dishwasher again. What a difference it makes!

Once again we had to put a three inch spacer between the cupboards...

and once again it's not just a spacer! What? You mean I get to buy swanky new spoons and utensils as well as swanky new cupboards? Why yes please! (Clearly I haven't bought them yet, but I have big plans for this little cupboard!)

We are currently on hiatus until we pick out a countertop. Which is a nightmare. But remember that temporary plank counter I was promised? I have seen no sign of it yet. But this is a truly ugly piece of counter that Jeff took out of a customer's house. It does the job.

And this is cardboard. Planks would be luxury compared to this! It is an interesting working surface...

I am looking forward to the day when we are no longer camping out in our kitchen. But we are making significant progress!