While the cat's away....

Christopher, my best little cleaning helper got bored and sick of looking at the mess in Maddie's room, so he took it upon himself to do something about it while she was off visiting Hogwarts.

Is it any wonder I tell everyone that he is my favorite child?

Orchestra field trip - Universal Studios

From one coast to the other....

Maddies orchestra class to a trip to California for a music festival.    The POINT of course was the festival and competing, which they probably earned Superior with Distinction or something, because they usually do, but the REASON for the trip is usually more like a footnote. 

It's all about the amusement parks.  (We are talking about teenagers)   Of course Maddie called me the second night after going on the backstage tour that I told her to go on.  She decided in that moment to change her major.  She was so enthralled with the magic and the way movies and TV shows are made that she decided that's what she wants to do.  When she gets excited about something she gets talking a mile a minute, and boy was she excited.

Some highlights--

Fathers and Sons Campout

Christopher loves camping.  It's one of his very favorite things.   Unfortunately he doesn't get the opportunity very often.

And so when our ward's Fathers and Sons annual campout came around, I made it happen for him.

Some super nice people, the Frei's,  from our ward volunteered to take him even though they had never met him.  

Christopher had so much fun.  They even taught him to fish.  I think he caught three.   He was in heaven.

Maddie's directorial debut

In Maddie's drama class she was required to direct a one act play.   In high school drama, there's not a lot of free options to choose from.  Most of them are  pretty dumb  interesting.  She ended up deciding on 'Of Love and Shampoo'. 

And it was fitting that it was for her drama class because it was drama from the beginning.  I won't go into details.  But there were lots of tears, and ranting, and fits.  She wanted to quit. She said her teacher wanted to see her fail.  (Why I have no idea...)

Anyways, it was going to be a total disaster.  The "lead" didn't memorize their lines at all, someone broke their leg, someone else dropped out at the last minute, the teacher hated her props and set design and made her get rid of them, and then cut half the scenes so it was a little choppy and weird....

I've never seen her so nervous as before this.  I'm sure she has been, because she's told me about actually throwing up because of nerves before, but I've never witnessed it.

She ended up handing Tommy some props and told him to have fun.  (Remember the date where she posed with the pink balloon??  yeah that Tommy)   He basically stole/saved the show.  There was real laughter in the audience.  It was everyone's favorite. 

She was still heavily criticized by her teacher afterwards, but by that point, she didn't really care. 

And PS, it was also Zach's debut on the light board :)

Someone random student was using my phone to take pictures.  I got about a gazillion pictures like this.  When I showed her, she freaked out, because as I was probably the only Mormon mom in the room she thought I was upset and offended. 

I saw this on the drama teacher's door.  Miss that cute boy in the middle.

Christopher.

That kid.  You never know what he's going to come up with next.  He's currently experimenting with "pranking people". 

The other day he put his sister's bedroom up for sale and then posted it on his youtube channel.   I personally have a love/hate relationship with youtube, which I'm not going to go into here, because then I might cross some personal lines I have with criticizing some of my children in a public forum.

Seems Legit... 

Anyways, we do get a little bit of entertainment out of Christopher's schemes.

speaking of choir...

Both Nick and Maddie were pressured to join choir, and neither one have regretted it.

Besides being an amazing experience, learning and growing their talents, and making new friends, their teacher is one of the best around.   Officially he's 'Mr Flora', but that's his dad so he'll answer to anything else.  Usually the kids just call him Flo.  He's serious and hardworking and demanding when he needs to be, but he's silly and fun and kind and sweet and understanding whenever he can be.

Flo is the one in the middle.  I have no idea who the other two people are. 

The kids love him, and they know that he loves them, and then they want to work all the harder to make him proud of them.

The other day I had this conversation with Maddie when she was debating quitting something-

Maddie - "Do you think Flo will be mad at me if I quit?"
Me- "No.  But he'll probably be disappointed in you."
Maddie - "Ugh!!  That's worse!!"

Anyways, I stole these pictures off her phone recently.  And not that they really have anything to do with what an amazing teacher their choir teacher is, but it's kinda related, and I wanted to share both things, so I'm going with it.  A bunch of kids eat lunch in the choir classroom every day and sometimes they play "The Floor is Lava".  (You can see Flo standing on a chair in the background.)

These pictures are so great because you can see The. Exact. Moment. when Maddie realized she wasn't going to make it to the next chair.  Pure gold.

Carnage... Carnegie... Same thing.

Maddie's choir class had the opportunity to go on a field trip to New York City and sing at the famous Carnegie Hall.  She was so super excited.

Of course it was a little more expensive than your average trip to Disneyland or Universal Studios, which is what the kids usually do, so there was some fundraising involved.   And knowing that she'd want to spend money in New York City, Maddie added that to her Christmas wish list. 

But, historically speaking, spelling hasn't been one of her strong suits.  I sent Maddie a screen shot of her wish list, along with the definition of "carnage". 

Of course, not everyone can be as cool as me.  I have a trophy somewhere in the back of my closet, or in a box in the garage, or somewhere like that, that I won for coming in 5th place in the 7th grade spelling bee.  I'm super cool like that.

But enough about me....

Maddie got to go to New York City with some of her favorite people and have the amazing lifetime experience of singing in Carnegie Hall.

It rained almost the whole time and she was frozen, but she still loved it.

Rockefeller Center

Times Square

Maddie and Seth at Wicked

Shopping with Isabelle

Only Maddie...

Visiting the Statue of Liberty.  She told me she was going to buy that foam hat.  I told her not to, it was a waste of money.   This is the picture she sent me as a response. 

Their group in front of the skyline

At St. Patrick's Cathedral

At the end of the trip she sent me a text - "I hate Gilbert!  I want to live in New York City!"

To which I reminded her that she does not indeed hate Gilbert.  She loves it.  She loves the people here, and the sunsets, and she doesn't understand why people don't think the desert is beautiful.

Getting her money's worth out of her stupid foam hat.