LET SCHOOL BEGIN !

The day has finally arrived for school to begin. You won't see a happier more nervous bunch I think, then our family.
We finally got Hailey into the Medical Arts Charter High School and are so excited about it but for Hailey this is difficult. New school, new kids, new everything. There are the same amount of Sophomores in this whole school that she had in her guitar class last year at the High School she was in! She knows this curriculum is going to be intense too but I think she is going to do fine!


There is a positive thing . . . her "bestest" friend Alayna happens to go to this school so she will at least know SOMEONE! Actually another friend Elisha also goes to this school - they will take good care of her I am just sure of it!

And we are off!!!! Yes, the homeschooling has started too. That will be one reason you haven't seen a post on here in awhile. The curriculum through this Virtual School is also quite intense. Most of the assignments with Tyler need a hands-on teacher.

Hayden has been almost schooling himself. I am hoping to change that. I am still trying to figure out how to schedule them so they both get some one-on-one time.

This is going to be quite an interesting year! I am sure there will be more posts to come on things we have done through the homeschooling. Just keep your eyes open and your patience on the forefront . . . it might be awhile!

Spring Piano Festival

It's that time of year again! Time for the Spring Piano Festival!

Hailey played two long and fairly difficult pieces this year. I can't believe she has only been playing for about 3 years and she really does well on the piano.
Not sure if I mentioned it earlier but she got a "Superior" again at the National Junior Piano Festival again this year. I think that makes her eligible to go for the gold cup next time around.


To finish off the festival this year Hailey and her friend Bethany performed a duet - It was quite a difficult piece also and very powerful.

There was also a competition amongst all the students to try to increase their practice times! Bethany took first place but Hailey was a close second by, I believe, one hour!

Hailey has really enjoyed playing the piano, but the sad thing is that the piano teacher has her house up for sale. We can only hope that she doesn't go too far away so that Hailey can still get instruction from her. She is a good teacher and a very sweet lady.

The Permit Has Been Acquired!

First of all I would like to apologize that the pictures on this post are so small. For some reason it wouldn't download them bigger. It was like the download was stuck in mode and wouldn't print them onto the post . . . I hope that you can see them well enough.

*************************************************************************************
The day has finally arrived! Hailey has met all of her requirements to obtain her driver's permit. She has gone to all of her classes, passed all of her exams and drove well on her driving days. So naturally she wanted to drive home from her last Driver's Training Class. Kurt had picked her up . . . She is sooooo excited!


Kurt, on the other hand, not so much!!!


Kurt thought this was a great idea! Hailey, not so much. . .

All puns aside, we are very happy for Hailey and know this is a big change in her life where she has opened the door to more opportunities and independence!

Congratulations Hailey!

First Driver's Training Drive . . .

Hailey got to drive for Driver's Ed for the first time on Friday. I have to say I am so surprised that they put her on the road! She has never driven a stick shift and they had her out on the road! She didn't run over anyone or hit anything but she did enjoy it.


She did mention that her legs felt pretty shaky when she was done but I am sure that the next drive will go a little better! She also took her first test in class and got 100%!

CONGRATULATIONS HAILEY !!!

Hailey, the Big 1 - 5 !

Hailey was really excited to turn 15. She wanted to celebrate her birthday with her High School colors for her theme. So, her colors were Purple, Yellow and Black. She had asked everyone to come dressed in at least one of her school colors. It was a cute idea.
I think I had tried to get a closer up picture of the cake but it didn't come out.

Hailey decided just to have some girls her age over - some from school, Church and family.

Here she is at the presents part, her favorite!

Emma, Kelsey, Alayna and Rebecca.

Dana and Tyler. Hayden "got out of Dodge" the night before and went to hang out with Jonathan at his house. He didn't think he could handle the "girl party". Tyler on the other hand really enjoys these. All the girls always think he is cute and they spoil him.

Kurt even came and hung out for a bit.

Kurt checking out a gift Hailey had gotten. This thing is called an Ipod Shuffle (or something like that). I had never heard of it and I actually thought it was a fancy paper clip or something. This thing that is a little bigger and thicker than a postage stamp and can hold up to 1000 songs! I know! I'm still shaking my head.

Tyler checking out the pretty smells.

After presents we played some really fun games. Whatiff, Scattergories and of course Twister (this was after cake).

On to the food. Hailey wanted a cake, Ice Cream, Punch and this very tasty dessert called Crescent Roll Ring. Mmmmmm.

I am mad at the camera for this one. I took a picture of her blowing out the candles and it took too long to click and this is what I got. . .

The girls had fun with Twister too!

This is Dana and Alayna - say that three times fast!

Emma and Kelsey. Ooops! Emma fell.

Hailey and Dana.

One of Hailey's gifts was an awesome picture frame so we made sure to get shots of her with everyone so we could get them printed and put into the frame.

Here is Hailey with Rebecca, her "Big Sister"! We love Rebecca to pieces. She loves to clothes shop and go to the Mall so her and Hailey really get along!

To me the word Mall is synonymous to the word Ugh!

Dana and Hailey.

Cousins Kelsey and Emma.

Hailey and Alayna.

Oh, and here is Tyler lovin' up the attention he is getting from Dana. Dana has a brother the same age as Tyler but has actually mentioned she would like to take Tyler home.

Here are two pictures of the fantastic Crescent Roll Ring. MMMMMM mmmmm MMMMM!
Before we fold over the edges.

After it is folded and baked!

Well, this was another successful birthday! Problem is, Hailey's next birthday is her 16th and she has some crazy notion in her head that it is supposed to be some big event. . . . I guess that at least gives me a year to prepare for it!!!

Another Saturday . . .

Although this is out of date sequence, it's okay. I just like the pictures.
I think these were actually taken the last Saturday of January.

Hailey has Festival coming up again this February. One of the songs she is playing is absolutely beautiful. It is called "Sea Voyage". You just want to close your eyes while you listen. I really need to take lessons so I can play some of this music too. She doesn't always want to play for you!

Johnny was hanging out with the boys - doing guy things!
You know, light sabers, Wii, Gamecube and RC cars!
Did I mention eating everything you have in the kitchen?

I was glad they got out because the weather has been so cold. We are all looking forward to Spring!

Hailey's First Driving Experience!

Hailey is supposed to be starting Driver's Training within a few months and I thought it would be a good idea to get her behind the wheel a little bit before she started the course. Sadly enough with my "car issues" I knew I wasn't the one to make the introduction . . . this fell onto Kurt's shoulders. After much suggesting, asking and then flat out telling he agreed to take Hailey out for a quick little drive.

I wanted to take a picture before they left when they wouldn't have bumps, bruising or gashes. Kurt was growing a little impatient with me, if you can tell. I made him take the camera so he could help me blog this experience. The neat thing was that I got to stand and watch the whole thing from my bedroom window. I had a great time!

It's good to see a serious look on her face!

Now she feels the speed . . . . ooooohhhh, she likes it!

These next shots were rather random, not sure what angle Kurt was going for but I included them for your viewing pleasure.

Dashboard.

Either he was showing us the look of the road speeding by or how completely close she was getting to the sidewalk . . . .

She was really bookin' it!

Home safe and sound! She said that was the funnest time of her life EVER!

I should have taken Kurt's picture too, I wonder if he thought that was the funnest time ever?

She's growing up . . . nothing I can do to stop it. Argh.

The Speech Project

Kids and school projects, it's just the way it is. I can't recall how many school projects I have worked on with my kids. Everything from posters and dioramas to mini books they have written with full color illustrations! I have also been up till all hours of the night the night before these little beauties were due trying to help my child who chose to procrastinate.
This project took off on a whole different direction.

Hailey's assignment was to write an informative speech and do either a power-point presentation or make a poster but it must be able to be seen at the back of the classroom. We don't have power-point and Hailey was very much NOT interested in doing another poster. She emailed her teacher to see if she could do a diorama. He was excited by her ingenuity in thinking up another type of project but reiterated that it must be able to be seen at the back of the room.

Hailey chose the topic of "Light and Sound Technician" - due to the fact that she has worked with her Dad in this and finds it interesting.

My idea was to use a large box and some BBQ skewers wrapped in Aluminum foil to make a front visual of a truss and we would go from there with my craft staples of glue, construction paper and dress shirt cardboard. . . . I asked Kurt to help cut the big box in half because it was too deep . . . this wasn't good enough for Kurt. He had his own ideas. The cool thing about it was, for the first time EVER I didn't have to do a lot! Yippee!
There was going to have to be a complete replica of an actual stage . . . Mind you, this took TWO DAYS to complete!

Kurt is trying to center a shoe box lid for the main part of the stage.

Drilling holes for the dowels for the beginning of the truss system.

I am amazed at how good of a job Hailey did at building these trusses!

I asked her if maybe she still wanted to be an architect after all! She did all the cutting, fitting and gluing. . . quite impressive!

Kurt is out in the garage with these little wooden biscuit things shaping some speakers that are going to hang from the trusses!

Here he is spraying Hailey's truss setup with metallic silver spray paint to look like aluminum. It looked just like it! Even where Hailey used the hot glue on the edges gave it a soldered look.

Here is Hailey painting the speakers that will fly from the truss.

There they finally are! These are probably the only flying speakers that our friend Tanya won't be afraid of!!! Kurt is starting to install the "lights".

Wooden blocks made into Mains.

Lights are on and ready to go!

Here it is finally all finished . . .working lights, canopy, backdrop. Stage and drum riser have fabric skirting. There are toothpick mic stands and little wooden monitors for each musician!

You can't see that they also made a Monitor Board that sits off to the side of the stage.

Now where are those musicians . . . They are never on time!

Sure can't beat that with construction paper and BBQ skewers! It looks great! In case you wanted to know, Hailey and Kurt got an "A" on their project!