If we approach adversities wisely, our hardest times can be times of greatest growth, which in turn can lead toward times of greatest happiness...Come what may, and love it! -Joseph B. Wirthlin
After Father's Day, we once again attended the Intermountain Suzuki String Institute. Eli got to go this year to the Twinkle classes. He had a master class with Amy Norton, who was fabulous and a movement class with a lady from Sweden. Her last name was Berg. I can't remember her first. Eli was a model student. And it really got him excited about playing the violin and wants to practice all the time now.
Raef once again thrived at camp. He did a chamber class with Brant Bayless, had orchestra and master class with Smale. He also did his performance class with Robert Richardson. Rob is by far his favorite teacher.
Zach did his master class with Becker this year and had repertoire with Sylvia Koo. Sylvia is from Singapore and she is tough, but really gets results. Take a look at his performance for the recital on Saturday.
It was a long, arduous week for camp but the payout is always huge. I love to see my boys play.
We just got back from round two of the Intermountain Suzuki String Institute in Draper, Utah. Wow! What a week. It was great and worth every penny. I took the kids to this violin camp two years ago, and we had a beneficial, but rough first go at it. I was better prepared this time. I left the little kids home with Rinar for the week.
We drove to Utah Sunday and stayed with Jared and Melanie again. They were so gracious to be our personal hotel and the great thing is that their house is only a few miles from Juan Diego High School, where they hold the camp.
Let the fun begin.
The Suzuki camp is no joke. They get the very best teachers from around the world and fill every single room in that high school and the elementary school with classes: orchestra, technique, performance, chamber, fiddling, etc. The music fills the hallways, emanating from every nook, corner, stairwell. I think that Dr. Suzuki must smile down on this incredible string experience. It really is an experience. This year they had 750 students attend. Most of them were violinists. There was a healthy amount of cellists, and then the poor violists. There are not enough violists!
Zach did a fiddling class with Aaron Ashton. This was his second time in there and he loved it. Aaron even let him try out the electric violin. Zach was really happy about that.
One of the benefits of attending this camp is that you get to take a masters class, where you get one-on-one attention from a prominent teacher. Raef was assigned to Beth Stuen-Walker, a viola teacher from Washington. I don't have a picture of Zach's teacher, Rosalie Keddington, but I did get to see her work with him one day. She was great, also.
Here is something I was really excited about. Because Raef is far enough along in viola, he was able to play in a real string quartet, two violins, a cello, and his viola. They were taught by Rebecca McFaul, who is a member of the Fry Street Quartet. They played a Rondo by Mozart and named themselves "Wolfie's Gang". It was challenging, but fun and it really came together by the time they performed on Saturday.
Zach also played in a 6 violin string chamber group with Becca Moench and I think they named themselves "Table For Six".
This was definitely a highlight of the week, violin performance (V6) with Terry Durbin. If you ever get the chance to take a class from him, you do not want to miss it. The guy is so fun, funny, animated, and a little off-the-wall. The kids were cracking up the whole time. But he was able to pull the very best out of them for their number, Concerto in G Minor by Vivaldi.
What a relief, because we almost had a replay of our last ISSI camp. While we were sitting in the auditorium for the opening ceremony, Zach had a panic attack realizing he would have to play a whole lot of violin for a whole lot of days. The kid almost had a nervous breakdown. Then he went immediately to Terry's class, and it all seemed to be okay. Thank you, Mr. Durbin.
Zach's technique class was taught by Wilfried van Gorp, from Belgium. He is very funny and tough. I think it makes a perfect combination for teaching violin.
Raef was mentored by David Becker two years ago in viola, and this go around he taught Zach in orchestra. That was pretty fun. He is a super-nice guy and both my kids really like him.
Here is Wolfie's Gang right after their successful chamber performance. Well done, kids.
Raef was in Orchestra 11 with Michael Bayless. He was place quite a ways ahead of Zach, but this is what happens when you play the viola and there aren't many violists. You get promoted quickly.
Our nights were filled with lots of fun stuff, but I will do another post for that. Camp was a huge success and I could see an incredible amount of growth in both of them. When the concert finished early Saturday afternoon, we hit the road for the long drive back to Reno. I hope we get to go again next year.
On Saturday night, Rinar and I went to a reception and concert at Nevada School of the Arts. It was a treat because we got to see Grace W. play in the Vivace group. They did a great job. Hopefully, Zach will be in that group someday soon. It is just for violins, so I don't know what aspiration Raef has for the future. Maybe he can do chamber music.
The kids played "Twinkle" in the plaza while we went into the lobby for the big unvieling of the twinkle sculpture.
I I like the sculpture. It is simple, but relevant to the school, that is for sure. "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" is the national anthem of the Suzuki Program. If your kid is in suzuki, you will probably hear that song about 20,000 times at least, before you are through.
This is the dean, Shakeh giving her little speech.
Zach is really growing up. He now needs glasses, as he is pretty blind. I felt an urgency to get glasses for him since he is in a city orchestra with Raef. They had their first official practice yesterday. It is a great organization. There are four levels and the boys are in the ensemble, which is only string instruments. The highest level is a full orchestra of high school students and they actually get to go on a tour next year to China. Cool, huh? They do a big trip every 3 years so that every kid can have a chance to go.
They seat the kids according to how they ranked them in their audition. The auditions were tough. There was a standard piece you prepared for the audition and then when you were done with that, they had you sight-read something. Parents were not allowed into the audition room, so I had no idea how they had done on anything.
We found out yesterday. Raef was #1! He did the best on the audition for violas. There are never enough violas, but regardless, he is by far the youngest violist in the group. All the other ones look like they are middle school aged. He looks so little compared to all the other kids, but I am sure that won't last long.
Zach was also seated. In a group of about 30 violins, he was #2, first violin! He gets to sit in the front. I was really surprised because there was so much competition. But one thing about him is that he is an excellent sight-reader, so in a way I am not surprised. He just attacks it.
So here is one proud mama who had to take a minute and brag about the kiddos. Thanks for bearing with me on this.
It was a big week for me. You remember how before everyone thought I was totally crazy for taking my kids by myself on a little jaunt through Arizona? That was just a warm-up for the week I just experienced in Utah.
I took Raef and Zach to the Intermountain Suzuki String Institute camp this week in Draper, Utah. Wow, what a week, huh? Let me see...me, check. Raef, check. Zach, yep him too. Oh yeah, then there was Eli, check. Harry and Julia, check, check. Yep, uh huh. Just me and five little ones at a rather serious Suzuki string camp for 6 days. I didn't have a clue what I was getting myself into when I went.
It was at a private high school and it was me against all of them. I mean, me and all of them together. One big happy family.
My thought was that I would stay the whole first day and get them oriented to their classes. I had arranged babysitting with Melanie, superwoman! After that first day, I would drop them off in the morning and spend time with Melanie and go to a few classes in the middle of the day.
There was only one teensy weensy little problem.
"Mom, are we done yet?" spoken by Zach after the first class was finished. He only had 3 more on the first day, and 5 more days ahead of him.
"Is this my last class?" spoken by Zach after his second to last class, to his fiddling teacher, the guy who was teaching 6 different classes in a large high school where every single room was being used for classes.
"Are you Zach's mom?" spoken by Zach's violin performance teacher Andrea Sanderson, on Tuesday when it became painfully obvious that Zach was very wiggly and disruptive to the entire group.
"I couldn't find my class." spoken by Zach when I needed him to go to his next class on his own, as I had to deal with my little ones. I had only physically walked him to his class twice so that he would know where it was and had also written down his schedule with all the class numbers, so he could ask someone if he got lost. He lost the schedule on Tuesday morning.
"Your violin bow is not a sword." spoken by me.
"IT'S NOT FAIR!!!!!! YOU ARE CHEATING!!!!! YOU DON'T PLAY FAIR!!!!" spoken, I mean, tearfully screamed by Zach at lunch break when he didn't like the way the game was going because the other kids were bigger and he was constantly losing.
We went to Melanie's house a few times to hang out when camp was over in the evenings. It was a lot of fun and the kids really enjoyed reconnecting.
This gal is the best. She totally saved me. When it became woefully apparent that I was going to have to do a lot of hand holding for the entire week, she stepped right up and watched my babies the majority of the time. They got lots of naps and attention and fun. Whew! She totally saved me. At night we stayed with my Uncle Barry and Aunt Sue in Orem. It was a lot of fun being able to reconnect with them and just hang out. I was grateful for the opportunity. There was one tiny, little thing that I didn't like. Bedtime. I mean, Eli and bedtime. Those two things just didn't really go together very well. You remember how I chronicled his bedtimes problems at our house? I am not going to rehash that, but needless to say it was quite painful. It was Act III. Every night it took hours to get all three of them to sleep. The problems really revolved around Eli. Errrrrrr!
So I seemed to go to bed every night around 12pm, but we were always up bright and early around 5:45 to 6am. And somehow I survived.
But look at these faces...
Oh, come on! How could I be mad at that???
I made sure to take some pictures with their teachers. This is their orchestra teacher, Denise Willey. She was fantastic; dynamic, funny, instructive, helpful. Everything you would want in a teacher, she fit the bill. The kids loved her class. Raef was the only viola.
There he is...all by himself, holding down the fort and doing a mighty fine job.
Oh yeah, that is Zach...
Now unlike Zach, who struggled all week...Raef thrived. He is just a cool kid. There were not very many viola players and he was by far the youngest kid in his group. He is very advanced for his age. He is going into the 3rd grade and the next youngest kid was headed to 7th. But he fit right in and made lots of friends. In this picture he is getting instruction from his master's teacher, David Becker. He helped Raef work on his dynamics.
David Becker is from Wisconsin. Because the viola group was so small, Raef was able to get a lot of needed attention with his instrument. It was fantastic.
These are some of the kids he studied with this week. They are just the cream of the crop, wonderful kids with great personalities and so kind. I loved the environment he was in. The vibe in the viola class was cool. There was a camaraderie that really worked for him.
His performance and technique teacher was Dee Martz. She is also from Wisconsin. I loved her class and so did Raef. They would make up stories about the songs they were playing and this really worked for Raef. It helped him with dynamics quite a bit.
One neat thing about Dee is the viola she is holding. It was made in 1773! It is a Guadagnini and there were only 12 made, with 4 known to exist. The university she works for owns it and lets her play it. Isn't that cool? It has its own name and everything...Cosio. Whoa!
Raef made a friend at camp named Tyler. He came from South Dakota to study. They really hit it off and Raef and him would go play rugby in the field during lunch break. Raef thought that was the coolest thing ever.
Zach reminded me several times this week that he will never be an aborigine. But he did enjoy this exercise where they actually got to wander around while they played. He felt right at home as that is how he usually practices at home.
Zach with Andrea Sanderson. She is a very compassionate lady. She was very patient with him and pleasantly surprised when he didn't do anything outrageous during the final performance.
This was Zach's master's teacher, Deborah Moench. She is a well-known pedagogue in Salt Lake City and I believe her daughter is a world-renowned violinist. She is soft-spoken, but tough.
On Saturday we enjoyed the fruits of our labors and the kids did a concert in the main auditorium. The babies were terrible when it was time for the show. Luckily I brought my brother Jamie along and he watched them so that I could see it. Julia listened to a little bit of the pre stuff on the floor. Oooohhhh! So cute.
Of course I made a couple of videos if you want to hear what it sounded like. The actual concert footage is terrible, but it sounds good. There is a faculty orchestra that accompanied them and that was really cool.
Yesterday we went to the Target Book Festival downtown. It was a lot of fun. They had free hotdogs, chips, water, and snow cones and booths for crafts and such. There were also lot of authors there, mostly kids, who were selling and signing books they had written.
The Nevada School of the Arts was set to perform and so Zach came with his violin. It was great. They all got up on stage and played some Suzuki numbers. You can Zach second from the left.
Mayor Oscar Goodman made an appearance and we stopped to get a picture. It may shock many of you to know that I really like him as mayor. He is very approachable and has done a lot of good stuff for Las Vegas. Plus, our first picture with him accidentally got erased so he was kind enough to do a mulligan.
It is the last day of September. March and September always seem to disappear for me. Zoom.... gone. I can't believe how many entries I made in my blog this month. I thought I would round it out with an even nineteen, the most ever.
The kids must have had a hard day yesterday, because all three of them slept longer than usual today. I was surprised, but definitely not disappointed. We did several subjects today for school. I actually did a history unit today: the Assyrians. It was interesting. We talked about Gilgamesh and they really like that story. It is the oldest known myth in existence and has interesting twists and turns in it. I had checked out some books at the library last week and we read the stories with pictures and everything. So, when I read it today they kept chiming in, while they were coloring, saying that they remembered this or that. It was great.
Raef is now officially done with his McGuffey's Primer and now gets to move on to the first book. Hallelujiah! Progress. It is great. We also played a math game from Family Math. It involved colored marshmallows and adding. Doesn't that sound like fun? It took them a few tries to get the hang of it, but it really started to click. I made them build all of their numbers with their Math-U-See blocks and it really helped them to see why the numbers were what they were. Hence, there was a lot of practice carrying the sums. It was great.
We wrapped up a little early, once Eli woke up from his nap, and headed to the park. This week we went to Discovery Park and they had so much fun. There is a wonderful group of kids they play with, heavily-laden with boys. All of the kids are under 10. The group leader Kristina always brings cookies she makes and drinks. She is very generous and a wonderful host. It is fun to visit and meet new women. I just love it.
When we got home from the park, Raef started throwing up. He did it on and off until he went to bed. He had no other symptoms like a fever, lethargy, nothing. His stomach hurt and he kept having to vomit. This has been happening a lot. I would say a little less than once a month. It lasts about 12 hours and then he is fine. I am wondering if he is allergic to something. I don't have a darn clue what is going on and I don't know if I should be worried.
Therefore, Raef stayed home with the Marriotti's while I took Zach to group violin. Rinar picked him up about an hour later and we both got home about the same time. I had hoped Rinar would be able to start something for dinner. But he just ran out of time and it was 7pm when we both got in, so I decided to just go out somewhere.
We ate pizza. It was great and Eli really likes bread.
We went to Firestation #3 in Henderson, Nevada. The kids got a red plastic fireman's hat, a sticker, and a tour of the firestation. The firefighters were so nice, and fun, and showed them lots of fun stuff. They got to go in the fire truck, watch a fireman model all of his gear, see their dormitory, and ask lots of questions.
After the tour, we met with our homeschool group at Paseo Vista Park. It is a fun park that has water features and 2 playgrounds, with lots of covered picnic tables. Our homeschool group leader is so generous. She always brings a cooler full of drinks and treats for everyone. It is so wonderful. And it really came in handy today because I did not plan for the park, so I had no water for the kids. You don't last long in Las Vegas, in the summer time, without water.
We stayed for a few hours and then we went home and finished all of our schoolwork. I even made sure we studied our history: Abraham and Mesopotamia. I was able to use a GAK of Abraham to add to the story in their history book. It really helped to give a gospel perspective to what we are studying. This is one of the wonderful things about homeschool that you would not get in public school.
We were able to finish school in just the right amount of time and then head off to Nevada School of the Arts for their first group violin lesson. They are in group 2 and their teacher is Jennifer Peterson. I think it will be a good year for them with violin.
We stayed for a few hours and then we went home and finished all of our schoolwork. I even made sure we studied our history: Abraham and Mesopotamia. I was able to use a GAK of Abraham to add to the story in their history book. It really helped to give a gospel perspective to what we are studying. This is one of the wonderful things about homeschool that you would not get in public school.