When Lillie left for college I thought I would fill some of my time with playing in a community orchestra. So I auditioned and surprisingly got it. It’s been two years now since I have been playing and it has been pretty fun. Will Eaterling is our conductor, and is fabulous! He is a real professional. Here are some shots from our Christmas concert this year. In one of the pictures, we ask an audience member to come and conduct Sleigh Ride and this year a 12 YO boy conducted. He was cute!!
We sure missed Lillie like we always do. She is our greatest blessing that we could ever be thankful for. She was able to spend it with family in Utah. Her cousins and Kim’s sister-in-law.
Kim and I kept our tradition for over 15 years now of going someplace close and staying in a hotel and eating out at a very fancy restaurant. We had a lot of fun eating and shopping in DC!!
Earlier this year I was approached to see if I wanted to play in the Summerstock series in St Mary’s County of Cinderella. They needed two first violins, so I asked them if Lillie could also play with me. They said yes!!! I was so excited to play together with Lillie. She has worked so hard honing her skills, even though it’s not her most favorite thing to do. But she has been a trooper since elementary school!! And she is probably a little better than me in playing!! It would require two months of twice a week rehearsals, a week of every night rehearsals leading up to the show, and then four performances. We are in the middle of the performance and we have been having a lot of fun, although it has been a lot of work. Here are some pics!! I am so proud of Lillie for playing with me!!
My student is Jack. He has been such a pleasure to teach. He practices and is generally always interested in learning. He is also just an all around good young man. He signed up to do a solo at his spring orchestra concert, so I told him it would sound good if we did a duet because of all the harmonies. So we played in front of about 350 people in a large auditorium. His first time playing in front of people. Usually we just play in the music store. But he did exceptionally well!! I was so proud of him.
After an illustrious and epic first year in college, we thought we would send Lillie back to Hawaii by herself, to visit with family!! She was more than excited to go!! We were so happy and excited for her to travel to Hawaii herself. We were excited for her and all the fun we knew she would have. We love our Lillie and deserves this happiness!!! Below are some pictures from her trip.
First of all not only was she able to see all her cousins, but she was able to eat all her local favorites. She was in heaven!!
Sometimes local high schools in the area will ask my orchestra to help fill in with some players when they do their school musicals. Such was the case with Chopticon High School. So I thought I would volunteer and see what it was like. Lillie played in two musicals at her high school and it was a lot of work, but I also know she had fun playing the music. Now I have experienced the same thing she did. It’s hard work and the music is fun to play.
We are so proud of our Lillie. She got straight A's her first semester at BYU. She worked hard for that, so we always want to honor her and let her know how proud we are of her!! Look whose name showed up for that honor on the BYU website (see third column)!!
It is hard to believe Lillie is old enough to have a steady boyfriend. He is the nicest young men we know, treats Lillie with such respect, worries about her and helps her to be good. They are both having such a fun time at BYU. They took some fun valentines pictures. These picture show their bright and happy personalities
We had a most wonderful time with Lillie. We ate at some of her favorite restaurants, played our violins, she saw some friends and we made a lot of her favorite foods. It was fun while it lasted and now we miss her a lot. Here is a picture of her on her first day back for second semester.
