Wow! Yay for us!

Well I've been meaning to do this for quite a while, but what with one thing and another.... Anywho, my Graduation Concert was on the 17th. (Yes I'm way behind.) This is The Concert of the whole year. I graduated from level six, and my fabulous students all graduated from a level. The piece I played with two other kids is kind of unique from the rest. It is a theme with a lot of variations, named La Folia (Italian for "the folly"). Anyway, instead of us all playing it together like the rest of the levels, we each choose a different variation as our solo (ahead of time, of course), and then play the rest together. (Hope you got that, it was kind of confusing to me too.) So in a moment where I was not thinking clearly, I chose the fastest one. Yeah, that was real smart, Kate. Naturally, being my mother's child, I was a little bit stressed and nervous. That morning I had the devotional in seminary, and I chose to do it on prayer. I gave everyone a penny and had them put it in their shoe and say a silent prayer every time they felt it. I did it too of course, and I'm sure you can guess what I was praying for all day. Anyway back to the concert. While we were waiting our turn, my hands were shaking like crazy, and my foot wouldn't stop tapping. Then (gulp) it was our turn. As we were walking up to the stage, I sent up the Panic Prayer. You know the one: "Dear Heavenly Father. Um, PLEASE HELP!" My knees were still shaky all the way up to the stage and through the intro, but once we started playing, dang it was great. And let me tell you, my solo was fan-tastic! I just let the music take over and enjoyed playing. Definitely some divine intervention in that concert.

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Seth's Pinewood Derby was last week. He was so excited! Pinewood Derby has always been a big deal at our house, and lots of careful planning and time goes into it. Unfortunately, time spent plus careful planning does not always equal winning. Let me give you a brief history. Let's begin with me. Yes, I have been in a Pinewood derby. It was an Achievement Days activity when I was about nine. There were no rules, so Dad and I planned our strategy very carefully. We shaped my car so it was aerodynamic, and polished the nails and tires to reduce friction. Then we put on all the lead we could possibly fit on a six inch car. As our final step to glory, Dad had some lubricant that jet liners use on their landing gear. We figured that this must beat plain old graphite any day. Yeah, well. Note to self: Jet liner lubricant turns the inside of plastic pinewood derby tires into glue. End of story. On to Morgan. Morgan's first Pinewood Derby car lost every race. I can't remember why. His second car lost because they used white graphite instead of black. Note to self: White graphite looks like powdered sugar and it's almost as sticky. His third car lost almost every race because it had the weight too far in the back and the front tires wobbled on the last stretch. Note to self: Never take Pinewood Derby advice from Bro. Hatch. So basically our family stinks at Pinewood Derbies. BUT NOT ANYMORE! Seth came in third overall!!!!! This is amazing! He was definitely happy! By the time Christopher is eight we'll totally take first.......

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My Youth Symphony concert was this Friday. It was. so. good. Wow...... We played fantastically well. Our Musical Joke piece was amazing. It was not the most beautiful, or spectacular, but that was the first time we had played it without stopping to fix something. It was great; I was so proud of us. Also, a huge thank you to my wonderful grandparents for driving all the way up to hear me!! I'm so sad that Youth Symphony is over until September. I really learned a ton from it, and it was so fun.

Well, that pretty much sums everything up. Maybe sometime I'll get around to doing a post of pictures we took at these events. Maybe. If you managed to get to the end of this extremely long post, let me know by asking for pictures.