All State Chorus - AMAZING!!

So the big news this weekend was getting to see Maddie here in Rapid City -- and the performance of the All State Chorus and Orchestra. There were more than 900 students in the choir... and nearly 400 more the the Orchestra. It was an incredible evening of music. They were GREAT, by any standard... and the fact that they were all high school students... even more amazing!
Maddie was in town from Thursday night through Sunday morning... but her only real free time was Saturday afternoon. The kids and I met her at the hotel, and took her and friend Lindy to the mall for a few hours of "retail therepy."

This is Maddie and I at Enigma, having supper after the performance. It was fun to get dressed up all fancy-schmancy... the dress code for the All-State concert was Black Tie... so all the girls looked GREAT in their formals. Mom and Dad, Dirk and I joined Maddie and the group from Castlewood for supper at 10:00 p.m. Can you say "REALLY need a babysitter??" Yes, the kids stayed home with dear friend Katie for the evening.


I thought I wasn't going to be able to wake up Sunday morning, but as soon as the kids were up, it was "day as usual" for the household! Unfortunately, Anika had a moment of "flu" just after we got to church this morning... the rest of our Sunday plans were cancelled in favor of staying home and napping. Actually, it turned out to be the best plan for ALL of us!

FAMILY UPDATES:
Dirk: getting ready to go hunting Wednesday - Saturday this week. Can you believe, it's an actual vacation for him? We are getting the new camper packed
and ready to go... he is cleaning guns, working on ammo... anything is better than re-siding the storage shed! (actually, he is probably going to try to "rip" into that this weekend too, if he shoots his deer and two turkeys before the weekend is up!)

Thor: just finished session one of swim lessons. He "graduated" from Pollywogs to Guppies the first day of lessons, and after 5 more weeks, he almost graduated up again. He will get in 6 more weeks of lessons on Friday afternoons -- and then jump right into a new sport... hocky! He is really excited to start on the hocky league -- it's a "house" league (can you believe other 7 year olds are on travelling hockey teams?). I'm just looking forward to watching him learn to skate!

Anika: Also just finished session one of swim lessons and improved greatly as a Pike. She still needs to work on letting her whole face get in the water. But it won't be long and she'll be moving up to the "Eel" class too. She also just finished a session of Preschool Character Builders at the YMCA. It was a great class, for two hours each Thursday morning -- gave me a little time to run errands, etc. and only have to keep track of Liv and myself! For the 2nd session this fall she is going to do a Science class on Thursdays.


Liv: almost 7 months old? Can you believe it. She was 16+ pounds at her last check up, and doing very well. She did have a short time of being slightly constipated (I'm sure she'll look back on this and be so glad I've shared this with the world)... but now we know she just can't do a lot of rice cereal... oatmeal is much better for her!


Nancy: Life is back to a calm, regular routine. I'm "out" everyday, at least to get Thor at school... but I do try to plan around my "town days" and get all my errands done on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'm thinking ahead to Christmas... brainstorming ideas for a Kids Program at church... and other holiday odds and ends...