O Happy Day!

The girls performed at a wedding this weekend at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center.  I think this was their 4th wedding performance with NCC, and it came with an extra element of excitement because the appearance of the Nashville Children's Choir was a surprise to both the bride and groom. The NCC was to appear suddenly at the point of recession, on the floor above the wedding party...looking down from between the columns and lit by the soft light of the modern candelabras.

But before they performed, the NCC was asked to meet up at their usual meeting place: the angel on the corner of 4th & Demonbreun. There were 40 of them, as this was an optional performance that took place over Labor Day weekend, they were at only a little less than half their full chorister strength of 90.

I threw this in for the blog just because it is a great picture of the fountain outside on the Schermerhorn grounds.

This is a view of the main foyer area where the wedding took place.

A good amount of time was spent on a third floor lounge area, where pictures of the members of the Nashville Symphony Orchestra and their Grammy awards are housed.

Sitting quietly waiting for their cue.

When the time came, they stood between these pillars overlooking the wedding party and guests below.

Posing after a successful performance.

 And then the silly shot for posterity, of course.

Love them.

Bows, Linedancing & Graduation

We had a couple things going on in Nashville today. At 2:00, we had an appointment with our violin instructor at a violin shop to help us shop for a new bow for Moo. Her old one was very heavy and not giving her the kind of sound that she is capable of (yes, the bow is just as important as the violin itself). So, we went as a family to The Violin Shop, and purchased a much better bow.

And while we were driving home, we saw this fine establishment:

And THEN, because we had a college graduation to attend at the War Memorial Auditorium downtown, we had dinner at The Wild Horse Saloon.

They have deep fried pickles there.  They are battered in a spicy tempura...yummy.

But then, the line dance lessons started!  The first song they played after teaching them the dance was "Angel Eyes" by Love & Theft, the band whose lead guitarist is Belle's guitar teacher.  We got a kick out of that.

I think this might be the Wild Horse. :)

This is us being silly in the auditorium, waiting for the ceremony to begin.  Okay....I'M being silly...the girls are smiling sweetly...

Ah, Nashville.  You are a fun little town.  I'm glad we are able to discover a little more about what you have to offer with each passing day that we live nearby.

Kitchen Biology

This past year Moo took three high school credits as an 8th grader.  Yup, you can do that.  One of them was Biology, and the big end-of-year celebration was the thing that most biology students dread.  Dissections.

Look at Moo's face. That is her look of rapture (not) over the thought of the impending Biology activity. Belle, on the other hand, was looking forward to the whole thing.  In fact, she was a bit put out that she couldn't play a larger role.

First: cow eyeball dissection.  Again, Moo looks thrilled.  By the way, if you see a one-eyed cow out there in the field, let him know that we are very thankful for his contribution to our biology class.

Resistance is futile.

The coolest part about this was seeing the mother-of-pearl-like lustrous interior of the eye.

Sidenote: Belle watched all dissection activities while eating tuna casserole. She is either sick and twisted, or headed for a career in medicine.  I don't know which I fear more...

Time for something, um, different...

The first time in almost 10 (?) years that pork of any kind has been in our house.  On our table.  Ready to be sliced into.  Eww.  In all seriousness, Moo and I had a little bit of a cry (she started it!) over how little and innocent this little guy was, and how bad we felt for its fate.  Then, we gave thanks and got started.

And man!  It was super cool.  These little creatures have a physiological make-up very similar to the human animal, so taking a look inside is very enlightening.  Note: I only dissected a frog in my biology class way-back-when...so there were TWO students at the table.

The labs that send out these dissection kits double-inject the critters with red and blue latex, so that you can see the arteries and veins throughout the body.  It makes it really easy to identify what structures are carrying oxygen rich blood, and which are carrying oxygen poor blood.  Neat.

NOTES: This is the first (and last) blog post with graphic content of any kind.  LOL  Also, we quadruple scrubbed the kitchen table.  :)

Belle & The Bee, 2013

At the beginning of the summer, Belle's friend Rachel asked if she would like to participate in the National Bible Bee contest.  Belle thought it was a splendid idea, especially since it provided justification for lots of time spent together...all in the name of "studying for the Bee".

Though she didn't pour her heart and soul into it as promised and intended (she takes after her mom...ugh), she threw her shoulders back and made her best attempt in both the written and oral rounds.  I sort of knew how this would play out...seeing as it was summer break, and I said I was not willing to play a role in enforcing study time...I let her make her own decision in getting involved.  Bringing her to the Bee was one of the hardest things we've done in a long time, simply because we knew she wouldn't succeed (in a typical definition of success, anyway).  None of us are used to that.  And yet, we were pleasantly surprised at how good it turned out despite her unpreparedness.  She was well aware of how unprepared she was because of lack of study and practice, but she handled it with poise and good humor.

This is a congratulatory hug from her big sister.  Belle was so very relieved when it was all over.

Weeks before the Bee, she kept saying "Oh, I'll NEVER do this again...I've learned my lesson...aaaarrgh...". We shall see.  I think between liking a challenge and loving her friend Rachel, who will continue to participate (she did great, by the way)...she may have a change of heart around June of 2014.  I'll keep you posted.

The Wilson County Fair 2013

 Many, many pictures of the fair. 

Trying to make a two-seater fit three.  Steve gave up and got his own car after the girls quickly lost feeling in their legs.

Who needs ice cream when you can have deep-fried Oreos?  In all honesty, they were disappointing.  :(

Found the lovely and talented Isabel's entry--she earned a ribbon!

Not to be outdone, so did her big brother Elijah.

This was a wind catcher in the woodcarving category that was entitled "Sweet Caroline"...and the guy playing the guitar is supposed to be Neil Diamond (my fave!).  It all moves when the wind blows.  Love this kind of wacky stuff.

Met up with Rachel a little into our visit...so we added a member to our family for the rest of the day.

The Ali Baba.  They loved this.

This is the view that Steve and I had for the bulk of the day.  We just followed them around, supervising from afar.  :)

This is perfect. 

My hair is currently just like this.

Yup.  It rained.  Which made very little difference to the actual fun that was had...

Got drama?

Judging from the wide variety of fair-going types, I couldn't really tell if this guy was hired to walk around like Honest Abe...or if this is just how he dresses to go to county fairs?  The beard: real.

Picture of the Year, 2013.

End of the day--7 1/2 hours after we began our Wilson County Fair experience, we finished up with dinner at Martin's BBQ.