Weekly wrap UP 11/22/19-- STOMP and symphony performance

MarioFan and a friend are doing Music theory/history this year for their elective.  We have been completing the video series "Understanding the Fundamentals of   Music" from Great Courses.  We are just about finished with this video series.  I wanted the two boys to attend some different kinds of musical performances throughout the year and write a few reviews on the performance and use some of the many musical terms we have been learning about.

We  signed up for 3 coffee hours at the symphony again geared for schools and attended our first one this week.

we got there early and they were giving away free doughnuts.  We missed  the talk due to having difficulty finding parking

They played three pieces and we all had a favorite.

Venit Illuminatio by composer Aaron Jay Kearna 1960, which means toward the illumination of colored light.  This composer reports to have synesthesia which means colors that he sees has a particular sound.  MarioFan loved this piece.  The second piece we heard was Violin Concerto by Bela Bartok 1939.  It is considered one of the hardest violin pieces. His friend loved this piece.   Lastly we heard Symphony No $ by Johannes Brahms 1885.  This was my personal favorite:)


Luckily we live near a city that have multiple performances and they often hold events for family at slightly less cost.  STOMP is in town and they offered one adult ticket for a free child.  Since we are also doing some bucket drumming for our music class.  I thought this would be a fun show to witness.

First we went out to dinner before the show.  You have to get there early in order to find parking!

We had pretty good seats for the show.  This show was had no talking or music in the traditional sense.  It is based purely on making music with every day objects.  However there was lots of humor infused in the show and the kids really loved it!  MarioFan said he would go again if he could!

This is one of my favorite theaters in our area.  They were already decorating for the holiday season.

stage set up! 

We saw both of the shows on the same day (yep I drove into the city twice in one day!).  Both boys want to write about the STOMP show.  As they thought it was much more interesting then the symphony.   That is just fine because I have a few more classical music experiences that they will be attending this year and next:).

Next week is Thanksgiving and my Mother is flying in so there will be no post as I will be taking the week of of school and just having some quiet family time.  Enjoy your Thanksgiving festivities.

Weekly wrap Up 11/15/19-- stain glass window and crazy weather

I have been working on a stain glass project for a few months.  this is something a little different than what I normally do.   I just finished it this weekend and finally have it hanging up in the window.

Jimi Hendrix--shown hanging in the window

without sunlight

I made it for my husband and it loves it:). It was an 20th anniversary present, just completed about a month late:(

We have had some crazy weather here.  Two weeks ago it was a beautiful fall day.  We took a lovely walk along one of the trails near our home.

Luna enjoyed chasing the leaves

found a snake along the path...not sure what kind it was so we kept a way from it 

Then with little warning old man winter showed up this past weekend and snowed.  We book a couple of records set in 1910 weather wise with this storm

first it was rain, then ice and finally snow.  we got about 2-3 inches 

I wasn't able to use our fireplace because it is not scheduled to be checked out until next week:(. I didn't plan that very well.  Hoping I can have a fire roaring before the next snowfall.

Weekly Wrap UP 11/08/19-- Dear Evan Hansen show, Eric Gayles show and UK Christmas cake

We have had a very busy week.  My husband and I went on a date night to see a guitar player that he loves.

Eric Gayles

It was a lot of fun and we had excellent seats

We got to meet him after the show:)

Then the kids and I went to see the theater show, Dear Evan Hansen!  My daughter really wanted to see this show so we bought tickets and told her this was part of her Christmas present this year!  She was very excited.  We also got tickets to see Stomp and Wicked in the next few months!  

we got there early for dinner...my husband couldn't go as he was out of town

Firedrake was very excited to see this play as she has been reading and listening to the music for a while

we were a bit high but that didn't seem to matter

It was a great show, although a bit depressing in some areas.

I also got to work on baking my UK Christmas cakes, which I do every year.  I got this amazing recipe from a friend while we were living there and my family loves it.  This year I made three cakes.  I always give one to my Mother when we see her at Thanksgiving, we keep one for ourselves and then I usually give one away to one of the children's teachers or a friend.

lots of fruit and of course Brandy

all baking in the the oven

It wasn't until they were all done that I realized that I forgot to put in the candied  lemon and orange peel:(. This is the first year I have ever forgotten to do that.  I hope they will taste good.  I still have to feed the cakes more brandy over the next few weeks.  I have already ordered my Royal fondant from Amazon.

The house sure does smell nice when they are cooking!  A family favorite :)

Weekly Wrap UP 11/1/19-- School update 10th grade

MarioFan has been plugging along with his school work and it has been a a bit since I posted what he has been working on, so I thought I would share a little of what is going on here in that regard.

In Literature we have been reading "The Scarlet Letter".  I remember reading this book in high school and hating it.  I am surprised to find I am enjoying it so much better this time around, although MarioFan is NOT.

In order to help him better understand the book, the characters, symbolism, plot, and conflicts we have been referring ourselves to a great website Course Hero.  It has great videos and explanation of this book and hundreds of others.  I plan to use this site a lot this year.

The boys are also learning about Character Maps and this book is great for reviewing, conflicts, themes, symbolism and character analysis

Boys working on there character map

they didn't completely finish by the end of class so have a bit of homework to do:)

For history we are relearning about the Revolutionary war and some additional reading that I have had MarioFan do are the following 2 books.

I know these books are a bit younger but I really like them and still think they are a good read.  We are of course using grade appropriate text book to review this era:)

Our bucket drumming class is going very nicely and the boys have learned two songs so far.  Dance of the reed pipes and the Liberty bell march.  I recorded the boys doing both songs.  I wasn't able to get the boys playing downloaded by the time this post goes up, maybe by the next update I will manage it:)



We are also working on watching the video series on Music appreciation for Course history.  The boys aren't thoroughly enjoying it but we are learning a lot.  Not sure how much they are retaining but it is nice to see that their piano lessons have been paying off as they are able to recognized most of the musical terms within the video:)

For biology we are plugging along and are relearning the human body systems which is book 4 of EO Wilson Biology of life book series.  Most of this is a review as we delved into this in middle school pretty deeply.  we are doing some labs but they are mostly field trips and I will be posting about them soon.

MarioFan is also continuing with his Piano, Spanish and Kung Fu lessons.