Pomp and Circumstance

Cooper graduated from high school a week ago. It was a sunny, sweltering evening until the sun went down. But I think that was preferrable to the rain and cold that our friends experienced at their son's graduation a few days before.

All the seniors from concert choir were invited to sing the national anthem at graduation. That included Cooper, which I think is very cool.

Cooper wore pink cords because he was in chorus.

He also wore a cash lei and a candy lei. I offered to make a flower lei as well, but he felt like that would be too much.

It was a great graduation! I'm so thankful we could all be there to celebrate Cooper.

Phoebe snapped this great picture of Cooper.

Peter got artistic with this picture.

Here's the stadium, post graduation.

We got home very late, but that didn't stop Topher from trying on all of Cooper's commencement paraphernalia.

 I think he's looking forward to following in Cooper's footsteps someday.

Congratulations on your high school graduation, Cooper!

Water Attack!

Today was the last day of school for the year! One of the moms at the bus stop had the idea to greet the kids coming off the bus with various water sprayers. I was the designated videographer. This was the result.

Librarian Teaser

Phoebe and her friend Phoenix ran to be librarians for concert choir next year. This was the campaign video Phoebe made.

Spoiler: they were elected!

Spring Serenade

Cooper and Phoebe had their final school concert of the year. All the seniors were given boutonnieres to wear, probably so the audience members could identify them. 

Phoebe sang with Nightingales, the select treble choir.

Cooper sang with Cantus, the select SATB choir.

They both sang with the concert choir as well.

Can you find them both in this picture?

Near the end of the concert, the choral director read off the names and post-high school plans for all the seniors. Cooper's included his mission and BYU. We all thought it was very cool that his teacher read off the whole name of our church, people often truncate it.

We grabbed a few pictures with our singers when it was done.

 It's been so great to watch them both blossom as singers over the last year.

Excellent concert, Cooper and Phoebe!

Guitar Man

Last week we discovered that Cooper was invited to the senior awards night, but we didn't know why. We attended the ceremony tonight and discovered that Cooper was given a scholarship that he hadn't applied for! We think his guitar teacher must have submitted his name. Cooper was the recipient of the Certificate of Academic Excellence for the C. F. Martin Music Award. As far as I can tell, this comes from the Martin Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Martin Guitar. And it came with a $500 scholarship!

Not bad considering he didn't even know he was in the running.

A Little More Sleeping In

Cooper graduated from seminary last night! Due to the eighth-grade pilot program he was in, he actually did five years of seminary. Well done, Cooper!

Fun at the Fest

While Cooper was at prom, Topher and Sophie were at our elementary school's annual fun fest. There were several inflatable bouncy houses and games and a DJ running a dance party. Topher spent most of his time on the school playground with friends. Sophie debated if she was too old to attend, but she came at the last minute. She quickly found a friend who needed someone to hang out with.

Have Your Picture Took*

Friday evening Cooper went to his senior prom with his lovely friend Delaney.

His prom-posal included roses and a box of donuts.

One challenge was finding both the right color suit and the right color tie. His date wanted to keep her dress a surprise. Her mom showed me and the girls a picture a few weeks ago, but we were having trouble remembering exactly what we'd seen. Thankfully, she texted me a picture when I promised not to show it to Cooper. We ordered four ties from Amazon and one of them worked!

Even though he went with a group, Cooper drove himself and his date. That meant he needed his in-house tech support to connect his phone to the Bluetooth in the car he doesn't usually drive.

The group decided to meet at a university about five minutes from the prom venue for pictures. I drove separately and got to play photographer. I think Cooper looked quite dapper and his date looked beautiful.

These girls did not coordinate their dress selections. I guess the southern belle look is in right now.

Now that prom is over, Cooper is one step closer to graduation...

*Name that musical, without Googling it.

Seize the Day

Sophie had her spring orchestra/chorus concert. She was the second chair violin in orchestra and has come a long way since she started. For the chorus portion of the evening, the sang the opening solo for Seize the Day. My friend, whose daughter is the sweet redhead who sand at the mic a little later in the song, took this video and shared it with me. I think she sounds great!

Bonus, Bryan's parents arrived at our house a few hours before the concert and were able to attend!

One Last Time

We had a whirlwind trip down to North Carolina last week for Bryan's brother Paul's wedding! It was wonderful to see family that we haven't seen in ages and the wedding was lovely. Also, after nearly twenty hours in the car for the roundtrip, we're all still exhausted. Hopefully I'll get a bunch of pictures up soon of the adventure. 

But for today, I'll share this picture of Cooper's last track meet of high school. We delayed leaving for the wedding until after he had finished his race on Wednesday afternoon. That means we arrived at our hotel at 5:00 in the morning on Thursday, with the first wedding activity (the rehearsal) starting at 9:00 that morning (but only for Bryan and Topher since they participated in the wedding).

Hopefully we were all coherent that day.

For his final event, Cooper ran the 3200M, the two-mile run. He finished sixth and ran a 10:44. It's amazing how much he improved since starting just over a year ago.

Musicville

Sophie's school musical was this past weekend and she was marvelous as the villain! 

The show was Musicville and each character was musical notation or the embodiment of some piece of music theory. There were characters named Counterpoint and Syncopation and Forte. Sophie played the Sorcerer of Silence, a whole rest who wants the constant music to stop. (Yes, the irony of Sophie playing someone who thinks music is awful noise was not lost on us.) She poisons the water to take away each persons voice. The two heroes go on a quest to undo her magic. It was kind of The Little Mermaid meets The Wizard of Oz, with music theory.

Sophie owned the stage whenever she was on it! She had fantastic presence and wonderful song and line delivery.

All of her Young Women leaders came to see her on opening night! They brought their kids with them, hence Sophie's crowd of fans.

We were there to support her on opening night as well. Peter stayed home sick, but he was able to see her in her second performance as the Sorcerer.

The show is always double cast. She played the villain for two performances and was in the chorus as a townsperson and a tangero (the inhabitants of the part of Musicville where they love Tango) for the other two.

More sweet friends, from church and our children's choir, came to see her second night as a lead.

She got to hang out with castmates at Applebee's after one of the shows. This is a great group of girls.

Here she is in tangero mode during her final show.

After the last show, the kids were invited to come take pictures onstage. 

The whole cast did a great job! And, of course, Sophie was my favorite person on that stage!

Well done, Sophie!