Kettle Valley Railway

Posted on Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 06:53

Or I used the flash and the whole candlelight effect was gone.

We took a motel in Penticton and slept like logs. I let the kids sleep extra long since we had our own vehicle and were not dependent on the FV coaches.

Snow Dogs and Afternoon Concert

Posted on Monday, February 8, 2010 at 06:57

It's amazing what a bunch of teenagers in ties, skirts and dress coats can do... I saw some of them in the tops of trees, even.

"Enough of this filming... let's have a snowball fight."


There is lots of snow at the top of the Connector.  Our second concert was in Summerland at the theater. The place was packed to overflowing. It wasn't easy to fit everybody on stage, either.

Smile

Posted on Monday, February 8, 2010 at 07:46

Horses and Sleighs, Cellos in the Snow, and Cold Feet

Posted on Sunday, February 7, 2010 at 07:55

Friday filming  - ALL day ! Two songs :-)

There wasn't a flake of snow to be found at Fountainview. We drove up Botany Valley for 45 minutes to find a meadow of untouched snow. They used chains on the coaches and a backhoe for plowing the road. This was an incredible operation. Nothing short of AMAZING!
A TON of work for the FV staff. My hat is off to those folks... young and old.


Ready for the challenge


Pretty looking, rotten sounding instruments not worth much except to use in filming.... which is different operation than recording.


Fun and games during the waits... Here the concert master demonstrates how many snow balls he can stack on the base of "his" violin.

Natalie trying out a bass


4 teams of gorgeous, docile creatures. Shire  teams  and percheron

Friends in real life.... not just skype buddies:-)


Lunch anyone?  Actually the fruit was to hold the kids over until the lunch made it up the mountain.


Singers on the back of the sleigh

Awesome setting... soundless box


Freezing off their fingers.


Caught on camera!

Harness troubles

Let her roll...


All in a day's work!
http://www.fountainofmusic.ca/

In Action

Posted on Thursday, February 4, 2010 at 10:42

Just too bad you can't hear the sound!!!

Ancient WORDS.... it's now my favorite song.

Fountainview

Posted on Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 09:00

We are here. It was a long trip...but we made it and guess what? The guy at the border didn't even bother to look at the girls to match them to their documents. He looked at each passport, looked at Carolyn's papers and said,"have a good trip".

I couldn't believe it. I expected questioning at the very least. I totally expected to have to park and go in and be questioned some more. It didn't happen. Thank the Lord,because this is just not usual!

Blaylock  - the voice teacher came up from Oregon and beat us here by a few minutes. He spent 40 minutes trying to get over the border. He thought they were not going to let him in.

The girls were tired and excited to arrive. They sat in a row watching FV kids practice under the direction of Blaylock for an hour last night. Today, as classes are in session for the school, "my" 7 girls are mostly studying or practicing. Vanessa is LOVING the grand piano and is filling the whole building with her music. The practice session with the choir and orchestra starts in about 20 minutes and the girls will get hold of music and get busy learning words and songs. Blaylock made a point of asking me to prepare the girls to do one of their pieces and we'll work it over. Good thing I brought music. The girls are bit frightened...as am I, as I will be directing.... We are missing three of our group, too. So SAD. I'm thinking this may lead to more interaction with Blaylock for our Echoes of Heaven  choir. I have high hopes for Echoes of Heaven. We need some instruction and Blaylock is genuinely  interesting. Portland is only 5 hours away and the reality is that there are only 10 kids in this group. . .

There is possibility of getting help for our pain -filled violinists this week. There are people here with experience and knowledge. I pray for contact with the right person with the right help for us.

They have a few harps floating around here. There is a pedal harp... smaller than Vanessa's, but it has nice sound. There is a folk harp and a very pretty lever. There are two harpists.... not often Vanessa runs into others that play harp.

We endured a cold and noisy night. Sharing one bathroom between the 8 of us is a challenge and then the breaker blew... and it was pitch black in the bathroom.  I was so cold in that I begged Christina to come sleep with me in the double bed to warm me up.

I hear vocalizing. I really ought to go and soak up all I can.

Would You Believe It?

Posted on Saturday, January 30, 2010 at 07:57

Even the dog is sick of winter.
She's tired of the rain,
the snow,
the slush,
the drizzle,
the mud,
the cold,
the gray,
and she's tired of not being allowed in the house 'cause she's
wet
and stinky
and dirty.

She's decided it's time for warm sunny days
and bright spring flowers,
so she brought us this request:



"Can we just have spring now, please?"




As if... !! As if you could order weather from a catalog.
I wish, Holly!



Doesn't the old dog look pathetic.
Honest, this was not a set-up.
But the girls had to work fast with the camera, because she considers
an open door to mean she's welcome! 
This must be a photo that didn't quite make it out to the garbage barrel yesterday
and she found laying out there somewhere.

Kitten Caught Her First Mouse

Posted on Saturday, January 30, 2010 at 04:24

And I don't mean this timid little kitten... the gray kitty is the go getter, but my picture of her came out all blurry so you get this. I'm happy the gray one is taking it's job description seriously. The older cat does a pretty good job of keeping up with the mice in the barns, but the kitten will take care of the critters in the garage.






The family blogs have been rather quiet of late, but today there is a new post from my brother. He's in Zambia building one day churches while his family is visiting relatives in South Africa.  There was even a post from my dad. He and mom just got back home from Alabama. I decided I would scrape up something to write about :-)  There isn't a lot. We are in anticipation mode and we know there will be lots to write about soon, but at the moment there is only the waiting. You see, Monday I'm loading up the suburban FULL of girls and heading for Fountainview for the Music Master Class and video recording session. This is a pretty big event for the girls. Pray for our safety. It's a 7 hour trip with 7 teen girls for 6 days!  And oh how I hate crossing the border at the best of times... not to mention when I have other people's kids and one without a passport!  The other waiting is about the twins, of course. We will visit them after our FV trip.

Teresa finally received her long awaited paper in the mail TODAY! So things are moving along in their adoption. Just one more paper to go. This month's Trumpet - our church newletter, was all about the new kiddos joining families in our church. Teresa wrote a beautiful article about what God has done for them through their adoption experience.

Cindy has had quite a week with celebration and discouragement. Bethlehem passed court in Ethiopia which basically means she belongs to their family  but Temezgen did not - AGAIN! Next week hopefully he will. It's been a test of endurance. Tom preached about it today :-) Tom and Cindy both are pretty transparent about their christian walk. It's encouraging to the rest of us.

Hurry up and wait. Hurry up and wait.
The story of our lives right now.

It rained all night making it damp and chilly today. We had homeless ministry. I sent food :-) Steve and the kids went to serve. Sounds like there were a lot of people there to serve and not so many homeless.

Grandpa Tall has been in the hospital for 7 days. He thought he might go home today, but nope! He's stuck there!

Cow Eyes

Posted on Tuesday, January 26, 2010 at 07:52

It's been another adventurous day at the lab.
One big ol' cow eye was reserved for every pair of students.


Oh, the thrill of dissection.
Some like to get into the action... others prefer just to look. There were two very squeamish people in the class who actually preferred NOT to look. My dear, blunt, vegetarian daughter asked them,
 "Well, do you eat meat?"

"Well, yea, BUT this is different!"

 

She remains unconvinced that animal parts on a platter
are any different than animal part on a dissection tray -
besides the fact that one is cooked and one is not.


Little Leila was dully impressed~!


But this Kenzie girl was not.


In a world of eyeballs... there is much to see.



Great class. Thanks "Master Fitch"

Weatherman

Posted on Monday, January 25, 2010 at 08:06

The the weatherman read my post yesterday and made a liar out of me. Within an hour it started snowing and it's still snowing. I love the clean look!

You Would Think

Posted on Sunday, January 24, 2010 at 02:25

...that I'd have something to say after the last few busy days. I mean, we had a lovely, lovely Agape Feast Friday night. It was a time of precious fellowship and spiritual sharing and I was especially blessed. Then we went to a seminar on stewardship and family finances by Myron Iseminger and his wife and a few others. Vanessa won the door prize. She wasn't there when they drew her name so I told them to draw again. Mel's name came up but he had left, already, so they drew the third time. Steve was the winner... somehow, someway God wanted us to have that book. We then went to a planning committee on the possibility of doing something big in our community in December. Exciting stuff but that lasted until 10 pm...

I'm feeling a little fried. Still had to play the piano at the Sunday church, though. I took the opportunity to share some material with the minister. It's all very interesting and I know she would be able to appreciate a lot of it. I'm hoping for some dialog... Obviously, we believe differently then them, but do they know how differently and why...

We are experiencing an unseasonably warm winter. We've only had a couple of weeks of good snow which is very disappointing to kids, but I'm feeling antsy for spring. If we aren't going to have real winter then let it be over with.  Considering the weather the kittens have been banned from the house the last couple weeks and I have say that it pleases me very well!

I'm still in a sorting mess with rearranging the rooms. There was a lot of stuff in that schoolroom turned bedroom. It's still not close to ready for me to paint.  My nurse turned  builder/ electrician is very, very careful and methodical and given his inexperience that's a good thing. He's doing a good job, but I'm ready for it to be all done!

Taking It Slow

Posted on Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 08:10

The transition of the twins from their foster home to our house will be slowly, carefully and thoughtfully carried out. We will be taking a few trips to meet and get to know the children and they will come here for an overnight stay or two before they actually move in. The idea is to cause the least amount of trauma possible. The projected time-line is approximately a month to 6 weeks. My guess is the first week of March they'll be here to stay, but we shall see.

Sheep Brains

Posted on Tuesday, January 19, 2010 at 06:24

The look says it all!  She's only lucky they don't use formaldehyde any more.

Cool!

lab partners - Natalie and Deniell.

Getting a little help from the teacher.

Sheep mustn't be very smart. Their brains aren't very big.

That's interesting!

Flower Power

Posted on Sunday, January 17, 2010 at 05:41

The quilt I'm working on right now.
Pretty wild :-)

Basic Bread Recipe - For Reina

Posted on Sunday, January 17, 2010 at 09:12

Some of Brianna's Kitchen projects this past week:

apple waffles and  blackberry crisp