Helen is the only person in our family who performed for syllabus this year, the annual piano evaluation sponsored by the Oregon Music Teachers Association. Syllabus requires months of preparation. Helen tested for level 9 which meant she had to learn 4 pieces from different time periods and 3 of the pieces had to be memorized. She also had to learn a lot of theory, scales, chord progressions and modes. Because of covid, she submitted recordings of her pieces on Tuesday and then completed her evaluation on Saturday by playing for a judge on zoom. Hopefully she will hear her results at her piano lesson this week. This is a photo of Helen practicing earlier in the week with her sheet music scattered around.
Gib's boombox bluetooth speaker is done! It turned out great and easily connects to his phone to play music. This was his most complicated project so far. His favorite part was designing how the boombox looks.
On Saturday Brandan, Becky and Gibson helped beautify the area along the Bear Creek greenway. The greenway is a fantastic idea: a paved bike and pedestrian trail that runs for 20 miles along Bear Creek, connecting Central Point, Medford, Phoenix, Talent and Ashland. The reality is a little less sunny, with homeless people setting up illegal camps along the trail, creating mountains of trash. When Brandan signed up our family for the clean-up day, we expected we'd be picking up trash all morning. Instead, we were assigned to a lovely stretch of the greenway where the biggest issues were blackberry vines and a bit of poison oak.
Here Gibson is using loppers to cut back some vines.
The dumpster quickly filled up with dead bushes, branches and sticks from the area. Brandan and Gibson jumped into the dumpster a few times to pack down the plant material. As we were leaving for the day, Brandan realized that his glasses which were hooked into his shirt front were gone. We were worried they had fallen off while he was in the dumpster, but thankfully he quickly found them in the dirt next to the trail.
We ordered a yard sign to celebrate Abe's graduation. Only 7 weeks of school left! (8 for Helen and Gibson.)
No comments:
Post a Comment