Ear Care

I have horrid dreams. Last night, in my dream, I scratched my ear and pulled out half an insect. Then I felt the creepy-crawly feeling in my other ear. It was alive and moving in there. I asked my sister, the shoe-box princess, to help me by tweezing out the bug. I was afraid to lay with that ear up for fear that the insect would fall deeper into my ear. Yes, I was in a complete panic. She was having trouble getting at it as the critter kept receding into the recesses of my ear canal. I finally just had to wake up and end the horror. Much to my relief, my ear felt fine. However, all day, I have felt and heard the echos of the imaginary bug in my ear. It was horrible, horrible, most horrible.

Superior

This was a busy band week for Morgan. She had Jazz Music Performance Assessment (MPA) on Thursday night. She didn't get home until 10:30, but was happy to have received "superiors" for the band.

Last night (Friday) was solo MPA. She prepared a tenor sax piece. Our friend from church, Laura, accompanied her. Laura has accompanied Morgan on the violin the whole time we have lived here in Florida. Morgan didn't play until 9:10pm. It was late. It was across town. She had had Jazz the night before. She has Seminary every day. etc. etc. etc. BUT, Morgan did well. We waited around for about 30 minutes to see her score posted.

She received a superior rating!! We were all so pleased!! Here are Morgan and Laura, smiling after their award winning performance. Thanks so much to Laura for all her had work the last eleven years. She is always so willing to play the piano for all our various school and church endeavors. She also convinced Travis that having a busy schedule with teenagers is normal!! Thank you!!
Morgan goes back to night for ensemble MPA. She is in a tuba quartet.

UPDATE: Tuba quartet received SUPERIOR ratings!!

The Main Events

Well, let's go through this backwards, I guess. Last night was a dance team competition for Rozzie. This was a small one in Jacksonville and we were the only high school dance team there. There were a few cheer teams. All the other teams came from studios. This time, the freshmen danced and it made a really nice difference. They were all excited and they won!! It was a great feeling. We had lots of people come and tell us they had seen us in Daytona and were excited we were at this competition so they could see us again. We even had some tell us they had searched all over youtube for us. The coach went home last night and made them a youtube page, if you want to check them out!! First place felt really nice. Rozzie has been dancing around all day. The nice thing about this event is that it was close to home and FREE ADMITTANCE!! Travis, Morgan, and Maddie came to watch and enjoyed themselves.
For me, another dance competition meant "HAIR" and I did a lot of hair. This is how Rozzie looked!! That is quite a planetoid she is sporting!!

Friday night was Maddie's violin recital. She played "The Ludlows" from "Legends of the Fall". She was rather nervous but did a fantastic job. She has grown into a fine violinist and her musicality is really picking up with her additional music teaching in band. She has been a student of Kyle's for ten years!! We figured that Morgan has only 13 lessons left with Kyle. Wow...

The beginning of the week was spent at The Cloister at Sea Island, Georgia. It is about 1 1/2 hours away. Travis has the Georgia Foreign Trade Conference there each year and it is my privilege to go along. One night, they took formal pictures in The Summit Room which is the room where they held the G8 Summit meetings in 2004. It is an impressive room with a very large table.

Travis and I enjoyed our 3 nights away (Sunday-Wednesday). Then it was time to go back to school and face the music. Morgan had her All-County Band concert while we were away. Next week she has solo and ensemble performance assessment and Jazz assessment. Keeping them busy.

Think Pink

We had a busy basketball week here in Fleming Island. The team is doing very well right now. Last night was the big "Pink Out" game. Both the boy's varsity and girl's varsity played games, had senior night, and thinked pink. (A few games around town did the same thing.) The teams sold "Think Pink" tshirts with the "i"s dotted with basketballs. The money raised is going to breast cancer research. Nearly everyone wore pink. Even some of the basketball players wore pink laces and socks. The picture below is of one of my students, Darrick, as he shoots a free-throw. You can see all the kids in the background in their pink. The ref didn't represent. It made for a fun night, though. Here is Rozzie and McCall. They have enjoyed being on the dance team this year. The kids in the background are "creeping". For those who are not familiar with this term, it is where someone else is getting a picture taken and you position yourself and smile for the picture, thus "creeping" on someone else's picture. At the last competition, some girls were taking a picture and later on realized that the waitress creeped on them!!

Travis was pretty excited that he got to see someone famous at the game. This is Nolan Carroll of the Miami Dolphins.

Here is the situation: Nolan's brother, Nico plays basketball for Fleming Island and with it being senior night, Nolan came to support his brother and walk him in as he (Nico) was announced. Back in his days of reporting high school football, Travis remembered covering games with Nolan who attended Clay High, just to our south. Now, Nolan plays for the Miami Dolphins. I had never heard of him, but then Travis explained who he was and I remember the story very well. You might, too. In a game in December 2010 between the Jets and the Dolphins, a coach tripped a player running down the sidelines. The coach was fired and it was all over the news. that player was Nolan Carroll. You can look it up on youtube - I wasn't able to get it on here, but it is easy to find. So that was Travis' fun moment.

This past week, I was petitionned by a group of students to start a knitting group NOW!!! So the wheels are in motion for that. All is well in the Smith house!

The Satisfaction of a Finished Project

Morgan and I both had the satisfaction of finishing a knitting project this weekend. Morgan is starting to challenge herself with new and interesting patterns. I made her knit the legs on this pair a little longer, just in case she gets in at BYU - she'll want those longer socks!! We both really like the greens here.
Here is a detail of the pattern. It is a little hard to see, but there is an additional pattern beyond the self striping yarn. She did a great job and is becoming an accomplished knitter. She likes to come to the knitting group at school and help out.

As for me, I finally got around to finishing this sweater!! I got a lot done, then got stalled out over the summer. I kept putting off getting back to it because it takes time to figure out what was going on when I put it down! But I overcame that fear over the Christmas break. I wore the sweater to church today and got a lot of compliments on the nice colors. It is very comfortable, almost like a jacket.

I was nervous about the I-cord finishing, but I persevered and figured it out (not that hard, actually) and am really pleased with the outcome. It gives it a nice, finished look.

Now, on to a new week. I get to tease a student for skipping my class last Friday and going to get a squid tattooed on her forearm. I love facebook.

Haters Bring Me Fame

This weekend was the State Dance Competition. It is rather unlike the Minnesota one where it was part of the state sports. They don't have that here, so another company puts on this big competition down in Daytona and there weren't that many high schools there. But, it is a competition anyway and some very good teams. We had an amazing program and were very excited to show it off. Part of the music states, "Haters bring me fame" which means that the more people that hate you, the more famous you are. It has become the catch phrase of the season. So on the day we left for Daytona, all the girls wore their "Hater" jackets they designed and glittered up and Rozzie's friend Lauren made some of them these "Hater" shades (they block out your "haters"). They were rather cute!! So, here is Lauren, Nora, and Roz arriving at school on Friday morning.
We got out of school at 1:00 (I got to miss 6th period!!) and were on our way. I was a driver/chaperone and had a car load of girls. We stayed at the Hilton on the beach which was across the street from the Convention Center where the girls performed. We ate dinner at Bubba Gumps and I had the absolute worst salad I have ever had. It was completely tasteless. The chicken tasted old and lacked any flavor. I didn't even know what the eggs were. I thought maybe mushrooms. It was only on close examination that I figured out it was egg. I didn't even eat half of it. How disappointing. The funny thing is that I rarely ever dislike my food. I like food so much I'll eat things that are just so-so. This was inedible.

Saturday was a long day. We didn't dance until 6 pm, so we took a good, long time getting ready. The freshmen didn't dance this competition. They were basically "red-shirted" I'd say; that is the best way to explain it. This was a sore spot and it was apparent that the girls were feeling left out. They handled it very well, though. Rozzie and I talked a lot about accepting and being supportive anyway. They were all troopers!! Here is Rozzie and me. This picture makes her look taller than me, oh, I was just informed that she is taller than me. When did this happen?

The girls did a great performance and came in 2nd place, only .5 behind the first place team. Fort Walton Beach has always been winners here and they had dances in three divisions - we only danced Hip-Hop. But we were neck and neck!! The crowd loved the costumes (I picked them out - found it in a magazine and suggested it). Kids were asking to have pictures taken with the girls. They felt very famous. We went back the next morning and danced again and it was a solid performance. But alas, we came in 2nd again. Fort Walton Beach danced a clean dance. It wasn't very original or exciting. The word on the street is that we should have won. So many people stopped our girls and commented that they were their favorite. I guess I should add that there was also a cheer competition going on simultaneously so there were a lot of people watching.

Here is Rozzie with Lauren and Nora. You can see the make-up on Lauren. The jewels on the face really sparkled on stage.

Here is another picture - you can see how the costumes looked.

And the disappointing 2nd place.

There was crying on the way home. Losing is tough. Hearing over and over from so many people that we should have won is tough. But, it is a lesson we all learn over and over in life. I'm proud of how they did. Rozzie is really excited to dance the competition in March and get all glammed up!!

I was thankful to have a day off before returning to work. I will say that we have a great group of girls that seemed to know how to behave and they were very easy to spend a weekend with. They were very grateful for our help. It was also fun to spend a weekend with my dear friend Lani. I'm glad we had this year together with our girls on the team. I'll miss her next year. I got to know other parents better so I'll be ok - no need to worry about me!!

Travis and Rozzie just went driving. She started Driver's Ed on Florida Virtual School and so she is excited about getting her driver's permit at the end of May!!

After hearing all about Rozzie's dance competition, Maddie is excited to go to her competitions in March and April.

Keeping You in the Loop

I have not been very good!! Sorry! So, what is new, you ask? My knitting club, that's what. I have thought about starting a knitting group at school but am somewhat shy. (No, really, I am.) Ok, maybe I'm not, but with this kind of thing I sure am. I am no expert Knitress or anything, so I question my ability to teach others. Rather than ruin a group of unsuspecting youths, I opted to make the faculty and staff my guinea pigs. I put out a flyer and invited all new and experienced knitters to come and play. Today was the day. We learned to make a slip knot, cast on, and knit. I had 7 students with more asking if they could come another time. We worked for an hour and they are to practice knitting this week and we will learn to purl next week!! It was pretty exciting. Morgan came the last 15 minutes and helped out. It was a lot of fun and there seems to be a great interest in the craft. We decided to meet next week, everyone seems to want to come back. We plan to meet again next week. I feel satisfied! We had teachers and cafeteria staffers there. If this goes well, next year, I think FIHS will have an official Knitting Club!!