Singing, Typing and Testing, Oh My!

We are officially back in the swing of things in the Gaunch household. It's show choir season and that means practices, fundraisers, costumes and competitions. This is Garrett's 3rd year in the ARTS All-Star Show choir and Hannah's 1st year participating. Instead of a high school show choir, it's a community-based show choir made up of kids from 6 area high schools. They practice all year and compete against high school show choirs.


Last Saturday was the first competition, in Ohio. It was a 3 hour bus ride and an all-day event. Out of 11 choirs, we made the finals, which meant the kids performed a second time for the judges. They placed 6th overall which was great considering they were much smaller than the other choirs. They also won a special award for best theme. Their theme this year is "Colors" and some of the songs they sing are "The Black Parade", "The Color Purple", "Red Dress", "Living In Color" and a medley of a lot of fun songs like "Blue" and "Yellow Submarine" and "Gold Digger". Here are a few pictures from a recent practice.



In addition to the show choir mania, I've been completing two assignments for my seminary class... books and commentaries spread across the table.


Meanwhile, Hannah and Garrett were completing projects for Latin II and Latin III. Covenant School is a classical Christian school and relies heavily on classical teaching methods, language and literature. So, they start teaching Latin in 4th grade. Needless to say, the annual Latin Convention is sort of a big deal. Last year, Hannah and Garrett both won multiple awards- I think it actually embarrassed Hannah. She was calling herself a Latin nerd. So she's been making a model of the Oracle of Appollo that was at Delphi. (aka, an old temple that's now in ruins) Garrett chose to write a modern day adaptation of a the myth of Asclepius (I never heard of him either). Hannah's project is 24x40 inches and is made of Styrofoam, clay, dowels... lots of them. It has like 26 columns, I think. I'm so glad to have my kitchen table back! Becca hasn't had any major projects due lately, but this has been a challenging school year. It seems like 5th grade is a real transition year from little kid work to big kid work. She has a lot of homework and studying that's requiring a lot more personal organization... but we're getting there.



Also, Louie has been walking around shaking his head all day. This morning, our first born son took a college entrance exam! The SAT. Together, we filled out paperwork and chose some colleges we thought should receive his scores. We are in some seriously uncharted territory here.
But it's also exciting.

PS Those of you who are local- the ARTS All-Star Show Choir is having a fundraising dinner/Premiere Show for the community Feb. 2 and 4. We would love, love, love for all of you to come. Louie is heading up the kitchen crew, and the kids will perform their show for you. We have twice the expense this year with both of them participating, so this fundraiser is what we've been looking forward to. Just call or email for the details!