credo days eleven and twelve

Someone (throat clearing sounds--Blake :-) commented on my last post that we have too much fun and that I don't talk about music much. This post is almost all about music. Yesterday our Master Class/Lecture time was on musical careers. Every Credo group was to give their ensemble a name and to set up type of company. What we came up with is this -- our Schumann group has been renamed "Elvira and Company" after David's viola. Peter is our manager, David is our marketer, and I was voted in charge of finances. We will start out small, centered in Atlanta, and take whatever jobs we can get. Hopefully we will gain some fame and will be able to do some touring (David wants to tour France and Italy.). :-)

We have been doing lots of practicing for today. We performed, for the first time, our new pieces at nursing homes. As our service day, we didn't only play music, but we did do a lot of yard work around a local day care. Assisted Living Homes are wonderful places to play. People are not critical, they are just bubbling over with joy that we took time to come to their home and play for them. Concerts like that are worth so much more than ever playing someplace like Carnegie Hall.

Tonight was a large ensemble rehearsal, Frisbee game, and bonfire. Now it's time to write some praise notes and go to sleep! :-)

~ Elvira and Company~

credo day seven, eight, nine, and ten

Ok. Really fast update on the past four days. On Saturday we had our first concert, and I think we played very well. We had fun and that was our goal. Afterwards we went our for ice-cream in downtown Oberlin.


Sunday was Boo's birthday, and at lunch the whole side of the cafeteria that we were in sang "Happy Birthday" to her (thanks to Jen :-). While Boo took a nap Ruth Marie and I went out and got her decorations and a cake. We decorated one of the lounges and then after dinner got everyone in there while she called my dad back. I went down and took her up to the room under the pretense that there was something we had to do before we could watch the movie (which was true . . . we had to celebrate. :-) I think she was very surprised!

SURPRISE!!!

The whole clan!

That night we played another game of Ultimate Frisbee. It has somewhat become the camp sport. Sometime during the course of this week our All-Star Frisbee team is going to take on a team of some of the Tennis Camp kids. :-)

Me playing Ultimate Frisbee

Today and yesterday were full of more practicing and rehearsals. There is a pianist here now until tomorrow, and she had been a great help to me on the fourth movement of the Schumann Piano Quintet. This evening we went to part of an organ recital (on the massive organ in Finnley Chapel) and also went bowling. One thing is for sure. You know you're bowling with some other wonderful music fanatics when you go moonlight bowling (with black lights and disco ball) and someone from your group takes his favorite CD to be blasted over the speakers and that CD just happens to be Dvorak New World Symphony. It was so cool. :-) Afterwards we started a game of Ultimate Frisbee, but it was too humid to play very long. So I went inside and encouraged some friends, and now I'm writing this and soon I'm going to bed! :-)

Me bowling . . . I scored a 113!!! Not quite sure how that happened.

credo day three, four, five, and six

Long time no post. :-) The wireless in my dorm has been down for the past couple days and I have not been able to use the Internet on my computer. So here's what's been up. :-)

Every day has been full of practicing except Thursday which was our Service Day. More about that later. Boo and I along with a couple others have formed a "Lunch Group." We eat our meals together and always try to have new people sit with us or we sit with new people. I think our table could be deemed the giggliest table. :-)

On to service day. For our work project my group cleaned a day care room. I think we had to much fun. We laughed and joked and talked the entire time. It goes to prove my thesis that anything can be fun if you set your mind to making it fun.

- Our team working. -

- Me cleaning the walls inside the play house. -

Also for service day a big group of us went to a vocational facility for the mentally handicapped and performed our pieces for the people there. I have never played for such a wonderful audience. They hung onto every note and were so excited that we were playing for them that they would start clapping before we were even done. More pictures of that will come soon.

We have had many funny, funny moments. I happened to capture the one below on camera. We were seeing who all could lift their middle finger and pinky finger without moving their other fingers. David could only do it if he stuck out his tongue. :-)

credo day two

Day two. We got to rehearse with our groups for the first time. I am so thankful for my group. I was very fearful that I would be placed in a group with other kids who would be very critical or with a "better-than-thou" attitude, but God has blessed me greatly. We work very hard, but we also spend a lot of time laughing over mistakes or comments. Our group is pictured below.

I learned several new things in the lecture time. The thought of knowing your notes by touch (arm position, hand position, etc.) was new to me. Ask me about the 1-2-3-4 game sometime. :-) After supper tonight we had a gym time. We saw a friend playing basketball by himself, so we decided to join him. Before too long we had 8-9 kids playing knockout. That was pretty fun. I almost won three times, and three times I got beaten. :-)

After the gym time we hung out with some other kids in the basement playing Apples to Apples, pool, fooseball, and chess. Now on to a wonderful night's sleep. :-) Day two is over.

For more pictures and info, you can also visit http://www.credochambermusic.blogspot.com/ and try to find us in the pictures! :-)

credo day one

We made it. We are officially at Credo. We left home around 6:15 am, and arrived in Oberlin between 4:30 and 4:45 pm. We have already met a bunch of people and gotten acquainted with our music groups. We received a tour of Oberlin College and downtown Oberlin. I thought the town would be a lot bigger, but it's actually pretty small. Just a couple little shops and restaurants. We played several mixer games and then headed back to our dorm rooms to finish unpacking and start settling in. Day one is almost over.

- Attempt to be bright eyed and bushy tailed a little too early in the morning. -

- Papa was super sweet and drove us all eight hours to camp! We treated him by taking him to Ryan's for Father's Day Lunch. We have a very special Papa. -

- Me with my morningly French Vanilla Cream Coffee. -

- Almost there! -

- The registration building. -

- My bed looked a little un-cheery with all the light linens so I hung the bright colored strips of fabric, off of my suitcases, on the headboard. It doesn't look as cool in the picture as it does sitting here looking at it in person. :-) -

- My little work space. -

50s diner

Last night we put on a 50s Diner theme Pastor Appreciation dinner. Nikki came up with an awesomely decorated room with booths, white table, linoleum, records, mood lighting, music, etc. Together we put together very authentic basket dinners. I grilled hamburgers, and we put those, coleslaw, and home made French fries in a little wax-paper lined basket. Each meal was served with bottled root-beer and a chocolate milk-shake. Banana Splits and Ice Cream Sundaes topped everything off.

To set the mood, we all dressed the part. We had two car hops (roller skates and all), a Fonzie, and three sweet 50s gals.

- The car hops serving the food. -

- The Diner -

- Sampling the Root-Beer and Cream-Soda -

- Fonzie with all the girls. -

- Boo was just barely taller than me in her rollerskates (when I stood on my tip-toes :-) -

- The Car Hops were only slightly wobbly. -

- The Diner Staff -

- The Staff Hanging Out -

- Me in the red dress . . . that I will only wear again if I get paid enough. Oh, and I put like half a can of hair spray in my hair so that I could get a little "bee-hive" volume. :-) -

party in the park

Today we celebrated Hannah's birthday three months late. She wanted to have pizza at the park, and March around here is a little too chilly for that. We ended up with 22 kids/teens, and wow, was it a lot of fun! We played tag around the castle, rode the merry-go-round, hiked up to the top of the waterfall, and of course! ate pizza. :-) Peach also decided that this was a special occasion, so she made her home made chocolate chip cookies.

I think the funniest thing that happened the whole night was at the end. Morgan led a game that had something to do with two people running down a line while encircled in a hoola-hoop. One person jumped out from the hoola-hoop and had to do 10 dizzy-bats. Everyone was very wobbly, but my mom flat out fell over. I tried to catch her, but couldn't quite keep her up; she took out two other people with her in the process. :-) It took her forever to get up, and then when she did get up, she fell over again. She tried walking back down the line in her hoola-hoop with Joanna, but she fell again. I'm thinking that she is getting a little too old for dizzy-bat. :-)

- The whole gang (except me, because I was taking the picture). -

- Everyone playing tag on the castle. -

- All the little girls (and mom and nanny) at the base of the waterfall. -

- All the little girls (and mom and nanny) at the top of the waterfall. -

- Playing "The Hip Game" mega size (with a little can-can thrown in). Ask me for directions. This game is an awesome way to use a boring time and it can be done almost any place! A medium size group makes it a lot of fun! -

Shannon and Morgan provided all of the comic relief for the evening.

- Shannon and Morgan preparing for take-off. -

- The fun car group when to Dollar Tree before going to the park. We all got new sunglasses. Hey, Shan, Kaelyn, and Morgan all chose super cute pink ones. -


- Comic relief on the Merry-Go-Round. -

- Two of the Senior Girls hanging out in the castle. -