Happy Birthday Alan!!

We went to church in San Antonio and took Alan to eat at Alamo Café and met some friends there.  The Roans lived in Weatherford and Jarod was Alan's boss for a couple of years.  They recently moved to San Antonio where he is a principal of a private school in the area.  It is great to have some connections near by.  Sometimes we feel so far away from everyone in our lives down here in the South. 

After we got home, Andrew and Anna put together Alan's party.  They wanted to do a Texas Longhorn theme for their Dad.  Anna and I made cupcakes before church and she iced them when we got home and Andrew set up the table.  Yes, I had a cupcake on a UT plate and used the napkin and cup BUT, I still had on my red crimson dress that I wore to church. Hee Hee Hee!!!!

Pitch Perfect

In starting a new choir program at Kenedy where band has been the cool thing to be in, I knew I had a challenge in getting students excited about singing.  I knew the traditional choir ways, would be difficult for the students to "buy into" here.

A couple of weeks before school started, I got an email inviting my students in choir to come join the South Texas A cappella camp and talent over load (STACCATO).  Knowing that most of my students have seen Pitch Perfect, I had a feeling that this might be the answer to jump starting these groups. 

When I finally met the students in high school choir on the first day of school, their first question was, "Can we sing like they do on Pitch Perfect?"  I smiled and said absolutely! (since my first music love is a cappella) and began to tell them about the camp.  They all got excited and I got the info to them and we started preparing for STACCATO. 

Yesterday was the day!  We showed up at MacArthur High School in San Antonio around 8:30 and were warmly welcomed.  There were 200 students from 20 schools.  Students sang two a cappella arrangements, Run to You and Brave.  Three professional a cappella groups worked with our students through sectionals and master classes on how to improvise, use stage presence and make percussion sounds.  One of the groups, Cluster, is from Italy and it is very rare to get to see them in concert in the United States.  The concert with students performing first and the other three groups performing the remainder of the concert was truly a treat for not only me but all of the students.  All three groups combined represented genres from barbershop, jazz, blue grass, contemporary and even some rock.  Each group was very entertaining.

My students not only learned a lot, but they became more motivated, pumped and ready to incorporate what they learned in the camp.  One of my guys started doing some percussion outside the school and within seconds we had a group of guys around us adding more percussion sounds.  He was shocked at what happened.  I told him that he better be careful when he does that especially in an environment like we were in yesterday because everyone wants to join in to make incredible music.

I had fun as well, and even learned or had some new ideas.  I grew up on a cappella music and still love it to this day.  The group Clearly vocal, I discovered, is from the Church of Christ.  The way I discovered this was, one of the songs they sang last night was a song I knew from the Zoe Group.  This is a group that records and arranges contemporary Christian songs for church of Christ denominations who want updated a cappella music.  One of the members is the worship leader for Glenwood Church of Christ in Tyler TX where all five members of the group attend church.

One of my student's dad is a member of the school board and he came to the concert.  He was really supportive of this event and supportive of the new choir program.  I am really excited for the future of our vocal program.  My son is even in the middle school choir.  The other day I was teaching the boys the harmony part to the song "Roar" and Andrew and another boy were right on the notes and leading the rest of the guys.  You know that is a proud Mom moment. :-)

One of the guys from Clearly Vocal announced last night that there is another a cappella camp on October 25 in Austin.  My students are already wanting to attend this one as well.  Here is to new memories and creating our own Pitch Perfect.

SLAG (Super Large a Cappella Group)

Clearly Vocal from Tyler Texas

Cluster from Genoa Italy

Remember the Alamo!!!

Labor Day weekend, we had planned to go to the Beach in Corpus, but there were coastal storms all weekend.  So we decided to go to San Antonio instead.  Alan and Andrew went to see the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles while Anna and I went shopping.  When the movie was over, we headed to the River Walk to Casa Rio for dinner but before that, we made a stop over to the Alamo.  It had been a long time since I have been there.  Every time Alan and the kids went in the past several years, I was busy attending the music convention.  I wanted to go because I always do a Texas music unit with Elementary and wanted to brush up on some of the Texas history.  Once our tour of the Alamo was over and had dinner, we headed back home.  I know I have said this before, but living between Corpus and San Antonio has given us a lot of fun opportunities.

 

First Day of School 2014

August 25 began the 2014 school year with Andrew's first year of Middle School and Anna as a third grader.  While Alan's role did not change much other than he will coach Softball in the Spring, my role changed.  I am starting the High School Choir program as well as High School Theatre Arts, two Middle School choirs, third, fourth and fifth grade music.  I am also directing One Act Play and am the High School UIL Coordinator.  I have been coming home pretty tired each day.  Mostly it is a good tired.

Andrew is loving Middle School this year.  The middle school team of teachers are very caring, motivated and fun.  He even eats the free lunch in the cafeteria this year.  Anna still loves school and loves her new homeroom teacher.  She has adjusted to me not being there in the mornings by going to her classroom and she gets to be "in charge" of her class. 

It is going to be a great school year for the Weaver family!

First day of school treat........even Dad came along this year.

A night of Baseball with Anna's team

August 3, we went with Anna's baseball team to the San Antonio Mission Baseball game to celebrate together as a team.  We had an all you can eat dinner, and the kids got to be out on the field before the game.  It was a great night of fun.