2008 Christmas Card

Thought I'd post our Christmas card pictures and letters in case anyone from FB makes there way over to the blog. We've found quite a few people on FB that we haven't seen or talked to in years and it's great to get in touch again! (The pics probably looked better with the colors/design arrangement on the actual Christmas Card!)Dear beloved friends and family,

2008 has been a pretty loco year! You know me as the oldest child, Miss K. And, this is a quick overview of our year. We've done a lot, seen a lot, and, well...probably eaten a lot also. This summer we did a lot. This was an Olympic year, so although we didn't go to Beijing, we still thought it would be fun to try to see something related to the Olympics. We decided to go to Pennsylvania to see the U.S. Gymnastic Trials that determined which gymnasts (men & women) go to Beijing. It was really exciting to get to see which of the gymnasts was chosen for the Olympic teams. While in Philly we tried cheesesteak sandwiches and saw the Liberty Bell. We also got to see the buildings where one of my favorite movies was filmed, National Treasure, and where the Declaration and Constitution were signed.

After we were in Philadelphia, we drove down to Washington D.C. for the Suzuki Violin Institute. The Institute was very fun and we learned many new techniques. We also experienced the adventure of managing a whole violin studio riding the metro (27 people from Nashville area)! With young kids, unfamiliar "territory", and the difficulties of gaining subway tokens, it was quite a fun little situation. The group did make it to the Capitol Grill where we had a great dinner. Afterwards we walked around the capital. We also went to the International Spy Museum which gave us an inside look at all the interesting techniques they use in espionage.

Violin in our family is pretty important to us. I have been playing since I was five and so has my brother. On top of that, we have been continually learning through workshops, conferences and the MTSA yearly contest. Now we are both in Rudderville Ramblers, a bluegrass group at my school. We have performed all over and it's just a really good experience! I am playing again this year in the Nashville Youth Repertory Orchestra.

My brother, Mr. M, made a pretty big decision this year too. He's been doing gymnastics since he was two, but as he entered school this year, he made the decision to leave gymnastics and try his hand at several other sports. Gymnastics has given him the foundation to try things like soccer and especially baseball! My brother has also taken up the drums, he can totally keep beat. He plays percussion for the school band and eventually wants to do marching band and jazz band.

As for me (Miss K), I keep myself busy as a soprano in the Nashville Children's Touring choir. I have also continued working on my art skills! Sculptures, pastels, and mostly pencil, but I really love painting too. This year, my friends and I have also taken up the task of controlling our drama production by writing our own play. It is a hilarious farce about the problems and joys we all know and love in middle school.

My parents have been quite busy and they are still working at the same companies, Dad at North Highland and Mom at Fresenius Medical Care. Dad enjoys watching movies and hanging out with the family. Oh...and helping me pass Geometry. Haha, Mom has been cooking up a storm lately, doing the once-a-month cooking method with a friend.

And Snickers...? He's pretty much the same. Spoiled to death and lazy, but we love him.

We hope that you all have a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Love, C,K,K, & M (Team Lee) [ok, we actually didn't write the closing quite like that!]

May recognize this picture from an earlier post - liked it so much that we used it for the cards.

The kids after the group violin recital during November.

Career Essay Radio Show

Friday morning, January 9th was the Radio show featuring all of the career essay winners.


We ran into a friend of Miss K's from elementary school who won the essay contest for her middle school. They were pretty excited to see each other.

Career Fair Essay By Our Daughter

Note before essay: Our daughter won a contest she didn't even realize she was entered into. It was sponsored by Character Under Construction - a non-for-profit organization sponsored by the Williamson County-Franklin Chamber of Commerce. Her essay is one of 10 winning essays, selected from schools within the county and she will be reading it on WAKM 950 AM radio during the 8-9AM segment on Friday, January 9, 2009. This is a some information from the letter on how the winning essays were chosen -> "The winning essays were selected because they responded directly to the writing prompt which asked 8th grade writers to discuss a future career and how character is important in that career choice. Essays were also judged on writing style, language mechanics, and organization."

Here is Miss K's essay:

Mapping your future can be really tough, but sometimes you get a little help. The career fair was interesting to learn about the classes, skills, and things necessary for your job. When I went to the career fair I interviewed professionals, learned about their careers, and how character is used every day for them. I thought that even though I had a good understanding of certain things, it helped expand my knowledge, and the people and exhibitions were especially helpful.

I met a lot of really interesting people and their companies and exhibits. I'm really fascinated by art, so I went to talk to the Nashville Artist's Guild, Frist Center, and WCS Visual Communications. I learned a lot about what they do and what I need to do to be successful in those careers. For example, the man at the NAG said that as well as art and media classes, taking business classes and communication classes will help a lot since as an artist you are your own salesman. Along with that they talked about what they did and how much they enjoyed doing it.

As an artist a lot of their careers require you to be kinda an independent creative businessman. It gives you a lot of freedom to be yourself and you need to explore, learn, and know about all types of art. They use all sorts of different mediums and tools, as technology is constantly changing. Their pay might not always be great, but it's worth the freedom and creativity, along with other great characteristics.

The exhibitors in their fields use a lot of charater. You obviously use respect whenever you're working as a group or team. You have the responsibility to get your part done and cooperation with one another when bouncing ideas back and forth. A team of animators would also need trustworthiness that you get your task completed well and efficiently to make the final product.

The career fair gave me a better idea of the classes I need to take and where to go. The career that interests me remains the same as it did before; the fair only strengthened my determination to make it as an animator or artist. I believe you should be exerting character in whatever you do and your job especially since it is a big part of how you live your life. Overall the career fair was fun, helpful, and very interesting.

Thanksgiving Visit with Mom, Brother, Sis and Joe

I got so excited about posting the first band concert pictures of our son that I missed the post about Thanksgiving! First, the most exciting news - my sister and Joe are engaged! We heard about it when they were on their way to our house Thanksgiving morning as Joe had proposed to Shantel that morning.

The happy couple!

We also celebrated my brother's 40th birthday, along with the birthdays of Choo, Shantel and our daughter (all within a few weeks of each other).

How many candles can we fit on one cake?

Mr. M got a hat too!

Shantel, Joe and Kurt took the kids to the new exhibits at the Adventure Science Center, including one of the new Planetarium shows -> "It's Venus!" [There was a docent leading the talk before the Nashville sky show and Mr. M answered her questions but she just kept right on talking on script. It was a big joke after everyone got home - one of those "you had to be there" jokes!].

Here they at the top of the climbing structure. (Thanks Sis for some of the pictures.)

We had a great visit with them and, to top it off, attended the Rockettes Christmas show at Opryland together.

The group of us after the show.

The three of us siblings.

The tree at the Opry hotel.

Our Son's First Band Concert

Our son started band this school year and is playing percussion (all of his teachers are encouraging him to keep playing violin too). He had his first band concert on Thursday, December 4th, 2008. For this concert, the teachers allowed the kids to decorate their instruments - he decked out a Marimba with lots of Christmas lights!

You can barely see Mr. M, he is far right in percussion section, 3rd person from the right (just left of the boy with the santa hat).

First Commission

Every year the Page Middle School Principal picks one student artist to commission a piece of artwork from that student. This year, our daughter, was chosen for that honor. This was her first commission as an artist. Here is a picture of the completed artwork - a chalk drawing of the Principal's choosing.

Here are a couple of other pictures of Miss K's artwork from her art classes during Fall 08.

Entries in my head.....

Now the only thing about having a blog is that "entries" start popping into your head (similar to when in scrapbook mode). Events happen in your life and you start thinking of which of these events could go into your blog and what you want to say about them. Pretty soon you've got lots of "entries" swirling around in your brain, waiting for a block of time that just gets bigger and bigger with each next event. Of course, this puts off updates even longer since the block of time seems more and more elusive. Time now to just start chipping away at the entries in my head!

(By the way, my daughter says it happens with facebook too -> that you start thinking of things in "status mode"!)