Our girls have participated in the county's Solo & Ensemble Festival most years, but this year's was very different. It was held over Zoom, and it went really well. In the elementary school festival, Leah played great. Thanks to Jen Retterer and Mr. Henley for some great teaching, and Joanne Alme for recording some great accompaniment.
And here she is playing the song, recorded after the festival.
A week later was the countywide virtual Solo & Ensemble Festival for middle school, and Molly played Concerto in Dm (transcribed from Concerto in A Minor, Op. 3 No. 6 for violin), 1st Movement on viola. Thanks to Margaret Lang for excellent teaching, Ben Denne for great teaching and providing the accompaniment track, and Chris Jenkins of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music for some very helpful feedback.
Separately from playing for the adjudicator, we recorded her playing the piece for all of you to view here.
As we neared the end of 2020, we realized we didn’t have many pictures from this year. We usually take a lot of pictures on trips or at special events and activities. This year didn’t have many of those. We thought about doing an outdoor photoshoot as we’ve sometimes done, but none of us were into the idea. Then Jen said “we could just take pictures with your green screen”, and a huge, fun project was born. I present to you The Sellers 2020 Virtual Vacations.
First, our virtual beach vacation.
And also a snowy winter vacation.
Into the woods. Could we have just gone into the woods to take this picture, rather than using the green screen - perhaps.
A bit more extreme - we visited the pyramids.
Then we headed out of this world to the International Space Station.
And finally, we traveled back in time to offer some Christmas presents to baby Jesus.
Leah turns 11 this week. That should have meant her big Harry Potter party, but we all agreed that was a bad idea with the pandemic. So we delayed it till next year. After all, with a September birthday, she wouldn't actually start at Hogwarts till next year anyway.
But things have calmed down enough that we decided a small, outdoor gathering was OK. Leah had 3 friends over for some fun on the back porch. They played a couple games (Telestrations and Uno Attack), decorated cupcakes, ate cupcakes and ice cream, opened presents, and did some rather slow grass sledding. Leah said it was great!
We had our first socially-distant family gathering to celebrate Beth and Caroline's birthdays today. Jen made her first Smith Island Cake. It only took living in Maryland for 17 years for her to bake the official state dessert. It got thumbs up all around!
In this week's Praise From Home, Jen finally joins the band for Way Maker. Pay close attention to Jen's shirt (though Molly's shirt and my shirt are also appropriate for today).
Yesterday, my step-grandmother, Betty, died. She was a lovely lady and a joy to have around. I have lots of great memories of her and Grandaddy. I thought maybe a trip down memory lane was in order, so here are a few of my favorite memories of her.
Grandaddy and Betty got married in 2004, a couple years after Jen and I did.
Betty and Grandaddy came up to Maryland for Molly’s baptism. This was likely the first time she sang to one of my children, but certainly not the last. She loved to sing, especially to little babies. (Apologies to Caroline for including this picture :) )
And here’s a similar picture from 3 years later. Betty sang to Leah for quite a while, and Leah stared at her the entire time.
Probably my favorite memory of her was from our family trip to Savannah in 2009. We were there for the 4th of July (as usual), which meant we celebrated my dad’s birthday there (July 2). We actually drove down that day, and Betty was great and made her highly regarded pound cake to celebrate.
Unfortunately, she accidentally grabbed the green food coloring instead of the vanilla when making it, so it had an interesting color. Tasted great, though. We still talk about that green pound cake in our family to this day.
Betty brought a lot of joy to Grandaddy's life, and for that I will forever be grateful.
In this week's installment of Praise From Home, Leah takes the lead with a song of her choice - Unstoppable God. And this is as close as we’re going to get to having 3 kids.