This is the song that Emily and her friend Christina composed the music and wrote the lyrics to for their graduation. They, along with another friend Adam, auditioned for the privilege of performing it at graduation as the "Senior Singers." Sometimes the best laid plans go awry. At 4:30 that afternoon they did a sound check and everything was perfect. Sometime after the sound check and before they performed something came unplugged or something. If you listen closely to the video you'll hear, "yeah, we're done probably." You'll also hear cracking noises.  That's the keyboard. One friend of theirs actually thought the keyboard was set to "cracking noise." We don't know quite what happened but we know how it turned out. Great! Luck is when preparation meets opportunity and that's what happened this night. Adam, having practiced and doodled for countless hours on the guitar, was able to pick it up, improvise and accompany the song. He saved the day and for that we are all really, really grateful. During the song you'll hear a notable difference when Adam starts to play stronger and louder. It was sort of like the song was resuscitated. New life was breathed into it. It was quite moving for me as a parent to watch them sort of struggle and then rise to the top triumphant! Good stuff. 

The demo

If you have wanted to see what was going on at the new house I have put a slideshow up on the blog for all to see. Before and after photos. They're in chronological order some taken just last night. Something happens daily over there and it's fun to see it moving so fast.

Florence, Italy

This morning as I was typing my email to Collin the phone rang. It was 7:10 am. Who calls that early? Only family! I felt it must be the girls so I answered the phone. I couldn't hear anything but I was sure it was them. I hung up and they called again. This time I could hear them and we agreed to skype. It was great to see them and hear their voices. Best of all was to know that they are safe and having a great time. They ran into the high school group at the Louvre and that was wonderful! Currently they're in Florence, Italy. They have ridden on lots of trains and their plans are continually evolving and changing. It's good that they adapt well. The rest of us attended a family reunion and got to talk and play with cousins the whole weekend. We each received a few bug bites and accumulated a nice layer of dirt. It wasn't too bad this time because the weather was cooler so we didn't sweat as much. It was weird to have only 2 children with us. Lots of fun! Sorry for the short post but I have to go catch up with my life.

And they're off!

Emily, Madelyn, Grandma Nora and Grandpa Raymon that is. They all actually left the desert last night about 8 pm and stayed at the beach house so it would be a shorter drive to LAX.  This morning when I awoke I was thinking stuff like, "Hmmm, they should be driving there now. Now they should be going through security." Imagine my surprise when Emily calls about 6:45 am and  tells me that they're driving there. Uh oh. Their flight was scheduled to leave at 8:15 am. So I check the flight status later and it departed at 8:12 am so they must have made it and all is well. Or so I thought. At 9:10 am Emily calls again. She says, "Guess where we're going?" "Um, Paris?"

I answer. "No mom. Right now!" she says. Having no clue I say nothing. "Dallas!" she replies with excitement in her voice. She then proceeds to tell me that they missed their flight to Boston and are taking one to Dallas then on to Paris. WOW. The adventure has begun! Here's a little funny side note. A good friend of mine is a pilot for American Airlines and the route she usually flies is to Dallas. And that is what she's doing today but she flew out of Ontario. Mercedes and Nicholas are connecting in Dallas today too on their way to Sao Paulo for the summer. It's like a little mini reunion in Dallas or something. So with the girls gone it's quiet on the home front. The Rancho house is having it's roof demolished today in preparation for the addition. I'll go this evening and take pictures. All went really well at Emily's graduation and I hope to post pictures and video of her performance sometime this week. I'm off to Costco to shop for office stuff. 

A post about Collin

I know I've neglected this blog but today I'll post about Collin. He and his comp had baptisms yesterday and here's the picture. Here's a bit from his email.

Anyways, we had an awesome Baptism yesterday. It was Kim and Arthur *******. They are a golden family. They have family prayer and scripture study and FHE. They are awesome. They moved from San Clemente about a year ago and Kim says they were brought to Texas to find the gospel. They are amazing and their kids are so cute. Especially the baby.