2-26-2010 Friday - Star's of Tomorrow Competition

Holly won 2nd place last night in the 2010 South Coast Singer's Star's of Tomorrow Vocal Competition. Here are the 1st and 2nd place winners of the Musical Theater and Classical categories. In the finals, she competed against 7 other singers. She won $1,000 dollars!!! When Jeff and I woke up this morning, he looks at me and says, "I've never made a thousand dollars in five minutes before!" We both just started laughing...

Luke fell asleep by the end of the 2 1/2 hour competition. But he hung in there like a trooper until the very end! Almost...

Our family was so excited for Holly to win and we are all so proud of her!

Holly's teacher, Joan Simonek, came to watch too!

Bob Breton, Cheryl O'Bryant, and Andrea Mendenhall have all been a great support to Holly through these years also! Thank you for coming!

This is the same song she sang for the SCVA competition that I posted a few weeks ago, but she continues to improve, so I wanted to add last night's in my post too. Joan says she is on a roll right now and keeps getting noticeably better every week!
It gives me the chills each time I hear this song.

2-23-2010 Tuesday - A Duet...

Drew and Holly sang at Institute class last night. Drew picked her up straight from the bus when they got back from Disneyland and took her over to the church. Brother Bob Breton found this song and played for them. I love hearing them sing together.

2-23-2010 Tuesday - A Disney Escape!

What do you do when the cold February days are starting to get you down?

Go to Disneyland!!!!

Actually, we had a great excuse to take the kids out of school. Holly's high school choir was performing yesterday at Disney's Carnation Plaza.

They always wear their robes when they perform at Disneyland. It looks really uniform while they are singing all those favorite Disney songs like: The Bear Necessities, When You Wish Upon A Star, Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah, and Chim Chim Cher-ee.

Their choir director, John Elg, is incredible!

Andrea and Lucas met us at the park to watch Holly and play too!

After the performance, Holly hung out with her friends, while we had some corn dogs and went on a few rides! Here we are inside the Haunted Mansion and Luke is looking up at the skeleton and lightening while everyone screams!

Splash Mountain gets me too wet, but I went anyway.

Jeff finally talked Luke into riding on The Tower of Terror in California Adventure. Two previous trips this year, we had come and got him up to the elevators and then he'd back out.

It was a little bit scary... :(
But a few minutes later Luke was okay and even said he would try it again some other time!

2-21-2010 Sunday - The L.A. Spotlight Semi-Finals

Holly went to the L.A. Spotlight Semi-Finals this weekend at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Only 15 high school students were chosen from over 200 auditions. This is the toughest competition on the west coast and it is really an honor to be able to place this on Holly's resume.
She stopped for me to take a quick photo as she entered through the "Artist's Entrance", the same door that Placido Domingo, Josh Groban, and Kathleen Battle use!

Here is Holly warming up with her coach, Joan Simonek. She has been taking voice from Joan for nearly 7 years now, since she was in 6th grade!

Joan, Holly, and Peggy waiting for the results...
Peggy is Holly's most favorite accompanist. She always tries to get her first!

After her competition, there was a reception where one of the five judges spoke. He told us that the 15 chosen here were the best and it was the most difficult spotlight yet. Apparently, they got into quite a heated discussion over who should be in the finals. Only 2 singers are chosen for the finals which will be held before 2,000 people at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles. She didn't get win, but she's our first pick for sure! And she was definitely the best dressed and prettiest too! (I'm a little biased!)

2-21-2010 Sunday - Holly's Accepted!

Last Friday we got the exciting news that Holly was accepted to the
BYU School of Music! Woo Hoo!
This isn't any small feat. It is really competitive to get in.

This is what she had to do:

1. File a School of Music Application
2. Send in a DVD of her singing 3 songs - only one being in English. Her other 2 were German and Italian. Over 160 DVD's were sent in by hopeful students.
3. They chose 30 applicants to audition live on January 30th. Holly was one of them!
4. Those 30 applicants had to pass an aural music theory exam and receive at least a score of 30 on it. Holly got a 32!
5. She also had to write an essay answering why she wanted this major and what her future plans entailed.

Only 10 total voice majors are chosen each year. Yeah, that's 10 out of over 160! And she was competing against students already at BYU! While there, we met Freshmen, Sophomore, and Junior girls who were also auditioning!

Next she had to just sit back and wait... and wait... and wait...

Finally, while at school Friday morning, a friend of hers texted her saying his results were in...
She called me at break to get on the computer and get Jeff on our house phone loud speaker from work. I clicked onto the screen and there it was...

Dear Holly,
The BYU School of Music is pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into the School of Music as a music major in the following studio/area: Voice. Your outstanding accomplishments and audition truly helped set you apart and we look forward to working with you throughout your university career.

We were so excited! All three of us started screaming and Holly and I were jumping up and down! We later found out that of the 10 chosen - only 4 were incoming freshman girls, and 3 boys and 3 girls were already students at BYU!

After school, the girls smothered her with hugs and kisses!

Drew was so happy - he cried! (Not Really)

A huge relief came over all of us!

We celebrated with dinner at Island's. (Holly's Choice)

She started calling her friends and family the next two days. (If you didn't get a call - she tried, not many people were home and she didn't want to leave a message) She told our friend, Bob Breton, at singing practice that night.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you to all of Holly's family and friends who supported her, pushed her, tutored her, drove her, inspired her, and believed in her!

Now, for the uneasy news... She STILL has not been accepted to the actual university of BYU - only the School of Music at BYU. But we are hopeful that the answer will come soon! If you remember, she's already been accepted to the University of Utah and to Utah State University. But we have not heard from their school's of music yet. So she's really only part way there for all three schools. Also, she hasn't made up her mind which is her first choice. So, I have a poll above to the right. We'd love for you to vote for which university you'd like to see Holly go to next fall!

Answer the Poll Question: Up to the right...

2-20-2010 Saturday - Like Father, Like Son!

Saturday morning, Luke saw his dad working out and had to join him. He was too cute in his Scooby Doo pajamas and socks. I had to film him too!

2-20-2010 Saturday - The Many Faces of Holly!

One of Holly's favorite things to do is play with make up and costumes. She's been like this ever since she was a little girl. I could never keep clothes on her as a toddler. She would change 5-6 times daily! It drove me crazy! But now I can see it is just part of her DNA, she is constantly changing something about her looks - because it is so fun. She absolutely loves it!
Here are a few of her latest ones...
Holly has the biggest most beautiful eyes and she loves to play them up!

Going for Lady Gaga!

Princess Leia...

How can a girl that's so beautiful look so down right atrocious???

2-20-2010 Saturday - "Bad Dog" Continued...

Last night, look at what the dog dragged in...
As Holly was letting Sasha and Heidi inside from their "potty time", Heidi had this in her mouth. She had just dug up one of the many bones she has buried in our backyard. But this one had an added surprise - a slug slithering on it! Gross!!! Weird dog!!!

2-18-2010 Thursday - Shera's Field Trip to Mission San Juan Capistrano

I joined Shera for her field trip today in San Juan Capistrano. It was a beautiful sunny day and the mission was buzzing! They had about 300 children from different schools there today. All of Shera's 4th grade went. Here we are in front of the original adobe walls of the mission.

The class got to try out the little handmade games the children played with at the mission.

The Indians didn't have corn here to make food, so they used acorns and had to crush and boil them to get the acid out. This prevented them from getting bad tummy aches! Here are some of the stones they actually used to grind the acorns. Shera is in front of the kind of homes they used for their shelter.

Here are the bells of SJC Mission that were dedicated by President Nixon.

The swallows come back to the mission every March 20th and fly to Argentina every October 20th. It takes them 3 days to travel!

They got to play instruments just like the local Indian tribes had back then too.
It was a really great day!

2-18-2010 Thursday - Bad Dog!!!

This is what a "Bad Dog" looks like...

This morning I came home from dropping the kids off at school and found Heidi looking like this in our backyard!

At first, I thought she had a bird in her mouth. But then a closer look revealed that she had been digging in the mud!

Drew helped to clean her up, but she kept on shaking and it got all over the laundry room back splash, the walls, and white cabinets!!!

This is where she was trying to hide her bone. She hides her bones everywhere! We find them behind the sofa pillows, in shoes, in our clean clothes baskets, in our artificial planted pots, under the bed covers, and all over the yard!
Silly doggie!!!
But she still sure is cute!!!

2-16-2010 Tuesday - New Beginnings...

For New Beginnings this year, the Young Women had the Olympics as their theme. All of the Laurels handed off the torch to each other down the hall as we watched from the sidelines.
Here are Jordan, Brooke, Jennifer and Holly posing with the torch!

Holly stood with the torch as everyone came into the Relief Society room.

Sister Carrie Lee was the Master of Ceremonies and each Laurel presented a colored Olympic Ring with its value. Holly presented the newest of the values, the "Gold Ring of Virtue".

Noel is here with her friends, Ellen, Jennie, and Carissa.

Holly loves her new adviser, Sister Karen Baker.

2-15-2010 Monday - Jeff's Valentine Surprise!

Yes, this is Jeff's senior picture!
He was 17 years old when this was taken.

Last Friday, his office had a little Valentine exchange and guess what was on every single one of his Valentines??? Yep, a lady at his work had a sister that graduated from El Toro High School the same year that Jeff did, 1982. They copied these off from the yearbook and not only put them on all of his cards, but also plastered them all over his office door!
They totally got him on this one!
Great surprise!

2-15-2010 Monday - Drew's NYC Trip!

Because Holly had her voice competition, she was unable to go on her Drama Club trip to New York City. But her drama teacher, Kathy Harris, let Drew go instead!
He was always a favorite of hers!
Here's some of what they did...

They went to Times Square!

They went to the M&M's Store!

They went to Radio City Music Hall and saw the Rocketts!

Drew Imagined...

They walked through snowy Central Park!

They saw where the Twin Towers used to be...

They visited the Stock Exchange...

And last but not least, they went to Drew's favorite NYC restaurant, John's Pizzeria in Soho!