Bless This Mess

As some, or all, of you know, Ashley’s been taking violin for the last 7 months.  She’s been getting up and going to school 45 minutes early every Tuesday and Thursday (minus holidays) to take these classes.

Her teacher figured that after taking time to tune all the violins, they practiced together a total of 27 hours.

Ashley has loved it!  Hasn’t loved the practicing so much, but she does love knowing how to play the violin.  And I must say, it’s helped with her piano!

She had 3 performances that day.  Two during school for the various grades and one that evening for the parents.  These first 2 pictures were taken during one of the school performances.  She was on the back row.  Now, if you know anything about orchestras and where they sit, I have to put this info in.  None of the kids are sitting according to “chair”, meaning they weren’t placed according to their ability with the better being in front.  According to Ashley’s teacher, she’s one of the best in her class.  She’s just sitting on the back row cause that’s where she was sitting when they made the seating arrangements.

But that’s why these pictures are blurry.  She was on the back row and I need a telephoto lens.  These pictures are really cropped.

These next pictures are of the evening performance.

Wonderful form (I think).

As you can probably tell, we got there really really early for front row seats!  So we had time to goof off.

Grandma was able to come!

Walking on stage!

Ashley with her amazing teacher, Mrs. B.

This video if of the finale song where both the beginners and intermediate (5th graders) played together.  You’ll hear the piano, which I think helps, and some percussion instruments, played by adults (who didn’t really know what they were doing).  But over all, I think the orchestra sounded great!

Sorry you can’t see Ashley’s face very well, but at least the kid who was supposed to sit in front of her wasn’t there, so I was able to get a little bit of her face!

Enjoy!