Variety Show

Kianna chose Theater as her elective this semester and that has led her to make new theater friends. Her and her new friends have joined the Variety Show where Kianna signed up to sing. She originally was signed up to sing a solo, duet and ensemble with five other people. All her songs were from the new musical, "Six", which we watched on the cruise ship.

This experience was filled with highs and lows. The lows being when her solo and duet were cut three weeks prior to the show. A high being when Kaylee, unbeknownst to Kianna, emailed her theater teacher begging that she reconsider adding her solo and duet back into the show. She told the teacher that this shows been the highlight of Kianna's week, in the midst of a very challenging semester. Three hours after cutting her song, the teacher emailed Kianna letting her know that her solo was back in the show. 

However, a week later, despite lots of effort on Kianna's part, her solo was again cut after the teacher had made her change songs. This time, it was more of a relief, since she was having a hard time getting the new song down. 

Tonight, despite all the highs and lows, Kianna gave an awesome performance. We are so proud of her stepping out of her comfort zone and singing on stage for the first time in many years. Kianna has a gorgeous voice! There's rumor about her trying out for the spring play, "Little Women". We love watching our girl use her God given talents.

Kaylee's 18th Birthday

For Kaylee's 18th birthday, we began celebrating a couple days prior with the new Black Panther movie on Thursday night. Then on Friday, we took Kaylee and her friend, Izzy out to dinner to Carmines Coal Fire Pizza for some delicious Italian food. Then on Saturday, we rented a boat and invited Izzy, Stacie and Patrick to join us on the pontoon. Unfortunately, about an hour into our ride we had an unexpected event happen to Stacie. We had just gotten out of the boat and were venturing out to the sandbar, when Stacie fell backwards into a pipe that was in the water. The pipe was very sharp as it was covered by barnacles which left Stacie with a huge 6" x 1" gash on her left calf. Once she saw her leg, she began freaking out and started going into shock. The other boaters were great and helped us get a tourniquet around her leg and get her into our boat. We headed back to our car, but unfortunately we were 40 minutes away.

Once there, we helped get her into the backseat and Patrick took her to the ER. The wait was terrible and they wouldn't let Patrick be with her. It was very frustrating for them. Hours later, she got 22 stitches.

In the meantime, we still had the boat for two more hours, so we got back on the boat and putseed around until our time was up. However, Stacie's injury was still very heavy on our hearts.

Once off the boat, Stacie and Patrick rejoined us for Kaylee's favorite pasta, Penne Pasta with Sun-Dried Tomatoes, Spinach and Sausage; and favorite dessert, Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Cake with peanut butter frosting and to open presents. Kaylee received a very special gold cross necklace with pearls on it for her milestone birthday. She loved it!

We're so proud of Kaylee and the beautiful woman she has become. We loved celebrating her!!! 

 

Family Pictures

 

We had our family pictures taken at Coral Cove. However, it happened to be just a few days before Hurricane Ian, so it was super windy. We didn't get any great ones of the five of us, but got some other good ones.