Hide and Seek with a Service Dog

When you have a service dog in your house sometimes little things make you realize how different life in your family can be.

Last night for example the kids were all playing hide and seek and having fun. Well suddenly I heard Ellie, call Ava then heard, "Ava find Jairon." Ellie then proceeded to use Ava to find the rest of her brothers she was unable to find.

Next round, Zach followed and used Ava again to find his well hidden and missing siblings. This same pattern continued on for quite a while as a very happy Ava followed each child and helped to find those that were hidden for the hide and seek game. When you add a service dog that LOVES finding kids scattered and hidden throughout the house, hiding becomes quite the challenge.

Yes, I just sat back giggling as the kids and puppy dog played hide and seek with each other.

Jade is back from her marching band trip. More details later, but how did they score? Well parade and field show 1st place and excellent ratings and overall champion for parade band. Jazz and concert bands all got superior ratings! During their stay in Atlanta Georgia, the kids got to see the Zoo, Aquarium, CNN Studio, Agatha's Murder Mystery Dinner Theater, and of course, Six Flags!

Way to go bands!!!

Zach and Ellie Performances and Auditions 3/28/15

For a while now Ellie has been taking singing lessons and has been doing amazing. Additionally she and her brother have been attending musical theater classes with TheaterWorks Live here in the area and LOVING the classes.

This spring they focuses on songs from the Secret Garden, Newsies, and Music Man. The kids worked on working together as a group in a short dance, and working as individuals in their group songs while singing together.

Well a couple weeks ago Ellie's voice teacher told us about the Wizard of Oz audition that just happened to be the same day the kids were preforming their theater show. Yesterday Zach and Ellie had a very long day, especially Ellie. Since Ellie was already not feeling well on Thursday, we kept her home on Friday to try and keep her cough from getting to much worse. Well, at least for Saturday.

The kids had to be up by 6:30 in the morning so they could shower, dress, eat, get meds, and Ellie get her nebulizer treatments before leaving. The first surprise meeting us before leaving the house was the beautiful snow falling. We loaded everything up that was needed, then dropped Celidah off at her camp meeting and met the rest of the kids off at the school and do their final rehearsals.

All the TheaterWorks Live kids did an amazing job and had a lot of fun on stage.

Zach with his two TheaterWorks buddies

Introduction to Musical Theater 1 group

Seize the Day from Newsies

The Girl [Kid] I Mean To Be for The Secret Garden

Wouldn't It Be Loverly from My Fair Lady

Once we were finished there, Zach, Ellie, and I had lunch, explored the local dollar store, one of Ellie's favorite grocery stores because they carry fun treats she can eat, then headed over to the audition. The kids were given their paperwork to fill out themselves and their numbers. While waiting, both kids were so excited to see a good number of their friends from their musical theater classes at the audition. As the kids were both going into and coming out of their group auditions all the kids were wishing each other good luck.

Once their numbers and names were called they were called called first to learn to learn a simple dance, then moved from the dancing room to the auditorium where they sat until they were called up one at a time to sing their song.

I am not sure how long they were actually in the room learning the dance and waiting their turn to sing, but when the kids came out Ellie came running out with a huge smile and gave me a super high, high five saying "I nailed it mom, they LOVE my voice". She was exhausted from her long day but on cloud nine because she nailed and they loved her. Poor Zach on the other hand, slowly walked out in tears. He said he nailed the dance, but froze and forgot his song when he stood there and saw the judges and all the kids looking at him. He told me I started out really good then just forgot.

This was Zach's first audition like this. So we talked a bit about how the first time is always the hardest and the worst. Ellie even told him how she forgot her song that she knew on her first audition too.