One of my favorite middle school events in the years before COVID was the Chinese New Years Assembly. Put together by my amazing friend and colleague, Neil Bray, it features music and skits by students and culminates in a lion dance by a local family troupe (the Ha family). This year, we were happy to have the Ha family back at school for an in-person event. I caught a bit of the dance on video:
Tag Archives: video
Volleyball 2022
Griffin has had a great season with his volleyball team this fall. The team has been unfailingly positive even in the face of defeat. (Though they’ve done better this season than last year, with a few decisive victories and many close matches.) It’s been a joy to watch them duke it out on the court every week.
Here’s a short video at the tail end of one of their closest games. Alas, after getting 1 point from victory, they were ultimately defeated, 25-27.
Circus + Horses
In addition to her regular circus classes, Maggie has started taking equestrian circus classes. Today, she practiced standing on two horses at once!
Griffin’s First Band Concert
Griffin has been taking a piano for a few years. This year he started learning the trombone as part of the music program at St. Paul Academy. He played in his first concert this evening. He sounded good and, more importantly, had a great time.
The beginners joined the full band for two pieces. Griffin is on the rightmost bottom seat in the two videos below.
Tetris
Griffin’s latest stop motion creation.
Stop Motion
Griffin, Maggie, and Oliver have been experimenting with stop-motion animation with legos. This is a sample of one of their works-in-progress.
Maggie and Walnut
Maggie spent a week this summer at Camp St. Croix with a focus on horseback riding. She loved it enough that she signed up for continuing weekend lessons this fall. The video below shows her riding Walnut.
Piper’s Frenemy
The newest member of our family is a robot vacuum cleaner. Piper has kept her distance until this morning when she realized that she might be able to play with the interloper.
I would be remiss not to mention how infatuated we are with the new cleaner—known as “Robo 3000” in our house. (The number changes depending who is saying it.) It is actually a “eufy” RoboVac 11S by Anker. It was one of the cheapest we could find but it has been a household revolution.
Griffin’s First Piano Recital
Griffin has been taking weekly piano lessons at the Walker West Music Academy since February of 2019. He had a few lessons in person and then, as the state locked down for COVID-19 in mid-March, started doing them remotely via Skype. He had his first recital yesterday evening; it was a virtual event where he played “Oh! Susanna.” One fun element of the virtual format was that friends and relatives from around the country could attend. We hope that he will get a chance to do more of these. See below for a trimmed video of Griffin’s portion of the recital. Listen for Oliver who makes an unintended cameo part-way through.
The full recital is available on YouTube. The audio gets a bit funky due to the streaming, but it’s fun to see all the different kids at different levels of skill.