Congratulations Elliot!

After years of learning the piano, we were finally brave enough to enter our first competition. Congratulations to Elliot for being one of the prizewinners at the UMT piano competition! We were probably more nervous than he was! The $70 prize money also came in handy...I would have uploaded a video of him playing if I had actually managed to get a good video. Oops..

A proud teacher!

Waiting to start

Elliot's cheer squad!

What better way to celebrate than enjoying chocolate treats at Max Brenner!

My favourite...the chocolate souffle

The classic Belgian waffle...yum

Musical Moments

Its that time of the year...concert time! We've had ballet, band, strings, choir, piano, plays...multiple that by three and that's a busy concert schedule! I shall not bore you with details of all but here are a few highlights. Or least highlights where I had obtained some sort of footage!

Lara playing the double bass as the fairy godmother, her character in the class play

Jonah just missed out graduation from Level 1 this year, but did complete Book 1 and thus was able to play in his first recital outside of his teacher's studio. For a moment, I thought he would decline to play as he stuffed his hands in his pockets. But play he did! Phew!

A very proud Jonah with his certificate

Lara and Elliot completed Levels 3 and 6 respectively and had the privilege of performing at the graduation recital at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. I am so proud of all three children and looking forward to hopefully having all three play at the same concert next year!

The $300,000 plus Steinway concert grand at the East Recital Hall of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Oh what a beautiful instrument! It made my children sound so good...

79 Days To Go

All good intentions of blogging a post at 80 days out from our European adventure got thrown out the window last night. As I suffered physically through the day, I had to lament at my less than desirable state of fitness. How is it possible to still have residual aches and pains from only 1 hour of bush dancing that happened 3 days ago? As we inched towards our departure date, I realised that it was time I relinquished some control. I was not achieving much with regard to organisation and so I welcomed the help of another procrastinator in the form of my dear husband. He had inherited the role of shore excursion co-ordinator a few weeks ago.
So far the move has proven to be a good one. In Cyprus, we will be visiting a UNESCO listed village on donkeyback where they still make their own haloumi. We will be learning about typical village life which include ‘dancing, cooking and eating’. In Turkey, we will be visiting a castle, canyons, and having a massage. He was most excited to find a private tour operator by the name of Digger Dan in Israel, a man with a similar sense of humour to himself who offered the most interesting tours. I especially love his page on payment. Unfortunately, he was sorely disappointed to discover that the services of Digger Dan has been snapped up by someone else for the day. Digger Dan has recommended a friend and I hope he or she is just as good.
The plan is to hike towards the pyramids of Giza and Cairo from Port Said, and to tour the Alexandria whilst in port. Tour operators are yet to be determined.
As an aside, the children had another concert last evening. Both children sang well, and Elliot gave a wonderful performance of Bach's Minuets and Gigue on the piano. The children were very happy to have nanna and grandpa watch them. Unfortunately, this rather slack mother forgot to take video footage. Even photographs were forgotten...sigh

Sing A Song

Last minute ticket, not too bad a seat!

Last evening, I had the opportunity to spend some treasured mother and daughter time with Lara. Elliot had auditioned successfully for the school's Arts North choir. The grandparents were still around at that time and happily went to watch him perform at the Sydney Town Hall. Lara had also auditioned successfully to be part of the combined choir for the Festival of Children's Music concert. The choir comprised of children from  choirs of local public schools. Select performing arts groups such as dance troupes, vocal ensembles, string ensembles and bands also took part in the concert.

With both sets of grandparents away, mother had to step up to the plate! I was too happy to arrange to leave work early. The two boys were eager to stay at home with the promise of having chicken nuggets for dinner. Seeing as Lara had to be at the concert venue by 6pm, we took it as a valid excuse to have dinner out together.

We took the train from North Ryde station and alighted at the next stop...Chatswood. We walked around to find the Japanese eatery that took our fancy the most. Lara settled on a new ramen house that we had not tried before. As we were only the second table in the house, the food came very quickly! We munched away happily whilst playing around with the various photography apps on my iPhone.

Lara's choice of dinner venue

The funky interior. Playing around with iPhone apps! This one taken with pudding cam

Lara's dinner...Chashu ramen. Puddingcam again

Kaarage-don. Yum! Plain old iphone camera this time!

It was then time to cross the road to The Concourse, where the concert was going to be held. What used to be a collection of old and dingy buildings had been turned into a wonderful complex consisting of a concert hall, theatre, library, restaurants and shops. It was a far cry from what was there when I was a teenage girl!

The Concourse

After dropping Lara off with her teacher, I had time to give myself a treat. ZenQ was conveniently across the road from the concert hall. Ah...it was bliss to enjoy some dessert with husband or children getting in the way! I went for my favourite grass jelly, milk pudding and pearls. With my stomach sated, I strolled in to the concert hall.

How doesn't love grass jelly, milk pudding and sago pearls!?!?! Instagram photo

I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the performances. Most of all, I was proud of Lara for singing with so much gusto. My only regret was not having a video camera to capture all the shoulder heaving, head movements, wide open mouth and those oh so expressive eyes! She really took our family motto of "singing with glory" seriously!

The concert stage and the wonderful children. The band from Pymble Public School was awesome! LOVED the drummer.

The two hours flew by and we were picked up for a ride home. Stay tuned for more concert news...

Concert At The Opera House

It was that time of year again...Elliot had graduated from Book 3 of Suzuki piano! So it was off to the Opera House for a graduation recital. The whole family went, along with Lanella, Oma and Opa to watch Elliot perform. I was rather nervous about Jonah's ability to sit through a whole concert without creating a fuss and I wasn't disappointed. I tried to pretend that I was not the parent of "that" child who kept shouting "I want food" multiple times during the performances. The same child, who when not shouting, was banging things loudly together. Lanella kindly came to the rescue and took him out for a walk in the Botanical Gardens.

Elliot did extremely well, considering that another child performed his piece near perfectly before him. We were very proud! So much so that I forgot to take a photo when he was performing. I was probably more nervous than he was. Alright, so I was nervous and he wasn't.

It will be interesting to see how Lara will go when her turn comes around...

Taking photos at the forecourt whilst waiting for the Opera House to open its doors

A reward for the whole family after the concert! Still reeling over a coffee costing $5...

The cause of my biggest angst that day!

Lara enjoying the treat