Merry Christmas!

We went to Grandma and Grandpa's house for Christmas Eve dinner. It is traditional in the Pinelli family to have fish for Christmas Eve dinner, so we ordered luncheon specials from a fish takeout restaurant. It was delicious!

We celebrated Christmas day at our house. Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Dina came to our house early in the morning to spend the day. Michael was soo excited to open his presents - it was more interesting to watch him open his gifts than it was to open our own! After our gifts were opened, we had cinnamon rolls, baked oatmeal, and PB & J muffins. The rest of the day was spent watching new videos, playing games, playing with new toys, eating, and basically just enjoying each other's company.

Our Christmas Decorations

Here are our Christmas decorations, both indoor and outdoor.

I love this decoration we found of Charlie Brown, Linus, and the Christmas tree. This is what it looked like when we first put it up.

Six days before Christmas, it looked like this. We got 18 inches of snow!

Michael's school picture

Here is Michael's Fourth Grade picture. Doesn't he look great with braces and glasses?

Rest in Peace, Mikey O

I remember going to my first music theory class at Ithaca College and sitting next to a cute and very nice guy who turned out to be a very good friend all through college. We were in pretty much all of the same classes together except for band and orchestra( he played the euphonium, and I play the violin) He passed away of a heart attack today. I am very sad, but I am also glad that he is in a better place. My prayers are with his family.

Day of Alternative String Styles

Tony, Nicholas, Michael, and I participated in a day of Alternative String Styles, hosted by the American String Teachers Association. We learned how to improvise in different styles - blues, jazz, Indian, rock and roll. Musicians like Bridgid Bibbens, Michael Coffey, Mike Bloch, and Steven Uh were the clinicians. At the end of the day, there was a concert, where the clinicians showed off their various styles and invited the students to join them. Michael played a solo with Steven Uh, and Nicholas played a solo with Bridgid Bibbens' group. It was a great day!

Veteran's Day Performance

Tony and Michael performed with the Metrognomes at the VA Hospital on Veteran's Day. It was a great performance!

Carving Pumpkins

Tony helped Michael carve his pumpkin for Halloween. Michael was very proud of it!

Homecoming 2009

I have a few pictures to catch up on. Here are a few pictures of my students at the Homecoming parade.

Fundraiser for Hospice House

Nicholas and Michael played with their teacher's violin group, the Metrognomes, at a concert to benefit the local Hospice House. Their teacher's sister is a dancer, who joined the children along with her dance partner, to entertain the audience. I hope you enjoy the performances!

This song is called the "Taka Taka Polka". While the children were playing, the dancers were dancing around in the audience. I tried to catch them on this video, but had no luck.

Check back through the week for more videos!

Celebrating Fall!

To begin our Columbus Day weekend, we went to the Outback for dinner. Nicholas built this card house using the coasters.

The next day, we went shopping for Halloween decorations. We didn't buy this skull, but Michael had fun modelling with it!

Surprise!

I woke up yesterday morning at 7 a.m. to get ready for church. I heard my cell phone beep. It's not uncommon for me to have someone call me on Sunday morning to ask for me to fill in and teach their Sunday School or Primary class, so I thought nothing of it.

After I got ready for church, we were eating breakfast, and Tony reminded me to check my phone. As you have probably guessed, it wasn't somebody from church - it was Faline. She and her family had an 8-hour layover at JFK, and wanted to know if they could spend a few hours with us. It was short, but a wonderful visit!

Faline, Glen, Carson, Shanda, Jason, Tegan, Janica, and Kierra all came to visit us. Tony cooked a pork butt in his new smoker he got for his birthday. It was delicious!
Janica couldn't take all the excitement, and fell asleep in our guest room.

Kierra loved playing with Michael's robot and other stuffed animals.

Tegan, Carson, Nicholas, and Michael had fun playing in our basement.

We had a great time visiting with everybody! Shanda and Faline have some great ideas about our reunion at Disney. I am very excited about having a Grand Gathering while we're there, and we will definitely look into it!

So many times, the moments that are unexpected are the nicest. Thank you, Faline and family, for making our Sunday so wonderful!

Camping

The week after ASTA camp was our camping trip. Nicholas went to Boy Scout camp,

Michael went to Cub Scout day camp,

and Tony and I just camped.(This is the inside of our pop-up camper)

Well, we didn't just camp. We drove around the East End, went to lunch one day, we went shopping(and found some great deals!), and Tony helped out at Nicholas' Scout camp for one day. The day that Tony helped out, the Scoutmasters had a "Scoutmaster Shootout" at the rifle range. I happened to be there when he had to pick his team member, so guess who he picked. That's right - me! We called ourselves "the Sharps"(get the play on words? "sharp musicians" and "sharpshooters") I have never shot a rifle before in my life! so the Rifle instructor brought us to the rifle range to give us some lessons. Here's a picture of me shooting a .22:

Now my brothers and sisters know that I have amblyopia, or "lazy eye", which means my eyes don't focus well together at all. To shoot this .22, however, I only needed my right eye(that's my good eye) to look through the sight at the target. I was absolutely amazed that out of 10 shots, I got 5 shots in the bullseye area! I know, I know, it must have been beginner's luck.

Well, that afternoon was the shootout contest. The target was a picture of billiard balls. Each team was assigned to shoot out the middle of their ball number, and whichever team got the closest grouping of shots together won the contest. Tony went first, and did pretty well. His 5 shots were all within an inch of each other. Then my turn came, and I managed to shoot all 5 of my shots in-between Tony's. I was pretty impressed with myself! Now, you would think that all of these Scoutmasters who have been at rifle ranges numerous times would be excellent marksmen. I didn't see how everyone did, but the teams' results I did see were much further apart than ours were. Needless to say, when we went to visit Nicholas the next day, his Scoutmaster told us that Tony and I won the shootout. I'm still shocked about it! Tony told me that because of my cross-stitching and sewing, I am able to keep my eyes and hands steady and focussed. I don't know if I'll go to a rifle range again, but I must admit that I kind of enjoyed myself!

ASTA Camp

The first week we were away, we went to ASTA(American String Teachers Camp). Tony taught the bass students and some chamber groups, and Nicholas was a camper at the camp. We reached Ithaca on Saturday, and had a few hours before Tony had to go to meetings. So we took advantage of the time, and went to Upper Buttermilk Falls, and then to Lower Buttermilk so the boys could swim. Michael went right in, but Nicholas said the water was too cold. I couldn't argue with him one bit, because I remember how cold the Falls water is! Besides, we've been having a relatively cool summer, so it's been hard for the water to warm up at all.

On Sunday, while Tony was in teacher meetings, Nicholas, Michael, and I went to church at the Ithaca Ward. It was nice to see old friends!

While Tony and Nicholas were at camp, Michael and I went to see some of the LDS Church History sites. We visited the Joseph Smith home, the Hill Cumorah, the Peter Whitmer farm, and the E. B. Grandin print shop, where the first 5000 copies of the Book of Mormon were printed. The print shop was Michael's favorite site, because he loves to read, and he was fascinated to find out how books are made. We also went to a children's science museum, called the Sciencenter, with some friends from my high school.

At the end of the week was the Chamber recitals and the concert. Nicholas' quartet made it into the Honors Chamber recital. They played "Sunshine of Your Love", and sounded really good!

The last day of the camp was the orchestra concert.

I'll post videos when I can!

Michael's Wildlife Conservation Project

As part of the Wildlife Conservation Award for Cub Scouts, our pack had to do a project that helped the local wildlife. One of the men in our branch has a woodworking shop, and he helped the boys make screech owl houses. Then the boys went to a local preservation farm and had a presentation about the screech owl's habitat, and they helped put up the houses on the trees. Check back for more information and pictures on this project!

Girls' Night Out!

The girls from our branch Relief Society got together and went to a concert at the local town park. We had a good time!

Our Summer Vacation 2009

We started our vacation by getting up early on Monday morning and driving to Hershey. We spent the day in the park. For those of you who have not been to Hershey, PA I highly recommend it! There are 11 roller-coasters and lots of other rides. There's even a waterpark, too! My personal favorite was a water ride called "East Coast Waterworks". We couldn't take pictures there, because we didn't have a waterproof camera. There was water spraying, pouring, and flowing everywhere! We were soaked! After the water park section, we dried off and enjoyed the other sections of the park - lunch, roller-coasters, a sea lion show, and of course, Chocolate World, where we got some free chocolate!

Monday night was spent in a hotel, then we got up on Tuesday to drive to Philadelphia. We saw the Liberty Bell - a historical landmark that I highly recommend, Independence Hall(the outside of it, anyway. The tours were sold out by the time we got there), Congress Hall, the Betsy Ross home, and the original printed versions of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

After a few hours in Philadelphia, we drove to Atlantic City for the next two nights of our vacation. We walked on the Boardwalk, ate at Johnny Rocket's and the Hard Rock Cafe, Nicholas rode go-carts, and we played on the beach. We had a great time!

More Baseball pictures

My sister-in-law Dina sent me these pictures, so I created another collage for your enjoyment.

Baseball take 2

Here's another view of the pictures.