Wednesday, January 12, 2022

Honors Chorus with Grandma and Grandpa Sweat

When Whit made Honors Chorus her sophomore year, it was truly the best high school concert I've ever attended. It was THRILLING. I wished so badly that more people could have been there to enjoy it. When I talked to Barb about that (back in 2019), we decided that she and Grandpa would come out if Whit made it again. Of course, there were no big chorus events in 2020 because of the COVID pandemic. So when I found out that Whit made Honors Chorus this year, Barb and I immediately started making plans. And I'm so glad we did! It ended up being a CRAZY weekend for our family with me being gone to States in Wilmington and Andrew having stake conference with a visiting authority (Elder Galt). So, Grandma and Grandpa saved the day. They drove Whitney all around Winston-Salem. They got a hotel up there and stayed with her two nights. And they got to take her out for fun dinners. Plus, they got to be tourists around Winston while Whit was singing her heart out with the rest of the best high school singers in the state.

Since I was off playing tennis with my friends, I don't even have any pics of the fun that Whit had with her Grandparents. But I'm SO thankful they could be here for us and help drive Whit around. She technically could've driven herself, but she's not comfortable with freeway driving and it would've been super stressful for her.


Here's the one pic Grandma sent me of their hotel room.
It was a great little home-away-from-home for the weekend.

Whit's last Honors Chorus

So proud of her for how hard she works on her voice.

She was the only one from Penn-Griffin who made it.

On the back row of course.
Such is the life of the tall Sweats.

The cream of the crop!
The concert was GREAT.
Not quite as good as her sophomore year, though.
That year it was in a theatre with better acoustics, so
I'm sure that's part of the reason why.
Also, for sophomore year, a professional team recorded
the whole event and then you could order a DVD of it at the end.
To me, that was SO worth it,
both to have a hard copy AND so that I didn't have to watch
my phone during the concert and could just enjoy it.
There were fancy cameras set up this year, so I assumed
it would be the same way.
But it wasn't.
No DVD was offered.
And I didn't record a single moment of the concert.
So you'll just have to believe me that it was fantastic.

Both Clarice (her voice teacher) and Mr. Small
(her high school chorus teacher) were there.
I'm so happy Whit has these talented people in her corner.

And, of course, she always has her family as her biggest fans.

Oh, I'll miss having her angelic voice in our house!

She did a little singing at the piano with Grandma.

We showed Dad and Mom the VR.
Dad got a little sick from the flight simulator.

We were afraid Mom might fall down, so
we had her sit down like she was in the cockpit.

Also, I forgot to take any pictures, but Grandma and Grandpa were able to come to the Sunday session of Stake Conference and hear Andrew speak. I'm so happy they could be here for that.

On Monday, the girls went back to school and Andrew had work,
so I took Mom and Dad on a little day trip.
We stopped at the Old Mill of Guilford.
It was a cute little fun stop.

Then we drove up to Mayo River State Park
to the do the super short hike to this waterfall.
It was a beautiful day for a hike.

We had the trail to ourselves.

We also stopped by Lake Higgins to go for a little walk
and take in some of the pretty leaves that are still hanging around.

Love spending time with Barb and Dennis.

On Monday night, they took us out to an early
birthday dinner for Andrew.
Whit had to work, so she couldn't join us.
We went to Sarah's Kebob Shop.
Yum! Caroline had never been and she's a fan.

I'm sad we didn't get to do a beach trip with Grandma and Grandpa this year, but I'm so happy we had this short, fun, helpful visit with them. Love any time we can share with them!

Saturday, January 8, 2022

Grayson Highlands 2021

 Our girls' school district always has a teacher workday near Halloween. We used to go to Pilot Mountain, which was a perfect little getaway when the kids were younger. The last couple of years, we've ventured a little further to Grayson Highlands, a state park in Virginia. That's where we decided to go again this year. Oh, that place is magical. I love it so much.

Some amazing log cabin mansion that we passed along the way

Welcome to Virginia!

Gorgeous!



Seriously?
I couldn't get enough of these views.
They feed my soul somehow.

We stopped at the little store when you first enter the park
to use the restroom and the girls wanted to get this plush
pony from the vending machine there. They named it
"Cream Puff" and had so much fun with it on our hike.

Autumn Splendor

The girls and Cream Puff getting ready
to start the Rhododendron Trail.
This is the PERFECT hike.
It's about two and a half miles with around 300 feet of elevation gain.
It takes us about an hour and a half...

because we spend time checking out the ponies!
Wild ponies!

They are SO cute!

Care Bear introduced Cream Puff.

So far, we've come here three times and have
seen the ponies each time we've come.


This time we also saw a boulder-er hiking down with his crash pad.
Made us think of B-train.




Hanging out with teenagers is the best.

Whitney soaking up some rays.
It was a GORGEOUS October day.




More action pics of Cream Puff.

And me. Ha! :)

Oh, how I love spending time with these people.
I'll miss Whitney when she moves out next year!

Love the beautiful rolling hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

While we were in the area,
we decided to take Drew to Doe Run Farms,
the awesome sunflower maze the girls
and I discovered last year.
Jumped on the pillow for a bit.

Then started on the maze.

Cream Puff came along for some photo ops.

Such a fun place!

We also love shooting their apple launcher.
It reminds us of a Survivor challenge.
Care Bear actually hit the edge of the trash
can target this time. You win a free pumpkin
if you get one in. We told the lady that C got HALF
of one in and she said that counted. :)

We were also introduced to the donkeys this year.
Their at the far end of the apple-shooting field,
so we picked up apples along the way to feed them.

I brought along my good camera to snap some pics
of the cute girls among the sunflowers.




And also snuck over to the zinnia field
to snap some pics there.


We stopped for dinner at our favorite little diner in
Mount Airy, Walker's Soda Fountain. Yum.

It's hard to imagine that next year, we'll only have C at home for the Teacher Workday!
In the meantime, we're making all the memories that we can with these two.