We had plans for all sorts of ramblings this past weekend. Saturday was a nice day at home. Haley's fiddling buddy Paraic came over so they could practice together and share some tunes. Sunday, Haley and Dylan had a gig in Shipbottom at the Irish Festival then we were going to drive to Plough because the owner had planned to make a cake to celebrate Haley's All Ireland wins.
Well, plans changed early Sunday morning when Haley came screaming and crying into my room with a tiny bit of a toothpick sticking out of her foot. I picked her up onto the sink counter and Ritch pulled the toothpick out but it was not a whole toothpick. A little less than an inch was missing and we had no way of knowing if the toothpick was whole when it went into her foot. So, we picked her up and took her to the emergency room. We arrived at the ER at 8:30am. They were not busy so took her right back. She went to x-ray (which would not show wood) then to CAT scan (which showed an opacity) so they assumed there was more wood in Haley's foot. The orthopedic surgeon was called and since he had a couple more cases, Haley couldn't have surgery until 5pm.
Haley posed for this picture. They hooked her up to antibiotics and a saline drip since she could not have anything to eat before surgery. At 5pm they took her down to the OR. When talking to the anesthesiologist he let us know Haley would need general anesthesia because she had eaten some pretzels at 11am but if we waited another two hours, she could be sedated instead. We chose to wait.
Here we are waiting.
The anesthesiologist came in around 7pm. He asked Haley if she was afraid and she said, "A little."
He told her he had a little "liquid courage" in his pocket then put some in her IV and told her she'd have a big smile on her face in 10 sec. Ten seconds later, there came the smile and giggles so they wheeled her away. Haley's surgery went well. She was a champ! An hour later she was out. They hadn't found the almost one inch piece of wood but looked all around where it might possibly have been. They took out some small splinters and bits of tissue that had been damaged, stitched her up, and she came out.
It was almost 9:30pm before we got home. Haley was excited to use her crutches and very hungry. She had a nice block in her foot so slept well all night until about 5:30am. I gave her pain meds and she couldn't fall back to sleep so we got up. She made it the rest of the day with only Aleve. She did her school work on the couch with her foot up, figured out "having" to use crutches is not as fun as she thought it might be, and practiced violin sitting in a chair with her foot up.
We figured out how to wrap her foot in plastic and got her a bath. She had more pain last night so I gave her another strong pill before bed. This morning she woke up happy...saying she could feel her toes again. She has another day with no weight bearing then tomorrow she can start putting weight on the foot.
We kept up with Algebra and reading through the summer until the last month then last week we started schooling-lite. Now it is time to get back into the swing of schooling even with the music stuff not slowing down much on the weekends. Orchestra starts back up next Friday and the Irish music festivals for fall are filling up most weekend days for the next six weeks.
But back to school we go....here's the plan for the next year for Haley.
Math:
Finish up Saxon Algebra 1 and Life of Fred Algebra
Language Arts: (I am piecing this together for my girl who likes to write and some review work on poetry now that she's older. Will work our way through all these through the year.)
Seize the Story by Victoria Hanley
Writing Magic by Gail Carson Levine
Wordsmith by Pamela Arlov
Best Poems
Building Poems by Michael Clay Thompson
Editor in Chief
Vocabulary from Classical Roots
History: (My history plans got interrupted last year when Haley started a Civil War unit study in December so we are back to Ancients...will review what we started last year and then keep going.)
World History the Human Odyssey by Jackson Spielvogel
The History of the Ancient World by Susan Wise Bauer
World Literature text
History Portfolio: Ancients
Science: Biology (A homeschooling mother on the WTM boards has a syllabus for biology we will be following somewhat but we are using Thinkwell as our spine.)
Thinkwell Biology
Exploring the Way Life Work: The Science of Biology
Biology Inquiries by Martin Shields
Biology Coloring Workbook
The Nature of Life: Readings in Biology
Sciencewise: Critical Thinking Books
Music:
Besides violin lessons, fiddle lessons, practice, gigs, and orchestra (which is probably enough music for anyone)....
The Great Courses: Understanding the Fundamentals of Music
The Language and Materials of Music
Bach, Beethoven, and the Boys by David Barber
Art:
Artistic Pursuits (We've tried this before but never finished the whole book.)
Discovering Great Artists by Kohl and Solga
Cave Paintings to Picasso by Sayre
Masterpieces Coloring Book
Languages:
Rosetta Stone Spanish (possibly some Gaelic) and Haley has shown some interest in French as well after our weekend in Quebec.
First Form Latin
Other:
Critical Thinking books like similar to Cranium Crackers and Case of Red Herring.
Haley has had a lot of amazing opportunities this year and this past weekend was no exception. We have been looking forward to this weekend since John called last winter to invite Haley to play with him at Carrefour Mondial de l'accordeon in Montmagny, Quebec. Carrefour is a huge accordion festival featuring accordion players from all over the world playing every genre of accordion music imaginable.
Haley and I flew to Quebec Friday afternoon where a driver picked us up to take us to Montmagny. We met a couple musicians from Alberta in the van...luckily they spoke English and one spoke a bit of French so he was able to communicate with the driver. Our flight had gotten in early so we went straight to supper in the hotel where we found John and he introduced Haley to a number of musicians.
We then checked into our room then headed off to the festival's opening concert where we heard amazing musicians from Russia, Italy, France, England, and Boston. We had to sit in a viewing room for musicians where the concert was shown on a screen because it was sold out. I was amazed at the crowd in the observation room...all the musicians coming to watch and support each other. Even though the musicians performing could not hear, everyone in the observation room clapped and bravo'd each performance then congratulated the performer when they came back into the room.
After the evening performance there was a reception where the president of the festival gave a speech and thanked everyone, I think....it was in French. We went back to the hotel around midnight and headed to bed.
Saturday morning we woke fairly early and went to breakfast at a little restaurant near the hotel. We ran into John and Elizabeth on their way to breakfast on our way back to the hotel. We went back so Haley could practice a bit while they ate then we all headed into the main part of town...just a short walk...to see the festival. We watched some performances on outdoor stages and checked out the offerings of the vendors before heading back to the hotel for lunch. Lunch was followed by working out a set list for the evening performance then walking back into town to watch some dancing to accordion music on the main outdoor stage before supper time.
After supper, a driver took us back into the old part of town where John, Paddy, and Haley had a sound check. Then they went over the set list with Paddy who'd just arrived, changed up a few things to tunes he likes to play, and got dressed for the performance.
Haley had never performed with Paddy and John before. She had played with John and his band but it was a debut performance for the trio. They were wonderful together. The sound was perfect and the venue intimate. They received two standing ovations after the show. Haley's new accordion playing friend, Pietro, our new friends from the van ride to the festival, and a number of other musicians came out to support them as well. After the show, we walked over to the restaurant where the late night musician jam session was supposed to be but it was late getting started and Haley was tired from her late night on Friday and early rising this morning so we didn't stay long enough to hear the music. They told us it started not long after we left which was 11:15pm.
Pietro congratulating Haley on her performance!
Sunday morning we had to get up early again for an early morning sound check and morning concert. During the sound check they worked out the set list for the morning show...only a 25 minute show.
The trio heading to their morning sound check.
I love this picture of Haley so had to add it.
Sunday morning performance.
The Sunday morning performance sounded even better than the night before which I didn't think was possible. They received another two standing ovations. Haley and John played a lovely duet of Grosse Ile, a slow air composed by John for the island near Montmagny where thousands of Irish immigrants were quarantined when coming to Canada and many died. I added a link above so you can read the sad story of the island and Haley and John's duet is below along with a set of jigs.
Haley and John thought they might add some ballet into their next performance.
Haley asking John if he'll teach her accordion while visiting one of the many accordion shops at the festival.
Sunday after they finished playing, we went to lunch then back to the festival where we spent hours watching performances on the big outdoor stage. The musicians were all so great! We got some awesome shots of Pietro Adragna performing on the stage Sunday. He is the world champion accordion player and after listening to him...whew! no wonder. He played an amazing rendition of Csardas that he arranged for accordion. Haley thought it was better on accordion than violin.
After supper, Haley and I had some time so we walked to the bridge over the dam for the St. Lawrence River which was about a mile from the hotel. There was a walking/bike path along the river so we took the path back toward the hotel. The sun was setting behind the mountains on the other side of the river and it was simply beautiful out there.
When we finally got far enough on the path to head back toward town near the hotel, we came up behind some buildings and found this big goose! Every year the snow geese come to this part of the St. Lawrence River and they have a festival. This goose float must have been or must be going to be part of one of those festivals.
After our walk we went looking for John in the dining area and ran into Francois, a violinist. He and Haley had been trying to find each other all weekend. They had a little violin/fiddle time...accordion-free...playing Irish music and classical music together then Francois played Haley some music he composed that was Baltic style. (She loved it!) We headed to a concert to watch Gary from Scotland and the Brazilian band (I think most of them are from NY and they are fabulous) then went to the lower level of the high school for some dancing (we danced but it was difficult to follow the instructions in French so a little funny) before heading to the restaurant with the late night musician jam. Haley was going strong this night and looking forward to some music.
The restaurant with the jam had a back room where mostly Irish, Scottish, and French Canadian music was being played. It was packed with accordion players, one fiddle (Haley), a keyboardist, one person playing harmonica, and occasionally Paddy playing banjo or whistle. Haley started to get tired around midnight and decided to play one more set. Then at the end of the set John encouraged her to play a Mason's Apron solo. After that she got her second wind until we dragged her out of there sometime after 1am. On the way out we stopped to listen for a few minutes in the front room where other people were improvising jazz music together.
Monday morning, the festival put on a musical breakfast for the musicians. Some performed while the others ate then after the eating was over, there was dancing...lots of dancers on the floor. Fun!
The musicians at Carrefour.
From the breakfast, they packed those leaving into vans and drove us into Quebec, along the St. Lawrence, then on a driving tour through the old part of the city...I want to go back and see it by walking because it was amazing. It was raining, windy, and cold and there was no time to get out of the car. They stopped the vans at a restaurant (our flight wasn't until 5:30pm) where everyone got lunch around 2pm. We got to talk to some musicians from Paris who we happened to be sitting beside. Then it was off to the airport in time to check in, exchange money, and board the plane.
Here are a couple videos I took during performances....
A few years ago my husband planted fig trees. The first set of trees had a hard winter. They were very small and the rabbits ate their bark which killed them. He planted some larger trees a couple years ago and wrapped them in the winter. They grew like crazy this year and yielded a bounty of figs.
Ritch has picked figs to eat and made fig jelly numerous times all with the figs from his own tree. He also made jelly from grapes he grew. Our grape plants are finally big enough to yield enough grapes. We had to plant them twice as well because the first grape plants we planted did not do so well.
FIGS!!!!
Besides the fig jelly and grape jelly (not pictured because he made it the day after I took this photo), Ritch has also made peach and blueberry jam. We will have plenty of jelly/jam this winter and will have to eat it on everything! The peaches and blueberries came from our local farmers. Hopefully our own blueberry plants will provide the blueberries next year.
Ritch has planted a second round of salad, kale, and beans. We enjoyed all those in the early summer. We also have some sweet potato plants growing and will harvest those when ready. We've eaten all the regular potatoes we grew this summer. We've had so much rain this summer. Some plants did better with all the rain and others did not fare so well...like the zucchini and tomatoes.
The humming birds came back again this year! In the early mornings and evenings there are at least 10 that fly back and forth for drinks. We have two feeders this size and they empty them every three days or so. We like to sit outside in the evening and watch them zoom back and forth.
We've had a very fun and exciting week traveling to Ireland for the Fleadh Cheoil (All Ireland/world championships of Irish music) competition with Haley's friend, Sofia, and her mother, Kate. We were not going to go to the Fleadh this year...we thought Haley would take a year off this year since she will still be in the under 12 age group next year and we couldn't afford for more than two of us to go but my husband did not want Haley and I to go alone. Things changed after Sofia took 1st at the MidAtlantic Fleadh in under 12 slow airs and qualified to go. After a lot of discussion at home and through emails, Kate and I came up with a plan to travel together with the girls splitting costs when we could and keeping each other company.
So last Tuesday night we flew off to Dublin from JFK. We flew through the night, landed in Dublin at 9am then took a bus into the city for the day. Our first stop was the Drury Hotel where we checked in and dropped off our luggage. We then walked through the city, did a little shopping, walked through Dublinia, and St. Stephen's Green. We had dinner and brown bread ice cream.
Dublinia and Christ Church Cathedral
Viking rune rubbings of our names
Naughty girl
Swans at St. Stephen's Green
After a very loud night in the city...ie. little sleep. We headed back to the airport, picked up the car, and drove toward Derry with a quick stop at Knowth to see the passage tombs in the rain. We had a few moments of laughter (and terror...LOL) in the car driving on the left side of the road on the tiny little streets in the Ireland countryside but we made it safely to Derry. We then had some difficulty finding our B&B...again on tiny one car wide roads in the country. (Thank goodness no one was coming the other way!!!) But our host came out to find and rescue us and we found ourselves at the most beautiful B&B we've been in yet (Five Oaks B&B).
The next rainy morning we had a delicious full Irish breakfast, the girls practiced, then our hostess showed us how to get to the city and where to park. We walked across Peace Bridge, walked the walls around Derry, and saw all the sights. The girls did a little busking for pocket money then we found some dinner and went back to the B&B to relax.
Painted Samurai at Peace Bridge
Peace Bridge
Walking the walls around Derry
Fleadh in Derry 2013
Busking
Saturday was competition day. We woke early and had an early breakfast then headed to Ulster University to watch our friends in the under 15 division before Haley's competition. Haley's 1st competition was at noon. There were 14 really talented kids competing but Haley played her very best and came away with 1st in solo fiddle. The under 12 slow air competition was set to begin at 1:30 but the solo fiddle did not finish until 2:15 so as soon as we were finished, we rushed into the adjacent building for slow airs. We arrived when there were only two before Haley and Sofia (who were scheduled to be 11 and 12 out of 14). Haley and Sofia played really well. To our amazement, Haley took the trophy (1st place) in under 12 slow airs as well! It is an accomplishment to win an All Ireland title in one event but to win in two is very rare.
We ran from slow airs to see the under 18 duos compete because friends were competing in that then we rushed across campus to see if we could catch Haley's friend, Emily, competing in under 12 harp slow airs. We entered the room just as they called Emily's name! After Emily played, Haley said, "That was so beautiful I could not even breath!" We waited around for the results and Emily placed 1st! (The girls brought home three All Ireland cups to the CCE Delaware Valley!)
It was 8pm by the time we finished watching competitions and we were unable to find a restaurant without a huge wait (we heard there were 30, 000 people at the Fleadh!) so we grabbed a bite at the local supermarket then went back to the B&B to eat it.
The All Ireland Champions with friends and siblings
Sunday was a more relaxing day. We got up and ate our Irish breakfast then headed into town to see Haley's friend in the under 18 fiddle slow air and another friend in the Senior solo fiddle competitions. After the senior competition, the videographer from Comhaltas (the group that runs the Fleadh) asked Haley to play with the Senior All Ireland winner so he could record them together. We then had dinner at a restaurant with the best food and the girls, with their friend, Joanna, busked for awhile before we headed in for the night.
Haley performing with the Senior All Ireland Champion
Sofia, Haley, and Joanna
Busking
Monday was an early rise morning. We had to drive back to Dublin, 3 hours, to turn in our rental car before noon. We went to check into our hotel and then took a bus into the city for a walk around Trinity College, shopping, dinner and some more brown bread ice-cream.
Airport
Tuesday was our travel home day. We ran into friends at the airport and everyone was on the same flight. It was a bumpy ride home but we made it safely!
Haley with her fiddle teacher, Brian Conway
Here's Haley with her very proud teacher and her two All Ireland trophies!
I'm thinking I may make a weekly post on our weekend music exploits because I am getting tired of coming up with titles for them all.
This weekend was chock full of music (of course). Friday afternoon on our way to New York for her fiddle lesson, I asked Haley if she got tired of driving all over the place and all the performances she does. She seemed shocked I would think that. She said those are the parts of her music that are the most fun and she wants more. So we drove to New York Friday for a late night fiddle lesson then did a sleep over so she could meet her friend, Sofia, in the city on Saturday.
The girls had busking plans for Washington Square Park. They are determined to help pay their part for their trips to Ireland next week. The day started out not looking very promising. It was raining softly most of the morning (as you can tell from the picture below) so they found a spot under the big arch which provided shelter for their fiddles and wonderful acoustics. They sounded like they were mic'ed.
They did pretty well there then we packed up when they got tired of playing. They enjoyed running over to check out the progress of the sand artist creating his work not far away (the guy on his knees behind them in this picture). They left him a tip because he was very nice to them. Sofia accidentally lost her bow down the grate in front of them and he came over and lifted it so she could retrieve it unharmed. (Whew! The perils of busking!)
The sun eventually came out and the girls took a break for ice-cream while sitting near the fountain. Here they are showing off their green tinged tongues.
Washington Square Park
Cute squirrel.
Sunday was what has become our annual fundraiser for Haley and her friend Emily for their trip to Ireland. A local pub, Lazy Lanigans, allows us to come in and take over their restaurant for an afternoon. The kids provided music, people came and danced, and we had a silent auction of 22 items and baskets donated by friends, supporters, and local businesses. We have done a fundraiser for the last five years and each year I am overwhelmed by the number of people who come out to support the girls.
We put a call out for musicians this year and it seemed all of them had other plans for the day so Haley and Dylan provided the ceili music all on their own. They did a great job...kept a strong, fast beat for the dancers and stoppped and started the music on time!
The Ceili Band.
Dancers doing The Plain Set.
Haley and Emily thanking everyone for coming out.
Donations from the AOH groups in PA.
The fundraiser was very successful. We couldn't have done it without all the people who donated and/or attended. We especially couldn't have done it without help from the people below. John and Jackie Kelly have become like Haley's adoptive grandparents. Jackie had back surgery a couple months ago but she worked hard those months, not only to recover, but to put together items (many which she donated herself) and coordinated the entire silent auction for us. The auction was an amazing success and she's an amazing person! We can't possibly thank her enough for all she does for us.
We are now on the countdown for our trip to Ireland this year! We are looking forward to traveling with Sofia and her mother and seeing a new part of the island. Go Derry!
