Miles's busy birthday

Miles's 12th birthday was on a very busy Wednesday, so he opened his presents Tuesday night instead.

He's really been into Rubik's cubes lately, so he was very excited to get a variety pack of larger cubes.

He also got a new suit, water bottle, and of course, some Lego sets.

And no birthday celebration would be complete without his strawberry cake.

Amber felt bad that everyone was busy on his actual birthday, so she had him skip school and took him rock climbing in the morning.

That evening I went with Sam Orme, a friend from college, to see Steph Curry and the Warriors play the Rockets. He has a tradition of visiting a new area to watch an NBA playoff game every year and chose Houston this year and invited me to come along.

At the same time, Damon was at the high school with his middle school orchestra, where Olivia and Carmen and the rest of the high schoolers played in a concert with them. That night was also the combined activity where they were supposed to race their pinewood derby cars. Miles didn't want to go alone, so we had someone else race their cars for them.

Miles's soccer season

Amber signed up Miles for soccer this year, and he had a great time.

This is the first time he's played on a team, and they were the nicest boys. He mostly played as a defender, which he prefers anyway, and got better and more confident as the season went on.

The official team name was the Hornets, but one of the dads got everyone calling them anything yellow we could think of (rubber duckies, bananas, daffodils, etc). They played in the cold, heat, and rain over the course of the season.

They won every game except one in the regular season (the one game Miles missed, coincidentally), including a nail-biter against the other really good team that was won on literally the last kick of the game. They ended up in a rematch with that same team in the championship, but ended up losing and getting 2nd place overall.

Easter

After the intense effort of the Yet Shall He Live performance the day before, it was nice to have a relaxing Easter. We slept in, then went to our late church.

Somehow, the Easter Bunny still found time to hide some baskets for the kids.

And we dyed eggs and had an egg hunt.

Church leaders have been encouraging us to make Easter more Christmas-like in importance, so we also read a synopsis of the Holy Week from the scriptures and had a traditional Passover Seder.

Yet Shall He Live

A friend of ours, Cooper "Timothy Max" Johnson, composed an entire Easter oratorio called Yet Shall He Live. He and Amber collaborated a few years ago on an Easter song and her lyrics were incorporated into this oratorio also.

The Summerwood Stake, along with orchestra and band recruits from the local high schools, agreed to put on the production. We've had experience with this kind of thing, participating in Lamb of God a few years ago, so Amber, Olivia, and Carmen were in the orchestra, and I practiced with the choir.

A few practices in, Cooper asked me if I would be willing to audition for one of the three solo parts. I hesitantly agreed, and despite my inexperience I was cast as Peter, the other roles being Jesus and Mary. Originally it was going to be a lesser role with one main song and scattered lines in others, but Cooper was actively scrambling to finish the oratorio as the practices went on and ended up not only adding more lines for Peter, but also an entire new song where I was the only singer (Therefore My Heart Is Glad).

I told him I could sing up to a high G and he took full advantage of my mistake with the new song. I went to several one-on-one practices at his house on weeknights, sang in the car during my commute to work, and went to full rehearsals on Sundays.

I had never done anything like this before, so I was not only learning the music, but singing techniques to get good solo sound. I was afraid I was going to overdo it and shred my voice, so I had to be very careful, especially as the performance got closer, to make sure I didn't lose my voice.

We did a recorded performance without an audience on Saturday morning, then the actual performance on Saturday night.

The music was incredible. Amazingly I didn't feel nervous, and I think I did a pretty decent job. I'm not sure I'll volunteer right away to do something like it again, but it's fun to be able to say I originated a role. I hope this oratorio gains some traction, because I'd love to hear a professional production of it.

NHS and UIL

Carmen was inducted into the National Honor Society.

This was no surprise to us, of course. She hangs out with a good crowd too, so she got to experience it with many of her friends.

This also reminded me that I didn't write about Damon and Miles in Academic UIL. They had a few competitions and always came away with a haul of medals and ribbons.

Minecraft movie and rescued kittten

Damon and Miles are big fans of Minecraft, so I took them to see A Minecraft Movie on opening night.

It was perfectly ridiculous and the boys (and the other nerds there on opening night) loved it. They cheered at all the game references and it was a fun theater experience.

A few days later Olivia brought home a kitten. Someone found it in their car at the high school parking lot and nobody would take it, so she brought it home (sigh).

We weren't ready for another cat (Pepper does not play well with others), so we fed it and played with it until we found someone who was willing to take it.