Happily, Holy Cross has found a new senior pastor, Rev. Dr. Thomas R. Ahlersmeyer. This morning he was installed at Holy Cross, and not only did we celebrate his installation, but we celebrated Palm Sunday!
The Senior, Junior, and Chapel Choirs all sang and lead the processional at the beginning of the service. We sang Blessed Is He, Ride On, and the Senior Choir sang a variation of the hymn The Tree of Life. The Brass Quintet accompanied the songs, and during The Tree of Life the eighth grade girls rang hand bells.
After the service, there was a brunch served in the welcome center. It was a wonderful way to end a great service. Pray for Pastor Ahlersmeyer and his family, and have a great Holy Week.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Final Four
Well, surprisingly there is only one top-ranked team left in the tournament, and that is Duke, the team who everyone (including yours truly) thought would be the first #1 team ousted from March Madness.
Last night the Kentucky Wildcats fell to #2 West Virginia, and I had Kentucky winning the entire tournament! Oh well, at least I got one major pick right. I had the Butler Bulldogs beating the #1 Syracuse Orange, and surprisingly, they did!
The Butler campus is only 6 miles away from Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, the place where the Final Four will be held, so Butler will have the clear home court advantage against West Virginia, Michigan State, and Duke.
Unfortunately, Purdue is not advancing to the Final Four, losing in the Elite Eight after an intense win in overtime against Texas A&M. They definitely would've gone farther if they'd had their star, Robbie Hummel, who untimely hurt his knee just before March Madness started (Hummel is a native of Valparaiso, and he went to high school with my cousin Danny).
Saturday, March 20, 2010
ISSMA
Like last week, my choir competed in another fine arts competition. We met at Holy Cross at 3:30 and took a bus to Harding High School. After the rather loud bus ride, we were escorted to a private room to warm up (we spent at least five minutes just getting the key of F in our heads). After we were done warming up, we were led to the auditorium.
I must admit, I was extremely nervous. As I said in my previous post, the Holy Cross Junior Choir has gotten nothing but gold at ISSMA for the past 36 years, and we would hate to be the ones to break that streak.
However, our worrying apparently didn't affect our performance, and we earned yet another gold. We all breathed a sigh of relief when Mr. Rogner, our choir director, pulled the gold plaque out of the envelope.
Hopefully we can put another gold plaque on the music room wall next year!
In other news, my father turned 45 on March 20th! Wishing you many more, dad!
I must admit, I was extremely nervous. As I said in my previous post, the Holy Cross Junior Choir has gotten nothing but gold at ISSMA for the past 36 years, and we would hate to be the ones to break that streak.
However, our worrying apparently didn't affect our performance, and we earned yet another gold. We all breathed a sigh of relief when Mr. Rogner, our choir director, pulled the gold plaque out of the envelope.
Hopefully we can put another gold plaque on the music room wall next year!
In other news, my father turned 45 on March 20th! Wishing you many more, dad!
March Madness 2010
It's the maddest time of the year! March Madness started on Thursday, and already there have been unpredictable upsets, intense overtime games, and all-around college basketball madness!
Duke, Syracuse, Kentucky, and Kansas all earned #1 spots in the tournament, but Kansas is already out of the picture, losing to the #9 ranked Northern Iowa Panthers. Another surprising victory went to #13 seeded Murray State, who beat a 4 seed, and #12 Cornell, who also beat a 4.
So far my bracket isn't going very well, but it definitely could be worse (for example, my mom has Baylor winning the tournament). I predict that John Wall and the Kentucky Wildcats will win the tournament. Thankfully, my conjecture has yet to be proved wrong, and I'm watching Kentucky beat Wake Forest right now.
Monday, March 15, 2010
FWALS
This weekend my choir and band ensemble participated in the FWALS (Fort Wayne Area Lutheran Schools) fine arts competition. Many schools competed in this event, and I am very proud to say that my band ensemble got a perfect score for performing the song Calypso Morning. It was a clarinet and flute quartet, and the trumpet and trombone duo got a perfect score as well.
Another area Holy Cross excels in is choir. The Junior Choir has gotten a perfect score at FWALS for the past 36 years, and happily we continued that tradition! We sang Cantate Domino, an extremely difficult song in Latin, Sing Aloud to God, and God is Our Refuge.
Next week we will participate in the ISSMA (Indiana State School Music Association) competition. Hopefully we can earn another perfect score! Wish us luck!
Another area Holy Cross excels in is choir. The Junior Choir has gotten a perfect score at FWALS for the past 36 years, and happily we continued that tradition! We sang Cantate Domino, an extremely difficult song in Latin, Sing Aloud to God, and God is Our Refuge.
Next week we will participate in the ISSMA (Indiana State School Music Association) competition. Hopefully we can earn another perfect score! Wish us luck!
More Basketball
It grieves me to announce that my AAU basketball season is not going very well. I think our record is something like 2-5, and we lost tonight to Norwell, a team who has beaten us previously. However, I think I did very well tonight, because I was 4 for 4 from the free throw line, and I even managed to get fouled on a made basket!
Hopefully, with some much-needed practice, we can reach our full potential. We have a game and another practice tomorrow, so perhaps we can get redemption!
Hopefully, with some much-needed practice, we can reach our full potential. We have a game and another practice tomorrow, so perhaps we can get redemption!
Monday, March 8, 2010
Ski Trip 2010
For the third year in a row, we (meaning my dad, Luke, Benjamin, Parker, and I) headed up to Caberfae Peaks in Cadillac, Michigan to enjoy another great ski trip (You may be wondering if there was any snow on the ground, and I assure you, there was). The conditions were perfect, the temperature rarely dropping below 20 degrees, and skipping school on Friday made it even better!
We stayed at the Mackenzie Lodge, which is right next to the club chair lift, so we got up in the morning, had some Pop Tarts, got our equipment, and skied over to the lift. After a long day of skiing, racing, going off jumps (Luke became a pro at ski jumping), and relaxing over a cup of hot chocolate at the club, we put our gear back in our locker and. . . put on our bathing suits.
Yes, you read that right, we braved the freezing weather in our bathing suits! But only until we jumped into the hotel's outdoor heated pool and hot tub. It was quite funny; usually, it's comfortably warm outside the pool, and once you get in you're freezing cold. But with this pool, you're freezing outside the pool, and once you hop in you're nice and warm (Now, the hot tub was a different matter. You weren't merely nice and warm in the hot tub, you were sweltering. I think the temperature in that thing was 105 degrees).
Remember how my dad sprained his ankle all the way back during Island? Well, apparently it never quite fully healed. He said he couldn't turn right without his ankle searing with pain. On Saturday he was forced to rent another, shorter pair of skis. Luckily, those did the trick, and he had a ball for the rest of the time.
Sadly, my dad didn't take any pictures during our trip, so I'll have to leave everything to your imagination. Hopefully I'm a good enough descriptive writer to paint the wonderful, fun time we had honing and perfecting our already amazing skiing skills (seriously, I think I improved dramatically since last year). I can't wait until next skiing trip!
We stayed at the Mackenzie Lodge, which is right next to the club chair lift, so we got up in the morning, had some Pop Tarts, got our equipment, and skied over to the lift. After a long day of skiing, racing, going off jumps (Luke became a pro at ski jumping), and relaxing over a cup of hot chocolate at the club, we put our gear back in our locker and. . . put on our bathing suits.
Yes, you read that right, we braved the freezing weather in our bathing suits! But only until we jumped into the hotel's outdoor heated pool and hot tub. It was quite funny; usually, it's comfortably warm outside the pool, and once you get in you're freezing cold. But with this pool, you're freezing outside the pool, and once you hop in you're nice and warm (Now, the hot tub was a different matter. You weren't merely nice and warm in the hot tub, you were sweltering. I think the temperature in that thing was 105 degrees).
Remember how my dad sprained his ankle all the way back during Island? Well, apparently it never quite fully healed. He said he couldn't turn right without his ankle searing with pain. On Saturday he was forced to rent another, shorter pair of skis. Luckily, those did the trick, and he had a ball for the rest of the time.
Sadly, my dad didn't take any pictures during our trip, so I'll have to leave everything to your imagination. Hopefully I'm a good enough descriptive writer to paint the wonderful, fun time we had honing and perfecting our already amazing skiing skills (seriously, I think I improved dramatically since last year). I can't wait until next skiing trip!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
