First Piano Recital

A time of memories...


A time of laughter...

A time of nervousness :)


And a time of victory!


Several weeks ago, Christa and I had our first piano recital for our students, and ended up making memories that I think will last for years! :) We are so thankful to our Father for bringing these students into our lives and blessing us with the opportunity to make music together that honors Him!

All our students and their families gathered in our living room to hear the songs that the children have been working so hard on. Doubtless, the parents have the songs memorized themselves and could have played them in their sleep, but no matter! :) They were all on the edges of their seats, eyes riveted to the piano bench. :) It was quite a fun evening, informal and laid back, with great presentations by the students, and complete with all the usual "bloopers" that we'll laugh about for a long time afterward! :)

This is the beautiful verse we put on the front of the program for the recital:

“I will sing of steadfast love and justice; to you, O Lord, I will make music.”
~ Psalm 101:1

"Let's get started..."
Welcoming the students and families

Duets were in order...



Solos too...


Lots of beautiful music!

Preview

Preview

Do you see the look of relief on all our faces?? :) These are all our sweet students (minus one.) :)

Great job everybody!! Can't wait till next time! :)

Who Will Call Him King of Kings

Two zealous apostles...


An enraged slave master and an imperious magistrate...


A cynical prisoner...


A hardened jailer...


A broken-hearted slave girl...


And a passionate choir...


All joined together this past Sunday to tell a story and bring a message of God's incredible, never ending love towards a lost and dying world.

Our wonderful little homeschool Baptist church recently undertook the huge endeavor of putting on a musical called "Who Will Call Him King of Kings?" It followed the true Biblical story of Paul and Silas after they cast a demon out of a fortune telling slave girl in Philippi...being tried and thrown in prison, and eventually leading the jailer (along with the slave girl and 3 fellow prisoners) to Christ.

With Christa in the choir, and me participating in the drama, we certainly put in many hours of practicing along with everybody else involved!!

I definitely felt out of my league with all the acting :) and this whole experience certainly stretched me!... :) but Christa and I both were grateful to play a small part in presenting the Gospel so clearly. We were especially thrilled to hear that there were several non-Christians present during the actual presentation!!




Towards the end of the presentation, Marcus, a sarcastic, completely hardened prisoner (who later accepts Christ as his savior) sings a beautiful song called "How Can It Be?" Truly this song echoes the awe in my heart when I think about Christ's sacrifice, and it brought tears to my eyes almost every time I heard it sung! I would like to leave you all with the words to the song below. May we all be reminded of Christ's incredible love, even towards those who rejected and despised Him!

"He might have died for causes, for kingdoms or for thrones
For noble men, and women, or orphans all alone.
He might have died for heroes, who deserved His charity.
But how can I believe it: that Jesus died for me?

How can it be, for love of me, a Man would choose to die?
How can it be, for love of me, a Man was crucified?
How can I understand such love from One I've never seen?
How could I dare to hope one Man would choose to die for me?"

All photos courtesy of Haven Giglotti

We love Mondays! :)

We'd like to introduce you to some dear friends - the Browns - a homeschool family of 9 that we have been working for weekly for the past few months! Their warm and gracious spirits have been such a great encouragement to us!

This picture is about 2 yrs old, but I wanted you to be able to see Mr. and Mrs. Brown also! :)

Every Monday morning finds us at their door around 9:00 to spend the day with them. Mainly we are there to help around the house - whether it's watching and playing with little ones, cooking, cleaning, laundry, helping with school work, doing sewing projects for them, etc. We also help some each week with data entry for their home business. (www.yourhealthsource.org)

Every Monday is filled to the brim with activity and fun little surprises as we work with their sweet children! :)

Little Alonna makes up for her small size with lots of personality!! :)

This is sweet Victoria (2 yrs)

Always time for playing in the sand box! The twins, Christianna and Elaina, are 4 now and growing fast!

I think one of the most wonderful things for us is that we are seeing firsthand what it takes to successfully raise a family with many children. And not just care for physical needs in that family, but also their spiritual and emotional needs. And then to see those children thrive as they grow and mature! What invaluable experience and training for Christa and me!!

A walk every time with the children is absolutely a non-negotiable! :)

Joseph and Timothy, their 2 younger sons, are 5 and 10, and I love watching them play fight with swords and guns together! Weston, their oldest (not pictured) is 17.

I had so much fun making these nightgowns and robes for each of the 3 older girls!
Kind of like making doll clothes...only even cuter! :)


We love you Brown family and are so thankful for your friendship!

Piano Adventures

"Ding - dong"...

It's 10:45 on Thursday morning. Who could be at our door? It's the first of our 12 piano students that come every Thursday to make music with us!

Christa is just starting out with her first 2 students. This is Katie (5 yrs) trying to make sense of all those black and white notes in front of her!! :)

I have 10 students and am really enjoying this whole new experience of not just playing the piano for myself, but learning how to teach others what I've been doing for all these years!

Yes, as much as we hate them, flash cards are indeed an important part of music!!

Sometimes though, we make the flashcard routine a little bit more fun by hiding them all around the room, and making the students race to find them first, before we go through them! :)

Landrey, (6) is almost through his first piano book, and ready to start in with a harder book like his 2 older brothers!

Corban, his newborn brother, looks on in concern. "Landrey, that was a wrong rhythm! You know better than that!"

But eventually he is lulled to sleep by Landrey's lovely playing (and no worries, the rhythm corrected) lol
We pray that each of these students may learn to love to play the piano, not just for the fun of it, but because they can see how beautiful music ushers God's people into His presence.

Highschool Graduation

13 years ago...
Christa and I were just starting kindergarten in the Bridges Home Institute, playing for the first time what we thought was an incredibly exciting new game (also known to the world at large as "school")
13 years ago...
Christa and I were sitting at our kitchen table with Mom, trying to remember what letter comes after "B".
13 years ago...
We learned that 1 + 1 = 2.
And 13 years later...
We are celebrating the end of our formal schooling - a few years older, with a few more pieces of information stored in our brains, but still the same eager girls excited to see what God has in store for us next! :)

We started out the New Year with a highschool graduation celebration for the first ever graduates of the Bridges Home Institute! (BTW - in case you're wondering, we graduated # 1 and 2 in our class :)) Here are a few pictures from the evening:

Dad was our emcee, keeping us all laughing for the night's activities!

Christa and I read a poem we wrote as a surprise for Mom and Dad.

Then I shared my testimony of God's incredible goodness in my life!

No time with the Bridges is complete without music, so of course we had several numbers to share...

"They shall express the memory of Your great goodness, and they shall sing of Your righteousness." ~ Ps 145:7

Mom and Dad and 2 other godly men in our lives gave us verbal blessings to close out the night.

And of course the highlight for us was being able to connect with so many sweet friends!


The Bridges family with Mom's dad. :)

We are so grateful for all God has done in our lives during our growing up years! He is good!

News Flash

Big news from Dallas to you:

We the Texans - who forget that the word snow is in the dictionary, who wouldn't be surprised to celebrate Christmas in a t-shirt and shorts, who pull out our parkas when it hits 50 degrees, who order iced tea in December, who have rarely seen snow deep enough to cover the tops of the blades of grass, and who definitely don't have 4 wheel drive - we have just experienced a real northern winter.

For 4 solid days.



From our experience, I have learned 4 things:
1. Professional sledding gear in TX consists of a piece of cardboard and/or a cookie sheet
2. Cardboard and cookie sheets do not make good sledding gear
3. Texans are not used to being cooped up indoors for 4 days and a lot of us got a bit stir crazy (the proof of this would be found in the lines at the stores the day the ice/snow melted. :) )
4. Snow definitely brings out the little kid in all of us. :)

With that being said, I would not have traded "that much" snow (approx 6 inches of powdery beauty) for anything!

here are a few pictures from our snow days:

Look at how beautifully, perfectly white everything is! Isn't it amazing to remember that God has promised us: "Come now, let us reason together...though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." (Is 1:18)

On day 4, we headed to the store to see if we could find some nice, inexpensive boots. Finding nothing that met that description, and not wanting to pay the price for a pair of shoes we would use once - maybe twice - a year, we came up with a creative, ingenious, highly professional alternative.

Very nice...
Then we headed out to hit the slopes with dry, toasty feet!





Yes, snow ball fights with friends were in order too!

Can you read it?? :)

May the Lord bless us with such beauty and fun every year!