Choir Hat

For the last several years I have been honored to be a part of the Rochester Area Girls Choir. This is a group of K-10 girls. We always start the year with a choir camp. We start at 8:30 a.m. and spend the day together until our evening concert at 6:00 or so. We sing, sing, sing, do some crafts, eat some food, and sing, sing, sing, some more. By the end of the day I am ready to be silent and relax, but it is a great way to jump start friendships and a sense of sisterhood between the girls.

These pictures are from the concert we perform for the parents as they come to retrieve their children. It is amazing how much the girls can learn in one day. Miraculous is probably a better word.
















At the end of the year we participate in a weekend tour to some exotic locale like Stillwater, MN, Marshfield, WI, or New Ulm, MN. We share our music everywhere we stop including McDonald's, Pizza Hut, a Pancake House, and anywhere else we can. We stay in a hotel over night so the girls and I can swim. The moms have traveled with us every year, but we will need to see if everyone can fit on the bus this time. We have about 50 girls this year. The most we have ever had while I have been at the wheel.


Our tour last spring allowed us to visit Diane Toogood's (founder/accompanist) mother in Wisconsin. We also were able to stop at Nelson's for ice cream and Lark Toys for a ride on the carousel. Even Diane took a ride. It was great fun!

Why a Soundtrack?

I have been thinking of starting a blog for years but my perfectionist tendencies have hindered me from "putting myself out there". I am hoping that I can set some of those feelings aside and just have some fun. Even though this is my very first post on my very first blog I have known what I wanted to call my blog for 3 years.

On my way home from Washington D.C. I was wasting time in the Minneapolis airport by myself because D was taking a later flight to gain a voucher. I don't love to travel by myself so I was trying to keep myself busy yet relaxed. I walked around looking at shops, purchased my favorite noisemaker at Brookstone and started to make my way to my gate. As I was walking a VERY long distance to the commuter area I passed several gates and waiting areas. I was surprised to hear that there was different music playing in each area. The music was peaceful, happy, and well known to me. It was as if the music had been hand selected according to my preferences and my needs. I was smiling as I walked and felt blessed by this "coincidental" music montage. Then, I heard singing. Singing? In the airport. Not only was it singing, but it was good singing. A choir of young people, probably college age men and women singing "The Lord Bless You and Keep You" by John Rutter. Are you kidding me!? What are the odds?

I had just walked a long distance hearing song after song that brought back memories of the many blessings I have enjoyed throughout my life. This miraculous event culminated with a beautiful college choir singing one of my all time favorite songs. I found myself standing in the terminal singing and crying. Perhaps people thought I was mentally ill or something, but I was merely having a miraculous witness of God's love for me through the music he has given me throughout my life.

Since this experience, I have thought more and more about the soundtrack of my life. I have thousands of songs that have played in the background of my childhood, adolescence, budding adulthood, motherhood, and recently the rediscovery of who I am in this great experience of life.

This blog will be an area that I share my thoughts and experiences and inevitably the soundtrack that accompanies my every day. I hope you enjoy it, I know I will.