Johanna Speaks

Our church friends have a son who got married last Sunday. They asked if my friend Abbygail Mintz and I wanted to play violin for it. Of course, we both said yes! We only had less than a week to practice. 

We did three songs, one as the bride walked down, two songs the congregation sang, and one more as the bride and groom walked out. Abbygail did melody, and I did harmony. We only got together and practiced a couple of times. So we were a bit nervous. But everything turned out great! 

Here is the link to the wedding: 

Here is a pic of Abbygail and I playing violin:

I had a great time! We ate delicious food and also danced. We watched the bride and groom dance together, which made me cry a bit. I was trying not to, but it was hard. After they danced, a lot of people got up and danced, too. It was mainly swing dancing, with some slow dancing. We also did the chicken dance. That was fun! :)

Then we all said goodbye to the bride and groom as they left in their car.

Our friends, the Mintzs, and I wanted to go back to dancing, but to Lala Land music, which is my favorite type of music by far. It was so much fun. Ezra and I stayed until almost 11:00 PM. Ezra was the tech guy, and he was in charge of the music, so we stayed pretty long. 

I got to take back a big bouquet of roses!! I love roses so much. It's my favorite type of flower. That made me so happy! :)

Everything was a blast!

I love to watch the Icing Artist. She does many videos on baking and how to make cool designs on cakes using frosting and different baking tools. I love to bake and want to learn how to structure my cakes and have a smooth surface when piping frosting, not a lumpy surface. I also want to know how different flavors can work together and taste delicious. 

She posts her videos about once a week, which are about eighteen minutes long. 

Here is a link to one of her videos:

I've wanted to learn how to make good buttercream that is nice and stiff but not too runny. In some other videos, she explains how to do that and also tries different flavors. 

Watching her videos makes me want to bake a cake, and I keep getting ideas for decorating. 

Ezra's birthday was yesterday, June 1st. He turned seventeen years old. We had a big party at our house after church, with delicious snacks and food! We all played a game called Bang. It was so much fun!!

All of our siblings came except Gideon, who lives in Alabama. Some other friends also came. Caleb and Risa brought their baby, Benjamin. He's so cute and growing up so fast! He was always smiling at someone, and he is almost seven months old.🩷

Ezra got a sailboat for his birthday! He's been wanting one, and so we all pitched in and now he has one. I also got him nice tennis shoes since he plays a lot of pickleball and has needed a new pair. 

Here are some pics and vids I took of him on the sailboat. It's pretty cool! Noelle also tried getting a cool pic of me on the kayak. 

We went to our lake ( which is about five minutes away ) to sail the boat. It was windy enough, too. We all sang Happy Birthday super loudly over the lake to Ezra while he was sailing the boat. He totally loved it. Even random people heard us and told Ezra Happy Birthday. 😂 

Had a great time!

My dad, Sophie, and I will be going to France in August to visit our grandparents! We will stay for about two weeks. The first week will be Sophie, my dad, and I, and then my mom will join us the second week because she is going to her mom's birthday party in Florida. That's why she isn't coming with us in the first week.  

Sophie is getting a passport for the first time. I had one, but it expired, so I must get a new one. We already took the pictures and paperwork for it, and will have our passports done soon!

I've never been on a big plane, only ridden on a four-person plane, so I'm excited about going! 

My goal while I'm there is to get a lovely French dress and little trinkets and to see all the cool architecture. What I don't like, tho, is that France, I think, has a nine-hour time difference. So if I want to text any of my friends, it would be at completely different times. 

I also don't know any French and haven't been learning it since I've been learning Spanish. But my grandma knows a lot of Spanish, which is super nice! So she's fluent in three different types of languages. English, French, and Spanish. 

Anyway, I can't wait to go! I'll definitely write a whole blog post about it and include lots of pictures. 😊

The performance went great! Sophie and I had so much fun being in choir this semester. We made lots of friends, especially Sophie. I'm already sad that it ended. Everything passed so quickly! But I can't wait for next semester, which will be the Christmas one. I might try out for solos then, since I didn't try out for any this semester. I'm so glad I didn't try out this semester because my allergies have been so bad that it's been hard to sing well. But maybe next semester. It's just that I get so nervous right before singing that my voice gets shaky, and I sing in the wrong key. Plus, my brain will go blank at the last second. ☹️ I can sing fine when I'm by myself or when people are singing with me, though. It's just facing the crowd that's scary. 

Anyway, the performance went great! My favorite part was when a group of choir people performed an instrumental song called " I'll Fly Away." That's my favorite song, so I was so happy they did that! One of the guys did a banjo solo that sounded amazing. In the ensemble, there was one banjoist, two guitarists, one mandolinist, and two violinists. 

Sophie is in the Junior choir, which is the darker blue shirt. She is in the middle row, last person on the far right. 

I am in the Senior choir, wearing black shirts with blue lettering. If you go from top to bottom, I am in the second row from the top, in the second to last on the far right, if that makes sense. 

Here is the link to the performance: