Three weeks of bathing my soul in music!

Life is so good!

So for my talk about camp.... :-) I talked before about kids music camp. It was an incredible experience! Our mentors were very helpful, and my coteacher, Liam, was amazing as usual. :-) 

From Week two of regular camp. Mitchell, Lucas, and Booker.

                                     I stole some pictures from Marlene Y. the art teacher at kids camp.

Liam and I leading the guitarists in the morning jam.

The last day, group photo! The pool was really warm all week! It was lovely!

Shamma S. one of the mentors, leading the morning jam!

Liam and our 9 students right before we played our piece in the last concert.

Will and Michele! I love these people so much! 

Instructors, Counselors, and Mentors in the last concert.

The staff (missing Lucas, counselor)..

L to R (back): Aimee (instructor), Emily (instructor), Alishia (counselor), Shamma (mentor), Jim (mentor), Michele (founder/mentor), Gillian (Michele's daughter/mentor) Patrick (instructor).

L to R (front): Katie (counselor), Mitchell (instructor), Will (Michele's husband/canoeing instructor/mentor), Lydia (instructor), Liam (instructor), Erin (counselor), Booker (instructor), Marlene (art instructor/mentor).

Morning jam!

Last day group pic!

Introducing the guitar students. I remembered all nine names while under pressure! I was quite proud of myself! :-)

From the second week of regular camp... Liam squishing Patrick. :-)

The first week of regular music camp I was in the advanced guitar class (Ken Hamm) with Liam E. and Aaron U. We decided not to play on the last night so we didn't need to work on one song. Instead we learned 6 tunes. I am new to fingerstyle guitar so I was very challenged all week. In the second week I was in the advanced guitar class with Ken Hamm again. This week though we had a few more people... Nathan, Samantha, Aaron, Liam, Gavin, and me. We worked on blues guitar with a slide. The first couple of days I was seriously considering moving down a class because I couldn't get it. One class I came close to crying, I was trying so hard and it just wouldn't come! Ken always was understanding and I just kept trying harder. On the second last day something clicked! I started having fun! It was at the end of the lesson and Ken asked me how it was coming.. I replied that I was starting to have fun. Ken got this big grin on his face! he was more excited than I was! The look on his face was awesome when I asked, in the last lesson, if we could go through the song once more because it was fun! We played a song called North Wind Blues for the last concert. Each of us had a little solo part! It was the funnest end of the week concert that I have done! :-) 

So a big thank you to Michele and Will for another great year at camp! And a even bigger thank you to Ken for helping me learn a new style of guitar! There's something crazy about us musicians, the 2 days of fun in class totally made the 7 days of near tears worth it! Ahhh, music! I can never get enough of it!