A Medal of a Day in The Christopherson Home

DI Team (Sam & Jake) & Zach Win Big!!!

It was a busy day on Saturday.  Kari and I were with the DI team from morning to night at Buchanan High School and Zach was competing at Science Olympiad at CSU, Fresno.

  Kari was the DI team's coach and it consisted of a group of 2nd and 4th graders.  The practices were interesting and exhausting for Kari!  She was looking forward to it all being over this weekend.  Well...Her wish is not coming true.  The team took 2nd place and they are headed off to the state competition on April 4th (San Jose).  This means another month of practicing and competing with the best of all of the regions.  It will be a fun day, I'm sure.  Here is a pic from the event...

Zach also spent the day at Science Olympiad at CSU, Fresno.  He competed in the areas of Herpetology and Electric Vehicle.  He thought that he had done well in the Herp competition, but in the end, he and his teammate placed third from a pool of about 20 teams!  His K-Nex built car competed against micro-chip infused vehicles.  Sometimes technology isn't better!  Here is a pic of Zach and Shad receiving their medal!  Congratulations!!!!

And the lights go dark...

Well, it was closing night last night for Titanic! It's hard to believe that it's all over. We had another good size group at the performance last night. We brought Zach some flowers (traditional), a big stuffed frog (with a kiss on his cheek to remind him of the BIG KISS), and we made some signs to hold up for him after the performance. It was by far the BEST NIGHT of the run. The audience was very excited and the performers just seemed energized.

We took some pics after the show...Thank you to Aimee for bringing her camera because we forgot ours (and Zach was supposed to bring his from backstage and forgot it). You would think that we'd always have a camera with us??? Well, here are the shots from the post-show celebration:

Zach's First Kiss???

I'm hoping that this is his first kiss!  Well, he has been rehearsing with this same girl (a Sophomore!) for the last few months, so he's probably very experienced by now.  Actually, he gets so embarrassed every time that Kari and I tease him about it.  He's supposed to kiss her a full 3 seconds, but he's quite a poor actor at this point in the musical and only quickly kisses her.  Thank you to Uncle Jeremy for the video clip!  I think that Jeremy only went to to the musical to get this on tape!!!!

Enjoy!

Titanic, The Musical!

Well...It's hard to believe that we are we've already had the first 3 performances of Titanic...Only one weekend to go. This whole process started in September for Zach, with auditions and rehearsals kicking in about the beginning of October. Kari and I saw Titanic on Broadway about 10 years ago and we loved it then. We have been listening to the music ever since. We were excited when the school announced that this was their musical of choice this year. We were shocked when Zach started getting callbacks during the auditions (Sorry, Zach...Yes, we were shocked!). Then they had him auditioning for the part of Frederick Fleet (who sings one of our favorite numbers in the musical). He landed the part and hit the ground running.

In addition to Water Polo, seminary, and school, he was attending regular rehearsals. Then...pneumonia struck. He was on bedrest for 16 days (fortunately most of it was during Christmas break). We thought that his role was finished and that he would be replaced...but he healed just in time for the final weeks of 5-hour nights. For the last few weeks, he has been at the theatre from after school to 10pm. Whew! Now we're half-way done. I snuck in our Flip video to record some of Zach's parts. I also ripped off some pictures from Jer & Jenn's website...Because they took some stills last night. Check out their blog for some better quality video of last night.

First...The Pics...

Mom, Dad, and Zach after the Saturday Night performance.

The entire cast during the opening scene. Zach is on the upper left side of the set (he's the one between the guy in the tuxedo and the guy in the fancy uniform...Look for the cool black cap!)

Zach had a big kiss during the beginning scene (we'll get that on here soon!)...but here he is as a survivor at the end. No kissing during this sad number.

The final number (The survivors). Zach is to the left of the middle next to the two girls in white.


Now the videos (pause my music on the side of the blog to best listen to the video)...

This is the opening number. It's a short clip of part of Zach's trio.

The end of the opening scene. Zach is on the left side with the trio of guys.

Sorry for the video quality. Here is Zach with his solo. End of Act 1.

Part 2 of his solo. Things are building up!

Here is the final part of Act 1. Zach's big line as he spots the iceberg!

It's only 43 degrees out. So...

Why not jump in the pool? A lot of the cousins participated in our annual Polar Bear Plunge in the backyard pool. All of the adults chickened out. It was a cold day...brrrrr. Due to illnesses in the family (Zach has pneumonia and Meghan is not well), Jacob was the only willing participant. Kaleigh is at the coast, Ricky and Rudy left this morning, and Sam and Ammon just weren't interested. I got some great pictures of Jacob jumping in! Enjoy!