YaYa Goes to Music Camp

YaYa had been waiting for an entire year from the day she left International Music Camp to go back this year.  She was thrilled to go back.  We drove from Minnesota to Grandma Kathy’s house in Valley City on Saturday last week, and then on Sunday I drove her up to music camp at the Canadian border.

Whenever I drive into the Peace Gardens and up to music camp I an overwhelming wave of emotion rushes over me.  It’s a mixture of two parts excitement for the five wonderful summers I spent as a camper there learning SO much, and one part horror at the summer I worked there, which was the second worse summer of my entire life.  Working there was a terrible experience, but being a student was absolutely wonderful, and the older I get and the more I see how much YaYa loves it there like I did, the more the one part horrible fades away and all the good memories grow stronger.

After the long registration line, I helped my extremely light packer carry her tiny suitcase and pillow to her dorm.  How she fit clothes, pajamas, toiletries, her sheets and blankets and a few novels into one tiny airplane carry-on, I’ll never be able to figure out.  She was stinking proud of her one small suitcase, though.  We headed over to the Allegro Shop, which I was very excited about.  I love music camp hoodies.  They are what I wear almost every day that I am not teaching during the cool and cold parts of the year (which is most of the year).  YaYa mentioned that my trip to the Allegro shop was my one and only clothes shopping trip of the year.  She’s almost right.  At the conclusion, I ended up with two new sweatshirts.  One of them was on clearance and only cost fifteen dollars.  I was pretty excited about that.

I was allowed just one picture of YaYa before I left under the condition that I immediately leave.  She was off to look for friends from last year.

Although I have been ordered not to blog about the details of her week at IMC, let me just say that this girl had an amazing, extremely successful week.  I am super proud and so excited for her.  She and her oboe do well together.  (Side note:  it is really, really fun to hear her playing these days).

The other kidlets and I headed back up the next Saturday to pick YaYa up and hear her concert.   We had been staying at my parents’ house the last part of the week, and left early in the morning to arrive in time to pick up her suitcase.  She hugged us, gave us her suitcase and was off to have lunch with her friends.  We brought a picnic lunch to avoid the very, very long lunch line.  Lines for every meal at IMC are long.  It’s part of the experience, and makes me laugh whenever I see them.  For the record, the lines do move quickly.  On concert days, the line gets even longer with all the families.

We ate our lunch on a picnic table by the dining hall, and then had quite a bit of time before YaYa’s concert started, so I decided to take them up to the formal gardens, which we missed seeing last summer.

The cactus conservatory is such an interesting place.  There are so many different shapes of plants.  I could spend hours looking at them closely.  We did not have hours.  This year I was especially intrigued by a section of pastel colored cacti.  There were lots of purple and mauve and pink plants.

You can’t go to the Peace Gardens without standing on the center pavilion and gazing down at the fountain and the length of the formal garden.  They were so intrigued with the notion of having one foot in Canada and one foot in the United States.  These next few pictures were completely their own inspiration.  Back and forth and back and forth they went from one country to the other.  YaYa’s concert was wonderful.  I unfortunately was able to take zero pictures because during the first song of the first ensemble (the choir), Mr. TOF completely conked out on my lap.  He was practically unconscious.  I’ve not seen him sleep so hard in years!  I could have probably stood him on his feet and he still would not have woken up!  I was busy shifting that heavy almost five year old body from one part of my lap to the next to avoid my muscles cramping while listening to the music.  During the concert there were multiple downpours of rain.  It really poured, which was loud because the Masonic Auditorium has a tin roof.