sounds of the seacoast {3rd place medalists}

A couple weeks ago, I flew to Florida to sing with my chorus in the Harmony, Inc. international barbershop competition. I sing with a women’s chorus based in Portsmouth, NH. I have been singing with them for a little less than a year and this was my first international singing with this chorus.

I worked on Thursday and Dan picked me up to take me to the airport right after work. I flew to Florida and got to the hotel around midnight. My mom was already there and I was exhausted, so I basically went right to bed.

We stayed at the Buena Vista Palace. There are 2 buildings and we were staying at the building towards the back. There are palm trees everywhere and a little bridge that crosses some water.

On Friday, my mom and I woke up to exercise. Then we got ready for the day. The quartet contest was on Friday so we went to the hall to watch the contest. There were a lot of quartets but it was a good contest. They chose the top 10 who would then compete in the finals Friday night.

After the afternoon contest, I went to Downtown Disney with the “kids” of the chorus to grab some dinner. I had never been to Downtown Disney, so I loved walking around and seeing everything, like the crazy lego structures.

We had dinner at Planet Hollywood. The food was yummy and the drinks were delicious!

I love how Downtown Disney was all decorated with lights everywhere. It was gorgeous.

 After dinner, we went back to watch the quartet finals. The quartets were so good! It was a great contest!

Saturday was the chorus contest. We got up and got ready to compete! The chorus met to rehearse a little then separated so everyone could get dressed in our sparkly teal tops and flowy pants. The contest was great. We all felt amazing after we sang. We watched the rest of the contest and waited patiently for the results.

We came in 3rd!!! And we were so close to 1st place. Amazing. It felt great and made it feel like it is really possible for us to win, very soon, like maybe next year?

Saturday night we had a pizza party for the chorus. Then we went to the showcase, where all of the medalists sing a song. We also took some fun photos with a Disney background. We took a bunch of “kid” photos, all the younger people who sing in the chorus. It was a fun night.

We stayed up late Saturday night, hanging out and singing. Sunday morning I was exhausted. I had to get up to get ready to leave. I got all packed up and ready. Before I left, we had breakfast with my stepbrother Sean and his girlfriend. They live in Orlando so I wanted to be able to spend a little time with them while I was down there. It was a nice breakfast but then I had to head out to the airport.

I got a window seat on the plane next to a nice older couple who were both reading on their Kindles. The sky was gorgeous when we were taking off and landing.

Dan picked me up at the airport and I was so ready to go home. It was a wonderful weekend but I was exhausted.

{So I got way busier over the weekend then I thought and didn’t end up having time to post. I’m hoping to get caught up on the last month of posting very soon. So please keep checking back.}

Hope everyone is having a great week!

AC&C barbershop contest {aloha}

This past weekend I was in Montreal for the AC&C contest for Harmony, Inc, a women’s barbershop group. The theme was Aloha and it was a super fun weekend!

My mom, my friend Sam, and I drove up on Thursday. It should have taken between 5 and 6 hours. However, it took us about 10 hours because we got stuck in Manchester for 3 hours. We were driving along and all of a sudden my mom’s car started going a little crazy. The battery light came on and the temperature gauge was going up and it was making some noises. Luckily, we were right by a bunch of car dealerships. So we pulled into the Jeep one to find out what was wrong. It was the water pump. So we took a rental car to the mall for a couple hours while we were waiting. At least there was somewhere we could go to kill some time.

On Friday, we didn’t really have much to do during the day. We exercised, had lunch, and Sam and I headed to the huge mall across the street to kill some more time. Friday night was the quartet contest. Quartets are 4 people singing in harmony. My mom competed with her quartet, Vibe. They used puppets for their performance. It was so hilarious! The quartet ended up coming in last because they got zeros in the presentation category due to some technical things having to do with their curtain for the puppets but they still had a blast and everyone loved them. That night, we had some fun posing the puppets….

they were sad about losing...

Saturday was the chorus contest. My mom directs the Sounds of the Seacoast chorus and Sam and I sing in the chorus. This was my first time competing with this chorus and it was so much fun! And we won! Which is amazing. This is the 3rd year in a row that the chorus has won the area contest. We won and qualified to go to the international contest which is in November in Florida. Yay!

Saturday night was a dinner and show. Everyone dressed up in their best Aloha gear and we had a HUGE 4 course dinner. The 1st place quartet sang and we sang because we were the 1st place chorus. A few other groups also sang. It was a really long dinner but it was fun seeing everyone dress up.

my cousin Julia

Sam, Julia, & I in our aloha gear

my mom & I

After the dinner, everyone parties. Usually the choruses have party rooms and the quartets can go around and sing for everyone. I think I made it til 1 am when I had to go to bed because I was so tired.

On our way home on Sunday, we decided to stop at Chutter’s in Littleton, NH because they have the longest candy counter in the world! Someone in the chorus had stopped there on their way up to contest and told us about it. It was amazing how much candy they had!

Our car ride home took a normal amount of time which I was really happy about beacuse I was ready for bed when I got back to the apartment. Overall, it was a very fun weekend and I can’t wait for the next one!

going to a barbershop contest this weekend {in Montreal}

I don’t know how many of you have heard of barbershop singing. Most people think of the 4 men in a quartet with the hats and arm bands and big mustaches. Kind of like this….

However, real barbershop is not like that anymore. This weekend, I am driving up to Montreal with my mom and friend Sam for a women’s barbershop contest. My mom is the director of an amazing chorus called Sounds of the Seacoast. I just started singing with the chorus in January so this is my first contest singing with them!

This weekend is the Area contest, which is all of the quartets and choruses from our area, which basically includes New England and a few parts of Canada to the north of New England. Sounds of the Seacoast has won the area contest the past 2 years so hopefully we can win again! The chorus is very excited! Wish us luck! And I will definitely let you know how it goes!