Lorrie Morgan

Every now and then, usually late at night, I get inspiration to draw something. Usually it's to draw anything, but sometimes it will be something specific, like a person or a type of animal or some kind of scenery or story. A few weeks ago, I felt inspired to draw a person, so I browsed through an old CD case of ours with a whole bunch of different CD album covers to find a reference picture. After looking through all of them, I decided to draw Lorrie Morgan. Now, I've never heard her music (I don't even know if we have the CD anymore), so I no clue what she sounds like. By looking through the little album cover booklet, I found out that she was a late 80s-early 90s country singer. This one album (Something in Red) was made in 1991 (the year I was born). That's about all I know. But I liked the picture, so I drew it. My scanner is not hooked up, and even if it was, the picture is too big for it to have a good quality scan, so I took a picture of it. Still not the best quality, but you get the point of the picture. And here is my finished portrait.

*edit*
I decided I should look her up on youtube, and I love her voice. :) Her songs are nice, too. Definitely not of this decade, but I prefer the 80s-90s anyway. :)

Still Working On It...

This is Laura again.. yikes I'm not very good at keeping this thing updated. I'll try and be better about that.. and I still have some stuff I want to fix on the page. Add something here, tweak something there.

I guess this is supposed to be a family blog, but I'm the only one who has time to sit down and write, so I apologize in advance if some of these posts are only about me and not quite the family... I'm really not self-centered! My mom might find some time at some point or another to sit down and write stuff eventually, but at the moment things are pretty hectic around here. One of the many things going around, and probably the biggest of them all is that our house is being painted. For those who have been to our house in the past, it is no longer the red-white-and-blue house on the block. When the painting's all done (by Wednesday hopefully), I'll post some before and after pictures.
Molly's continuing with school at Clarke College. She's doing pretty good all around, getting used to the major amount of work she's getting (mostly from one class which she hates and finds to be totaly pointless... that's basic ed at college though I guess. Once that's out of the way she can move on to more interesting classes).
Me... well, I've had a headache for over a week now and it's very annoying and interferes with my everyday life. Tylenol's not strong enough and naperson (naproxen sodium) aggrivates my stomach badly. I'll be going to the doctor next week to get it checked out. Other than that, I've been practicing my butt off (or fingers more like) for all-state orchestra auditions on October 25th. My school orchestra director and cello teacher both feel I have a decent chance of making it. I myself have no idea whether I'll make it or not. I hope I do.... if I don't make it it's not the end of the world, but I've certainly been working extremely hard the last year and hope that I at least make call-backs. Oh I also started the Dubuque Youth Symphony rehearsals a few weeks ago and discovered that I made first chair! I couldn't believe it when they told me. That means I get to lead the section (which is made up of 7 cellists), make decisions about bowings and fingerings in the music, and I get any solos that are in the music. :) I love being a senior and have hardly any homework ever. It's awesome... however I'm having trouble finding a group to go to homecoming with. :\
Sally is doing very well in school, too. She's in 8th grade and is on the honor roll (which means she's in all honors classes and is getting good grades in them). She's also on the volleyball team and has a lot of fun with that. She's also in the youth symphony, playing viola.
Grace and Oliver are reading a LOT. Grace is picking up the flute and wants to play in the band. My mom will be helping Grace learn how to play it. She played flute throughout highschool and pulled it out recently to see if she "still has it", which, she does. :)

Until next time... which may be tomorrow, next week, or after Halloween. I'll really try to be better about updating.

The Priest Blog

Why hello everybody. :) This is the first post on the Priest Family Blog.. this is Laura typing, I'm currently setting up the blog and decided to put up a first post (mostly so that I can actually see it and fix font settings and whatnot...)

As of last week, school in Dubuque has started. Little Oliver has started 1st grade and Grace is in 4th. They're both attending Lincoln Elementary. Sally is an 8th grader at Washington and just joined the volley ball team and enjoys it very much. She plans on auditioning for the school musical soon. They're doing High School Musical this year. (which doesn't make any sense to me, seeing as it's a middle school. Plus, I'm not exactly High School Musical's #1 fan...). Sally is also playing the viola in the middle school orchestra. Laura (I) have started my senior year of highschool and after not being able to for 5 years (due to busy schedules and my chronic crohn's disease), I am finally starting the Improvisation and Comedy Works club at my school, and am sitting first chair in the cello section in the orchestra. At home I am busily practicing for the All-State orchestra auditions. Molly is a freshman at Clarke College and has had some last minute schedule surprises, but is enjoying her classes and likes having her bedroom be redone to be more of a dorm room style.

Here are some individual pictures of each child in the family. :)

Molly and her wonderful boyfriend, Kevin

Laura

Sally

Grace

(this is the most recently appropriate I could find. She just had her school picture taken today)

Oliver
(one of the hardest things ever: getting Oliver to make a real face for the camera without doing something random and crazy)
In this picture, Oliver is wearing real clogs from Holland. When my dad was about his age, he lived in Germany (my grandpa was in the air force). His parents got him these shoes and we still have them today.

I had to get him talking and smiling in order to get a picture that had a fairly normal pose and no twists or smirks or cross-eyes on his face. Quite an accomplishment I think. :)