Anniversary, some forum fun and story continues

Goodmorning everybody!

Today there is a small anniversary, because Jan and I are married for 2 years now! (all counted we are almost 17 1/2 years together already!). How time really flies! On the opening of my email this morning there was a real sweet surprise, I found a ecard with some lovely wishes for our anniversary, thanks Becky Jo!. Now if that's not a good start of the week!
We didn't plan anything special for today, but of couse I will give my Jan a BIG hug, that's for sure!

The weekend passed nicely, I think you can say I was rather creative, made some freebies, yeah!, layouts for the family story and something to laugh on the forum. First Edna came up with a GREAT layout for Snowy and I made a picture of a sign during one of the walks and made a layout out of that for Snowy ( and the rest of us at the forum). Both LO's brought some big smiles on their faces. If you want to see them, you go to Snowy's blog http://silversnowyraven.blogspot/ or the forum http://www.magickalscraps.com/ and take a look under the topic August chat challenge!!

So it's time to continue with the family story, I am trying not to make the post tooooo looooong. LOL. At the bottom you will find the freebie for today, "Nostalgic Memories". Hey, it fits rather well to the subject of "family story" I realise. Coinsidence, I suppose.
Have you all a great day, and make the most of it!

FAMILY STORY PART 9
We arrived at about the year 1953, my year. The little Kyra grew up well, she went to nursery school and elementary school. I remember at the elementary school(first years I was at a school run by nons!) there had to be done some decoration and repair. And the nons heard that my mother could paint not bad and asked her to come up with something for the halls and corridors. You know what she did?? She painted the story of Snowwhite, with all the funny dwarfs and fantasy forrest etc. And life size! Such a pity I don;t have any pictures of that! But it made the school a lot more interesting!

bigger view http://i28.tinypic.com/2dhd1z5.jpg

School went well and everybody was happy. So I had 8 years. And I was already interested in music and wanted to learn to play the piano. From neighbours(their girl was my best friend at the time) received an address of a young women who gave piano lessons and they made an appointment. And this young women came along. She was called(at the time) Mrs. Watson. Married to an Englishman, lived for some years in England, got devorced and came back to Holland. Everything was talked over concerning the lessons with my parents and Mrs, Watson wanted to see me of course. I came in the room and her first reaction was something in the way of: "Oh, boy, what a pretty little girl, but do you see her little, little fingers? I don;t know how she will be able to play the piano!"But nevertheless she agreed to come to our house once a week and we started the lessons. It seemed I picked it up quite easily and progreesed rather fast. It was nice that my pianoteacher each year organized an evening like a little concert, on which all her pupils performed. And also I was present after a year of lessons and was soooo proud I could play a little piece! It was an exciting event for a little girl, you can imagine!

http://i28.tinypic.com/34yo8t0.jpg

Then as an 8-9 year old there came up another important event. To do the First Holy Commuion(I was brought up in the catholic faith, as my father was catholic and my mother too, although my mother did practise it a bit in a different way, in the Russian orthodox way. So I went to the western catholic church but also to the Russian church and because of that I did my Communion twice! In both churches). It was a lovely sunny day and I looked like a little bride in a dress, my mother made for me!

From left to right: my sister, my brother, me, my father, my mother
http://i30.tinypic.com/91ji2h.jpg

Also school still went well and I went to secondary school Here it was called the MMS, which is something like the Middle school for girls. I t was a broad education, you got languages, some science, some arythmetic, some art, some history, in short a lot of things. It was a thouroug and well based school education. There were also music lessons, no problem for me of course. We had a very nice and good teacher, Mr. v.d. Meer, who happened to be also a very good singer. And he got it through the board of directors that the school organized a pianocompetition. There were 2 categories: for pupils who had less than 4 years pianolessons and the other for elder children with more years. Stricktly I was just to fit into the "less than 4 years" but it was to "easy"for me sp I competed in the higher catagory. And wow, I ended in second place. Not bad for the little one! Every year there was such a competition and I have to say I always did very well, not less than 2nd place, blush blush!At the end of my schooyears l the competition had become more important, because it was between all the secondary schools of The Hague. And now also girl AND boys!

Till here we go now, there is coming more of this tomorrow.

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