Concert with Highstrung: Preperation

Finally, after myriads of emails and phone calls, we had the joint concert with Highstrung rescheduled and we were ready and rearing to go! We started to get a bit overwhelmed as we tried to plan our decorations, set-up, find time to bake our share of the cookies for the refreshment table, and catch up on errands postponed by the snow storm! We finally decided to ask some friends from church to come the day before and help us. Mallory and Elsie were such a blessing! Thursday afternoon, we all mixed up several batches of cookies, and then Mallory and Elsie spent hours baking them while we practiced.

Janna with a tray of cookies.

Sarah mixing up some chocolate mint cookies.

Yummmmm! White chocolate cranberry cookies and chocolate mint cookies!

Thank you Mallory and Elsie for your help and companionship!

Boxes of cookies ready to go!

As we were all settling down for a good nights sleep, Kathrina discovered that our basement floor was covered with an inch of water and more was pouring in. Although we have had rainy days and leaky basements before, we had never seen anything this bad. Soon the water was coming up to even our storage boxes that were on blocks of wood! Mallory and Elsie stayed up with us until past 1 o'clock in the morning bailing hundreds of gallons of water out of the basement. Fortunately, Dad remembered a pump left in one of our sheds by a previous renter. He hooked it up and it worked. In the morning, after less than five hours sleep, we woke up to a dry basement. Praise the Lord!

Mom, Mallory and Elsie set up the refreshment tables while the rest of us set up the sound system.


When the Knopps arrived, we had a rehearsal for the two songs we planned to perform together. It was only the second time we had ever played together. The music sounded beautiful and we had lots of fun working together. Well, nothing more to do. It's time for the concert to begin!