Viva, Las Vegas!

As a rule, we don't travel on holidays,  preferring to stay at home and celebrate with our family.  This July 4th weekend was different ~ our oldest friends (and godparents to our girls) ~ were in Las Vegas for the Barbershop Harmony International Convention. You can find the recap here: Recap of performances
Since we're only a 75 minute plane ride away, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to spend the holiday with them.

grandson Jordan, Mark, Debbie

Mark and Debbie are lifelong musicians and vocalists and have been part of international barbershop singing for more than 50 years.  This past January Mark's quartet, Faces 4 Radio, were the international gold medalists in their division.  Over the weekend, Mark was also honored for 50 years of participation in barbershop.  We had the pleasure of hearing Faces 4 Radio perform on Friday night....

And the final round of Quartet judging on Saturday night, with a fantastic, patriotic performance by the gold medalist chorus, Vocal Majority

It wouldn't be a Vegas visit without a Cirque du Soleil show ~ this trip we saw "KA" ~ mesmerizing!

Fantastic sets

Fireball coming from the orchestra pit ~ pre show 

aerialists

Fantastic flying creatures

 The Bellagio's inspiring seasonal conservatory ~

It was a wonderful celebration of friends, singing, and visual candy!

Speaking of visual candy, here's the finale of my metal clay class!

I can't begin to tell you how much I enjoyed my class.  I'm looking forward to the Fall Session and working in silver!

The summer is whizzing by and so are my classes.  I'm very busy with Artisan's Daybook (see sidebar) and here are a few snippets of my progress....

I'll be traveling to Phoenix at month's end for a class with Deryn Mentock, at Art Unraveled.  I'm very excited to see my friend and instructor once again.  It will be a FABULOUS necklace class!

Due to life's schedule filling up so quickly, I've decided to blog once a month, rather than try to post every week.  Sadly, there just aren't enough hours in the day.  However, I'm thinking that a once-a-month post will be pretty juicy!  Oh, and I will stick to my Monday format.

Remember, you can also keep up with me on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Karens-Monday-Musings/186573324706305?ref_type=bookmark

Have a wonderful, happy, and carefree month of July and I'll see you once again in August!