Weekend Trips

Sacramento, May 29-31
Katie, our little sis, and two of our cousins graduated High School! So we drove up to have a party with them and visit the fam. It was a VERY quick visit, but we managed to play basketball as a family at the church, have a BBQ, watch the movie UP with our friends Ian and April, and enjoy a few hours of church before heading back to HB.

Great Gma June, 94 years old!

Jeremy hit a tennis ball with a baseball bat straight at Matt's arm. Ouch!

Our new baby cousin, Aaron!

Jeremy with Katie

Jeremy got to help at a convention for work!

Denver, June 6-8
My best friend Stacy got married to Dan Burk this past weekend in the Denver Temple!! And it just so happened that a good friend from HS, Tia, was getting married the same day. So I hit two weddings and receptions in one day. It was another VERY quick visit, but so worth it to see the brides as happy as can be. It was especially amazing to be in the temple with Stacy, her groom and family. What a blessing to feel the Spirit of the Lord so strongly and to know that marriage can truly last beyond the grave.

Tanya will be the next graduate, just one more year! sniff, sniff.f

I got to visit with friends from HS that were at Tia's wedding. Three of us turned out to be teachers!!

Isn't Abbie beautiful!?

Visit from Mom R

A few weeks ago, my mom came to see my school's first grade performance that I directed. We had a really fun time with her. Highlights included:

• Visiting my music classes and school
• Walks on the beach
• Eating out
• Temple session in the Newport Beach Temple
• First Grade Musical, Lemonade. It went really, really well!!
• Horse Races
• La Brea Tar Pits- so cool!! This place in downtown LA has tar bubbling up from the inside of the earth. The tar has been oozing for centuries. And during the ice age, it captured many animals. We got to see the pits that researchers are excavating. Really fascinating.
• Venice beach and the wacky drum circle group
• Downtown Disney and firework show

It was really neat to have her be with us for the week!

Mrs. Zavoral Makes the News!!

Yesterday, two special guests came to my school to get the students excited about raising money in the Fun Run for the Music Program. The parent association is in huge support of what I'm doing. They were able to get a group called Street Beat AND one of the stars from "High School Musical" to come.

Corbin Bleu, the new celebrity, was SO nice to everyone. He talked with the kids about music in his life, made jokes, let them ask him questions, and was really sincere.

ABC 7 News and the Orange County Register came to cover the event. They interviewed me with cameras and reporters. I had about 10 seconds of glory on TV that showed me, Corbin and the Street Beat guys laughing together and getting our pictures taken. The above video is from the OC Register.

Click here to read a great article that was written about the event. I got several quotes in there!

Click here to view a slide show taken by the OC Register.

The whole event was a fantastic experience for the kids and great publicity for the school and our music program. A special thanks to everyone that made it possible. Hopefully we will make enough money from the fundraiser to get everything that our school needs to really rev up the music program!!

I will be running in the Fun Run, too, and will accept donations and pledges from anyone, especially from parents and grandparents!

First Music Performance

My first music performance at my new job was today. It went AMAZING! The Kindergarten students and I had so much fun. We showed the parents a typical day in music class. The children came in the same way they do in music. I interacted with them the same way I do in music class, etc. It was really neat.

The parents said tons of nice things like "The children were so full of joy and loving every minute of it!" "It's amazing how you are able to get them to sing and dance and then stop and be so well-behaved." "Ever since you came here, my child has been singing all of those songs at home" "This program was so full of energy. I am so glad you are our new music teacher!"

It's neat to know that I have been making a difference. These children are absolutely worth it!!

Here are some pictures to illustrate how much fun we had! Singing games that were featured include Hickety Tickety Bumble Bee, High Stepping Horses, Engine Number Nine, Talking Piano, Fanga Alafia and dancing to Vivaldi's Winter.

This (above) is my favorite picture! The little girl has just frozen in the game "Talking Piano." She knows that she can't make any noise in order to hear the piano. But you can tell she is having so much fun, she can hardly contain her excitement!!

The school is having a fundraiser next week to help pay for these drums that I requested!!

I'm playing a Nursery rhyme game and saying in a low voice "which finger did he bite?"

I'm an author on eHow!

In case you still don't know, eHow.com is a website where you can learn how to do pretty much anything. You can also write how to do stuff, too. So that's what we've done. When viewers click on the ads, we make money, so it's a nice source of extra income.

Thanks for taking a minute to view and rate my newest articles! Just click on the links that interest you!

How to Avoid Being a Wife That Nags

How to Use Music to Improve Reading Fluency

How to Feel the Inside of Your Stomach

How to Use Music to Teach Multiplication

How to Protect Your Family From Internet Pornography Addiction

How to Enjoy Marriage

Spring Break Visits

Now that we live in Orange County, everyone comes to visit us, especially during their Spring Breaks. Last week, we enjoyed family home evening with uncle Sean, aunt Jill and their kids, Josh, Natalie, Allie and Kira. We had a bonfire at the beach and roasted hot dogs, pineapple and marsh mallows. We also played with our turtle, Sergio, in the sand, chased seagulls and got wet in the ocean. I wish we brought our camera to show how much fun we had!

Yesterday we enjoyed playing with uncle Doran, aunt Dianne and their kids, Danielle, Spencer, and Trevor (Andrew is on a mission). We played at the beach and got red in the sun, buried Trevor, ate at TK burger, walked the peer, saw dolphins and starfish, shopped, played ping pong at our complex and then played "3 flys up" in our pool.

I had SO much fun getting individual time with each cousin family. Thanks Jill and thanks Dianne for including us in your vacation!!


Jeremy and I also made it to Sea World during my Spring Break this past week. I really, really like that place! I'm so glad we can go anytime we want now!

Scenes from School

It's hard to believe that I've been teaching music at my new job for 3 months now! Hopefully these pictures can give you a glimpse of this wonderful part of my life!

Board in Hallway

Rhythm and Melody Board
Instruments below

Parents visiting during Open House
It was packed!!

World Music Board
Each time we learn a new folk song, we put a pin on the map, showing what country or what part of American it is from. We are especially filling the map up during an after-school class that I invented called Global Voices. It's been really fun, and I get extra pay for it!

4th grade playing All Around the Racetrack

First Grade

Third Grade

First Grade

Easter Miracles

I love Easter!! It's my favorite holiday. And what a beautiful Easter Day it is here in HB to help remind us of the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! Easter is a holiday of miracles, and we have not been spared from receiving them.

Miracle 1- Jeremy and I headed down to Sea World yesterday to see if we could get in with the Fun passes that Desha and I bought last time. It was going to be a long shot since we should have gotten the cards in a certain line before.

While we were in line at customer service, I realized that I didn't bring my ID to show her that I was me. This made our chances of getting the cards even more slim. Miraculously, the ticket lady didn't ask us for our ID and gave BOTH of us a Fun Card that worked at the ticket master!! We got in to Sea World for free and we can use the cards all year!

Miracle 2- Last night I was really sad that we didn't have anything planned for Easter. It just creeped up on us, and we didn't invite anyone over for dinner or even get food. So last night, I prayed that I would be able to forgive the situation and not be bitter about it. I also asked Heavenly Father that if He saw fit, that He would inspire someone in the ward to invite us over for dinner so we wouldn't feel left out from celebrating Easter. Well, without any solicitation, we got asked to eat over at the Evans' home tonight!! I was so excited!

Miracle 3- One of the ladies in the young women program was stressed last night because she was preparing her talk for today's Easter service. Suddenly she realized that she was also supposed to teach a lesson in young women. She prayed that something would happen that would allow the lesson to be taught the way it should.

Well, she came into class and saw that I was preparing something on the chalkboard. I had prepared a lesson and didn't know that Jan was supposed to. She was so excited and said that I was an answer to prayer!

Miracle 4- On Thursday and Friday, there were a couple of high speed chases and accidents near both of our workplaces. The one where the police had to kill the mother happened around the corner from my school and one hour before I got there. It is amazing to think that Jeremy and I have been protected on the freeways. We pray for this safety every day and do not take for granted that we return from each commute safely.

Truly "there are miracles all around us just now." All we have to do is recognize them as true tender mercies from the Lord. So since it's the season of Easter miracles, please add a miracle that you have witnessed this past week to our post!!

Big Sis Comes to Town

Desha, my older sister, came to visit us during her spring break a couple of weeks ago. We had a LOT of fun together.

Highlights included yummy food at a fun beach restaurant, walking and talking on the pier, saying goodnight to Desha every morning on my way out to work (yes, she is our night owl), listening to balluga whales sing to us through their glass tank, gorgious sunset in Hollywood, huddling together with Jeremy to keep warm and stay protected from flying trash cans, seeing Saturn's rings, test tasting at the night market and realizing that I'm not the only one that wears scarves, sweathshirts and extra coats to keep warm. I knew it was a genetic thing!

We listened to the balluga whales sing to us for 45 minutes.

Sea World

Griffith Observatory, LA