AOSA Denver Day 2

Michael and I found the perfect place for breakfast this morning, Sam's #3 Cafe, just a few blocks west along the Pedestrian Mall (16th Street).  A hearty breakfast of eggs, sausage gravy, and biscuits got the day started perfectly.

A herd of buffalo along 16th Street

 We walked to the end of the mall, boarded a shuttle and rode it all the way to the east end and then back to the Visitor Information Center.  There we found lodgings for the 4 days after conference and booked three day trips into the Rockies and around the Denver area.  

The afternoon found us on a tour bus going around the city seeing the sights.  Almost everywhere along the way we were able to view or glimpse the Rocky Mountains, a constant reminder of where we are and how beautiful this place on earth really is.  (Except for the Canadian Geese... watch your step...)

Michael talks to the driver of the red Gray Line bus.

We stopped at Mile High stadium, the Martin Luther King statue, Unsinkable Molly Brown's house and museum, and the State Capital building.  We didn't get to see the golden dome ($377,000,000 worth of gold leaf is in the process of being installed) but we were able to walk around and gawk at the inside.  Beautiful, old, stone architecture....

The Conference began for us after the tour as we began meeting up with friends, registering, and then dinner at Bubba Gumps.

After dinner we met up with Tom and Bonny, our fellow CeltOrff band mates.  CeltOrff started up in Spokane in 2010 when we all found each other and discovered our mutual love of Celtic music.  Bonny and I met at the AOSA in Louisville in '03 and played together in the closing ceremony.  We had promised each other to get together for a Jam but it didn't happen until '10. So here we are! We jammed till about 9:30 and promised each other that we'd get together at lunch times or whenever could grab a moment away from the conference.

Bonny Lundin-Scheer, Tom Wilson, and Brent Holl - The CeltOrffs

Off the Denver and the National AOSA Conference

I drove to Dulles airport to stay at the Best Western and take advantage of their Park and Fly promotion.  One night's stay gets me 13 days of free parking!  Then it's rise at 4:45 AM to make an 8:15 flight on Delta to Atlanta where I'll meet Michael.  We'll travel on together from there to Denver.

Delta rocks!  The registration and check-in was amazingly easy.  I first downloaded the mobile app, then checked in from there.  Up popped by QR coded boarding pass.  I popped them over to my passbook app on my iPhone.  Passbook is cool, because the boarding pass popped up every time I needed it automatically!  Delta also provides access to wifi all the way, a nice bonus.  $14 bucks got me 24 hour access.

I met up with Michael in Atlanta and found Judy Burnette and Gretchen Jensen on the same flight. The flight was uneventful, and we had a beautiful day for travel.

Over Kansas... Not in a Balloon

We all arrived in Denver, had lunch in the airport and took the shuttle to our hotel, the Hyatt Regency.

Michael and I decided to take a walk to the Hard Rock to get a pin and a beer.  Then we found Marlowe's for dinner.  We had some nice Lobster Taco's.

We walked through the downtown on the Pedestrian Mall over the conference center and then back to the hotel.  We turned in early.

The Big Blue Grizzly looks into the Conference Center.

Creative Bit's with Children's Lit, Released October 1, 2013

 In Creative Bits with  Children's Lit, best-selling favorite children's books come alive in music classrooms everywhere with songs and creative lesson plans developed by best-selling authors Sandy Lantz and Gretchen Wahlberg, successful presenters in level courses and conferences around the country.

Each book, while being read aloud in class, is embellished with songs, games, movement, puppetry, and drama. There's never been a better way to present important music concepts than through engaging young musicians with stories, reading, and song.

In Creative Bits With Children’s Lit, Sandy and Gretchen have focused on nine books which vary in reading levels, genres, and subjects.  As districts across the nation adopt Common Core Standards, these lessons integrate language arts and music while maintaining the integrity of both subject areas.   Language arts, with rhyming words, metric call and response speech phrases, patterns, and onomatopoeias, lends itself to a perfect blend with music.  With poetry, folk tales, fun stories, and books addressing social issues, great connections have been made with teachers and students between books and music.

These lessons adapt to multi-age groups as well as mainstreamed special needs classes.  Differentiated instruction is integrated with a thoroughly kid-tested teaching process.

This great new release encourages music teachers everywhere to get the “Bug” and open a book!

Creative Bits with Children’s Lit is  AVAILABLE NOW! Look at a preview on Sandy and Gretchen's website!

Suggested retail price for this new book is $24.95.  School discounts are available. More information at www.sandygretchen.com.

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Brent Holl - beatinpath@mac.com