Strong Women

I already had this post in my head when I found out that today is International Women's Day and that is just perfect timing. I'm grateful for all the wonderful women in my life and in my children's life. They have many examples in our family of women to look up to. Recently, both of my girls had the chance to learn from some strong women not in our family.

This year was Sabrina's second year playing basketball for the city league. She completely threw herself in to try something new without any knowledge of the sport. I was amazed by her courage and enthusiasm. Her coach and assistant coach this year were both women-- athletic, strong, beautiful, kind, passionate about sports women. I was glad that she could see these women who knew the sport and could help her improve. It impressed me how they were able to be patient with this group of girls even during game after game of mistakes and they always spoke to encourage and uplift.

I'm sure Sabrina learned more than just basketball through her experience this season and she has memories that will last a long time. Thanks so much to Bethany and Angi.

For Elisa, she had the opportunity to do some job shadowing. It was difficult for her because they were supposed to shadow someone in a career that they would like to do and all Elisa wants to do is be a singer. I know there are many singers in Utah, but I don't know any personally who I could ask. She decided that she needed to get the assignment done, even if it wasn't shadowing a singer. Thankfully, two wonderful women let her shadow them and the experiences were more than just an assignment.

Chelsea was the first person Elisa got to job shadow. Chelsea was a teenager in our old neighborhood years ago. Since then, she moved, we moved, and she is now a wife, mother, wonderful singer (although she doesn't often get to perform right now), and has her own salon in her home. Elisa got to see this rock star stylist in action as she cut hair and gave a manicure. Elisa was excited that she got a bonus of having her own nails done. As Elisa was telling me about her time there, she talked about how Chelsea said that you can become a stylist by going to school or by completing an apprenticeship with a certain number of hours of work. That was new to her. Also, since Chelsea is an experienced singer, she was able to talk to Elisa about that too. Elisa really enjoyed her time shadowing her. Thanks, Chelsea, for letting her come by at such short notice and for teaching her so much in such a short amount of time!

Unfortunately, I forgot to tell Elisa to get a picture with Chelsea there, but I need to have some, so here are her nails (about a week after they were actually painted).

And this is a photo I snagged from Chelsea's Facebook page so I hope she doesn't mind. I just didn't want to leave her cute face out of the post.

Elisa's second job shadow experience was awesome as well. One of our former neighbors is Rebecca, whose voice you can hear on FM 100.3 in Utah every day. Elisa got to go to the studio with her and watch Rebecca in action as she answered phone calls, recorded spots for the air, play the music, comment on air and interact with people. It sounded like an eventful day and she really had fun. I asked her what she liked the most about it and she said, "Meeting all the people because they were so friendly and talkative."

 
Rebecca gave her advice about finishing your schooling while you're young and going to travel the world to open your eyes to new things. Even though she isn't a singer herself, being in the industry she is, she has met many and had some stories and advice for her about that too. And Rebecca was so nice to introduce Elisa as a singer/songwriter to everyone and encourage her to put some videos on YouTube so others can see her talent (since her mom's urging hasn't worked yet).

I'm so glad that my girls had these opportunities to see these amazing women and to learn from them.