Memorabilia #13: Musikgarten. . .

1998 was a big transition year for our family. We lost Grandma Bert suddenly in August just a few days before Zach's 6th birthday, I quit the daycare with very little notice for a variety of reasons but mostly so I could help Grandpa Harry not be so lonely, Zach started kindergarten in September and Gloria was born in December. I found myself without a job for the first time since I was 16. It's not that I didn't have anything to do, though. Zach attended kindergarten at Cole Christian School in Boise so by the time I dropped him off and went back home, it was time to pick him up. I had my hands full with a new baby as well as spending quite a bit of time with Grandpa Harry and taking care of my nephew, Spencer. I don't know if I had a little post partum or if the events of the end of 1998 just threw me for a total loop but I know I wasn't really myself.

If all of that wasn't enough, BFC was going through a transition of it's own and the church had a major split in February of 1999. We stayed. Most of our friends left.

Sometime that spring I decided I needed to get a job. I don't remember what my thought process was about it but I was used to being employed and we probably needed the money. Spencer was in daycare a few days a week since I couldn't take him full time and he had a music class that took place 1 day/week at his school. My sister told me about it and said I could easily do these kinds of classes. I contacted the owner of Musical Kids, became a certified Musikgarten Instructor and started teaching music in the fall of '99.


I didn't love it but I didn't hate it either. The first year I taught exclusively in day cares and preschools to the 3 to 6 age group. It was part time, just a few mornings/week and my parents helped out with Gloria. I even taught music at my dad's daycare in Middleton. This is an example of the program that I would hold at the end of the year so that the parents could see what they were paying for:



When I took the Musikarten workshop, I especially enjoyed the Mommy and Me classes so I started one of those at BFC just to see what kind of response I would get. I took Gloria with me and Elsie and Megan (and their mommys!) signed up, too. I ended up offering several of these classes over the next few years:



In the meantime, Rob was starting up a little side business in our garage.

Things are a little blurry in my mind because there were so many things going on at that time but I believe he built his first case in the beginning of 2000 and quit his full time job at Aatronics at the end of 2001. I worked at Musical Kids until the spring of 2002 when I got tired of handing over 50% of my earnings to the owner. It just wasn't cost effective.

I still have the note that Rob wrote me sometime that spring that says something like, "Quit working for Kristen (the owner of Musical Kids) and work with me".

So I did. . .