Thursday, August 26, 2010

Surprise!! She's 10! =0)


Miss Adree sitting in her new chair...

*Gasp!*

So excited for her new bed!

Yes, it's true...I have officially gotten older, wait?! It's wasn't my birthday? Haha, as I'm sure most parents know, when your child gets older you instantly become old. Seeing as though my baby girl turned 10 yesterday, then I aged an entire decade! I mean, I can still see in my minds eye with vivid detail, my baby girl in my arms and her brother in tow...and since I have opened my eyes and realized that we have added 10 years, then I for certain have gotten old!
Little Miss Adree announced yesterday before bed that this had in fact been the best birthday ever, largely impart for the big new surprise waiting for her when we got home! She got up and opened a few things that were wrapped for her at her place in the morning, had breakfast, got dressed and let me fix her hair with curls and a pretty new barrette before I dropped her and her brother off at school for the day. When I arrived home, I got to work disassembling her bunk bed and removing it from her room. When I was finished, I moved some of her furniture around and Lee went out side to fetch her birthday present surprise. He and I put it together and he went to go get ready for the work day and I put the rest of her room together. After school I picked up Adree and Seth and we traveled to Wal-Mart to pick up the things she wanted for dinner. We wandered around the store and she picked out a couple of things from the clearance racks she wanted and went up front to pay. I discovered that I didn't have my wallet and informed the cashier of this and went outside to see if it was in the car, it wasn't. I called Lee and he found it at home and drove to Wal-Mart with it for me. That really sucks by the way, when you forget your wallet at home and you live in Santa Clara and Wal-Mart is in Bloomington! After getting my wallet, I payed and we made our way home finally. We got there and Lee wasn't home yet. Funny, he was just at Wal-Mart...hmmm...I called him and asked where he was as he pulled into the driveway behind me. I told Adree she had to wait for Lee before going in and she pointed out her bunk-bed, that was disassembled in the living room, and made her way to her room with Lee by the hand. She gasped as she came in to the room, "You got me a new bed!?, The one I wanted!" As you can see from the picture, she was super excited and that's the biggest smile I've seen from her in ages!
The bed. The bed was a bed she spied at Furniture Row when Lee and I were actually looking at mattresses for our bed. We walked by the beds and she was pointing out all the pretty beds they had there. Lee had wandered off and I could see her climb up on a bed in front of me and when I got closer I could see what a pretty bed it was. Black wood with slats and sleigh style curves, a very girlie, but not immature bed. She was in love! "I LOVE this bed, Mommy", she told me. I assured her that it was very pretty and practical too, being a day bed with a trundle she would still have room for people to come stay over. She wouldn't outgrow this bed, unlike the bunk-bed and it would serve her well through the rest of her school years. She went to find Lee and hauled him to the bed by the hand and announced that this was only thing she wanted for her birthday. Lee checked the price and sighed saying this is all she would get for Christmas too. Adree wandered off and I told lee that this would be perfect and practical as well. He said he would consider it and shooed Adree and I home and promptly ordered it for her when we left. Adree was never the wiser!
Yes, how on earth Adree got a new bed out of Lee and I needing a new mattress is beyond me, but as far as birthday surprises, this one takes the cake! 10 years and countless hugs, brush-snagging snarls, polished toenails, all things pink, and incessant bossing of her brothers later my little girl is growing up. Of course that means I'm growing old as well, but oh well! =0)

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Musically inclined...=0)


Adree playing the keyboard by ear

Drake practicing...

and insisting I take a picture of him bowing!

As you can see the apple does not fall far from the tree in my house! I have kids who not only love music, but have the desire to play it as well. Of course I play the piano and played the flute in Middle School and marching band. Cara plays the piano and the flute and sings well too. Sterling actually plays several instruments, but excels at the guitar. Their Dad was a drummer and of course Lee is a drummer and Audio Engineer and toured with big name bands throughout the 80's. So, I wasn't surprised at all at their interest in it.
Adree would love to take lessons, I just need to rescue my piano from Mom and Dad's living room and find someone nearby willing to teach her the basics. Drake was adamant that he wanted to play the violin in the orchestra this year, after learning to play a little through Elementary school. Lee was happy to oblige and purchased him a violin this summer and Drake says, that "practicing 20 minutes a day is the best part of his homework!" Which makes me glad and likely that he'll have no problem sticking with it!
Adree of course was excited to continue at their Elementary school with the comprehensive music program where she gets to play violin, sing in the choir, play in the "orfesstra" and this year she wants to play drums with "conga town". Conga town plays bongo drums and she's very excited to play them in the upcoming rodeo parade and I'll be sure to get pictures!
Little Sethee I imagine will find something musical he wants to do too, Lee's secret wish is to teach him to drum (he has great rhythm), but we'll have to wait and see!
Watching them take an interest in music make think of how grown up their getting, especially as I see Drake walk to school, violin case in tow. It truly does my heart good. =0)

Monday, August 9, 2010

Rush!!


Thank you to Lee for giving me the opportunity to enjoy my very first rock concert! Last Thursday Lee and I gathered ourselves and the kids up and traveled northward to see Rush in concert. Thank you to my sissy for watching the kids! Lee got the tickets on a whim a few weeks ago and since the day of the concert was the day before Cara and Nathan's anniversary, we exchanged kid watching with them and watched their kids the next evening. It worked out well if you ask me! =0)


About the experience: This is the view I pretty much had for the whole evening, a good shot down to the stage framed by these two winners. Yeah, let's say we weren't impressed! Lee and I made our way to Usana amphitheater and got to our seats about 20 minutes before the show started. We had great sound from where we were sitting and we amused ourselves by counting mullets and being impressed by the range of people in attendance. There were (of course) a significant amount of 50 somethings but the range went from teenagers up to geriatrics. Lee looked to see how many other people he could see with his vintage 2112 shirt on and even told some kid with a Pink Floyd shirt on that he was at the wrong concert, the funny thing is...the kid said, "Sorry man!"
Anyway, we were getting ready to start and a 70's leftover guy with shoulder length gray hair and two young men (obviously his sons) and a young woman came to sit down in front of us. Since I was sitting and the young woman was in front of me, I was greeted with a lovely view of her backside, thong and all. Now I might have been more understanding if she was really cute, with a cute little body...eh, she really wasn't! Okay, strike one. This people seemed totally disinterested in sitting at all and in fact stood...all the way through the concert, 3 and a half hours! Strike 2. I mean it's a rock concert, you stand during rock concerts, you sing the songs, you pump your fists in the air...no, I really get it. Honestly though, I think the people in front of us were probably were the only people that didn't actually sit at some point! 3 and a half hours standing in one place on the concrete, I sat down a couple of times and just listened!;0) Standing was one thing, but the 70's leftover Dad insisted upon leaning over and yelling into his son's ear (um, yeah...rock concert!) constantly and Lee, tired of them blocking his view resorted to singing loudly (and off key) every time he did it, until he got the hint! Strike 3, yep now I'm making fun of your antics on my blog! Ha!


Okay, so we've made fun of the people in front of us enough...now we can make fun of the guy next to me! I didn't ever look over at him, but was very aware that he had at least two beers while he was there and he was a very large man. During the first half of the concert he was just fine, stood next to me and sang, pumped his fists, semi-absorbed the shrill of the cat-call whistler behind me threatening to deafen my right ear, but the second half of the concert was another story! The light show was getting good and Rush was playing some of their more popular hits and the guy next to me decided to start dancing. Dancing would have been fine if he was doing it front to back, but nooooo....he had to dance side to side. I was getting really tired of getting bumped into constantly and was already standing on top of Lee. I yelled in Lee's ear what was going on and Lee glared his direction and put his arm around my shoulders so that his hand would get bumped into instead of my shoulder. The large, drunk man began swaying more and more into me and I felt Lee hold out his hand into a fist. The large, drunk man swayed into Lee's fist and bounced off undeterred. He continued to sway and Lee continued to keep his hand in a fist and before the man finally stopped swaying so bad, Lee was actually punching the guy as he crashed into us! He must have gotten the hint because he backed off a bit!
We took off early before the band came out for an encore in hopes of getting out of the parking lot in a timely manner. We got totally lost trying to find our car and I ended up with two pink hi-tops full of fox tails before we figure out where we were supposed to be going! The concert was great though, despite the obnoxious people in front of us and next to me and hi-tops full of fox tails! As far as experiences this was really fun and now I can say...yep, I've been to a rock concert...ROCK ON!!! =0) Thanks baby it was fun!! ;0)