Eliza's First Opera Performance

Earlier this week I took Eliza and Luke to the library to look for an audiobook I needed to read before my book club meeting tonight - they didn't have the book on CD, so I binge-read the book in 2 1/2 days, which is why I'm not prepared to do my TBT tonight.  I'll happen soon though, I hope.  Anyway, we were at the library to just look for that one thing and were planning to go to Costco afterwards.  But then I saw a poster advertising the fact that there was an OPERA WORKSHOP for kids happening in 15 minutes.  So.  We didn't go to Costco.  My babies and I attended an opera workshop instead.

Unfortunately, the workshop was not on Eliza's level.  I think she enjoyed it, but afterward I asked her if she'd like to go to an opera and she replied in the negative.  Oh, well.  I have a few years to keep working on her, right?

The workshop began with an introduction to different vocal parts, musical terms, singing techniques, and opera itself.  Two singers then performed a scene from Elixir of Love, in Italian, and the kids were to see if they could figure out what was going on without knowing the language, and they did a pretty good job, including Eliza.  At the end, the kids were invited to be a part of an "opera," where a bunch of boys sang a couple of impromptu lines as Jacks and a bunch of girls sang a couple of impromptu lines as Jills, and they all fell down a hill while they improvised their own cadenzas.  Eliza did great.  I think she was the best Jill of all.

Troublemaker In Residence

It's been a little while since I've shared Luke's extracurricular activities.  I have a more lengthy post written in my head, but I'll just share these pictures tonight.  It's hard to tell from the pictures, but here Luke is playing with Eliza's makeup kit she got for Christmas.  He's trying to put lipstick on.

This wasn't an isolated incident, in fact it's happened several times.  One day recently we discovered that he'd been playing in the makeup kit and spotted some nail polish near his ear.  The nail polish is now stowed in my bathroom.

But one thing is for sure.  He's so PRETTY!

Holiday

We had a fun day on Monday with no school for the kids.  We started off going to a friend's house for a little music class she is doing for toddlers.  The big kids played downstairs and occasionally participated in Luke's class and it was really fun.  After the class we went to the mall to play in the indoor play area, which everyone loved.

The Bigs and I did some painting while Luke took his nap.

We stopped to play at a playground for a bit when we went out to run an errand.

And we had dinner with Ben before Cat led us in a review of the 1st Article of Faith for Family Home Evening.  A very good day indeed.

TBT - Oma & Opa's Story

In honor of Valentine's Day coming up, I'll be sharing some family love stories.  The first is that of my grandparents, known in the family as Oma and Opa.  I've always loved this story and we all laugh when we talk about it.

I've taken this account from Opa's personal history.  As the story begins, Opa is in training as a bombadier in the Army Air Corps in 1945.  He'd been awaiting an overseas assignment when Japan surrendered.

After a couple of weeks we were told to begin processing.  I in my naive way thought we were still going overseas, but I soon found out that we were being sent to Biggs Air Base in El Paso to train in a group called Project Wonderful which would be included in the occupation forces for Japan.  The so-called project never got off the ground and gradually the crews were broken up.

Opa at Bombadier School

Because we had no duties to perform, [my roommate] Woody and I would go into El Paso.  I was also friendly with two of the enlisted men I knew.  John "Cornsilk" Blair was the tail gunner on our crew.  The ther man, Herb Adams, was a gunner on Woody's crew.  They often invited me to go to town with them, but I was not in the mood.  They came back one day and told me they had met three student nurses from the Hotel Drive School of Nursing.  They had asked two of the girls for dates, and had arranged for me to be a blind date for the third.  I was not happy about the situation, but finally agreed to go.  This turned out to be one of the most important decisions of my life.

Herb's date was Doris, Cornsilk dated Lu, and my date was named Hazel.  She was the oldest of the three and was a divorcee.  Our date was to go bowling.  During the course of our bowling, two other student nurses came into the bowling alley.  Doris introduced them as Edith and Ricki.  She told us that Edith was married but Ricki was single.  I thought nothing more about the incident at that time, but the next date I had with Hazel I was to pick her up at the nurses home of Manresa.  When I got there, however, she was not there but the acting hostess for the evening was Ricki, who was reading a book [the cover of which was wrapped in brown paper].  I struck up a conversation with her and teased her that she was reading that book like it was Forever Amber.  This book was not on the approved list for reading by young Catholic girls.  Ricki blushed, but did not admit that she was indeed reading that book.

It soon became evident that I had been stood up on my date, but it really didn't matter because I had already decided I would not be going out with Hazel again.  I relayed this to Herb and Cornsilk, but stated that if Ricki was unattached I would like to go out with her.  Herb passed this on to Doris who asked Ricki if she would be willing to go out with me.  She said she would on condition that I break off with Hazel.  The following Friday the original six of us were scheduled to go to a high school football game.  Doris and Lu asked Ricki to come along so that she might get to know me better.  She agreed and so at the football game I sat between Ricki and Hazel.  After the game I told Hazel I no longer wanted to date her but preferred to date Ricki.  That ended that relationship in a hurry.  Ricki and I dated a few times before I went home on leave for the month of November.

Oma in Nurses' Training

Since Ricki was going to class and working as a nurse as well, we had to catch what time we could when it was available.  She often worked a split shift so we went to the movies a lot, bowled, and I introduced her to the "sport" of professional wrestling.  At first she was quite appalled at the "viciousness" of the sport, but soon learned that it was all a show and we enjoyed ourselves.

Shortly after my leave, I was transferred to Roswell, NM, and for the next seven weeks all we had to do was sign in every morning at 7:00 and we were then free for the day.  I would leave Roswell about 8:00 a.m. on Friday and drive to El Paso 210 miles away.  I soon found a little hotel not too far from Manresa and had a standing reservation for every weekend.  I would leave El Paso about 10:00 p.m, arriving in Roswell about 5 hours later.  One night the roads were completely iced over and after sitting in my car for about two hours, a road crew came and pulled me up the hill to where I could get the necessary traction to go on.  I barely made it back to the base at Roswell in time to sign in.  I continued to go to El Paso as often as possible to see Ricki, and in a few weeks we decided to get engaged.

Courtship

Near the end of February 1946, I received order to report to a base in Denver for separation from the Army.  Twenty-four hours later I was a civilian again.  I had told Ricki that I would return to El Paso to spend a few days with her following my discharge.  [Then I returned to Wyoming to begin see my family, get a job, and get on with my life.]  I started to drive the delivery truck for Pepsi.

I took a week off in May to go to El Paso to bring Ricki back when she had a vacation from school.  When we left El Paso, we weren't sure just what would happen but were willing to let nature take its course.  Ricki and I soon found that we were deeply in love and talked of marriage.  At the same time, she wanted to finish her nurses training and become a registered nurse.  I did not object to this, but still wanted to marry her.  The wedding proceeded [in early June 1946].

Wedding Day

We had a short honeymoon because Ricki had to start back to El Paso [to continue with her nurses training].  How I hated to see her go, but I had made her a promise that I would not interfere and I kept that promise.  Ricki was to return to Wyoming at Christmastime, but that seemed like a long way off.  With Ricki gone, the time dragged, but I was attempting to make the best of it.  We wrote each other every day, and then there was the occasional telephone call to help pass the time.

The early part of December I had a telephone call from Ricki advising me the nuns at the nursing school had been advised that she was married [which was against the rules].  She had less than six months to go before getting her RN certificate, but we decided that she should resign and come to Wyoming immediately so that we could begin our married life.  She had completed all of her educational requirements for her nurses degree and so she was able to get a job at the local hospital.

O&O, Shortly after their 68th wedding anniversary.

I love the part of the story where Oma was covertly reading a racy novel and Opa calls her on it.  So funny!  When we were together in California over Halloween last year, I gave Oma a late birthday present: an old edition of Forever Amber, which I'd found for a few dollars online.

She thought it was funny, too, and we all had a good laugh about it.

PS> Perhaps Oma's conversion story will be the subject of another TBT, but for now I'll just say that after spending the first 7 years of their marriage worshiping in both the LDS and the Catholic churches, Oma was baptized into the LDS Church.  About a year and a half later, Oma and Opa were sealed in the Manti Temple, the same temple where Opa's parents had been sealed.

Grandma Dinner

A while ago my kids and I were walking down the sidewalk on our street, each carrying a component of dinner to a neighbor who had a sick spouse.  A small group of women were gathered in a driveway, sitting in chairs, and talking, as they did almost nightly when the weather was nice enough.  When we walked back to our house, they called out to me and teasingly asked why we didn't bring them dinner?  I quickly responded that we would love to do dinner with them, and of course they insisted that wasn't necessary.

Well after various events and trips and holidays, I finally felt like the time was right to make good on my word and host that dinner.  I told the kids it would be a Grandma Dinner, though three of the four women attending could easily be their Great-Grandmas.  We invited the three women in the original group and another woman on the street who's kind of adopted us recently.  I didn't want them to contribute to dinner - seems like we Mormons can't go anywhere without bringing something or other - and they were a bit uneasy about this, but I gave them a different type of assignment instead.  I told them that we would have a Show & Tell and that I'd like them to bring something that would help us get to know them better.

I kept dinner really simple - Ben grilled some chicken, and we had rice, fresh wheat bread, steamed broccoli, and fresh vegetables with brownies and ice cream for dessert.  Everyone arrived early, of course, which I wasn't prepared for, of course, but we just rolled with it.  We had our Show & Tell before dinner and I was so pleasantly surprised by the things our guests brought to show us.  One brought a picture of her as a baton twirler in high school.  Another brought some picture books from when her kids were growing up, and gave them to our kids to keep!  And another wanted to share a few of her favorite YouTube music videos because she has a love of music.  The kids and I shared things as well: Jack showed off his new Switch & Go Dino toy, Eliza showed a Christmas toy she received, Cat showed off her trophies and medals, and I showed an embroidery project I'm working on.  They also talked Cat into playing piano for them and were so impressed when they heard her play.

Ben got dinner on the table during the Show & Tell and everything ended up going pretty smoothly.  I had a great time with it, and I think everyone else did too.  I feel like the night was a success and I would like to do it again but I don't want to press my luck.  :-)

The Dinner Theater

We managed to have a pretty fun weekend this weekend.  We kicked it off with a Dinner Theater on Friday night.  This was a thinly veiled attempt to rid the refrigerator of leftovers, and it worked pretty well.  I asked Cat if she wanted to head up the event, and she eagerly agreed.  She made a sign with the dinner menu (behind her in the picture), a maitre d' station, and tickets.  Also, notice that Cat is wearing red and black and the sign is written in red and black.  This was no coincidence.

Cat and I waited on the guests, serving them whatever leftovers they ordered from the menu.  Some of the combinations made me laugh - I remember that Jack ended up with pizza and rice.  After dinner, we had fun watching "Nanny McPhee" and munching on popcorn.  I'd told the girls we could have a spa night as well, so I made a batch of banana-honey-sour-cream facial mask and started putting it on, but the girls were pretty grossed out and wanted nothing to do with it.  Cat felt okay about using a store-bought mask I had, though, and enjoyed that.

I think we'll have to have an encore dinner theater night some time.

Book Character Day

Congrats to everyone who guessed - you were right.  Jack wanted to be Gerald from the Elephant & Piggie books.  I tried to convince Cat to dress up as Piggie (anyone else find it odd that Piggie doesn't have a name?) but she wanted to wear the Halloween costume she never got to wear to school since we were traveling on Halloween.  It happened to fit in perfectly with Book Character Day AND it was ready to go.  Win-win.

(At least they coordinated last year - still love that Jack was Charlotte.)

Jack was surprised and a little annoyed that more people didn't recognize him in his costume today.  But he loved it nonetheless.  The glasses didn't last very long - they were only made of black cardstock and rather amateur in their design - but he kept using the word bubble even after school, which was pretty great.

Excuses, Excuses

I apologize for skipping out on TBT this week. Tonight I was sidetracked from that (and a few other things, including continuing to try to get the house in order after all of the painting) because I had to finish a project for Jack. I completed his costume for Book Character Day tomorrow and I'm too embarrassed to tell you how many hours these things took me. (He did help me some before he went to bed, so that was good.) I think he'll like the way everything turned out.

Can you guess what character he is?

Hello.

I have really enjoyed blogging on an almost-daily basis over the last six months.  It's been easier in some ways than the sporadic blogging I did before.  I'm trying to decide if I want to try to keep that up or if it's time to slow down a bit and find the middle ground.  I think I'll probably still blog more days than not, but we'll just see how it goes.

Also, I plan to write on my personal blog on Mondays.  You could check in there on occasion if you feel so inclined.

Efficiency

After doing his best to eat his yogurt with a spoon, Luke decided that pouring it onto the table and licking it up would be faster and easier.

Poor Baby

Sick again. This time with a nasty cold.

The Rest of Grammy's Visit

We had such a fun time with Grammy here. We ate out at some new places and some old favorites (JDawgs is now a new favorite), we did some shopping (in the picture below we wanted Luke to choose between two stuffed animals at IKEA, but he grabbed both), and we watched some movies (fan favorites were Mr. Peabody & Sherman, How to Train Your Dragon 2, and Penguins of Madagascar). Grammy played with kids, arts-and-craftsed with Eliza, told lots of stories (they loved hearing about the antics of their 3-year-old cousin triplets who live with Grammy), sang lots of songs, enjoyed many song & dance performances, and read lots of books. Luke, Eliza, Grammy, and I brought pizza to Cat and Jack's school for lunch yesterday. And the kids got Grammy all to themselves one night while Ben and I went to the temple.

I'd say it was a pretty good trip.

Thanks again, Grammy!

Come back as soon as you can.

A New Addition

We are happy to have a new member of our family.  Typically, when we introduce a new family-member, the individual is quite young.  Today, the opposite is the case.  We recently adopted an 88-year-old piano.  And even though he's old, he's in great shape, and we hope he'll stick around for quite a while.

The kids were eager to get to know Kohl when he arrived.  (Kohl is just a nickname - he has a "Kohler & Chase" tattoo, so I suppose that is his given name.)

He needed a little TLC, though, since he he'd been somewhat neglected.  After a thorough check-up and cleaning that included an invasive dust removal procedure, he was given a clean bill of health.  

I felt like Kohl would benefit from a little makeover, so I applied concealer liberally.  I think he looks 20 years younger now.

Once Kohl was ready to be presented, we decided to give him a formal welcome.  Last night we had a Piano Party where everyone in the family performed.  Cat accompanied Jack and Eliza with some pieces they've been working on.  Then she played her solo pieces from her Christmas recital, and Ben and I played.  It was a lovely welcome.  Here is a video of a few minutes of the performance if you're curious.

And what party would be complete without refreshments?  I made a pumpkin pie, Cat made lemon cupcakes with raspberry frosting, and Eliza was in charge of the cookies.  Then we enjoyed a professional performer for a while, watching a Victor Borge compilation video.  Those routines never get old.

Welcome to the family, Kohl.  We're pretty excited that you joined us.

Shaping Cookies with Grammy

We Laugh in the Face of Superstition

Cat and Eliza didn't let the threat of bad luck keep them from having fun with the umbrellas they bought with Christmas money at Ikea today.  They sang and danced using their umbrellas as props, and when Eliza told Grammy that her umbrella was just the right size for the two of them, I couldn't resist pulling out my camera.

Work It Out

As everyone is out of the normal routine, being Christmas break and all, and as we haven't had anywhere we had to be in the mornings, this week I've been doing my morning workouts with an audience.  I usually try to avoid this, but the draw of an extra hour of sleep has been keeping me from getting up early enough to beat the crowd.  And if I can just get over being self-conscious long enough to look around and smile at all of the workout buddies I have, it becomes fun (and maybe a bit more exciting in our little family room with 4-5 people of various sizes and levels of coordination trying to move in the same direction at the same time).

This morning, the kids kept exercising after I was finished.  Even Luke was doing some moves before I took this picture.  Eliza asked me to record her making a workout video, but we didn't get around to it today.  Cross your fingers that you'll get to see that one day, though, because I think it would be pretty great.

TBT - Baby Brett

Tonight I took advantage of my Mom visiting and asked her to write up a blog post about my first few years.  I hope you find it as entertaining as I do.  Thank you, Mom!

Yep.  That's me.

We played for several days about what to name her.  Her dad stood firm with Darby, for Camp Darby, an Army ranger compound.  I fought hard with a list of really cool names like, Brooke and Paige but he just wasn't having it.  Megan, our oldest daughter settled the matter by loudly proclaiming that no one was calling her younger sister Darby.  So. Brett became Brett (thankfully).

She was a fiercely independent infant, wiggling her way out of three car seats and finally figuring out how to get out of the crib at 8 months old.  We called her Baby Houdini.  She demanded doing everything for  herself to include, climbing stairs, tying her shoes, and dressing herself, and staying up as late as everyone else.  This before she could even walk.  We were living on Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, the coldest and hottest place on earth.    When ice formed in the house near our sliding glass doors, she would slide on all fours across the white tile floors.  It was amazing.  When we moved to Germany, natives didn't believe that she belonged to us.  Because of her beauty, blue eyes and blonde hair, several times we encountered people who asked where we had gotten her (I suppose they thought we stole her from some nice Aryan couple).

Brett's independent streak made her just a bit difficult for many of our friends.  It wasn't unusual for us to be invited for dinner or a special occasion and then we would field the typical request, could  you find a baby sitter for Brett?  Her dad told me when she was 18 months old that she belonged to me.  He was finished with trying to parent her; he'd done everything he could think of.

When Brett was 2, we were invited to spend a week-end with my Aunt Irene and some of her grandchildren at her condo at Ocean City.  We had a great time until we had to get the children in the bathtub.  All the other children were fairly easy to get in the tub but Brett decided she wasn't interested.  I thought we would never get her bent in the middle so we could sit her in the tub.  What Brett didn't want to do, she really didn't want to do!

It wasn't until she went to school that we really had a clue as to how to handle her.  She loved school.  Almost overnight, we had a delightful, happy, charming child.  She just needed to be old enough to do the things she wanted to do and be in charge.  At one point in her K-1 classroom, when one of the teachers was absent, they turned a learning center over to Brett to control and all ran really smoothly.  Imagine, they quit requesting a substitute because our 5 year old did a better job.

When she was little and I was sitting out side her bedroom holding the door closed as she tried to open it from the inside, I knew that we would be lucky if both of us survived until she was 16.  We made it and had a really fun lunch, just the two of us, on her 16th birthday.  And because her dad had given her up, I got all the credit.