stuff i keep

I have kept a box of sheet music of my mom's for many many years. It included sheet music from the 1950's and 60's. Everyone has picked through it and taken what they wanted, and still the box took up space in my closet for a long long time. I finally took it out to ASU and made a donation to the music department's library. My mom attended ASU, I graduated from ASU and Rachel graduated from the music school at ASU, so it seemed a good place to make a donation. I wonder sometimes why I get so attached to "things" that we keep around here.

These are some of the pieces I kept. But in the donated box, there were many songs that were completely unfamiliar to any of us. I look through the sheet music I purchased and have saved since I was a teen and a young adult. Most of it will be of no use to my kids either. I'm sure a lot of it will be unfamiliar or just plain weird. I rarely pull it out, rarely use it, yet I keep it. It's just one of those things my kids will have to deal with at the end of my existence.
I actually should pull out all my music once in a while. I think I would enjoy playing some of it and for sure I could annoy my kids with it, and that is always good to do on a semi-regular basis. I really should simply play the piano more often. Heidi asked me this week when I practice the organ. I had to confess I don't ever practice the organ.  Well, I take that back. If it's a funeral or something special, I do actually practice. I just don't practice the week to week music for Sunday services. I do a quick run through on the piano before I head out to church on Sunday mornings and call it good.

From my box -- Here's a piece that stands the test of time, who even remembers the movie 'Ice Castles"?

And this piece cracks me up because of the rendition that Rowan Atkinson did at the opening ceremonies of the Olympics this week.  The music actually looks exactly like what he was playing.

watson lake

Suzanne and I have been kayaking at Watsons Lake a couple of times. Loved it.  I thought it might be something our family would enjoy, but unfortunately our family is always too busy to find a free day to actually do things together.  But we gave it a try and planned a Saturday to go play and we had a 66% attendance rate, so that's pretty good. It ended up being a girls outing. We drove up to Prescott and were out on the lake by 8:30 in the morning. The weather was slightly overcast and it felt wonderful.  We rented a two kayaks for a couple of hours and paddled around the lake and explored around the rocks and formations of the lake.

 You need to look at these pictures with the Pocahontas tune "Just around the river bend" in your head, because that is what Rachel and I were hearing coming from the other boat.

 We clearly have an issue with 'DANGER'

 "Melanie - just smile for a normal picture!!"

"I'm just such a Gem !"

There was a club meeting of some sort on the bank of the lake.  They were flying remote control planes over the lake by the dock.  Not little toy planes that you buy at Target, but big HUGE (like 4 foot wing span) planes that clearly were built by hand by this little group. The only thing that scared me was that one of them took a nose dive into the water and broke in half right in front of us as we were first paddling out into the lake.  I was anxious to get out farther into the lake so I wouldn't get swiped by a dive bombing toy airplane.
After we wore ourselves out on the lake, we went into Prescott and had lunch at the Raven Cafe, then strolled around some of the shops in town.  I often wish we had the resources to take a girls-only trip to San Francisco or New Orleans or New York city. Of course that would be awesome fun, but I need to remember how much fun a quick Saturday trip can be.  I love these girls.

not quite enough cars

The other day, Lezlee asked me if I could give her a quick ride down the street. Absolutely no problem, right?  Except I went out into the driveway and there was no car for me to drive. We have a lot of people in this house, and everyone has their own car. How could there not be a single car in the driveway? I finally looked across the street, and luckily our daughter's boyfriend's car was parked there so I dashed down the street in Billy's car. (Sorry Billy, the car  was there, the keys were there).
I had to think through where our cars were.  Melanie gave Robyn a ride to the airport after church and used her car, then was going to return  Robyn's car to their house then go back to the church to retrieve her own car.  The problem is that the 'go back to the church' part never happened. We forgot all about her car all alone down in the church parking lot. So Melanie took my car to work instead.
The car situation surprised me because at the moment, our family is house-sitting a random list of houses, animals and cars. There seem to be extra cars here all the time.
That particular week, our family was watching over 4 houses (Melanie and Brady were both housesitting 2 houses at once)
I was helping out a friend with some animals too, and our next door neighbors were gone for a few days and we were watching over their house and watering their yard.
I counted up our responsibilities for the week:
5 houses
3 rats
5 dogs
2 turtles
4 cats
5 yard/garden
2 cars (I don't know what Brady was doing, but a different car was being parked in front our house each night)
All that was in addition to our own house, one dog, one fish, one houseplant, one yard, one garden, and 5 cars (all in various stages of broken-down-ness).
We can barely keep our own cars running, our animals fed, and our plants alive. I think we've got our friends and neighbors fooled.

well, miss mel, it's your birthday !

Well Miss Melanie - Happy Birthday !!   We won't see you much today because you are spending the day with all your adoring fans. But I hope you know we love you !

dadz

Father's Day came the day before we were all leaving for girls camp.  Needless to say, our focus was not on father's day. But we did have a nice little family dinner and a few gifts including this little gem from Melanie:

"Dadz, You are not Chunky, nor a Goober. You are definately a Hot Tamale!! . . . "