Our first post! Wow! 

After last week, when I tried unsuccessfully to send both our update and a few pictures, Gus has convinced me to give blogging a try! I know I said that I'd never do it, but Gus is very persuasive and a great teacher! So, I have one week to figure it out until he leaves to research in South Africa and Europe. Just bear with me if it looks like just another email for awhile. Here we go!

What has happened the last 2 weeks? Let's start with Gus.

Gus:

Gus is now Forty and Fab! We had a great time celebrating his birthday! For lunch we went to his favorite Thai restaurant. On the way there, Julia burst out laughing in the back and said, "I know mother, lets get him something GIRLISH!" 

For dinner we had a special event. 

We all dressed in black, hung up skeletons and signs everywhere (even our mugs were skulls) and then made homemade pizzas (by his request) and had "lethal peppermint chocolate cake" for dessert. Look at all those candles! I just want to say that I feel privileged to be with him for 19 of those 40 years. I look forward to many more with this great man, husband, and friend. What a gift to me is Gus! 

Japan Family night:

Last Monday we celebrated Gus's return from Japan. For our family night, we camped around a borrowed projector while Gus did a slide show with all his recent photos from his trip to Japan. We all sampled Japanese treats, like shrimp and tomato flavored crackers, rice crackers, and brown sugar crisps. It was a lot of fun and nostalgic for me too. Next time he goes to Japan, I'm going too!

Our Dinner Guest:

Wednesday Gus had a professor in from Northwestern University, Chicago. His name is Chris. Gus felt like we should have him over for dinner. I agreed. I had been hearing about Chris for years and had always wanted to meet him. 

Well, It had been a crazy day and when Gus walked in the house with our guest, I was coming in from the backyard. I was so startled that I screamed (really loud). It was a rather intimidating evening in many ways. Here we sat with an important physicist, who was married to a professional opera singer. He was also on an album that was recently released as one of the singers (his other profession). It was like having dinner with a combination of Gus and I only he's better at our stuff than we are. Not only that, but he was completely likeable, friendly, and a wonderful guest. I think I would have felt better about dinner if he hadn't been raised in Texas and we hadn't made chicken fajitas. They were fine, but definitely not authentic. It was humbling. On our part, I would say that the biggest accomplishment of the evening was that my children responded with "nice to meet you" when introduced to Chris after practicing on the way to piano lessons earlier in the day. I only had to stare down one or two of them as a reminder. 

Stake Fair:

Thursday, Gus and Rebekkah helped me make banners for the Stake Fair. We did about 6 banners and 3 posters. I helped tape and cut paper. I volunteered to do this job because I knew that I had artists at home and all the other jobs looked even more "over my head". I tried to paint one of the posters and quickly realized that Gus was the right man for the job. Friday we spent about 10 hours at the fair, setting up, cleaning up, and helping. It really went well. At the fair, there was a petting zoo, a kids craft area, and dinner in addition to the usual displays. One of my sweaters won a third place ribbon. Rebekkah's latch hook won first while her polymer clay jar won second place. I saw the biggest cabbage ever and tasted "parched corn" and fudge with pinto beans it ( an idea to rotate food storage). Perhaps my most intimidating job was telling people to "please step back and wait for the judges to finish and give out their ribbons" over and over and over again for about 30 minutes at the baking contest area. People knew that after judging, the sampling would begin and I felt like I was trying to hold back a crowd of ravenous vultures. It was rather comical and scary! 

Katherine's recital on September 5th:

Katherine played in a half- recital. The pieces she played were all the ones that she had been working in the last year. She looked and sounded beautiful. We could really see the progress she's made. We heard a little Bach, Haydn, Moscowski, Chopin, Debussy, and Faure. My parents and her cousin Cathy came down for the recital and so did most of Katherine's good friends. I think she was so happy to have them see what she spends so much of her time doing. She said she was relieved to have them know why she couldn't always "hang out" when they wanted to do something. 

Her friend Tairsa played the bassoon in the recital. Timmy decided this week that his next instrument will be either the banjo or the bassoon (unless I let him play the temple blocks instead).  

During the recital, Tairsa and Katherine planned a joke on the audience. Tairsa had a PDQ Bach number in which she accompanies herself on the piano while she plays the bassoon. The girls had Gus dial me on my cell phone, interrupt the recital to tell Katherine that it was her teacher and that he needed to talk to her. It was a staged "emergency". It really worked well because her teacher actually didn't come (he thought the recital was somewhere else) so, we used him as our fake caller. Well, the phone rang, and I interrupted the recital and Katherine ran out. It was really convincing, mostly because of the fact that I was shaking and pale knowing that I was breaking the biggest concert taboos-- leaving on and answering a cell phone. I felt 10x worse about doing it as a musician and voice teacher. My father was worried that something terrible had actually happened when he saw my face as I answered the phone.  It only took me about an hour to recover from my minor part. Talk about stage fright.  Meanwhile, the audience finally clued into the joke when Tairsa banged her backside up and down on the piano during one of the passages as she played her bassoon. Katherine came running back in at the end to play the last two chords of the piece. It was great!

 

Rebekkah's Harp recital last night:

Rebekkah had her recital this week. It's a musical month for us! She finished the first Suzuki harp book and played a beautiful recital for us. We had Aunt Karen, Brad, and his sister and husband visiting that night, Reb's friends Megan and Joslyn, and our crew. Gus and I enjoyed watching her as much as listening to her. She looked really graceful.

 We were especially impressed that she had memorized the order to all 29 songs without a piece of paper. We kept having to check the program to know what was next. It was really great! 

Reb made "friendship fudge" for refreshments and then we watched the movie Chocolat. 

It was a good combination-- music, movies, and morsels!

Homecoming Last Dance:

Katherine was asked to Homecoming by a real "Hulk"!  He left these Hulk boxing gloves on the door with a note that it would be "incredible to go to homecoming" with her. Pictured is her reply. 

She left it on his door step with green mint chip cookies held by the Hulk gloves. 

The Dance was last night. She looked Fabulous! She went with a fun group. The young man who took her had a class with her last year. They basically hadn't seen or talked to each other since then. It was a great opportunity for her to practice asking questions, conversing, and getting to know someone. She said that the line for the pictures took 90 minutes and that by the time they were finished, their was only one dance left! ARGH! 

Here are some shots of Katherine's "after homecoming hair". It appeared suddenly after the hairpins were taken out.

Julia:

The victim of a double ear infection. We can tell when the Tylenol and Motrin are working through what I call a loudness monitor. When she is quiet, she feels terrible. When we can hear her yelling and singing all around the house, we  know that she is experiencing real pain relief. We are glad that it is so easy to tell how she feels. 

Tonight, during a "well spell" she burst into the house and said "I have a belly full of beans". I looked over to see her shirt tucked up and bulging with green beans. She had been out to the garden. I said they'd be great for dinner and she said, "They taste really good uncooked mother!" She carried around a bag of bean snacks all night. 

The boys! 

Tim and Sam were easy this week! They didn't need flowers, music, or formals. They just helped, played, and ate any treats that we had at any given event! 

We are glad that this two week period is over. 

Next week we have another recital, our anniversary, a garage sale, and we are watching a cute niece for 2 days. So, I'm sure we'll have too much to say, again!

Thanks for bearing with us!

Have a great week!

Love, 

Cynthia and Gus (the silent partner)