Ducks

Do you know what I love about ducks??  I love that they can fully immerse themselves in water and not get wet! 

Photo by Karole Sorensen

 They are unruffled no matter what...as beautiful and graceful after the immersion as they were before...you would never be able to tell by looking at them that they had even gone under the water.   They are consistent and reliable. 

I would like to be more like that...beautiful and graceful even in the wettest pond; consistent and reliable even in the middle of a major storm.  I'm not, though.  I try really, really hard, but I'm just not.   I can be those things for a little while...when the water is completely calm and no other ducks are on the pond.  But throw in another duck or a little drizzle, and the fairy dust wears off, and I turn back into this...

I have been chasing after consistent and reliable my entire life.  I am naturally drawn to people like that, I think.  The people who have had the most influence on me and made the longest lasting impact are the consistent and reliable ones.  My husband is consistent and reliable.  I can count on one hand the number of times his feathers have been ruffled...and I'm sure you can guess which of us was the cause of that. 


This week the craziest things have ruffled me.  My very wise, very calm, very duck-like husband suggested that I needed to learn to "let things roll off me" and not be so affected by the things people say or don't say.  So I'm aspiring to be a duck today...water repellent feathers...graceful and beautiful even under pressure.  My theory is that if I keep trying...and keep hanging out with inspiring ducks...eventually I might become a little more like them...maybe when I'm 50...maybe I'll like snow then, too

My Metronome App

GUESS WHAT!!!

There is now a metronome app on my phone!!

We have piano issues in my house and one of them is that we don't own a metronome.  Hard to believe, huh?  Three pianists, one violinist and no metronome.  Earlier this week, I received a text from June's piano teacher saying that she needed a metronome.  She offered to purchase one for us and add $30 to our May piano tuition...UGH!  I felt confident that I could find one for less than that.  

And then...at choir practice on Sunday, I watched the director put his PHONE on the piano.  And then...it started ticking...just like a METRONOME!!   (His even has a pendulum that moves back and forth like a real metronome, but I couldn't find one like that on my Droid.)  Coolest thing, ever!

But mine is amazingly cool even without the pendulum.  It has sound options, too: Electronic, Cowbell, Wooden, and Classic (that's the one I use).  AND I can set the time signature! 

And here's the best part...if I'm not sure of the exact bpm...I can just tap the space and it will figure it out for me!  Super Cool, huh!??

I'm becoming such a phone nerd...but what a great excuse to just hang out at the piano all morning!

5:30am

For the past several weeks, my internal alarm clock has been going off at 5:30am and I have no idea why.  There have been times when stress or worry have gotten me up before dawn, but that isn't the case this time.  No matter what time I go to bed (and sometimes it's LATE because I have a hard time being done with the day...) by 5:30 the next morning, I'm wide awake.  For two weeks I have tried to sleep through it.  I've forced myself to stay in bed until 6:30 when the REAL alarm goes off.  I've counted sheep.  I've listened to the birds and the sprinklers and the wind outside.  I've hummed my favorite hymn.  Nothing works.

So this morning, when I got up at 5:18 and couldn't go back to sleep, I thought, "Fine!  I'm just going to embrace this new schedule and DO SOMETHING with it."   5:30 is too early for vacuuming or laundry.  It's too early to go for a walk...because it's still dark and I'm a baby.  It's too early to take a shower because that's noisy and requires lights and hair dryers.  So I sat in my fluffy chair, in the dark, with my laptop and my pink technology and listened to two Conference Talks.  


And then I checked my emails and found this post on one of my favorite blogs and it confirmed what I had been thinking.   Fortitude.

For years, I was under the impression that filling my tank and taking care of myself meant going out with girlfriends, or having a gossip session on the phone, or getting a pedicure.  But I always found it frustrating that after a night of chips and salsa at Chili's, the messes I had left at home were still there, the kids seemed more needy, and the break I thought I so desperately needed didn't last longer than the drive home.  I still love occasional Girls Nights, and I could eat chips and salsa every day of the week, but I prefer just being at home where everyone can find me.   


Conditions are ideal right now for filling my tank during the week.  The kids are at school all day.  Even though my husband works mostly from home, meetings and travel take him away quite regularly.  Some days, all I do is fill my tank...Institute, the Temple, morning walks; praying in TCD's clean, quiet pink room; reading scriptures; writing in my journal; playing the piano; hanging out with my blog.  I've become freakishly hermit-like in the last 9 months.  

Well, if I'm going to be a hermit, I'm at least going to be a cute one with a beautiful shell!

The weekends are a different story, however.  Everyone is home and busy from morning until night.  There isn't a single quiet space in the house for very long.  I love when they're home, but I almost always put off all the "tank filling" so that I can hang out with them.   I plow through Saturday and Sunday and hope that what I've done during the week will sustain me until Monday morning when they all leave again.  With summer rapidly approaching, I have definitely felt a little anxious about where my "tank filling" is going to fit in.  As much as I look forward to longer days, bare feet, relaxed schedules, and vacations, I'm a little nervous that there will be too much hanging out with my family and not enough "hermit-ness."

But today, I may have found my solution.  Because it was an amazing feeling to have already had quiet time BEFORE everyone got up.  And it was an amazing feeling to be completely awake and alert at 6:30 for scriptures.  And because 5:30am is ALWAYS quiet in my house, and it will probably be even quieter in the summer.   Maybe for the last two weeks, someone's been trying to tell me that I need to make my own ideal conditions instead of waiting for them to happen.  

Crossing Paths

I think I've said before that I don't believe in accidents.  I believe that the big stuff (and sometimes the seemingly insignificant stuff) happens for a very specific purpose, although we may not understand it until much later.  

Sometimes, people (or things or ideas) cross my path and may or may not get my attention.  But the ones that cross my path a second and a third time, compel me to pay closer attention and find out what it is I need to learn from them.   

In February, during Stake Conference, an older sister, Pat Jones, spoke in the Saturday evening session.  I had never seen her before in my life, but I was completely riveted to her talk.  She spoke about the three missions she and her husband had served, especially their most recent one to Nauvoo, IL.  There really was nothing in her talk pertinent to my life, but I was moved by the things she said anyway.  Then, the next morning, she and her husband sat in front of us during the Sunday session of Stake Conference.  I talked to her briefly and mentioned how much I enjoyed her talk.   I didn't see her again until a few weeks later when I ran into her in the Temple.  I often see people in the Temple that I recognize, but I'm never sure if it's because I actually know them, or just because I have the same schedule every week, so I don't always talk to them.  I smiled at this familiar-looking,  white-haired sister and went on with my purpose for being there.  The next day was our Stake Relief Society Conference, and guess who spoke!  Yep...Sister Jones.  Instead of her assigned topic, she chose to toss out all of her notes and give an impromptu talk about acting on personal revelation.  (Really??)  At that point, she might not have known it, but there was instantly a bridge built between two unlikely friends.  So, right after the conference, I walked across that bridge and introduced myself!  We exchanged email addresses and agreed to contact each other soon.  I had an email from her waiting for me that very night and we have emailed regularly ever since.   I still don't know the purpose for our paths to have crossed so often, but I've decided to let that stuff work itself out, while I thoroughly enjoy my new friendship.  
      
A few weeks ago, I loaned some books to a friend who was stuck in bed with an ankle injury.  When she returned them, she accidentally included an extra book that wasn't mine.  

I recognized the title and the cover, but it took a little while to remember where I had seen them before.  And then I remembered...
When my husband and I were in the Alpharetta Ward in 1994, my mother-in-law loaned this book to me.  The Sealy family was in our ward (not the author, but her son.)  


The book is about Sister Sealy's son, Devro, and his first marriage to Gayle Burch.   They were married a very short time when, through complications from pregnancy, Gayle passed away shortly after giving birth to their son, Skyler.  (Skyler lived for 13 days, and died just a few days before his mom.)  It's a beautiful story...sad, heart wrenching, and sometimes difficult to read...but the example of both Dev and Gayle are amazing.  I thought that the first time I read it.  At the time, Dev was in our ward with his second wife, Lori, and their 4 kids.  Of course, I had never known there was a Gayle.  I thought Dev was a great man even before I knew what he had been through, but the book confirmed that.  We interacted with their family only on a ward level.  We weren't close friends, but they made a lasting impression. 


When we moved to Utah, some mutual friends from Atlanta mentioned that the Sealy's were living near us, in the Bear Lake area.  Their kids were grown up.  And Dev was battling an extremely rare form of cancer.  Dev died in 2007 before we had a chance to see them and catch up.

So when this book crossed my path again, and with it, Dev Sealy, I thought I probably needed to pay attention to whatever it was that I was supposed to learn from it.  I spent the entire afternoon re-reading that book.  It was heart-wrenching (again), and beautiful (again).   But I still don't know what specifically I was supposed to get out of it the second time. This time, having been to the Temple and having 17 years of marriage experience, I definitely had a different perspective.  It is an incredible blessing to have an eternal marriage.  And I was overwhelmed at the evidence in this family's life of the kindness and love Heavenly Father must have to provide a way for people to be happy even when their lives don't go quite the way they plan.  


Here's a quote from Shirley Sealy that I loved...

And in that magic moment of flashing wisdom, in the light of our summer sun, I felt a new understanding of the love our Heavenly Father has for us:  a love so great, so beyond our mortal comprehension, that I felt I could almost hear Him say:

"I'm here, my children.  I'm listening and taking care of all your needs in the best way for you.  Please trust me.  Endure this hurt, and remember that these small hurts are nothing in comparison to the blessings I will pour out upon you if you will only trust me.  For just this little while, trust me, and learn and grow from each difficult experience.  I'm here - believe me - and I love you so much.  Let me bless you beyond your understanding just for now..."

I have at times, heavily influenced the direction of my path to be absolutely sure that it would intersect with the people I thought I needed to be in the presence of.  I had a habit of flitting around and waiting for them to inevitably notice me.  I used to set myself up as a human road block so that there would be no other choice for them but to run right into me.  I have learned (I hope) that it's better just to be where I'm supposed to be and wait for the right people (and books and lessons) to cross my path on their own...because they always do.   

Be Good.  Be Patient.  Don't Forget.

Easter

Happy Easter!

The boys would have been in this picture, but one of them was operating the camera and the other was having fashion challenges.  I said, "How about the plaid shirt?" and he heard, "How about the plaid shirt with the striped tie and the purple vest and the red socks?"  Now that I think about it, I should have immortalized that on film.  He would have appreciated that later in his life.

Church was wonderful today.  The choir sang He Is Risen, and a beautiful tenor sang For God So Loved the World.   Then after Sacrament, June taught our Primary lesson!  She did an awesome job leading a great discussion based on the Resurrection Eggs that we got from our sweet friends in Mendon!

Each egg contains a scripture and a small item that represents a piece of the story of the Savior's death and resurrection.   Each of the kids found two eggs hiding in various places in the room, and then June directed them to read each egg individually and DISCUSS what the scripture meant!  (That girl gets more and more amazing every day.)

At the end of the lesson, June asked each of the kids which was their favorite egg.  We all unanimously agreed that Egg #12 was our favorite.  After that heavy, but moving story that rips my heart out every time I hear it, I always feel relief and hope at the end when you read the little piece of paper that says...

 He is not here.  HE IS RISEN!

After church, we had an early dinner and then drove to Carrolton to see Grandma and Grandpa Futrell.  The kids love having a set of "grandparents" here since all of our family is in either Utah or Hawaii.  

I LOVE Easter!

Easter Nests

When I was a little girl, my dad and I used to make coconut Easter nests every year.   

My dad was in charge of almost the entire process.  First, he melted the chocolate (with a double boiler because it was the 70s...did we even have a microwave then??)  Then he added the coconut and mixed it until it was totally covered in chocolate.  Then, on a sheet of wax paper spread out on the counter, he would carefully form little spoonfuls of the chocolate-y coconut into PERFECT little nest shapes.   

And then it was MY TURN!  

I sat on the other side of the counter on a barstool with a bowl full of jelly beans and patiently waited to finish the nests with "eggs" - always 3 eggs and always different colors.  And I would always separate all the black jelly beans into a separate bowl (because you can't have black eggs in a nest!) and save them for my mom (because the black ones were her favorite!)

I haven't made chocolate Easter nests in YEARS.  Since Spell Girl is allergic to coconut, I don't often make desserts that include it.  But this year, I found a similar, non-coconut recipe and thought that was a great excuse to bring back a lost tradition.

This time I used my microwave to melt the chocolate.  I used chow mein noodles instead of coconut.  I used my Pampered Chef scoop to form the nests...which means the process is faster, but the product isn't as perfect as my dad's.  And no black jelly beans to save.  


But I used the wax paper.  I used exactly three jelly beans in each nest.  And except for the ALL-purple one I made, every other nest had three different colors in it.   

Tomorrow morning, my kids will see the same thing I saw every Easter morning as a little girl.  Even though the ingredients and the process are slightly different, I think my dad would be happy that I made the effort.  And I think he would be happy knowing that a tradition that's been gone for awhile is finally back.

Earth Day

 

I LOVE Earth Day 

There was a super cool Google Earth Day image today...did you see it??  I LOVE it that they change it for special occasions.

There were EXCELLENT coupons emailed to me from my favorite Earth-friendly products.

And Earth Day t-shirts are THE BEST!

In honor of Earth Day, I decided to take my car off the road and just stay home and do some spring cleaning.  I purged about a million old magazines that I've been hanging onto for YEARS...I RECYCLED all of them after using a few pages for this really cool project...

It's a VISION BOARD...and it's hanging in my closet so I can look at it everyday.  (There may be a future post about this.) 

This really is an amazing planet we get to live on.  I'm so incredibly grateful for the beauty and abundance that surround me every day.  I love the change of seasons.  I love the trees and flowers.  I love the animals.  And it never ceases to amaze me to think about the LOVE Heavenly Father must have for us to have created it.   

AND if He has the ability to move mountains, and divide the water from the land, and MAKE spectacular animals like this...

 and breathtaking scenery like this...

then why would I ever doubt that He could make anything else happen that He chooses?  If He can change someone's heart and turn weak things into strengths and help us to live at our fullest potential, then of course everything else is limitless.  

Prayer

I am an avid believer in the power of prayer.  (I haven't always been.  It took several years, some major life destruction, and a couple of influential people to remind me once again of things I already knew...that prayer is necessary and effective.)  


There are some days, though, that I just wake up wondering if I'm really praying for the stuff I should be praying for.  If anyone hears it.  If any of it will really make a difference.  


I regularly pray for my kids and my husband.  I pray for direction in my callings.  I pray for friends and family members who desperately need some kind of heavenly assistance right now.  I pray to be able to listen to the promptings of the Spirit and act on them quickly.  And there are other, more personal things that regularly come up when I'm on my knees.  Most of the time I receive direct answers to the things I've asked for...comfort, assurance, hope, confidence, sugar eggs that make it all the way from my kitchen to the church without any accident.  

But sometimes the answers I get are less clear.  They are things I'm not expecting.  They are things about what the future holds for me and for my family.  And they are things I have to wait for.  When those kinds of answers come, I always wonder if I'm hearing things.  And I always wonder what I'm supposed to do with them.  I'm a detail girl and a planner.  It's difficult to know stuff is coming, but not know the details of that stuff.  How can I make a list if I don't know the details?  And if left alone in my head for too long, I wonder if I've really heard any of those things at all...or if I'm just some kind of lunatic.  (That is entirely possible...)  


This morning I was feeling one of those "impatient for an answer" kind of feelings.  I was feeling like I just want to know already.  Like I just want some of those blanks filled in.  My house is empty this morning.  It's rainy...again.  And I was left alone with the Conference talks.  Here's the one I picked...Russell M. Nelson Face the Future with Faith    And here's what he said:

If we pray with an eternal perspective, we need not wonder if our most tearful and heartfelt pleadings are heard.   
D&C 98  "Your prayers have entered into the ears of the Lord...and are recorded with this seal and testament - the Lord hath sworn and decreed that they shall be granted.  Therefore He giveth His promise unto you, with an immutable covenant that they shall be fulfilled and all things wherewith you have been afflicted shall work together for your good, and to my name's glory saith the Lord."
The Lord chose His strongest words to reassure us!  Seal. Testament. Sworn. Decreed. Immutable.  Covenant.  Brothers and sisters, believe Him!  God will heed your sincere and heartfelt prayers and your faith will be strengthened.

Don't you love it when that happens?  I wanted something concrete.  I wanted something from someplace other than inside my own head.  And poof! Elder Nelson shows up with exactly the thing to make me stop wondering, stop being so impatient and just enjoy the ride already.  

Be Good.  Be Patient.  Don't Forget.

I'm grateful for the power of prayer.  I'm grateful for the ability we have to talk to a Father in Heaven who is always willing to listen.  I'm grateful for personal revelation that comes through the Spirit and the things that are brought to our understanding in ways we don't expect.  And I'm especially grateful for a living Prophet and Apostles who are guided and directed by that same Spirit to counsel us on behalf of the Lord.    

Starting the Day

There are times during the day when I'm extremely productive and times when I'm definitely not.  The morning is my most productive time - always.  Some days I get more done before 9am than I do the entire rest of the day.  

So far this morning, I've read scriptures, made breakfast for 4 kids and lunches for 3, cleaned up all the dishes, showered (I didn't do my hair because it's rainy again this morning so there's kind of no point...curly and frizzy are inevitable), vacuumed the whole downstairs, swept the kitchen, started a load of laundry, taken TCD to school, and dropped mail off at the post office. 

 ...sounds like the song from Tangled, huh?  

It's now 8:41 and if I hadn't planned a ridiculously complicated Activity Days project for this afternoon, I would be curling up with a book or my journal or my DVR for at least a couple of hours.  

Instead, I have bowls of sugar, food coloring and plastic egg molds cluttering my counter, waiting to be prepped for this afternoon...

 If you're thinking that I'm insane to attempt a project like this with 12 ten-year old GIRLS, don't think I haven't considered that myself...several times!

And instead of being over there with all that egg stuff, I'm procrastinating once again and doing this...

having cookies for breakfast 

and blasting the MP3 in the living room...because it was on Ts in the car and the best songs start with T, and every other MCC song starts with "THE"...so it came inside with me this morning and is now happily plugged into the surround sound speakers trying to motivate me to make SUGAR EGGS...ugh!  I'd much rather lay on the floor and sing...

Talk To Me (The Outfield)

The Age of Miracles (MCC)

The Altar and the Door (Casting Crowns)

The Bug (MCC)

The Calling (MCC)

The Distance (Evan and Jaron)

The Dreaming Road (MCC)

The Feeling I Had (Amy Grant)
The Game of Love (Michelle Branch) 
The Girl is Mine (MJ/Paul McCartney)
The Load Out (Jackson Browne)
The Long Way Around (DC)
The Long Way Home (MCC) 
The Shelter of Storms (MCC) 
The Song Remembers When (Trisha Yearwood)
The Things We Do For Love (10CC)

...and my favorite of the morning...

The Hard Way (MCC)

...and now that it's 9:16 and I have no more excuses...I guess that just leaves SUGAR EGGS...

UPDATE (9:42pm):  I made it through "sugar egg day!"  The girls AND their parents all LOVED the eggs.  They had a great time.  And they managed to keep the icing mostly on the eggs and not on the floor!  Hooray!!

Oh, and UPDATE #2 (10:00pm):  Starting the day with cookies is NOT such a great idea.   Cookies for breakfast leads to cookies for lunch and more cookies for dinner!  EEK!! 

Playing in the Rain

This afternoon we had a huge unexpected thunderstorm!  When I left at 3:30 to get TCD from school it was sunny and HOT!!  (91 degrees today!)  But by the time we got home 12 minutes later, the clouds had completely covered up all of the blue sky and within the hour the rain started coming down...HARD!  And evidently Dallas storms in the spring are always accompanied by heavy, gusty, 40 mile/hour winds and tornado warnings. 

But the other thing about Dallas thunderstorms is that they don't last very long.  Less than an hour later, the wind died down, the thunder stopped, and all that was left was a HUGE puddle in the driveway.

And guess who found it...

goggles...because you just NEVER know!

Really??  You're sitting IN it!?

 

What is it about puddles that makes them so inviting?? 

One little puddle = hours of playtime enjoyment!

Texas Residency

GUESS WHAT!!  After living in Texas for 9 WHOLE MONTHS I am officially a Texas resident...well, my CAR is officially a TEXAS resident.   When we realized that April was rapidly coming to an end and my Utah plates were going to expire in May, my husband decided it might be time to start the process of officially getting our Texas plates.   He left with my Utah van and four hours later pulled into the garage with a TEXAS VAN!


We have put off getting license plates and drivers licenses all this time because...um...honestly I'm not sure why.  ...because there are so many other things I'd rather do than stand in line for hours and hours.   ...because I'm the Queen of Procrastination.  ...because I was waiting for my husband to do it. 

Anyway, it's done now which officially commits us to living in Texas, I think. 

Next, I might have to learn that Pledge of Allegiance to the Texas State Flag.  


Oh, and the best part was that my husband decided that since the van now has sparkly new Texas license plates, it also needed to be thoroughly cleaned inside and out!!  Hooray!! 
I should go out there right now and drive that thing around...and listen to MUSIC!

Challenges

This was a challenging kid weekend.   I haven't been this frustrated with them in a really LONG time.  I can always tell it's been a rough weekend when my throat hurts from yelling so much.  (But I wouldn't be writing this post if there weren't a happy ending or some redeeming value from the weekend, right?)  

Challenge #1  Too many requests for my kids to clean their rooms and not enough actual cleaning happening, even after hours and hours.   I left them lists.  I bribed them with a matinee (Soul Surfer) if all the cleaning got done in a timely manner.  I left the house...sometimes I can be a little...um...controlling and HELICOPTER-Y with them, so we've all found that they get more done when I'm not in the house while they're cleaning.  I gave them plenty of TIME to finish.  But despite my best efforts, there was nothing clean when I came home.  Some places were even messier than when I left.  ugh...

Challenge #2   Too much arguing!  No one was claiming any of their messes.  They were just choosing to blame everyone else.  The tipping point for me came when June decided that her cleaning contribution was to take all of Spell Girl's things off their shared bulletin board and stuff them in a drawer.  ugh...


Challenge #3  Spell Girl and June share a room.   They have loved this in the past three houses we've lived in, but at 12 years old, Spell Girl seems to have reached a point where it's not as enjoyable to do everything with her sister.  She doesn't love it as much when people think they're twins.  She doesn't love that June wants to hang out with her every second of every day.  Sometimes she just wants to be alone and quiet and curled up in her nest with a book.  (Well, the reality is that if given the opportunity, she would probably choose to do that everyday instead of eating or going to school or setting foot outside.)  

In church today, though, I had just enough time to stop hovering and controlling for a minute, and notice my kids sitting there next to me.   It was one of those little revelatory moments for me.  It occurred to me in that moment that sometime over the last 2 years, I've stopped reminding Spell Girl to get the hymnbook and actually SING the hymns, but today she did it anyway.  And instead of picking the nail polish off her fingernails or playing with her jewelry, do you know what TCD did during the Sacrament?...she read her scriptures and checked off all the Personal Progress she has done INDEPENDENTLY this week.  Who knew she was doing her Personal Progress??

After watching that, I came to the conclusion, that there might be HOPE for the future.  MAYBE if I keep trying to teach them the things they need to know, and keep reminding them what they need to do, and sprinkle that with giving them a little more independence and BACKING OFF more often, eventually they'll be productive, functional adults who don't dig things out of their laundry baskets to wear to church.  Eventually they won't ignore the things that clutter their floor.  Eventually I won't have to remind them to change their underwear and brush their teeth everyday.

“Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great” (D&C 64:33).

Do you know what I'm watching right now as I'm writing this??  June...cleaning her room...spontaneously.  She took a shower...also spontaneously.  And now, without ANY prompting from me, she is cleaning her room...like the DETAIL kind of cleaning.  Like the kind where the corners are clean and you can see only carpet on the floor!!  

That is a miraculous thing!

So, if all the challenges help me to notice all the good stuff; and if they are signs that there is life breathing in my home; and if they remind me to keep going even after a frustrating weekend, then I guess I can see the benefit of them.  And even though I might not love them when I'm in the middle of one, I definitely LOVE the perspective they bring. 

Live Music

We are fortunate to live in a place that has gorgeous spring weather starting in March!  And because of it, there are always great outdoor events.  There's an outdoor mall here that has live concerts every Friday and Saturday night from April through October.  Tonight we went to the first concert of the season.  

Here's the band...

Emerald City Band

Here's the venue...

Watters Creek

...except tonight you couldn't see any of the grass or the sidewalks because they were PACKED with people.  


I LOVE live music.  There really isn't anything better than sitting on a rock, in beautiful weather, listening to GREAT live music...with ice cream!

Paciugo Gelato

Tonight I had my usual...Mediterranean Sea Salt Caramel...YUM!!

oh yeah...back to the music...they played EVERYTHING!  Don't Stop Till You Get Enough (MJ), September (Earth Wind and Fire), Oh What A Night (Frankie Valli), Dynamite (Taio Cruz),  I Gotta Feeling (Black Eyed Peas), Dropped a Bomb (The Gap Band) and my personal favorite of the night...Brown Eyed Girl (Van Morrison).

For a little while we sat behind the drummer (Kenny) and watched him up close...he was awesome!  

And then eventually we snaked our way through the crowd and watched the whole band from a rock in the middle of the grass. 15 members!  4 vocalists!  2 guitarists!  Brass!  Keyboards!  Drums!  Totally HIGH energy!  It was like a party on the grass for 3 hours.  

There is nothing like LIVE music to breathe life into you.