UVYSO Concert

The Utah Valley Youth Symphony group that Jonathan plays in got to perform yesterday in Abravanel Hall in Salt Lake. Many youth orchestras from the greater SLC area participated in this festival. The Philharmonia (the group Jonathan is in) played a variation on Greensleeves, a Beethoven overture, and Johann Strauss' Bauren Polka. The polka was a lot of fun... I recommend actually watching the clip below- in addition to playing, the orchestra members sing!

Preference 2012

This young man went to Preference last night. It was a girl's choice dance and he was asked by the lovely Marissa Erickson. Friday night their big group went to an event at the school then got yogurt, followed by games at someone's house. Saturday night Marissa picked up Jonathan. Since it was a girl's choice dance, they exchanged flowers at our house. Then they went to another girl's house for pictures...before heading over to Shoots for Chinese food. Jonathan tried the broccoli chicken and really enjoyed it. After dinner they went to the dance which was followed by a "nightcap"- a strawberry smoothie. Jonathan had a great time!

Is This Okay?

This morning I logged on to our local newspaper's website. Here's the picture that went with their lead story. Is this okay? I don't think it is. The lead story is about some new weight loss drug that is pending FDA approval. Obviously the photo-journalist went out looking for "someone" who he/she thought was in need of this new drug and took their picture. I assume the people's privacy is being "respected" since their heads are cut off from the picture, but I highly doubt the journalist explained the story he/she was writing and asked the people if they'd like to have their picture taken so they can be the visual for the story. I don't think this is okay.

Peer Pressure

Peer pressure leads my boys to do weird things- like eating a grasshopper (Nolan) and eating a peanut butter and hot sauce sandwich (Jonathan).

Utah Symphony Performance!

Last night I went on a date with my big boys! We went to Salt Lake to hear the Utah Symphony. They played Beethoven's Symphony #4, some funky Stravinsky piece, and the Rachmaninov Piano Concerto #2. Who was the guest pianist? None other than Andre Watts! I hadn't heard him play for 25 years or so, so I was excited to hear him again. I'd forgotten his idiosyncrasies ... he's a foot pounder and hand flourisher. He also is a "note puller off-er", but I'll forgive him for that. We didn't have the greatest seats in the house so the sound blend wasn't the best, but it was sure fun to listen to a master pianist perform a master concerto. My boys were completely impressed.

Last night was also the first time I'd seen Thierry Fischer conduct the symphony. He's dramatic. The 3 words I chose to describe him are sweat, snort, and swaying. He's all over the conductor's box. He has to have a rail on the back of the box to keep him safe. He crouches; he leans; he squats. Everyone inch of his being is involved in his conducting. He's so wild with his baton that I was afraid that it was going to fly out of his hand and end up in my lap (I said we didn't have the best seats... front row, but it was fun to see the orchestra from that perspective and to pick out the actual playing of the various symphony members). From the front, I heard and saw things that people just a few rows back wouldn't be able to see and hear... the sweat and snorts. Yes, he inhales deeply and loudly when he's about to direct a dramatic and loud change. It was really distracting and I nearly laughed aloud the first time I heard the snort. Nolan leaned over to me and whispered, "He does that a lot." He also grunts and vocalizes in other manners when he wants other effects. The nastiest part of Mr. Fischer's conducting was his sweat. So he gets sweaty... whatever, but since he's so mobile and shakes his head constantly, beads of sweat were flying off of his face. Ugh! I felt bad for the cellists directly in front of him. You would have thought he'd played a entire quarter of an NBA game with as sweaty as he was. Maybe he did exercise as intensely as an NBA player... he is that active. It was so fun to attend the concert with my boys. Maybe I'll get more turns in the near future taking them to the symphony!

The Magenta Tie, part II

He chose tie #3, the tone-on-tone with a variation in texture. He says that he won't feel stupid wearing that one.

Pep Band

Jonathan had pep band on Thursday night. He had a good time at the game... playing the tunes and being the Lady T-Wolves biggest supporter. At the end of the night, he won the band spirit contest. Guess what his prize was? A half a pineapple!

Valentine's Day

For the first time in my life, I mailed Dan's valentine's card to his work. I chose a "shocking" card and thought it would be amusing for him to receive it at work. "Shocking" means potentially suggestive, but completely innocent in the end. So, Dan got his card on February 15th (stupid post office). He opened it at work and it seems it got the reaction I intended . After getting his card, Dan had a meeting with his boss. During the meeting Dan started smirking. Monte asked Dan what was up. Dan said that it was nothing. Monte didn't drop it and pressed Dan to tell him what was making him smirk. Dan told him that he was thinking about the card I sent him. Monte told Dan that he wanted to read it. Monte was completely amused and passed the card around to others in attendance (who seemed disappointed that the card wasn't nasty). Then Monte called in his secretary to have her read the card. Luckily that's where the card sharing ended; I'm relieved that it didn't get posted on the company information bulletin board (and hopefully the note I wrote in the card remained private. I think next year I'll do the "safe" thing and mail him a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse valentine.

Magenta Ties

Next week is Preference at Timpanogos High School. Jonathan is going. The girl who asked him (3 weeks ago) finally got her dress. She's asked Jonathan to wear a magenta tie. While he's excited for this date, he's not so excited about the magenta tie. Jonathan is off skiing today so I took a color swatch of magenta and went tie shopping for him. I bought 3 ties, hopefully he won't completely hate one of them. The first tie is plain, boring magenta- no texture or color variation. I think it's a little bright (and flat, and plain, and boring), but it's definitely magenta. The next tie is on the purple side of magenta, but still potentially workable. It's magenta (because that what I'm calling it) and black diagonal striped with a silver-gray pinstripe in the center of the black stripes. I actually like this tie, but I'm not sure that Jonathan will like it because it's a skinny tie. The last tie is on the red side of magenta, maybe raspberry is a better color to describe it. It's tone-on-tone with a variation in texture. Another decent tie, just very "pinkish" for Jonathan. So, which will he choose, #1, #2, #3, or none of them leaving me to embark on another tie shopping spree? Which would you pick? Now onto the flowers... magenta flowers? Oh dear...

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things...

I painted yesterday. I used some new toys that made painting much less painful. First, I bought a paint sprayer. After a bit of searching and reading reviews, I bought the Wagner Control Spray Max paint sprayer. It's a little unit and would be really inadequate for an exterior paint job. We opened the sprayer box and immediately read "for outside use only". Well, I'd read multiple reviews from people who used this toy for interior paint jobs and thought it worked great. I was determined to use it inside as well. It did an awesome job and didn't produce a room filled with paint fumes. It sprayed evenly and wasn't a paint hog. I'll happily use it inside again.

The next new paint toy I bought was "Frog Tape". This stuff is marketed as a product that prevents "paint bleed". Since I hate doing touch-ups and the living room required lots of "technical taping", I decided to spend the "big bucks" and try Frog Tape. It's amazing and works as promised. Frog Tape rewarded me with clean lines! My third favorite painting toy is a kitchen tool- a plastic scraper. I tried using a new edging tool that made lovely, even, straight lines, but it left a think, blobby line of paint at the top. The rest of the paint wouldn't blend with the blobby line and I was using my thumbnail to scrape off the "line". The paint kept jamming under my nail and pushing into the live skin. It was starting to hurt. I went to the kitchen and got a nylon scraper and it removed the "lines" cleanly (and painlessly!). Great find.

So obviously, we finally picked a paint color and we think we like it. We're getting used to the drastic change, and it sure is better than what was there before. Here's 'Jing showing the newly painted living room- "Sliced Cucumber" walls with Ultra Pure White wainscoting. And yes, I still love Behr Ultra Premium Plus paint!

Federation Piano Festival 2012

Friday afternoon Nolan participated in the a fore mentioned festival. He did awesome. He's been working hard learning and practicing and practicing and practicing the Clementi Sonatina and a piece called Rhapsodia Espanola. His hard work paid off as played impressively and was awarded a 3-Star Superior rating. He now is eligible to compete in the festival play-offs and compete for a cash prize.

The lady in charge of Nolan's Festival Session announced "because we are a national organization, pictures and video are not permitted." I thought, well, I paid for my son to be in the festival and he's an amateur, and I am not going to profit from my son's performance, so I am going to record him for personal use. I sat in the back of the recital hall and discretely recorded him while shooting from my knee. Enjoy my bootlegged recordings!

Rhapsodia Espanola

Clementi Sonatina

Um, Nolan Who?

We haven't seen much of Nolan this weekend. He's been at the Space Center. He spent nearly 24 straight hours there. He worked 2 missions he was scheduled for- an overnight mission on Friday/Saturday and an afternoon mission on Saturday. But just fulfilling his assignments isn't enough for Nolan. Between his two shifts, he chose to work an additional mission. Diehard! Nolan has been focused on earning his Galileo pin. He was awarded his pin after the overnight mission. The pin means that Nolan is a fully trained volunteer on the Galileo; if it needs to be done, he knows how to do it right. You can read what the Space Center director said about Nolan on the Space Center blog HERE. Yes, the Space Center staff is a bunch of goofballs. Nolan was also sent home with a comment card filled out by a space camp participant. It basically said that Nolan was "very fun" and awesome and that the next time the camper is at the Space Center, he wants to have Nolan staff the ship again. Go Nolan!

Picking Paint

I'm painting the living room tomorrow. I've been putting off this project for 2.5 years, but tomorrow is the day! The living room was wallpapered. That got stripped off at the end of January. It took 2 days to get rid of the "left behind" glue, and 2 more days to patch and sand the holes and drywall anchors that were wallpapered over. What is taking the longest is me choosing a paint color. Originally I was going to paint the wainscoting glossy "ultra pure white" and the walls a taupe that is 2 shades darker than the paint in the entryway. That plan changed when I put the darker taupe on the wall and it looked like poop. New color combo needed. I'm sticking with the glossy "ultra pure white" on the wainscoting, but am going with a greeny-gray for the walls. I'm having a real hard time finding the right greeny-gray. The first one was way too dark and looked like mold. The second one was too green. Well, I've got it narrowed down to 2 light greeny-grays and will choose when the areas have dried. Do you have an opinion?Probably not, as they all look awful in the picture! Hmmm, maybe I need to think about this some more.

I Got Nothing

Yep, first blog post of the month. Why? Because the title says it all. I got nothing. Truly. Nothing. Nothing "interesting" has been going on. Do you want to hear about me patching the holes in the wallpaperless room so I can paint this weekend? I didn't think so. Do you want to hear about Nolan's orthodontist appointment, the community council meeting I attended, Miles' parent teacher conference (okay, maybe I will post about that, but it's not exciting), our 2011 taxes, or the road construction that makes getting out of my neighborhood miserable? I didn't think so. Perhaps the most exciting thing I have to report is that Dan hasn't gotten any flat tires recently (no, Jonathan making it to region solo/ensemble is much more brag worthy... a "1" is the highest score you can get and he got a "1+". That's definitely brag worthy!). There are more interesting things of the horizon... a semi-formal dance, the awarding of the "Galileo" pin, etc, but they are coming and not here yet!

So, until then, here's a dorky picture of me, Nolan, and Miles taken in December. I was giving Nolan a shoulder ride who, in turn, was giving Miles a shoulder ride. Together, they both are quite heavy.