PASTA

We had some yummy ravioli for dinner. Since I was in a hurry, I took off Lexy's clothes, and let her feed herself. Luckily, I have to leave for work, so Brandon gets to clean her up! I might help, I haven't decided yet. Maybe we'll take her out back, and hose her down!

Piano Recital

On Tuesday I had my first Piano Recital as the Teacher! It went really well. All my students worked so hard, and they did a great job! My Bishop has all three of his kids taking from me. They are 12, (girl) 8 and 6, (boys). They've only been taking for 3 months, and they can all read music. Even the 6 year old! Their Mom and Dad both commented on what a great job I'm doing. They said all of their kids love coming to their lessons, and they love to practice!

Even though all my students did such a great job, one of my students stands out to me so much more than the rest. That's because that student is Amora, my little 3 year old. She also participated in the recital. It was her very first, and she did great! She was so excited all day long before the recital. She kept saying, "Mom, today is my recital!" and "I need to get my pretty dress on for my recital." When it was her turn to play her song, she quickly jumped up and found her finger position and sat up so tall and played her song. I think she really impressed the other parents, they were all asking me how old Amora is, and how long she's been taking lessons.

(I've got to brag a little. Amora has been so easy to teach because she has great pitch. I sing the song I want her to learn, then play it, and repeat. Then she does the same thing. That's how she learns her songs. If I sing her song in a different key, she tells me, and fixes it! It's amazing. (When she was little I'd sit at the piano with her in my lap and play middle C and sing C C C C in her ear so she could hear. When she was a little older, she would sing the note also. I'm starting to do that with Aleksia now too. Lexy thinks it's funny when I sing in her ear, but she loves it!) During the recital, Amora heard one of the students songs that she really liked. After everyone left she figured out how to play it all by herself. She had the correct notes, and rhythm. I love it!)

Our Camera died, so we only got the one picture of the recital. It was a wonderful experience, and I'm looking forward to planning the next recital in the fall.

Painting Amora's Room

I found this really cute quilt for Amora's bed on clearance a few weeks ago. It looked so cute with her furnature, but it made the rest of the room seem boring. So I bought some paint, and Amora helped me paint her room. We had a lot of fun doing it. I gave her a little paint brush and she's try to draw her 'letters' on the wall, then I'd paint over them. She felt like such a big girl helping mommy paint. After a while she got bored, so she went in the other room and found a movie to watch while I finished her room.
When it was all done, Amora came in and said, "Wow! Do I really get to sleep in here?!" It was super cute!
(amora and I made the flower stencils, and all of her furniture was either given to us, or we found it at D.I. and painted it to look like a matching set.)

Lexy gets a good pick

Aleksia figured out how to stick her finger in her nose today. She thought it was so funny! Every time I'd say 'EWWW!' she'd just laugh and laugh. The gross thing was she had mashed up food on her finger, and I'm sure some of it is now stuck in her nose. Oh, well it'll come out eventually.

Houston Trip

Last week I went on a business trip to Houston for a user group conference on the ERP system we use at Ross Equipment Company. I was in Houston for 5 days. It seemed like a very long time away from Ayrial and the girls. But it was so fun to come back home to see how excited Amora was to see me after a long separation. I haven't seen her so excited for a very long time.

Here is a little about my trip:

While in Houston I stayed in a very nice resort hotel called The Woodlands Resort.

The swimming pool behind my hotel room. The tower in the middle had a huge tube-like water slide inside and waterfalls on the outside.

I had 9 hours or so of conferences and meetings most of the days, but outside of the meetings there were some interesting experiences...

1. I definitely felt like I was in the mission field again. The first night they held a dinner for all the companies that were attending, commemorating one of the user group's influential companies. My boss (who was there the first two days) and I were the only ones from Utah. There was A LOT of drinking going on... I was asked a couple times by different people at my table, who were going to get a drink, if I wanted anything. I told them I didn't want anything and I would just drink the water at my place. Then when my boss left to chat with other people, a guy from my table went to get a drink and asked me again if I wanted anything. I said no, so he asked me if I was trying to impress my boss by not drinking. I said, "No I just don't drink alcohol!" So he stopped for a minute, as if wanting to ask something else, and then said, "Well, do you want a coke or something?" I told him that would be fine. I think when he paused he may have been thinking about asking if I was Mormon, since he knew we were from Utah and not drinking.



2. I was in Houston while the Jazz were playing the Houston Rockets in the playoffs and I couldn't go to the game. Bummer... We won that game, too!
   
   
   



3. I had a break on Wednesday, so I went to the new movie The Forbidden Kingdom, with Jackie Chan and Jet Li... Great movie!

4. I had another break on Thursday, so I went to NASA's Johnson Space Center. I was there for only about an hour, so I wasn't able to see everything, but they had shows and demos and they even had a mock space shuttle that I could go inside and see the cockpit and other control areas, the cargo doors, and the food and bathroom areas. They also had a lot of information about the International Space Station where 16 countries around the world contribute to space and other scientific studies that help make earth life better for all of us. It was very interesting.
   
   
   
   

The "cockpit" area of the mock space shuttle

It was a fun trip, but it's great to be back home with Ayrial and the girls!