Dear Pooka,

Dear Joe,

Thank you for a very special night.  The music was beautiful and I always love an excuse for dressing up...

 

I swear I didn't tell them to look dotingly at dandelions, they were just doing that when I came outside.
These are the pictures from "The Big Spring Concert"  All the students from The Ann Arbor Suzuki Institute preformed.  There were mini cellos...

And a whole lot of violins...

You are on the left in front, standing, wearing the black tie.  You really appreciated the opportunity to play in such a beautiful space.

Matthew hated his bow-tie but was a champ...

Danny did such a good job.  The violins didn't go on until the very end, so it was a long wait...

The bass players were quite moving...



We see the kids at school lugging their basses down the hall and I have always thought, "Oh Lord, please don't let any of my boys choose bass."  But I'm a total convert.  It's a beautiful instrument and it makes such a peaceful, surprisingly quiet, ethereal sound.  I think I was also so moved by this piece because of the age of the students.  It's impressive to see the little virtuosos, but it's a completely different thing to see adolescents playing up on stage with poise and confidence during such an awkward time of life and being so completely successful and creating something beautiful.  We're lucky to have access to The Ann Arbor Suzuki Institute of Music  and I can't say enough about how excellent Joe's teacher is.

Cute baby alert...

He mostly slept, but he did wake up for a while and try to eat my scarf...

I wanted to get some portrait type pictures of you and your brothers but we ran out of time before the concert started because I tried to also squeeze in a haircut for you and then my camera ran out of batteries at the very end.  But it was worth it because your hairs really needed to be "de-domed" and I think it came out very well, significantly less poofy...

I took you to this place and after the stylist finished (I'll throw in here that she only charged TWELVE DOLLARS!) she gave you a little calculator as a prize.  Now, I didn't realize this until you got this calculator, but for some reason you had no idea what a calculator was.  Imagine getting all the way through first grade not knowing what a calculator is.  IT BLEW YOUR MIND.  "You mean I can just put the numbers in here and it GIVES ME THE ANSWERS???"  Plus, as you dramatically pointed out, "it's SOLAR POWERED."  It is now a prized possession and has a honored spot on the bedroom shelf.  After you showed it to Danny he said, "I want to get my haircut dere.  But WIFOUT my two brudders."  He wants a calculator soooo bad now.  Maybe Santa will bring him one.