A Tale of Two Pianos

When AJ and I had been married about a year, we lived in a little house in Provo, UT.  There was an old couple that lived a few houses down the street and one day we noticed a piano sitting on their porch.  It was the middle of winter and that piano sat out there for a couple of months through all sorts of weather.  One day, the husband knocked on our door and asked if we wanted it.  Obviously we said yes!  So we went and got that piano and wheeled it down the street to our house.  We have had that piano ever since.

Recently I started to teach piano lessons (not Emmaline though - she goes to someone else!).  I decided that my piano was in desperate need of a tuning so called up a local tuner.  She came by and declared that the piano was "FTD" (Fixin' to Die) and said we would just call her visit a service call instead of a tuning and we should save the tuning money and put it towards another piano instead!  The soundboard was cracked, the strings were rusted, the pins were rusted, etc, etc.  She said that right now the market was overwhelmed with used pianos and we could easily find something for a really good price. 

I started poking around on Craiglist and then also remembered that some friends of mine (Hi Kyle and Jenny!) had recently scored a Baby Grand for a great price.  It isn't something that would have even crossed my mind to even consider before - but it got me curious and my Craigslist research revealed that a decent Baby Grand was within our tax refund price range!

So here she is:

This Kimball Baby Grand is the "Marie Antoinette" style.  Built in 1975.  Bought in Minneapolis where they had it for one year before moving to Colorado - where the piano has been ever since. We bought it directly from the original owners.  She was moving into an assisted living facility and can't take it with her.  Her adult children told me that none of them play the piano, and they have no memory of their mom playing!  So basically, they bought it brand new, and then never played it!  So it is in great condition and they just wanted to get rid of it which means we got a great price on it!  What is really interesting is they gave us all the music they had (which has some fun WWII era pieces) and they still had the original manual, care guide, and registration card for the piano as well.  I was even able to find on the paperwork how much they originally paid for it in 1975.  So fascinating to have those little pieces of history.

We're all in love with it!

Rating:  10 Symphony Bars

Musician

Today Emmaline decided that she would write her own music.  I was impressed that she managed to incorporate all the music theory that she does know.  Consisting of: quarter notes, half notes, whole notes, bar lines, measures, and repeats.  Though she did write every note backwards.  That's okay though.  We'll get there.

And of course she wanted to play it on the keyboard so she could use some fancy sounds!

Rating:  5 Symphony Bars!

Using an Epi-Pen

It's like a movie-palooza around here! 

We had a couple of expired Epi-Pens.  The best thing to do with those is to get a grapefruit and practice using them. This time we also let Emmaline try it out as well.  Here is how it works:

Rating:  1 Grapefruit

Karate and ABCs

Well it only seemed fair to do some videos of Lil and Idgie too.  Lil recently started some Karate lessons (recommend by an OT to help her with her clutziness and lack of balance).  Idgie of course wanted to get into the movie making action as well!

Rating:  5 Pixie Dust

Long Suffering

So what happens when you finally pull off a few YEARS worth of video off the camera?  Well you get two video posts in a row!  Woohoo!

Here is a little snapshot of what life is like for Lincoln and what he puts up with.

Rating:  2 Lollipop

Piano Lessons

Emmaline officially started piano lessons back in January.   So far she is really enjoying herself.  The really fun part is that her book has little duets written into it so we can play together!  I love that!  Here is her most recent song - "Sailor Jack".

Rating: 5 Lollipops

First Library Card

Emmaline is absolutely blazing through chapter books now. She can read a Magic Treehouse book in no time at all and she recently discovered a series called Rainbow Fairies.  Sadly, the school library doesn't carry them, so today we took a trip down to the public library.  Oh the joy for her to discover an entire chapter book series about fairies.  And an entire series about ponies.  AND an entire series about puppies!  Such joy!  Such happiness!  We narrowed it down to five books and also let her get her very own first library card. 

Oh and one of her books she finished an hour and a half later.  I think she might have gotten the speed reading thing from her mom . . .