Firsts and Lasts

FINITO ... FOR NOW: Today marked the end of the kids' first year of music education. They have completed Musikgarten's Young Musician Year One program and will have a couple of months off before starting year two in September.

For today's grand finale, their group played a song about a seashore in two part harmony. It was really neat - and very pretty.

Even though the formal class is over for the time being, I think it would be a great idea to keep every Friday morning from 9:15 to 10:15 set aside for formal music education. We do a lot of casual listening and singing all week long, but it would be good to continue the conversation regarding rhythm, pitch, tempo, and so on.

As a parting gift we gave teacher Nancy a cute little multi media (ceramic, paint, bead, metal) sign/wall hanging that says "You are a fabulous teacher" and next to the words there is a little mirror. A daily affirmation of sorts! ;) She seemed to be genuinely surprised and appreciative.

THEY SAY IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY: From a BrainPOP Facebook post, I learned it is Sir Paul McCartney's 68th birthday. To help celebrate the occasion, today BrainPOP's free featured movie is about The Beatles.

I asked the kids if they knew who The Beatles were. Annabelle said, "A music group." But that was the extent of it. They both know "Yellow Submarine," but I'm pretty sure that's it for their Beatles repertoire (a wrong I should right). The BrainPOP Beatles video was well done, giving a nice history of the group and their impact on modern day music.

Once on the BrainPOP site, the kids were eager to explore some other topics. They watched a short video about martians and then I suggested that since we were going to see Toy Story 3 this afternoon, they check out one about digital animation

TS3: CJ has been counting down the days until the premiere of Toy Story 3. Every day for the past two weeks the first words out of his mouth have been, "Toy Story 3 premieres in X# days." This morning, at 6 a.m. he declared, "Toy Story 3 premieres today!!!" It was rather like Christmas morning. ;)

I'd ordered tickets online last week for a 2:30 afternoon matinee - or so I thought. At about 1:35, I thought to print out the confirmation and take it with us to Pacific Science Center's IMAX just in case. Yeah, well it's a good thing I did. Our showtime was 2:05. Less than a half hour away!!!!!! OMG! OMG! OMG! Scramble - stat!!!

We were out the door within 30 seconds. Good thing the venue is only about 7-8 minutes away. But I took the first available parking spot I found (about 8 blocks away from the ticket counter) because I knew there was a big event at the Seattle Center today - a funeral for four children and one woman killed in an apartment last Saturday.

Honestly, I felt more than a little foolish/awful running like a mad woman past the funeral site - past a half a hundred uniformed officers and mourners starting to straggle out of the service at Key Arena. Like missing a movie is a Big Deal in the overall scheme of things.

Panting, we get to the will call kiosk at 1:56 - we still have 9 whole minutes to try to get seats. I swipe my credit card and ... no tickets. I try again. And again. And again. And again. The kiosks aren't working for anyone else either. Awesome! not. So we get to go stand in the long a*% line. I finally have tickets in hand at 2:01. Run, run, run some more - probably two more blocks. Then I HAD to get popcorn because that was part of CJ's Perfect Premiere Fantasy. At 2:05 we sat down. Just 30 seconds later, we were (happily) joined by big bro Rick (he'd been at the nearby memorial service - he knew one of the victims as he works where she went to school). It was nice that Rick could join us and he was probably very ready for some levity.

The movie was terrific. Great writing, lots of action, and it was very touching. (I saw Annabelle wiping away tears at least three times.) At one point near the end, the 60-something gentleman sitting to my left was, well, sobbing. Tears were streaming down his cheeks from behind his 3D glasses and he was huffing and puffing and sniffling.

If you're looking for a witty, touching, entertaining summer movie, you should see Toy Story 3.

BRIGHT LIGHT: See this (above)? It's shadow puppets. What do you need to produce shadow puppets? A wall, hands and light. These here shadow puppets are on an EXTERIOR wall, which can only mean one thing. Are you sitting down? That's right, there was SUNSHINE IN SEATTLE today for the first time in weeks!!! (And the crowd goes wild!!!)

The sun finally broke through the clouds sometime this afternoon when we were in the theater. So, when we came home we played baseball outside (Annabelle's batting is coming right along thanks to the baseball tee). And then we had a super cheap happy hour dinner on the Fremont McMenamin's back deck. A nice way to end the week.

RIDE, SALLY RIDE: On June 18, 1983, Sally Ride took her seat aboard the space shuttle and launched into history. The physicist from California became the first American woman in space as a mission specialist on STS-7.
A magnificent milestone to celebrate, but I can't help but wonder, "What the hell took so long for a woman to be onboard a manned U.S. mission?" ...

WORTH WAITING FOR: Eric Duquette of Rhode Island didn't speak until age 5. When Eric was diagnosed as autistic, his parents were told by "experts" that he would likely be institutionalized as an adult. Recently, Eric served as salutatorian for his high school graduation class. And Eric has proven the experts right. In a couple of months, he's going to be institutionalized. Duquette was accepted to every institute of higher learning to which he applied. Here's a short, heart warming excerpt of his graduation speech.