We enjoyed listening to Jack perform with his summer group last night. It was a full symphony with piano, percussion, and wind – so refreshing after listening to strings-only orchestra for many years. I wish his school would offer a symphony option! This was a great way to stay in practice during the break.

Featuring Jack’s Birthday, Gardens, and more Theater

My parents took me and the boys, plus Amanda and Andy, on a glorious long weekend in New York City. There were many shows and museums and snacking. Jack really expanded his theater experience. The kids have both been to NYC before but say they hardly remember/don’t remember at all. Now they have a head full of memories of the sights, smells, and strangeness of that great city. We had such a wonderful time!

I’m gonna make a huge picture dump and caption just a few things. I wish we had pooled all our photos before splitting up at the end. Alas!

DAY 1: Traveling, hotel, food near Grand Central

Day 2: Meeting with Amanda, Museum of Broadway, RiseNY Musem

More Day 2: Splitting up. Me to K-town, Jack and Amanda to Hamilton, me and Sam to Central Park

Day 3: All together now! Met Musem, Show, Show, Show

Day 4: Brunch, Shopping, Show, Dinner

Springtime means theater! I wrapped on the middle school musical “Once Upon a Mattress.” The kids did very well and there were not as much drama as in some other seasons. Working with the new Music Director was a delight. Amanda got us tiaras to celebrate!

The boys both had spring concerts with their orchestra classes. I fear that I’m so behind in blogging, I’m just going to dump the videos here for posterity without further description!

This spring we completed a huge house project that I’ve been meaning to do literally since we moved in 12 years ago. Our master bathroom was dreadful. Skinny, mold-prone shower. Scalloped edge sink that was hard to clean. Woefully out of date brass fixtures with mauve and gray tiles. And CARPET. The house only had carpet in the basement theater room, spare room, and our bathroom! What the heck?

I spent weeks looking for a builder and many more weeks planning the new layout. Then many more weeks shopping for the endless list of items we’d need to complete the job. I’ll skip over writing out all the details and obstacles I tackled in getting this remodel finished.

The minivan proved itself over and over again while I hauled materials to the house. I’m glad I decided to hire builders instead of DIY-ing it. This project was definitely above my skill-set.

Before pictures:

After pictures:

In the end, it took exactly one month (March 3 – April 3) with the builders from demolition to finish, plus another week or so for decorating/organizing. Although the room is not any larger, the layout if much more useful and the shower is a DREAM. Each day I use the shower I appreciate how blissfully beautiful and large it is.

It’s a delight every time I enter the bathroom, even months later. Hoo-boy it was a lot of work of money. I’m glad we finally did it and also that it’s finally over.

Jack played in the pit orchestra for their spring musical: Sweeney Todd. He did an amazing job with the difficult score by Sondheim. He grew so much as a musician due to the rigorous rehearsals and extended playing time. He also helped build the sets when he had spare time! The kid lived and breathed Sweeney Todd for several months!

Here’s the ending outro that they played after bows – my only chance to sneak some live video without being totally uncouth!

Seriously, we are super impressed with Jack’s dedication and improvement with his musical journey. What a kid!

I declared to Ben that for my birthday this year I wanted to celebrating by going somewhere warm. After dismissing flights to Mexico, Florida, Texas, and California, I looked closer to home and decided on a local hot springs resort. Mt. Princeton Hot Springs was only a few hours drive from home, so we could make it a quick one night, 24 hour vacation.

Once again, we left the kids alone to fend for themselves, and once again, they had a snow day!

All the creek pictures are from the second day, when I brought my music and phone/camera. The first day we were still figuring out the options and etiquette. The creek was my favorite pool by far, but they had many different pools of different sizes, temperatures, age restrictions, and water content.

I know, I’m terribly behind on journalling our family. I’m trying to catch up as quickly as I can, so here’s a random assortment of photos from the past half year.

Highlights = lots of cello, some board games, roller skating, Jack baking a lot, my car got hit in a parking lot = easy repair and no injuries, but a lot of inconvenience and hassle. Christmas card photos, pre-Christmas trip to GJ, meeting Andy’s new dog, Christmas break and gifts. Working New Year’s eve, Ben’s quiet birthday the next day. Seeing musicals at the DCPA, date night on a random free weekend, Outdoor Lab, archery, Jack getting contact lenses, Cheyanne Mountain Zoo, and costume parties with friends.

Here are a collection of orchestra concerts the kids performed this year. Sorry I don’t have song titles, some of them were so long ago!

First, this is Jack’s December concert.

Sam was invited to perform with the Jeffco Honors Orchestra. He spent two days rehearsing and then played a concert. He did marvelously!

Next we have spring concerts! Sam performed recently with this 6th grade orchestra (it’s a huge group!). Although it’s unofficial, I noticed he was seated in the first cello chair!

Tonight I attend Jack’s Spring Concert, I think his last performance with this group. He auditioned for next year already and made it to the top orchestra level! I think he will enjoy playing with an elite group next year.

Many moons ago I convinced Ben to fly to Los Angeles with me to see Seventeen for a quick weekend getaway. We left the kids alone, gasp! It’s so great that they are mature enough for these short trips. It turned out to be a snow day that Friday, so they got to stay at home despite from school and relax too! We got out of Denver before any flight delays and basked in the California sun.

Our hotel in Downtown LA was a curious 1970s design with round rooms arranged in separate towers. We dropped off our luggage and took a car to Santa Monica, arriving just as the sun set on the beach.

I wanted to visit the pier because there was supposed to be a Seventeen event. Some fans had won a lottery to see a performance. We didn’t know the schedule when we tried peeking over the fence. Later when the video came out, it seems we had just missed the performance. Never mind though – Ben got a strange Japanese hot dog, we admired the Seventeen lights on the ferris wheel, and even got up close to the mascot Bongbongee! It was a thick frenzy of fans, so we quickly left after snapping a few pics. Then I took Ben to that great bibimbap restaurant I found the last time I was in LA with Amanda and Andy. Oh man, so delicious!! If only they would franchise in Colorado!! It turned out to be colder than expected in California, so I grabbed a couple sweaters from Uniqlo. Then we tested out the lightrail to get back to the hotel. Before bed I had one more destination – Salt & Straw for the most delectable vegan ice cream! The last time I ate it was in Seattle, walking back to the hotel in the rain at night. This time I insisted we sit inside so I could savor this rare treat!

Saturday we stepped out into the shiny sun to try explore some Korean/Japanese neighborhoods. The bus ditched us on the curb 10 minutes short of our destination, but we didn’t mind walking the rest. One of the restaurants we missed on our Japan trip was CoCo Ichibanya, a popular curry chain. Ben was pleased to hear we could fill that void here. Koichi later confirmed from our pictures that it was exactly the same (except, I’m sure, for the unlimited soda fountain refills and inflated California prices). We walked to the main section of Koreatown to browse some K-pop music shops and get special Seventeen promotional bingsoo. I was absolutely stuffed, but we did our best to eat some of this mountain! Next we wanted to see the “Japantown” and Japanses temple gardens, but they were both kinda of bust. Our driver was wary of letting us off in the temple because it was right next to skid row and he didn’t think we knew where we were going. The temple garden was very small and completely gated. The other garden marked on the map was a small museum patio, and it was locked for reserved event. We continued walking to Japantown and it was terrible! The crowds were the worst so far, shoulder-to-shoulder. Every shop was packed and mostly had chinese knock-offs of Japanese products. There was a Book-Off, that used goods store I enjoyed in Kyoto. This one was, logically, mostly goods common in the US. We tried to enjoy shopping but gave up. After a short rest at the hotel we popped out to Grand Central Market food hall that wasn’t too far away. We both picked out some tasties to take back to our rooms. I tried another vegan ice cream place and it was disappointing and in a super sketchy neighborhood. LA is so WEIRD!!

Rested and fed, we dressed for the main event. I cosplayed as S.Coups in their Monster stage . Ben had a Hoshi shirt. We looked good 😀

We took the train to USC and walked to the stadium. Now the trouble began. To make a long story short, the concert was already delayed, then delayed again. The security line was crazy long and disorganized and probably a third of the audience was still in it when the show eventually started. Plus there was a stupid loud rave at the arena next to us, so I had to wear earplugs during our hours of waiting, and you could hear the thumping from inside after our show started too!! Fans were stressed and everyone was mad, so the vibes were off. That, plus our nosebleed seats, made this one of the less experiences I’ve had going to K-pop concerts. I’m definitely chasing arenas and splurging on better seats next time.

Despite all that, we settled in and the group put on a great show. They had their back-up dancers (I recognized a lot of them, ha!) and there were fireworks. They performed Monster and I was so happy (lots of fans recognized and complimented my outfit – and I wasn’t the craziest costume by far). Incoming picture dump:

And one video:

All the delays made it a very late night. I grabbed Ben’s hand and we sprinted to the last train of the night, sliding into our seat moments before it left. A good night’s sleep, an uneventful flight home, and we came back to our kids safe and sound, their kind aunt having just delivered them with food.

Despite stadiums being terrible, I had a marvelous weekend with Ben. Looking back on these photos makes me want to go all over again!