Piano Recital and Aircraft Carrier!

This was an amazing weekend! Saturday morning started out with a momentous occasion: Larry's first real piano recital! He and I played a Christmas duet: Jolly Old St. Nicholas! Dawna played piano and played violin for the first time in recital! She and Marisa did a great job together!

The poor students had one little difficulty... the E and F notes on the piano would stick down when played and not come back up... it was a bummer when it caught them off guard and made the duet-playing more difficult, but on the whole, they handled it well :)

Dawna and Marisa played Jungle Bells together! It took a lot of practice to get Dawna ready to play with the bow for the recital, but I think she did great!

After the recital, we had an exciting evening planned: Jon's work party was on the USS Hornet--the old WWII aircraft carrier/ museum in Alameda! It was quite a fancy affair! Jon rented a tux and I got much-needed fashion help from Brooke... so we looked Good!

At the party, we enjoyed many delectable dishes such as horseradish mashed potatoes (Jon's favorite),  Sesame beef (my favorite--served in mini take-out boxes!) shrimp, sushi, hot apple cider, ice cream bar, and butternut squash ravioli! I LOVE all the good food!

Also, we got to ride the flight simulator, which was programmed to simulate a Desert Storm strike. It was made in 1991 with cutting-edge graphics... which means the group of brilliant software engineers we rode with were making hilarious remarks through the entire ride... it was awesome...

 Out on the flight deck, where it was FREEZING COLD--by the way... I mean actually freezing, not wimpy California girl is freezing...the puddles were ice!--there were old fighter jets displayed and there was also a fireworks show over the bay set to a medley of James Bond music... awesome...

We got to ride the jet lift back down to the main level, which was also amazing! It felt like the floor surrounding a group of about 200 people just dropped 30 feet... woah...

And after being disappointed by the lack of effort put into my EANABS (Equally Attractive Non-Alchoholic Beverages), I requested a "beautiful" drink from the bar tenders and got this awesome pomegranate/lime/ginger/mint drink... it was beautiful :)

Our night finished off with exploring the Apollo museum--The Hornet was the ship that picked up the astronauts from several of the Apollo missions. It's actually an amazing historical place... we want to take the kids back there to tour someday... Thanks to Mom and Dad for letting us get away for a late night party!