Spring Tease

Tomorrow school starts again... spring break is over... A week-long teaser of summer break makes it all the harder to return for six more weeks of school, state testing, and projects.

But it was a fabulous break. We left last Friday for Oregon to visit Aaron and Em. On the way to Central Point, we stopped by Sacramento to see baby Ada, all of two weeks old! And I admit, I did chuckle a little as Weston was describing how Ada was so much different "when she was younger..." How much younger can she get there, Daddy?!?  But it is true that our little ones change so quickly, even before our very eyes...

Anyway, after dinner and baby cuddling, we got on the road again and arrived at 2:30am at Rabun Way and plopped our kids--and ourselves--into bed.

And no more than 5 hours later, a parade of Pokemon loving cousins were running laps around the house having battles, trading posts, and quizzing each other on HP and EX's and etc. And a couple hours after that, we all hit the ground running to our first adventure: and... I can't remember the name of the place--will update later... A little drive, a short hike to the right, and we arrived at a beautiful huge waterfall!

And then back to the left, was the Valley of giant boulders (or something like that--update to real name later...) Lots of fun climbing, exploring, and even sliding to do!

The boulders surrounded a little beach by a raging river of death! ... or some beautiful rapids :) There's something about rivers and rocks and sticks that can keep kids entertained for hours!

And on the same day as that beautiful sunny hike through the woods, we continued up the mountain until we hit SNOW!! Lots of snow! Crater Lake was our lunch destination!

Ever since I saw Emily's post on Instragram, I wanted to do this!! I got to roast hot links in the snow!! I LOVE their little portable fire pit! Dream come true!!!!

Something fun for everyone at Crater Lake! Dawna and Adele busied themselves building a snow fort/palace/mansion: 

Jade found plenty of snow to taste (one of my favorite pictures of the day):

Apparently, snow comes in many delightful flavors... much like ice cream! 

Jon, Adele, and I raced little snowballs down the slope and over the ridge overlooking the lake! Super intense racing...

And to top it all off, we harvested the largest icicles we could get off the roof of the resort! Jon won.

And Jade and Malachi will tell you that icicles also come in many delightful flavors...much like Popsicles! 

And after all this, we weren't even done with our first full day of vacation! Once we returned home from Crater Lake, Aaron and Jon went off to indoor soccer and long distance running, respectively, and Emily and I ate more food :) 

Sunday we slowed down... a little... but still stuffed in as many Easter delights as we could. I got to play in a trio with Adele and Emily at church. Adele and Dawna dyed eggs with the kids while we hid plastic eggs in the house. Then we had a delicious lamb dinner. After that, we did the Easter story in eggs and the kids followed clues to find their Easter presents... yeah, that was our "slow" Easter Sunday...In the midst of all that, Dawna and Adele found a few minutes to serenade us on their instruments:

...a more grown up reprise of their original hit:

LOVE THOSE GIRLS!!! Then and Now... 

Anyway, back to spring break... 

Monday dawned bright and early once more for the big kids. Aaron and Jon, who had originally planned on taking the older kids backpacking but changed plans when rain came, took each of their older three kids on a caving adventure. They had a wonderful day, and hopefully my other contributor to this blog will fill in the details of their adventure... Emily and I had a very relaxing day at home with our little ones. It was a little nostalgic of our Lansing Court days, when all we had was little ones. We almost forgot what to do with them... but they reminded us of what they love to do. So we went to the park, read stories, played music... all the little kid things we miss sometimes with the hustle and bustle of active older kids.  

Tuesday was a celebration our our seven-year-old Xochitl! (Even though she wasn't officially 7 until Wednesday... but really, what kind of birthday is driving home from vacation??) We caught an early matinee of Beauty and the Beast starring Hermione Granger... I mean... Emma Watson :) then headed straight over to the Rrrink for some exciting ice skating! Xochitl is a quick study with anything involving balance, so with a little guidance from Aunt Emily, she was swooshing around the ice in no time! Jade and Larry made good use of the plastic "helpers" and Dawna did quite well after having roller bladed a lot this year. And it's always fun to see what Adele has been working on in her ice skating lessons... and try to copy her... mostly Aunt Deeb just ends up looking foolish... but having fun! 

On the way home from ice skating, Xochitl picked out two ice cream cakes from Cold Stone. Yum!

And we all know the Koberstein tradition of car trouble when traveling I-5... running over the moving dolly with the Quest, tire blow out, car being backed into, hitting a deer... so when Wednesday came and our vacation was almost over, Fate had to hurry and squeeze some car trouble in. Eva's battery was quite dead and decrepit on Wednesday morning. We weren't going nowheres. The car wouldn't start at all! So I called roadside assistance and they offered to tow us to a garage... but I thought it would be easier to just have them replace the battery on the spot. Only problem was... we had to get the battery. My manly main man Jon got on a bike and rode to the auto parts store with a backpack, bought a car battery, and biked home again! This is not an activity for the feint of heart. Those batteries are HEAVY!! He made it back to Rabun way just in time for the mechanic to get to work! And with only minor damage to clothing and sidewalks...All in all, it's one of the kinder car trouble experiences we've had.  All the kids were happily playing with cousins, safely parked in front of Aaron and Em's house :)( ALMOST something to smile about... 

So we got home. And on Friday to finish off our spring break fun, we all enjoyed Larry's "field trip" to the Monterrey Bay Aquarium! Paul and Becca et.al joined us and now we all have annual passes to the aquarium! Many thanks to the thoughtful people there who made the "Family Pass" include two adults and ALL their children! All too often a "family pass" is for two adults and two children, which is pretty much useless for us...

Maybe the Jellyfish are cousins too!

Squids will be squids... We loved the "Tentacles" exhibit!

Playing with light settings on my Pixel XL. I liked this picture of Zyna!

Happy Spring Break!

On Broadway!

Friday was our piano recital! This year's recital theme was "Name that Broadway Musical and Tune!" The recital audience all got programs with only the student's names on them. Then, as they listened to the song, they had to try to name that tune and musical before the song was over and the student announced the answer! I always really enjoy watching the audience at these kinds of recitals.  Generally, there's a moment of confusion and intensity as the student plays an introduction, then it's as though a epiphanic light bulb goes on and everyone scribbles down the answer as they recognize the tune! (I may have made up that word...epiphanic... epiphany-like... get it? Well, hey! I can make a noun into an adjective anytime I want! It's English!)

Anyway...
See if you can guess what Larry and Dawna played before they get to the end and announce it in their speech!

 I'll bet it was easy to tell what they were playing right away!

After the recital, as per tradition, we enjoyed ice cream sundaes and each student got to take home a silver or black star balloon with their name and piece on it!

Larry and Dawna both did an excellent job practicing and memorizing and performing! I love so much seeing my kids' musical talents improve!

Mother Daughter "Engineering" Time!

Saturday morning, I had finally had ENOUGH of the "click...click...click..." whenever I played low C on the piano. Some clever child of mine somehow got a penny underneath the key such that every time you played it, the key clicked against the penny.  Well, this was driving me insane. It had to stop.

So I started disassembling the piano much the same way I did about 5 years ago when I bought it and re-keyed it. Dawna was intrigued with the design and ingenuity of the levers beyond the music stand, fall board, and key lock. She helped me remove all 88 keys...one by one...

We found not only a penny, but several 10 yen coins, a one yen coin, and a Cabella's shooting arcade token. Random...

Then she helped me clean each key and replace them in their proper order on the piano. Dawna was also responsible for replacing the key lock and fall board.  She did great puzzling it all back together! 

THAT is an awesome Saturday morning! One cute girl, some great discovery, one project accomplished!

Musical Video Frenzy...

Time for a musical video blog :)

First up, Dawna's most recent piano recital.  The theme was "Uniquely American."  We thought it was extra special that Weston and Lynn both came to watch her perform! Dawna played two songs from the Rock 'n' Roll era: Yakety Yak and Lollipop.  She picked the first one because she liked the lyrics.  She picked the second one because Nana often gives my kids lollipops when they leave her house and sings that song to them.  So here she is:

Next up, Xochitl has been more involved in our home school sessions now that Larry is in his Pre-K class most of the morning.  She gleaned a huge chunk of the "Fifty Nifty United States" song as Dawna was learning.  Xochitl actually sings it a lot, beginning in random places and repeated short passages.  I didn't realize she could almost do the whole thing until tonight, when we were thinking of all the states that started with A.  I started the song, and she finished it (in her own unique language, but still, pretty impressive for a 3-year old!). And sorry I could hardly contain my laughter as I was taping this... it didn't encourage her, but really, how cute is she???

At Larry's school, they learn a short little song for each letter they learn.  The song uses that particular letter as much as possible.  His favorite is the X song... because "Xavior was an Alien, Extra Terrestrial..." and he loves that it's his middle name in a song!  Here he is performing his song!

Note: the Lyrics are: "Xavior was an alien: Extra Terrestrial. He was born on planet X, extremely far from earth.  He had two pointy heads.  His vision was x-ray. He saw exactly everything in an alien way." Set to the tune of Camp Town Races

And... sorta embarrassing for me... I just realized that I never posted anything about Dawna's piano recital last year... oops... so for good measure, here's a link to her playing at the "Tribute to Walt Disney" recital in May 2012...only a year late!

Piano Facelift!

So, I've finally finished the long and arduous task of "re-keying" my piano... It was quite the adventure--some things were easier then expected, and some things were harder than expected, but with the help of a sweet husband and good kids that went to bed on time, I got it all done!

Here's how it went:

First I had to take off the Fall Board and key lock and any other wood pieces that restricted access to the keys (you can see a couple of the broken and chipped key tops that are responsible for inspiring this project in the first place).

Then, key by key, using a razor blade knife thing, I peeled the plastic top off of every key.

Some of the tops came off easily and all in one piece... I really appreciated those ones...

However, there were a couple of them that were very stubborn and had to be chiseled of one little piece at a time... less fun:
After all the key TOPS were off, we also had to remove the key fronts... this was a pain in the rear!!! It took at least twice as long to get the little square piece on the front of the key off as it did to get the entire key top off... why? who knows... So I did that part one octave at a time.
Then, after the key front was off, I glued the new key top on. It was easiest to take the key out of the piano entirely to do that part, which also gave me the chance to vacuum out all the little dust bunnies that had coagulated in there over the course of my piano's life:
And so it went, key by key, octave by octave, until it was all done. If any of YOU are planning on re-keying a piano any time in the future, here's some advice I have for you based on my experiences:

• Drape a towel or cloth over the open top of the piano while taking off the tops. I didn't figure this one out until about halfway through, so I know there's a few little plastic key top shards stuck somewhere between the sounding board and the pedals...
• As mom used to always say: Don't pound on my piano!-- and now I know why... Dawna or Lawrence hit one of the keys too hard and cracked a lever underneath. I had to take apart the bottom of the piano to fix that one. It wasn't a difficult piece to remove, just heavy and awkward (you can see the one drooping broken key--the one that isn't in line with the rest of them).

And now I have a beautiful looking piano! What fun! I really enjoyed learning how it all is put together and figuring it out... it might be the first time I've taken something apart and successfully put it back together again! I love my piano! Many thanks to Pete Summer's web site that provided the materials and instructions!
(And I hope I made my Grandma Severson proud! I did it myself!)

Yay for Pianos!

Last Friday I got together an army of eight able-bodied men and we moved MY piano in! I got it off Craig's List for under $200! It's a great brand, but some of the key tops are cracked and chipped, which is why it was so cheap... but no worries! My re-key-ing kit is already on the way and I'm pretty excited for the project... who knew... pianos get face lifts too :)

Of course, I'm starting Dawna early... she's pretty good at finding Middle C... and more importantly the note next door, which is "D for Dawna"... not just D.

And after all was said and done and moved in, my army of piano movers got treated to home made chocolate zucchini cake and banana chocolate chip muffins! And now I have my very own PIANO!!! Woo Hoo!!!