August 11

Matt did marvelously at his concert! He played Francour (sp?) and Stravinsky’s Suite Italiane, and his fingers were flying! The first part of the Francour was very captivating and melodic and beautiful, and the second part (movement?) was breathtaking and quick. The Stravinsky was flawless…ack, I can’t do it justice, and it’s a good thing that I’m not a concert reviewer, because I wouldn’t be very good. All to say, he did very well. Dora seemed more interested in seeing Tom, Matt’s teacher, but she was a very good little girl while her Dada played, and was duly rewarded with ice cream with Grandma and Grandpa afterwards. I got to go out with Matt and the other performers from Monday night’s performance afterwards, and we didn’t get back until 1:00, of course rousing the whole house the with howling and barking, and we found that my mom had been here waiting for us to get back, listening for the kids. MY MOM IS WONDERFUL! Thank you so much!!!!!!!!!

So since then, we’ve just been doing the normal things we do: swimming, playing on the porch, visiting the library. Today I’ve been packing, and trying to tie up some loose ends. For some reason I’m pretty pooped right now, but I have to end with the top 5 bizarre things that happened today.

1. I’ve been missing a purple file folder ever since we got here. I found it in the pocket of one of my bags that I SWORE I looked in.
2. While waiting to get some work done on the minivan, the kids and I played on a small stage in the backyard of a tavern.
3. Dora said to me, “a flower on my knee is politics”.
4. One of the big pine trees in the front yard spontaneously “broke”; it’s biggest branch up and fell off. Pictures to come.
5. Matt’s cello teacher spent a good 60 seconds prying a leech from Matt’s big toe.

Ok, so I have to explain the last one there…We met up with Matt and some Meadowmount folks at a place called Split Rock for a picnic dinner and an evening swim. As we were finishing up, Tom noticed something weird on Matt’s toe, and it was a LEECH. He didn’t want to pull it off, so he found a rock and tried to scrape it off, but it was a fast little bugger and it kept circling Matt’s toe. He finally got if off, and it landed on a big rock, and we thought it was dead. Then we saw it raise its little head up, and slide back into the water. Pretty nasty stuff. Okay, I’m going to go take my next to last bath—yippee!