Visit from Utah G&G and My First Solo Recording

February 17-19th, my parents and Grandma came to visit us. They arrived on Friday evening and we got some delicious take-out from the Med. 

Saturday morning, my mom and grandma and I went to our Stake Women's Conference in Louisville and saw Barbara Thompson, second counselor in the general Relief Society Presidency, speak. Also, the head of seminary for the area spoke (Bro. Rollins? Can't remember for sure) and I really enjoyed his talk.   The music at the conference was beautiful. 

Then, we headed home. I wasn't feeling very good so we had lunch and decided not to go to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science like originally planned. We went to the Carousel of Happiness in Nederland instead and it was the perfect outing. Sam loved riding on the carousel and we went over to the little cafe (built inside of some old train cars) next door for some doughnuts and hot chocolate afterwards. Delicious!

Sam having his first ride of the day with me and Mr. Gorilla. Despite his face in this picture, he loved every minute of it.

The carousel operator. I really liked him and the gong he'd ring before starting each ride.

Don enjoying his ride on the dolphin.

Mom and Dad having a good time. Mom is wearing the scarf I knitted for her for Christmas.

After the first ride on the gorilla chair with me, Sam ventured out on his own in the dragon ship. He loved it and still talks about it.

Here we all are. This old carousel used to be at Saltair, the resort on the Great Salt Lake that my grandma would frequent as a young woman. My parents both went there as kids, too, before it was closed down. They remember riding on this very carousel. The carousel was moved to various locations and eventually ended up here where it was refurbished and a local artist carved the beautiful new animals.

Off to the train cafe. A carousel and a train full of treats? Best day of Sam's life!

"Caboose, mom!!"

Sam sure loves his Poppy!

We polished off one plate of donuts and decided we needed another. Yum!

Sam is still suspicious of new food items so he refused to eat a donut. I don't mind this lack of interest in sweets at all. He has decided that chocolate is wonderful, though, so he no longer ignores my afternoon chocolate eating. Now he always asks for some. Darn. :) 

The cafe was such a cute little place.

Grammy brought Sammy two special presents - a pillow dog which he has named "Tractor" (no surprise there - tractors are Sam's obsession right now) and a purple race care. Purple is Sam's favorite color so the purple race car is his favorite. He tells me all the time how much he loves anything purple. He usually tries to get me to wear my purple shirts. Too bad purple is my least favorite color.

Sam is also completely obsessed with money and his dump truck that my parents gave him for Christmas. He is always collecting random cards and toys and putting them all in his dump truck. Then, he drives them around and dumps them out and starts again. The only problem is, he gets really upset when he loses any of his "moneys." He is always asking me where his other penny is and asks me to help him find it. I spend a lot of time trying to find lost money. Usually, I just dig him out a penny from the change bucket and give it to him. I can imagine that by the end of this "money" obsession, we'll have coins jammed in every crevice around the house. I guess we'll just have to have a treasure hunt before we move.

Sam also loves to paint with watercolors. He usually paints for about 3 minutes and then spends the rest of the time swishing the brush in the various colors and making the water jar a lovely shade of brown. I like watching his little mind work things out. I can tell he really enjoys the process of how things happen and what makes things work. He is a scientist, just like his daddy.

Grammy bought Sam a new passenger train car. He was pretty excited about it and kept telling everyone on the ride home from Nederland that it was a "diesel car". 

On Sunday, the 17th, a friend of mine from church, Rebecca McDonald, quickly taught me a song she had written and then we went to a house of a friend of hers to record it. Since my mom was in town and had come to a youth fireside with me, she came to watch the recording session. It was fun having her there. She took all the random pictures below.

Rebecca needed to have a recording to send to a violinist who was writing a violin obligatto for the song. Considering that I had only sung through the whole song a total of 3 times before the recording, the recording turned out pretty well. I was often hesitant to begin singing because I really had no idea what the note was supposed to be (and sometimes neither did Rebecca - she kept changing the melody because she wasn't quite sure how she liked it).  Despite all that, though, it turned out well and Rebecca got what she needed. It was my first time in a recording studio type setting and I enjoyed it very much. 

Listening to the piano recording which we eventually scrapped. We ended up recording together since it was too difficult to gauge when the piano was coming in on the recording without following physical cues. Singing along with Rebecca worked much better though the entrances were still always a bit tricky. 

Singing for the recording.

Another of Sammy's favorite things to do is to watch daddy draw tractors (or me if daddy isn't around. Don is a far better artist so it is with good reason that Sam picks him first).

A usual dump truck full of Sam's random toys, freshly dumped on the carpet.

We had a great visit with my parents. They were hoping to leave early Monday morning but because of the snow, they got delayed several hours. They made it home safely and we enjoyed our time together.