Lance's violin competition

Lance has a new violin teacher this year that requires he play in a competition called "Festival". They play two pieces from memory, one required, one free choice and they get a score of 1-5. After they accrue 15 points over the years, they get a trophy with their name on it. Lance struggled learning the songs 5 months ago when he started practicing for it, but with hard work he has really learned the songs well. We could not video tape or take pictures during his performance, so we have "faked" a performance for you. He had accompanist at the actual recital, but he does well without the piano also.
The first song was the required "Hunter's Chorus"

The second song was his free choice. It is called "The Blessed Spirits".

Lance's good friend Oliver came to watch him perform. Not only did he support Lance's efforts, he also gave him beautiful flowers for his first competition. (They smell so wonderful)

For fun Lance also played this song (not at the Festival, just for us) called "Boil 'em Cabbage Down"

Not to be outdone, Liam also wanted to get in the act. Here is his song. "Count Carefully".

The news you have all been waiting for...

We got our referral today!!!! Our social worker called Ryan because I have my phone off at work. When I checked my phone after work I had 6 messages. I called Ryan back and he told me to pull over ( I hate driving and talking in the first place). We have a little girl!!! I know we were asking for a couple of boys, but someone has decided that we need a girl in our family instead. She is 6 years old and as cute as a button (maybe I'm a little biased). We are currently sending all of her information to the U of M International Adoption Clinic. We are very excited and looking forward to traveling. If you email us I can tell you more details about her.

I got stuck again!

I have to blog about our snowstorm yesterday because everyone had such a laugh at last year's adventure.
On Wed. they kept saying it was going to snow a lot on Thurs., yeah, whatever. Then on Thursday morning it finally started snowing a bit after noon. My manager made it my decision on whether I wanted to have class in the evening or not. I decided it looked like it was picking up and I would cancel it. So I took a half hour and called some students to tell them that there was no class. I shouldn't have done that.
I finally took off at 1:30, we live 10 minutes from my work. I had to find my car under all of the snow that had fallen in just one hour and I took off. It was slow, but I was doing fine. I got to the street (a major one in our suburb) that we live off and started going up toward our house. All of the sudden I saw a pick up truck stuck in the left hand lane. Then the 3 garbage trucks in front of me got stuck. Some people started going around, some waited behind me, some people just turned around. I started to make a decision after watching everyone and decided to turn around...I was stuck also!! I tried everything to move. I finally inched my way over to the side of the road so I was out of the way. Ryan called me twice on my phone and I just told him "I'm stuck, I'll call you when I get home". Some high school kids came out with shovels then and they helped push the taxi behind me so he could turn around. All of the garbage trucks were shoveling around the truck to move them to the side. The kids asked me what I wanted to do. I had turned off my car when I got to the side of the road because I had already been sitting there for a half hour and didn't want to run out of gas. The nice kids gave me some options, one of them was to back down the hill. The police had closed the road and I was the last idiot on it. They said they could guide me, but it was wide open so I could do it. I told them what I really wanted was a parking lot to park my car and I would walk home. I was only 4 blocks from my house.
After I got back on the "highway" I slowly went to the next street that went my way that looked plowed. When I started my adventure I was only 4 blocks north of my house. I backed up another 2 blocks and then went east for a mile. It was a long mile, so many cars were stuck. Plus you couldn't see anything. I finally saw another major street that was plowed and tried that hill. I got up it and went north another mile looking for a plowed street to go west on. I finally came to the county road that goes by our house of course and went west a mile. Do you see the perfect square I made? It took me an hour to do all of this.
When I had to take a left to get to our street I just floored it through the snow and hoped no one was on our street. I never hit the brakes the entire way down our street and it is downhill. I took the turn into our cul-de-sac going pretty quick but didn't want to stop. I opened the garage when I got close and went full force up our driveway. It was not fun. Later I shoveled and met some neighbors because 4 people got stuck trying to get up our cul-de-sac hill. The street we live on finally got plowed out at 6:30pm.
You know it is a fast storm in MN if they close the airport. They couldn't keep the runways plowed long enough to get a plane out, so they closed all the runways for about a half hour. What a crazy day. Thanks for listening to my boring story, now send money so I can move somewhere that it doesn't snow:)

New violins for everyone

Wow, the excitement in our house is boiling over...the boys both got new violins this past week. We have been saving up to buy Lance a new (better) violin for a little while. We had an appointment (yes, you need an appointment at this store) on Monday to go buy a new one. He only had a few to choose from (due to our budget limits) but he found one that he likes. He also bought a new bow (did you know that those are sold separately) for $225 and he bought a new really cool case. I went a little over my budget by the time it was all said and done, but he loves it and he sounds great. The best part of all was that the store gave us some chocolate violins as a gift for buying there. (At least the boys thought that was the best part)Liam got a new violin also, but his is just on loan. A friend of ours was kind enough to loan us their daughter's old quarter violin. Liam still has some growing to do to fit into his half.

Valentine's Day

Ryan and I don't really believe in Valentine's Day celebrations. It's not that we are anti, but we just think it is a strange holiday. Ryan says that he is romantic and loving all year long, and we don't need to have a special day to celebrate our love. He is right and I'm cheap, so it works out well. He likes to surprise me with flowers and other surprises during the year and not just when they are expected. We did have a date night, but it was just like every other Saturday date night, with one exception. We ordered some Chinese food, popped in a movie (The Sting 1973) and had a date night. Earlier in the evening Liam and I went on a search for a cake for Valentine's dinner. It took us almost two hours to get this cake from Cold S. Creamery, but that is another story for another time. The moral of that story is get ice cream more often and know where are restaurants are located and when they go out of business. The cake was wonderful and I realized why we have never been to the store before. This small cake was $19.99, we had a $10 gift card and a $3 coupon and I still thought $8 for it was too much.

My baby

I haven't had much time for blogging or even thinking about blogging, so I thought I would just throw up a random picture today. As we sit at our computer, a slide show of all the pictures on our computer hangs out on the screen. Whenever it gets to this one picture of Liam, my heart just melts. Maybe it is just all the talk about babies and toddlers from my adoption group friends. So for no reason in the world, except I love this picture, I present to you a picture of Liam. The photo was taken on a trip out to OR (recognize the house T &T?) he was just under 2 years old.

Facebook

I haven't written in awhile for three reasons. First of all I have started teaching a new class and it is taking way more time than it should. Secondly, when I am home I can't get on the computer because Ryan has had extra work to do for his friend ($). And lastly, I have a Facebook account now that I totally use more often than blogging.
I am really enjoying fb because I have found all kinds of friends from the past. I am now connected to my two best friends from high school, which is wonderful. Those girls were my life during those awful years of adolescence. Even though they are total strangers to me since 20 years have gone by, I still feel a deep connection to them and am so happy to be in touch with them. Also, through connections to them and some other long ago friends I am seeing other old friends from the past. I have a collection of friends now that spans the past 20 years of my life all in one place. Maybe the novelty of connecting with old friends will wear off, but I still love fb because I can write a sentence or two and get my point across. I have to really think about my blog entries and find the time to write them. I do have some ideas in my head that I would like to share in my blog and I'll find the time soon. I will also continue to give any adoption updates that we get. So, for the next few weeks my blogging will be slow, but I promise to catch up before I lose you all.