Piano Recital

Dane, Daniel and Rebecca (our piano teacher)

Dane and Mommy after the recital

Dane playing a duet with Rebecca

Dane and I have been taking piano lessons for the last few months. Dane has done really well and seems to really enjoy the piano but sometimes getting him to practice is tough. He is motivated by money so for each really good practice he gets one quarter and for each really good lesson he gets two quarters. And by "good" I mean he has to sit, listen and practice without whining. He does a pretty good job, most of the time. Rebecca is really good at harnessing his energy by doing a little work on the piano and then fun exercises with other instruments and coloring. I took piano lessons for 9 years and begged my mom to let me quit when I was a senior in high school. I have regretted that decision every since. I really enjoy playing and find it a great mental release to sit down and practice each day. I prepared and played a piece for the recital but got so nervous that I made quite a few mistakes. Dane did awesome. We played a duet together with no mistakes. I was so proud of him.

RAGE Tri - Finished!

L to R: Heidi Heckmann, Rosie, ME, Heidi Hughes

The Lake Mead RAGE Tri is complete! Whew! What a whirlwind weekend. (say that 5 times fast)

Thursday night we drove to St.George and spent the night with Hannah and Josh. Friday morning we drove to Las Vegas. Dustin and Dane went to Primm, NV to watch Best In the Desert Race stuff. (Dustin wasn't able to race his desert truck on Saturday because the motor blew up during a test run earlier in the week). Ian and I hung out on the Vegas strip with Steph, Katelyn and Courtney. We went to the Flamingo Hotel and walked through the gardens, the M&M store and spent way too much money on M&M's, and had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe where Ian was so scared of all the moving wild animal replicas that he had his hands covering his eyes most of the time. Then it was off to Lake Mead. We found our Hotel, unpacked, ate dinner and went to bed early. Saturday morning I was up early to race in the triathlon and the boys met me at the finish line. Then, after cleaning up we drove to our friends cabin between Bryce Canyon and Zions. We spent the night with them and then drove home Sunday afternoon. It was a lot of driving for the weekend. Luckily the boys all traveled well thanks to movies in the car!

Now I know you all want to hear about how the Triathlon went. Here it goes.

Swim: Worst half mile of my life! Did the breast stroke the whole way.

Bike: Fun and Fast

Run: Tolerable trail run with a huge side ache

Finish! 1 hours 49 minutes 54 seconds

April Fool's Day

Here are 2 April Fool's prank's I have played.

#1 I saved the pregnancy tests I took with Dane and many times I have tried to Fool Dustin into thinking I was pregnant.

#2 My sis Megan and I went skiing on April Fool's Day one year. We decided it would be fun to pull a little prank on my mom. Megan called her and said that I was on my way to the ER in an ambulance because I had been in a skiing accident. On the phone my mom and Meg were discussing a plan of who would go to the hospital and who would pick up Dane from daycare. When the plan was set. My mom was out the door and in her car in 3 seconds flat. She was ready to pull the car out of the garage and looked in her rear view mirror to see my sister and I laughing our heads off. My mom didn't think it was so funny until the adrenaline wore off. She is a good sport though.

What kind of April Fool's pranks have you played on people?s

Take a Look

I stumbled across this blog today and thought you might enjoy it. Stellan's story is not unlike the babies I took care of while working at Primary Children's. This story touched my heart. Maybe because I am so far removed from the work I used to do and in a weird way I miss taking care of those sick babies. It also made me very grateful for my two healthy kids. Check it out.

www.mycharmingkids.net