Hyrum's First Recital

Alright! I've been looking forward to this post for a while! The hard part is going to be deciding which pictures to post since I have way too many.

Hyrum started taking piano lessons through ISU from a friend of mine in February. I felt a little bad that we didn't get him started right at the beginning of the semester, but we had other things on our minds. Since he hadn't been playing as long as the other students, I was surprised when his teacher asked me if he could play in the recital at the end of April. We asked Hyrum if he would like to perform, and he excitedly said yes. As it turns out, he loves performing.

He prepared one of the earliest and easiest songs he learned since we were afraid that he would stop and start over if he messed up. He tends to be a perfectionist, and won't just pick up where he made the mistake and carry on.

Because he was the most beginning of all the beginner students in the recital, he went first. I couldn't keep myself from smiling as Dr. Bond announced Hyrum and he took the stage. He played well and didn't make any mistakes. He even turned to look the audience to make sure they were listening as he played. He wasn't even the slightest bit nervous! He smiled at the applause as he took his bow. I don't know where he gets his courage from . I hate performing!

I wanted to get pictures of Hyrum at the piano after the recital, so I took him back on stage and asked him to play something. Instead of playing one quick song, he played through all the songs he had learned so far. He had every song memorized. I don't know why it surprised me--this is Hyrum, after all! He played for almost a half hour. I halfheartedly asked him to hurry up or told him that he should play just one more, but the truth was, I was enjoying how much he loved playing on the stage. Plus, I was getting tons of great pictures! And speaking of pictures...

Hyrum and his teacher, Stephanie.

Our family.

A more accurate representation of our family.

Since Hyrum went first, Stephanie was able to give him some last minute instruction on the stage.

This one is a little dark, but I love Hyrum's half smile.

This is how most of the photo session went. I'd get a serious picture of him playing...

Then he'd notice I was taking pictures, and give me a goofy grin.

Serious

Smiley

Such a big instrument for such a little boy.

There are plenty more pictures on my Facebook profile that I didn't include in this post. They're all good, so I suggest you go take a look!

Hyrum enjoyed his recital so much that he signed up for talent show try outs at school a couple of weeks later. He came home after his try out upset that he had messed up and wouldn't get to play in the show. I guess he's as hard on himself as I am on myself because I got a call from his teacher a few days later telling me that he was going to play. I hope he continues to enjoy the piano throughout his life.

Car Accident

We woke up to a big snow storm on February 25th. I left for school early, knowing that traffic would be slow due to the slick roads. The roads were even worse than I had first thought, so I was only going about 5-10 mph. As I came up to the stop sign at the end of the road, I knew that I would have to stop early. I tried to slow down several yards ahead, but not only was the car not stopping, it wasn't even slowing. The street that ran perpendicular to ours was a major road and the intersection was right next to a grade school, so I wasn't surprised to see a minivan coming straight at me.

The van was only going about 20 mph, but I could see from the look on the driver's face that she had no control over her vehicle. I turned my car toward the shoulder of the road to lessen the impact, but the front of the van still hit the front of my car,

then fish tailed and hit the back of my car.

It then slid across the oncoming lane, through a fence,

through another fence and a hedge,

then hit a railroad tie, broke its back axle, and came to a rest in a flower garden after having driven through two yards.

The police determined that nobody was "at fault" due to severe weather conditions and didn't give any inattentive or reckless driving tickets. I think the fact that both officers slipped on the road and fell on their behinds helped my cause. However, according to the insurance agencies, someone had to be at fault. And of course, since I was the one who didn't stop at the stop sign, my insurance shouldered the cost. Thank goodness I had full coverage on the Hyundai! Costs of repair to just our car was almost $6900. The car was in the shop for over a month! The van was totaled due to the broken axle. I didn't get an exact figure on the cost to replace the van or on the property damage for the yards, but they told me the total figure came to over $10,000. Although the deductible was $500 we didn't have, we happily paid it, knowing that it could have been a lot worse.