The Trip Home

Left Washington DC about 8 am Saturday morning......spent more than my share of time driving around WashDC missing the GPS turns because the traffic was too heavy or they weren't marked very well, or, because I'm an idiot, and the drive out wasn't an exception. Oh well. We made the decision to take I-68 west instead of coming up to the PA Turnpike....turned out to be a good call; I knew that way was more scenic and less crowded, Dora the GPS Explorer ended up telling us it wasn't any longer, and we ended up driving up near Fort Necessity and Braddock's Grave in Western Penn....continuing our visit of historical George Washington places (the video at the Mount Vernon visitor center about George actually shows part of this battle......should have planned to stop here in hindsight, oh well).

Made it to Grandma's and had some awesome lasagna and apple squares. The lasting highlight of the visit will be Christopher's adventures on the recliner.....he finally got the recliner deployed, and then crawled down on the floor to check underneath it, and, then, later, he has his giant pencil and is fishing under the recliner trying to get something

Dad "What are you doing?"
Cpher "Getting the $20 that's under here"
Grandma "??? There's not $20 under there!"
Cpher "Oh yes there is!"

So, Christopher is still 'fishing'.....Kevin comes over to help out, and Grandma is saying, no way, there's not $20 under there. Kevin looks under and confirms that, yes, it is money, and finally helps Christopher claim his prize....cold, hard, US Greenbacks. Twenty of them.

Christopher, earlier, had discoverd Grandma's two stuffed animals, one, Franklin, a smaller version of the big cat that was no where to be found during out stay (thus, avoiding some serious science-ing and a painful introduction of claws and teeth to Heckyl and Jeckyl's science efforts) and, more importantly, a walrus that had captured Christopher's interest and started some not very subtle discussions about how that walrus might look better in Okemos, not Ohio.

Grandma, quick to seize an opportunity to cash in on the situation(!), offered to 'sell' the aforementioned walrus for a cool $20. Christopher, with walrus in his eyes, quickly agreed, and both parties walked away happy. Joe and Mom spend some time trying to figure out which of their guests may have misplaced $20 and come to the conclusion that it had to be one friend, but, it was surprising that it was only $20, it probably should have been $50 or $100! Can only imagine the big guy's expression if he would have stumbled across those big bills!



Got home around 9 pm. Boys very happy to be home....cats very happy to be released from their imprisonment in the house....cats not very happy to have the resumption of collection for science-ing.

Washington - Part Last

Thursday:

Monument: To go up the Washington Monument you have to have timed tickets, so, Suzanne went out early (letting all of the lazy males sleep in!) and was in line at 8:30 to get the tickets....we made it over there for the approximate 10 am start. The tour is pretty simplistic, in through the ever-present metal detectors, up the elevator, look out the windows, and down you come, with a slow stop on the elevator around the 220' level to look at the blocks states, organizations, cities, and countries donated and had placed in the monument.

Christopher in front of George inside the base of the monument

Looking West from the top of the Monument

Under new occupany soon.

WWII: We proceeded to head west from the WM to continue our monument tour; stopping at the World War II Memorial. The quotes and the murals were pretty impressive; the use of the water in the fountains and in the still pool in front of the stars was pretty cool also. Sadly, despite repeated warnings, one boy couldn't keep his feet out of the water, so, the rest of the memorial walk this day was marred by a Christopher-time-out and continued sulkiness.

This tree provided an irrestible break for the boys after the trip up and down of the Washington monument.

Literally, 10 seconds after this photo, his foot hit the water and, well, Christopher got his turn at the nadir of the behavior-biorythym scale.....

Lincoln: A long walk down here, but, worth it. Christopher, at this point, still wants nothing to do with the rest of the family, and that's why he isn't in the picture below.

There was a moment where we couldn't find Matthew and Christopher; they had moved off to the side to sit and reflect on the day's events.

Vietnam, Embassies: Left the Lincoln Memorial and walked up the Vietnam Memorial....not sure how much of this the boys understood. We explained why all the names were there to Matthew and Christopher, but, I probably will ask tonight if they remember it and why the names were there. We'll see. Hutsell's split up after this; Kevin and I stepped up the pace to catch a subway to get back to the hotel to get the car, Mom and the boys took a small side trip to the Natural History museum until we got back. After we got the car and picked up everyone, we travelled up "Embassy Row" checking out the different embassies and the neighborhoods.

Turkey: Returned to the hotel for dinner and football.....had some turkey and some sides from Boston Market...had stuffing (with sausage!) Suzanne had made. Leftover chinese food? yep, had some of that. Leftover Nachos? Matthew was all over that! Strangest Thanksgiving dinner in a long time.

Nighttime: Everyone came out in the car in the evening as we did a nighttime drive by the sights.....don't know why, don't know if it was normal, but, there was quite a police presence around the Capitol, we passed at least 5 manned patrol cars as we circled around the Capitol. Headed down past the White House and the WM; drove by the Lincoln Memorial and stopped at the Jefferson Memorial. Parking was closed, but, the monument was still open and I think I enjoyed the look of the Jefferson Memorial a lot. Sadly, a boy tripping on the stairs required a return trip to the car for Dad, so, I didn't get to see the museum there, but, Kevin and Mom report that it's pretty impressive as well.

Friday:

Holocaust Memorial: The Hutsell's split up again this morning; Suzanne and the boys went back to the Natural History museum for more animal close-ups, and Kevin and I went over to the Holocaust Memorial. Kevin had watched the movie Freedom Riders recently, so, at least had some idea of what we were going to see, and spent a lot of time reading the displays and watching the films (so much so that I felt like I was rushing him through the museum....we were going to meet the otherHutsell's for lunch and I didn't want to leave Suzanne with Heckl and Jeckyl for too long). The museum was really really well done, they have a display geared for children on the first floor that's really good, and there's a tower of photographs from a shetl(sp?) that depicts life in the town in the and the people and the sad note at the bottom of the tower that the village ceased to exist in 1943. Very moving. I think I'm going to get Schnidler's List to watch with Kevin in the next week or two to reinforce the lessons learned today.

Swimming Pool: Headed back to the hotel after lunch; went to the swimming pool for the last time. The swimming pool at the hotel was a major bust....closed for 24 hours from Sunday afternoon into Monday, and then Wednesday/Thursday Matthew and Christopher are complaining of 'itching'....their skin is all red and we realize the chemicals in the pool are 'burning' them.....Friday, we take a long look at Christopher's swimming trunks....what once were kelly green and blue are some funky aqua-marine shade because they've been bleached out.

Washington - Part Two

Tuesday:


BEP: Tuesday begin with a visit to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. During 'peak' season, you have to get tickets in advance....since the Hutsell's avoid peak season anywhere like it's the plague, we just arrived, waited 10 minutes, and the tour begins. Not surprising for an assembly-line process like the BEP, but, the tour runs like a swiss watch...watch the video, head into the plant, watch the money get printed on one side, printed on another, cut, diced, sliced, etc and so on. Was closer to more money than I'll ever be again in my life.....actually, that's not true, it's not money until the Federal Reserve accepts the money into the system, but, still, something neat about watching sheet after sheet of $100 bills go buy..uh, bye.

BBS you ask? A 7.....about as good as it will ever get I guess.



White House: There's things that the federal government has done well on the touristy front here....we like that the museums are free (as opposed to the high price of tourism we encountered in Europe) and the Capitol was done well and the BEP was done very well.

But the White House? For all of the run-a-round to get in (you can't bring any type of bag on to the grounds, never mind having to arrange a time and submitting you name, birthdate, and SSN) you only get to see about 5 rooms of the building and that's it, you're done. I understand security, I understand it's a 'working' building, but, man, that's it, the center of the free world is walking through the blue room, the red room, the green room, and the dining room, and getting to stand outside three others and look in? Only thing that would have made it worse would have been being charged for it.....

BBS: 5. Still wonder how far Matthew would have made it if he would have taken off down one of those hallways. Would have been higher except for the the Matthew "I need to use the bathroom" five minutes after we had just asked and he said 'no'......and, well, the White House has no public bathrooms.

Bolt: Drove to Alexandria Tuesday night for dinner and to see 'Bolt'. The movie's very good, enjoyed by all....I think Mom gets more of a kick watching Dad enjoy the animated humor movies than from watching the movie itself. Too much Looney Tunes I guess....

Wednesday:

Mount Vernon: At the start of the trip, we had planned on Wednesday being the go-to-Williamsburg-for-the-day day....but, upon reflection of the drive (3 hours with no traffic) and the prediction for traffic (horrible), we decided to save Williamsburg and points south for another trip. So, we moved up our schedule and went out to Mount Vernon. The land and buildings are all owned by the "Mount Vernon Ladies Association", and, if they deserve all of the credit and the feds none, fine, but, the whole complex and the center and the museum are really well done.

BBS: 3 Back to the Monday's issues; Matthew and Christopher playing hide-and-go-irritate your parents by fighting with each other on the guided part of the tour, Kevin with teenage angst I guess.

One of the very nice stained glass windows in the visitors center.

The mansion from the Potomac side.

Mansion from the front. Bowling Green directly in front of the mansion.

Dead President

Washington: Oh yeah, I should mention that well, anybody would have some reservations about coming to Wash DC....and I'm sure that there are parts that I wouldn't want to be in after dark (or even during the day) in a million years. But....I've been pleasantly surprised with what I've seen...especially with Paris and London as recent memories. The Metro has been extremely clean and pleasant, the sidewalks in the city and around the Mall have been clean and friendly, no begging, no strange people walking up.....really, two thumbs up.

Washington - Part One

First, the much-anticipated All-State results were posted tonight. Kevin is the 5th chair viola in the Middle School Orchestra. He'll report to Grand Rapids on Thursday Jan 22, 2009 and rehearse that afternoon and all-day Friday with a Saturday morning performance. Kevin's selection, and my volunteering to participate on a long range planning committee for the school district, has effectively hosed a full family vacation that week in January...perhaps Suzanne and the boys will go and leave me and Kevin to the January cold....

The trip to Washington: Went fairly well Sunday....departed Michigan a little before 8:30 am and landed at the hotel just after 6 pm. Nothing spectacular to report about the trip; I guess the most outstanding thing was that we're staying at a Residence Inn and due to our residual 'gold' status on my account from the timeshare purchase we received an upgrade from our 1 bedroom suite to a 2 bedroom suite, which, will go a long way towards making this week go easier.

Monday: Started the day with breakfast at the RI; they do a good breakfast, not the continental deal at most hotels, but, hot eggs, sausage, pancakes....the boys do well here so paying the extra money sometimes to stay at a RI is worth it.

View on our walk to the Capitol

Christopher and Dad in front of the Grant Memorial

Walked over to the Cannon House Building to the offices of our Congressman (Rogers, the 8th district in Michigan) and went on a tour of the Capitol guided by one of his staff. And that was good, but, a little weird. I wonder if we would have learned more doing the regular tour with the big group but able to have the audio tour and listening.....I wonder if we would have been able to enter the House Chambers if we weren't on the tour...our tour guide, Lauren, couldn't take us into the Senate Chambers because, she, working in a House office, didn't have access. It was nice being in a smaller group, but, Lauren hadn't done the tour in a while, and didn't have the answers to relatively easy questions at times. Oh well. We're glad we were one of the first tours from the House buildings....we walked right into the Capitol but the tours that had started later were stuck in a long long line. The BBS (Boys Behavior Scale) was a measly 4.....ok, it's the Capitol, and it's not expected to have appeal to Christopher and Matthew, but, the 4 is only because Christopher was a little angel...Matthew was a whiny terror and Kevin, strangely, wasn't nearly as interested or appreciative of where he was.

The family in as close as we'll ever get to a good, posed, picture. Notice Matthew already trying to screw things up.

A much more typical family pose.

Air and Space Museum: Made it to the ASM about lunch time and spent the rest of the afternoon here. Boys seemed to really get into all of the sights here and particularly enjoyed the section about what living in space was like. Attended the IMAX showing of fighter pilots at the Red Flag exercises at Nellis AFB, which was really awesome (Kevin enjoyed a few of the scenes that showed sky diving....Mom, later, admits that she missed this, and other parts of the movie as she snoozed...) But, very typical of their ages, it soon became more a mission to get through it as quick as possible, and Mom and the boys left about 30 minutes before Kevin and I did.

Kevin, whether enjoying the subject matter more, or responding to his parent's commentary about how he was going to get the most out of the trip after his rather poor performance at the Capitol, really took his time going through the ASM, particulary enjoying the meterology/satellites sections and the WWII aviation section. The real highlight for Kevin was the trip through the full-motion flight simulator...he was the pilot, I was the gunner, and I took great pains to tell him that upside-down rolls should be held to a minimum. We only rolled twice, but the shoulder harness only keeps your head and torso in place, my legs would end up bent over the harness on the ceiling/floor, and I'd be yelling "KEVINNNNNNN!" and he'd be laughing.
BBS: A solid 8.




Dinner: Went to the ESPNZone.....service was really really slow, and the games were ridiculously priced and expensive, but, the boys all responded that this was the best restaurant ever, so, I guess it couldn't have been that bad.

what happens when you let a boy near a camera

times two

....the night of nights....

"Overture, curtain, lights! This is it, the night of nights! No more rehearsin' or nursing a part, we know every part by heart...."

First, let's get updated on everything else that's going on:

Kitchen: Countertop installation scheduled for December 1

Basement: Was going really well until dry wall hanging began, and then it reallllly slowed down. It's not going to be done before we leave, and construction will drag into the week after we get back.

All-State: Still no word. The web site says we'll know late Monday or Tuesday...we'll see about that.

Cats: The boys have been on a feline kick lately.....catching the cats and carrying them up to their room for some in-depth petting and 'science-ing'. Madison has been remarkably patient as the boys have done this, but, the we've been intervening more recently in trying to stop it. Not surprisingly, incidents of cats at the door meowing to go outside are on an upswing.

Second...well, tonight was opening night. Below you'll find 'highlights'....about 7 minutes of the performance. Kevin's microphone didn't work at first, but, kicked on after a while. We'll be taping again tomorrow night and hopefully that part will work out better.

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Metro

(ok, I admit it, I'm not getting back to finish this.....I started it Tuesday night).

Another evening, another layover in Detroit. I've flown frequently enough this year that I easily qualified for Silver Elite status on NorthDelta and, with the end of this flight and the scheduled flight to WashDC in three weeks, I'll have enough segments for Gold Elite.

Anyway, here's the news:

Kitchen: Called the countertop place...they were scheduling to be out next Tuesday for installation, but, we won't be there, so, it won't happen until we get back after Thanksgiving. Will be really glad to finally get that done and have the kitchen return to almost normal.

Basement: Drywall is mostly done in the basement....that looks to be all done before we leave for vacation as well.

Time to board...will finish this later tonight.

Weekend Update

Haven't blogged in almost a week, so, this will be a long one.

Hockey: Well, Kevin and I had a blast at the Penguins - Red Wings game on Tuesday night. When they were down by 3 with 12 minutes left in the third, I was seriously considering how early was too early to leave to beat traffic, but, happily, the Penguins scored 4 of the next 5 goals and won in overtime. Might be the most exciting game I've been to, period. We doubled up on hockey this week and went to see the Spartans with the school on Saturday night. Sadly, they lost, and doubly sadly, the boys (all of them!) didn't do well in the behavior department. They were just south of ok, they weren't totally bad, but, they could have been a lot better.

Soccer: The boys played Saturday and won 11-0.....Christopher is still without a score, but, did a good job in goalie (okay, he only touched the ball once..). Matthew had a goal, and, also had the scary moment of the year....indoor soccer is like hockey, there's boards, and Matthew is running along and trips on another kid and the next sound you hear is his head hitting the boards...and the sound after that is every parent going 'oooooh'. I don't think he had hit the ground before I was on the field, but, thankfully, he cried his way off the field and was pretty much ok after a minute or two. But man did it sound and look awful. Suzanne, thankfully, was off with Kevin, and missed the sight and sounds....

Viola: The aforementioned 'off with Kevin' was at Kevin's Solo and Ensemble performance. This is the piece that the orchestra teacher wasn't sure was appropriate.....and Kevin was very nervous, and will cheerfully agree that he did the worst that he's done recently on the piece and was very distraught afterwards because he thought he didn't do well. So, he was completely surprised that he received a '1' for his performance (that's the highest you can get). We've learned a few things from this outing, one is that we'll always arrange for his accompanist outside of school from now on; Kevin barely practiced with her and said she was slower than he was used to and it threw him off.......she was rushing from performance to performance and Suzanne and I will cheerfully pay a little more to make the experience easier for Kevin and 2) Kevin will keep working on that 2nd movement and do that for his winter recital...I have to have a better version on tape than this one!

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Kitchen: Installed some doors, installed some cover panels. Fixed that one cabinet that I had messed up, got the door swinging the other way. Got the countertop quote back; came in almost $1500 less than the shop in Lansing, especially if you consider the 10% discount we were able to get on all the purchases we had made since Oct 4th (that ended up being $500!). We're supposed to have the counter in less than 2 weeks...hopefully we can get it next week, we'll see.

Chicago: Was a chaperone for the annual 7th grade trip to Chicago. This is worthy of a post of its own....and I'll do that tomorrow while I'm in Charleston (again...)

More Viola: Kevin participated in the Chamber Music concert in school on Thursday. A lot of the same groups performed as ensembles on Saturday....Kevin's did not. They are playing 'Divertimento' by Mozart....and Kevin is pretty well blocked by the violin on the tape, but, you can enjoy the music.

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Performances?: The boys have been in a performing frame of mind themselves recently.

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It's a great night for hockey!

More later....it's late, and we just got home. But Kevin and I spent Tuesday night here.



Oh yeah, and the first pictures of this REALLY IMPORTANT THING showed up on the internet today.

Monday Update

Flag Football: Remember my complaints about the weather last Sunday? I take it all back; yesterday was flurries, windy, and just miserable. Matthew's little hands were ice cubes by the end of it. The last game was notable for one reason....Matthew mentioned his coach told him 'no stiff arms'....not sure why that is, but, ok. Matthew seemed unconcerned...he told me before the game that no stiff arms meant the return of the spin move.

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Soccer: Played the same team as Saturday and battled to a 4-4 tie. Really good game, a lot of back and forth play, very enjoyable. Both boys played well, Christopher had a good chance in the 2nd quarter, and Matthew buried a penalty kick in the first (the ref called a lot of this today, which, I think is good and bad. She called it, obviously, when the kids reached up in the box to stop the ball, but, on one of the other team's free kicks, the ball was coming right at Matthew's head, and he raised up his arms to block it from smacking him in the head, and she called that too. Technically, she's right, but, with 6-7 years old, in the outdoor soccer rules, you don't whistle the ones where they are defending themselves.....who am I kidding, I'm just griping because it cost us a goal!).

Three videos are here, you can find Matthew's goal about 40 seconds into the 1st quarter.

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Kitchen: Still moving forward. Had the counter guys come out for the measure today. Very interesting to see how they do it, makes perfect sense once you see it, but, don't know if I would have thought they would have done it that way beforehand. They laid out styrofoam strips where the edges of the counter would be, glued them in place on the cabinet tops, glued the strips to each other, and then cut them apart to transport back to the shop for reassembly and fabrications. They ended up taking our sink and faucet too, just to make sure they have it right. Sounds like we might have the countertop in 2 weeks.....hopefully that's on target!

In this picture, you can see how far we plan on having the overhang go towards the sliding glass doors...all the way to the trim (the foam piece that's running parallel to the cabinets).

We're going to end up with two seams; both where the right angles occur on each side of the sink.

Oh...the boys (and the cats) have had an unbelievably good time with the sink box. You'll note the Pokemon handbook is really popular right now.

Basement: Construction is in full swing....drywall is scheduled for early next week. But, the walls for the bedroom are framed in. They need to frame in around the pipe and along the walls where the concrete is exposed, and also cut into the wall near the storage room for the closet opening. It's not really going to end up being a closet, we're going to be putting an Ikea storage unit in there.

Saturday Update

Another full day in mid-Michigan:

Christopher: For the longest time, Christopher complained about any clothes that he had to wear as too tight, or too scratchy, and wailed and wailed if they irritated him in any way. It's a relief to his parents that those times are mostly gone.....he finally accepts blue jeans willingly, and well, he's always been good about dressing himself in the morning and making good fashion choices. Here was his shirt choice for today....stylin!

Soccer: Went a lot better today....the Chargers ended up losing 8-5, but, it was 5-4 us in the middle of the 3rd quarter. Not sure how it came off the rails in the final 15 minutes or so, but, really happy with the improvement the team showed. Christopher played well, but, had a complete lapse in defense in the 4th quarter (ok, so I know one of the reasons it came off the rails.....sigh). Twice, he broke the cardinal rule, don't dribble into the middle when you're on defense. Oh well. Clanged a shot off the wall next to the goal....happily, it bounced straight to his brother, who, well......

Matthew had an outstanding day, he certainly had the hat trick, and may have had one more...it's hard to tell. Video of both the boys below....the highlight for me is the last goal (if you're not willing to watch about 12 minutes of video, just skip to about 1 minute from the end). I didn't see what Matthew did after the goal because I was busy getting new players on the field, and when I watched it on tape I busted up laughing and had to ask Suzanne if she saw it (she did).

Not that it's hard to pick out the boys, but they are sporting different numbers. There were two 26's last year; Matthew's wearing Kevin's 12 this year, and we also would have had two 10's this year, so, Christopher has moved on to #4.

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We play the same team tomorrow at 1 pm, so, we'll see how it goes.

Movie: Went to see Madagascar 2 with the cousins. Came away disappointed with the movie, which is too bad. One week until the Trek trailer shows up in the theatres!

Kitchen: After muttering multiple curse words at Joepa's crew for scoring field goals, not touchdowns, completed work on more of the kitchen.

We used the long-ago-purchased-but-never-assembled-until-last weekend table saw to cut the oven panel we had to size to be the cover for the dishwasher, as shown above. That table saw is a wonderful thing......Suzanne had major concerns about me cutting off fingers or arms. I had major concerns about getting the cuts right (not a strong suit for me), but, in the end, it turned out fine. Attached with L-brackets on the floor and on the left side against the cabinet as you look at it.

The dishwasher is propped up because I need to add to the water supply line hose to make the connection work; that's tomorrow's morning project.

We purchased another base cabinet to put in the blind spot so that we could secure the cabinet to the wall and secure the other cabinets to this new cabinet for extra stability. Didn't really need to do this, but, it was cheap, and easy enough to do, so, what the hey. You'll notice that it's white, not birch. They were out of stock in birch, and because you'll never see it, we just bought a white one.

Of course, if you don't want to see the white cabinet, you need to add something to cover it up. This is two pieces of trim that I cut to size and secured together. Still need to secure it to the cabinet and the white cabinet, but, this picture shows the end result.

Friday November 7th

This is the 250th post! "Wow, that's a lot!" says Suzanne......

Here's the pictures taken at 9:36 pm last night.....

Christopher's very consistent; it's 9:30, it's bed time, and it really doesn't matter what the rest of the family is doing; he's crawling up into bed and going to sleep.

That's the libretto for School House Rocks Live Jr. in Kevin's hands. He was practicing the songs. He's memorized all of his lines (had that done by Wednesday) and is looking forward to opening night in two weeks! Behind Kevin is the mess that's his room...you can see the folded piece of paper in the background; that's one of the progress reports we received at parent-teacher conferences this week. For Kevin, it was the same-old-same-old type of report....really needs to work on that 0.3% to bring up his social studies grade to an 100%, for example.

Matthew was on the prowl for a football game on TV.....he also spent some time downstairs looking at his new Pokemon handbook. The boys p/t conference is on Monday; Matthew's will be good, Christopher's not-so-good....the big guy is having a fair amount of trouble adjusting to the academics in 2nd grade.

Of course, kitchen work continues. This picture shows the cabinet just to the right of the stove, we've added some dividers (you can see the once circular one and you can see the other through the grates in the other pad) for our cookie sheets and flat pans.

And, of course Wiley is doing his usual Friday night thing. Just Chillin'.

Good things do come to those who wait....

First, I should have included some photos of the new sink, so here they are.




Second, the one picture I posted yesterday of the kitchen came out all orange; I have been directed to remove the offending picture and offer these in it's place. You can see the lazy susan; we moved the lower shelf up quite a bit; there's still enough room on that shelf for our largest pot, and now there's room underneath it to store other things.




Third....got a very surprising call from Kevin today. I had completely forgotten about this one piece of musical business that was left unfinished....when they announced the roles, they did not award one part, Tom, the teacher, around whom the whole show revolves. At the first rehearsal, they had said they were considering having an adult play that part, since, there isn't a lot of singing for the part, and well, the teacher is supposed to be an adult. So, we forgot all about it.

Kevin was walking down the hall to the auditorium and the director stopped him and asked "Would you like to play the role of Tom in the musical?" Kevin, of course, says yes.....and as the director is taking attendance at musical he announces to the cast that Kevin will be playing the part. The part is more speaking than singing, so, his move out of the chorus will have him singing less (but, he'll get to keep his 2-line solo!)....we're not sure how much at this point. Quite a pleasant surprise!