All Things Anne

Monday afternoon around 1, we went to Uncle David’s. We were there for a while, then Grammoo and Papa came, and Steven’s girlfriend Samantha, and we all went to a restaurant for lunch, where we met some friends of ours that we hadn’t seen since the September trip a couple years ago. It was yummy!

Grammoo
Steven and his girlfriend Samantha, who was not on drugs. Promise!

Then we went back to Uncle David’s. The boys played on the pogo stick for a bit.

Joe
Steven

Uncle David, Dad, and Papa. See any family resemblance?

Uncle David
Dad

Papa

¿Yo quiero Taco Bell?

Gizmo, one of Uncle David’s chihuahuas
Dobby, the other of Uncle David’s chihuahua’s, Dad and I liked this one better.

Steven’s friend Alex, a Kempo expert, came over and the boys wrestled with him. He beat Steven, Uncle David, and Joe, and drawed with Eric. Ben didn’t wrestle, but he arm-wrestled and won. Alex wasn’t very big, but he sure was flexible! He moved like a cat and had legs like snakes. While Alex was there we had really yummy dessert (chocolate lava cupcakes and strawberries over pound cake and angelfood cake), then he left and the boys wrestled with Steven.

Alex (in black) and Joe
Steven (left) and Joe

Steven and Joe again…
Joe liked this one…Steven kicked and Joe grabbed his foot!

Then we went to Grandpa’s and went to bed. And that was the end of the fourth day.

Sunday morning, we went to Grandpa’s church. There was a man with an upright bass, and he let me try that; it was cool! Then in the afternoon, went to the Manor, which is a retirement home. It was a very nice place! We gave a concert there, and it was a lot better than the one the previous day! We didn’t use ear monitors, too. Someone at Grandpa’s church had printed papers with little bios about each of us on it, and there were leftovers, so we handed them out to the folks at the Manor. There was this one Chinese man, and I watched him a little; he sat there with the biography paper and memorized all our names! So afterwards, he came up to Dad and shook his hand and called him by name, and the boys! His name was Wen Han, but “Wen” sounds more like “Wayne” with his accent, and he was calling himself John Wayne! He was a funny old guy, and he invited us to go out to Panda Buffet with him on Tuesday!

Unfortunately, we didn’t get any performing pictures from the Manor, but here are a few other ones!

A bunch of us toured the Manor with Mrs. Ethel (the elderly lady on the far left…she’s 92, believe it or not!), and one of the boys took a picture of us on the bridge
Another bridge shot

If you wanted to know what the backs of the outfits look like, I’m on the left, and Mom in her modified one is on the right. Hers was a modified men’s vest pattern.

Then we went back to Grandpa’s. It was Paul’s 17th birthday, so we had lemon meringue pie for his cake, and we had dinner, then went to bed!

Paul and his pie…no, he didn’t turn 1!

On Saturday, the boys went fairly early to Grandpa’s church to set up the music stuff, as this was the day of our concert. After setting up, they came back, and a few hours later we all went to the church and did a soundcheck and gave the concert. It turned out pretty badly, really; a lady had a heart attack and passed out (fortunately a relative of ours was there, and she’s an RN, so she gave the lady CPR and revived her before the fire department people took her to the hospital); and we had a technical problem where Dad had too many things plugged into his mixer stuff, so in our earbud monitors, when we were singing we couldn’t hear the guitars, and when we weren’t singing, the guitars were loud! We were all perfectly in tune with each other’s voices, but not with the guitars!

Joe
The choir…left to right, me (pink) on with the bass, Kate (red), Em (pink), Beth (green), Mom (purple), Tess (red, in front of Mom), Rase (yellow), and Jay (dark blue).
All of us…not a very good picture, I know. Choir on the left, (Abby’s in light blue, you can just see her vest, behind me in front of the others)…Dad’s in the purple with the cream guitar, Ben’s in the red behind the drums, Eric in the back right (blue), and Joe front right (green)
Another picture…
and another!

Afterwards, there was a very nice potluck, though!

Left to right…Mom, John, Grandpa (in the blue shirt), Paul, and Aunt Laurie.
Mom, Grandpa, and Aunt Laurie

Left to right, Nana (my babysitter when I was very young), Grammoo (I don’t know the lady behind her), Papa, and Dad

And I got to play the church organ, which was awesome!

Me on the left, Beth on the right
It was sooo much fun!!
See all the knobs? I couldn’t figure out what to do with them all!