Dueling Pianos

On Friday night I did something a little out of the ordinary for me. I went to a bar. Don't worry, there was no drinking involved for me or those in my party!

I went with Katherine and some people I didn't really know to a place in downtown Houston called Pete's Dueling Piano Bar. They had these two awesome grand pianos facing each other and two musicians playing and singing. It was amazing. They take requests and can play anything, and incredibly, they know the lyrics too! Who would have thought!

This is a short snippet of them performing Cecelia, by Simon and Garfunkel.

This one was my favorite. One of the girls in my group had been there before and had seen this guy perform Hotel California so she requested it. This part is after the singing and he's just going to town on his piano solo. I was so shocked that I didn't think to grab my camera until the end.

Here are us two happy campers enjoying the show. There were actually 4 musicians in all. These two were our favorites. They did a few numbers with all 4 guys - they had guitars and a drum set out there too, but for the most part, they'd play for an hour, then the other set would come out and play for an hour. We saw our favorite guys twice, but left before they other's really started their second set.

This week . . .

Here are a few things from my week!

My cousin, Dannen had a birthday party for his big day on Wednesday. His wife had the coolest candle on the cake so I had to video it! It was a great time hanging out with them all!

This was a crazy week at school. We had our awards and picnic on Friday. As is customary, we did a performance before the awards. We did a reader's theater sort of play of Little Red Riding Hood. It turned out really cute. I spent a bunch of time making this background. The kids decorated it with some flowers they made. This was the day before our performance and the only one who really had his costume here was one of our wolves.

Here we have all 3 of our wolves doing their scary wolf faces.

These were our narrators. They did a great job!

These 4 alternately played Little Red Riding Hood. There were 5 scenes and we switched out parts after each one pretty much.

Here's our light manager. He turned off the lights between scenes and watched me to see when they were ready to have the lights come on.

These two are showing their muscles because they were my backstage crew. They had to move a heavy table and did a great job.

These guys came out and showed their signs at the start of each scene. They'd say "action" after they announced what scene it was.

Here's our hunter wielding the axe that killed the big bad wolf.

Entirely unrelated to the play is the fun fact that my blackberries are on! They're big and most of them are even sweet! LOVE IT!

My weekend

Friday night I had planned to go camping with Katherine and Wendy, but the weather wasn't having it!

By the time I got to Katherine's, the sky was prematurely dark and there was thunder and lightning, soon followed by a lot of rain. We decided to stay at Katherine's. Before the rain hit, we went out on a little berry picking excursion.

You can see that Wendy and Katie were very excited about our outing.

We just went to a little empty lot at the corner of Kath's street. It was pretty gnarly and we were more than a little worried about snakes and other critters, but we remained unscathed.

The berries we picked were dewberries. I guess they're a form of wild blackberries.

The ones I found were kind of small and varied in taste. Some were really good and some really puckered up our mouths.

I just wore sandals so Katie lent me some of her boots to wear. Not exactly a fashion statement, but I was protected from the flora and fawna. The best part was coming home and having smoothies that Katherine made with our berry harvest. Delicious!

We then decided to go check out the new Robin Hood movie with Russell Crowe. I'm a big fan. I could go again . . . tomorrow! :)

Jen had her graduation from grad school on Saturday. I went to dinner with her, her family, and a few friends afterward. Congrats!

Happy Mother's Day!

On Saturday morning my parents had a garage sale to prepare for their move coming up next month.

I wanted to get a picture of the yard sale and my mom wanted to hand something to me. I told her to just wait until after the picture so she could be in it, but she had other plans. She was trying to hand it to me super quick. The result was this picture which I love.

She then did this little pose for me.

Later when the yard sale was almost over I was inside and The Giant got ahold of my camera and I'm posting only two of the results.

You can see his fancy beard in this one!

I got to shoot his crossbow. I think he was impressed that I hit the target I was aiming for. I was actually impressed too. I got this video of him shooting it. We were lucky because my Uncle Art and Aunt Gene came for a visit that same weekend.

My mom and I had to leave them with the boys that evening, though, so we could go to a musical production of Camelot. It really made me want to watch the movie again. Despite some very memorable and interesting actors, we enjoyed the show.

On Mother's Day, my mom got to open up some presents, we had breakfast, and then headed off to church. I was sitting next to Aunt Gene in Relief Society and she showed me this pretty cool trick she can do with her veins.

I got this shot of everyone just before I left which was right after church.

I had to get one with The Giant as well.

It was so pretty on the drive home as well. It was overcast which made the colors even better. I was trying to make good time, so I didn't stop, but I snapped a few quick ones just so people could see some of the colors. It was so much better in real life.

Don't pay attention to the bugs on my windshield!

That night, my cousin Ryan and his wife Sarah came to spend the night before their cruise to Mexico. We had a great time last night and this morning. We of course fit in some ping pong and most importantly SKIP-BO. We won't worry about who won!

So long, Collette!

My streak of bad luck continues! Another great friend has moved!

Collette is now back in UT! I've been spending lots of weekends with her and her fun cousin Kyle and his wife Fran. They're great. We've watched many a great movie on that couch!

I was a little more involved in this journey than those of some of my other friends. I was planning on going to San Angelo to visit my mom for Mother's Day this last weekend and Collette was planning on leaving the same day and was heading the same direction so we decided to take the first leg of her journey together. We were LOVING the scenery along the way. There were TONS of wild flowers - more than I've ever seen. There were a lot of these red flowers out.

Here's a shot of a field we stopped by on the way. There were so many pretty ones, but this was the first one I could find a good place to pull over at.

Quinn and Carly, some of Collette's friends from UT flew down here to drive back with her. They were a lot of fun! They stayed Friday night in San Angelo with us before continuing on their journey. They made it safely home late Saturday night - actually it was early Sunday morning!

Here are us girls.

I'll sure miss you, Collette! You're great!

More Cowbell!

On Saturday morning, I went to the Woodlands to watch Katherine and Wendy run in the triathlon there.

It was a beautiful morning at a beautiful location!

I was up on a bridge overlooking the start of the race - the 500m swim. They had several different heats leaving about 4 minutes apart.

Here's Wendy just coming out of the water.

Katherine was just a minute or two behind her.

I also got her just starting the biking leg. 13 miles, I believe!

Here's Katherine just starting the 5k after she finished the bike ride.

Wendy was right behind her. She's high fiving Kim and Becca.

Here's Katherine super close to the finish!

Here she is crossing the finish line. Her time was 1h 25 m! Way to go!

Here's Wendy close to the finish. . .

. . . and crossing the line at 1 h 36 m. Awesome!

I was excited to run into Steve and Lindsay Chesser. Lindsay ran the triathlon and did a great job!

The proud finishers! Way to go, girls!

I was amazed how much writing they put on people. They put the bib number on the arm and leg, and the person's age on the back of their leg. Katherine doesn't even turn 31 until October.

Some of her family was there to cheer her on.

You may be wondering about the title of this post. Most of the spectators there seemed to have cowbells and the whole time I was at the race, that's what I heard. It reminded me of this awesome video so I posted it for your viewing pleasure! Don't know why the image is flipped, but it's just as funny!