Makin' Music With A Master

A very exciting day today!  The story behind the story is a bit tedious and boring, but we are spending this summer looking for a new bassoon teacher for Alex.  Perhaps someone to augment what he has, perhaps someone to replace what he has.  Time will tell.  When we were first approached about this, Alex sent out several emails to contacts he has made over this last year.  As he was doing that, we looked up the bio for the bassoon players with the Seattle Symphony.  Alex has a "shoot for the top" attitude, so he sent out an email to the principal bassoonist, and that led us to today:  a lesson with the principal bassoonist of the Seattle Symphony!  Maybe not the least bit exciting to most, but chill-bump-worthy-exciting to us!

I had the pleasure of staying through the lesson, sitting silently and taking notes.  I took a couple pictures, but had to use a setting that would not click or flash, because apparently teenage boys are rather easily embarrassed by mothers clicking and flashing the camera during a bassoon lesson.  Whatever.  So my pictures are a bit crummy, but I was grinning like a girl staring at a waffle from Blueberry Hills while I took these pictures:

Alex wasn't hitting a bad note here, this is just a man who moves with the music, and I believe Alex was suppose to be crescendo-ing here!

Very exciting to see such opportunities come my kid's way.  He's earned his way to this point, but it is such an honor to learn from this guy.  Love it!  I see some future trips to Seattle the rest of the summer.

Brad is still on vacation, so we decided to make a mini-day of it in Seattle.  First stop?  Dick's Drive-In for lunch!  This is an oldie Seattle landmark, and about as basic as it gets.  Plain 'ole yummy burger, fries and shakes.  A jumbled mess of a parking lot, quick service, no tables to sit at.  Drive away to eat, sit in your car and eat, or claim a thin strip of grass and have a picnic!  If you choose option #3, you probably will be joined by a few crows hoping for some left-overs.  Especially if one of your children throws a french fry to one as soon as you sit down.

Second stop?  I'll save that for the end.

Next stop?  Pike Place Market.  I'm not a big Pike Place Market kind of girl.  Crowded.  The smell of fish.  Crowded.  And that fishy smell in a crowd.  It's all a bit much for me.  But we meandered around, the kids picked out something from a yummy bakery to take home, and they had a fun experience.

Then, as we were making our way to park on I-5, we pulled up to this sweet intersection:

Aw, the corner of Edgar Martinez Drive and Dave Niehaus Way!

And now for the second stop?  Let's just say we'll be putting the kids to bed early tonight!  Oh, wait.  I guess you don't really put teenagers to bed.  Let me try again:

We'll be hiding from the kids early tonight (!!!) so we can partake in this in sweet peace:

Yes indeed, we made a stop at Trophy Cupcakes for my favorite Triple Chocolate!!!

The rain started falling on our way home, so what to do?  Jump in the hot tub as soon as you can wiggle into your suit!

While this is happening, and I'm blogging, my son is making dinner for the family.  I showed him a recipe I thought he'd like, he volunteered to drive to the store for the missing ingredient (goat cheese) and try it for dinner tonight.  I'm a little worried that his first step, in his words, was to "skin the carrots"...I think I'll just grab my book and prepare myself to enjoy whatever he turns out!  Wish me well...