Quick Catch Up (including a major life highlight)

Amy Grant Concert!!! Hanover Theatre, Worcester Massachusetts — Fri, Nov 2, 2012

For a while this was planned… several weeks. But for even longer it was dreamed of… basically my entire life. Our family’s first Amy Grant concert!

Ok, you have to understand: I am a life-long Amy Grant fan. Some — mainly, the three members of my family-of-origin plus Braydon — would say that I am The World’s Greatest Amy Grant Fan. One day, when I was about 10 or 11 years old, my dad came home from a work trip to Nashville, Tennessee, and gave me an Amy Grant tape (this was back in the days of cassette tapes — something my digital-age-kids cannot comprehend). Anyway, I was immediately hooked and I listened to that tape until I wore it out. That tape kicked off a life-long relationship with Amy’s music. It has seen me through good times and bad, I have bought and memorized every single album she’s ever put out, and, while I’ve loved all sorts of music throughout various phases of my life, Amy Grant has always been the foundational musical background to my life. I’ve seen her in concert several times over the past 25 years, and I always dreamed of the day I’d bring my own kids to see an Amy show. I LOVE AMY GRANT. I’m going to try to stop there. But I could go on and on. But I won’t.

So, anyway… For months I’ve known that I needed to go to Boston for a work trip on Saturday, November 1. And then I found out that Amy Grant would be in Worcester the night before, and immediately snatched up five tickets. So, we planned for the whole family to go to Massachusetts for Mommy’s work trip.

My bambinos (who have been listening to Amy’s music for their whole lives as they ride in the backseat of my car), and my loyal husband (who inherited Amy’s music the day he met me), and me (Amy LOVER), had such a great time. I was shocked at how my kids know just about every single song by heart. Meera bounced in her seat to the music until she fell fast asleep on my lap halfway through the concert. Kyle quietly sang the lyrics and sat close to Braydon asking for explanations for everything happening all around him. Owen sat next to me, belting out every song at the top of his lungs, and so fully enthralled in the entire experience that I could barely contain him. It was everything I’d ever dreamed it would be. A major life highlight.

The next day brought us to Boston. While I was off giving my talk, Braydon met up with his mother, and they brought the bambinos to the Boston Children’s Museum. K, O, and M loved loved loved it.

There is not much these three kids love more than a night or two in a hotel. I swear!

And Monday it was back to school and work. Our goal for this week was to try to get back on track post-Hurricane-Sandy. Braydon took the photo below with his iPhone as the kids were headed off to school on Monday morning. We take a lot of pictures of our kids. Every once in a while, for whatever reason, a photo rises to the top. Somehow this one (below) just captures my heart and mind. I think the bambinos look exactly like them in this. It captures them, right now, just as they really are.

Monday afternoon was a freezing cold soccer game. Last game of the season. We fans froze our tushes off as we routed for our team.

K & O played on their school soccer team for the second year in a row this fall. They are the youngest players on the team, and “playing up” is very good for our uber-athletically-talented twin boys. Also very good for our uber-athletically-talented twin boys is the fact that their soccer team never won a single game this whole season. Yes, they lost every game. It keeps our sports-gifted duo humble. It is a good experience for them.

They still love it even when they lose (and even when they lose over and over and over again). And, win or lose, one thing is for sure about K & O: they play their hearts out.

Tuesday was the 2012 Presidential Election. Obama won. And we five were thrilled.

Wed-Thurs-Fri brought a nasty cold/flu bug for Kyle and Meera. Bummer. Threw our week way off track (just when we were trying to get in the groove). Such is life.

These days are filled with all sorts of things that don’t make it onto the blog. Kids’ fights; parents’ fights; annoyances and aggravations to the 9th degree; bedtime battles; school-day mornings’ hurry-hurry-hurry-rush-rush-rush; work stress; school drama; errands and bills and To Do lists; ridiculously complex coordination of schedules to fit it all in; juggling a million and one things. Life is crazy and complicated and it is very simple at the same time. We are grateful for the mess of it and the peace of it. These days us five have so, so much to be thankful for.