Bode's Recital

Bode had his first piano recital yesterday.  Fifteen thousand people from Colorado Springs packed World Arena to hear him play (a bit of an exaggeration).  Actually, there were probably 50 people and 12 players at a local church.  Still, it was very enjoyable.  In the morning, Bode told me he was scared of the recital because playing in front of people was hard.  I told him not to worry about it, and he seemed fine, although I was concerned after he said this.  Still, we knew he could do well because he'd been practicing so hard.  Bode got to the recital early, and spent some time with Miss Pat going over things and loosening up.  We all then gathered in the church, and Miss Pat said some opening remarks. I snapped a quick photo of Bode and Mommy.

Miss Pat then said the first player would be Bode McGuirk.  Little Dude gets up and calmly walks to the front.  I told him to bring his bag which contains his music.  He had told me he had everything memorized, but I thought he might want it in case he froze up (although I didn't tell him this).  Miss Pat introduced Bode to the crowd (small group of people), and said he'd be playing three pieces.  I took the opportunity to snap another photo.  No signs of nerves in this little guy.

His first piece was Pop Goes the Weasel.  Only a couple mistakes, and those were with the dreaded left hand.  Plus, no need for any sheet music.  The kid has a memory!

His next piece is a song called The Accompaniment.  I started the camera late, so I didn't get the beginning.  Because of this error, I decided to just keep rolling and include his third piece in this clip (yes, I know there are easy movie editing software packages that would cut and splice the footage; I'm too lazy to do this).  His third song is called Go For the Gold, and I think he played both pieces amazingly well AND all from memory!

Obviously he needs to work on his bow at the end--he just sort of dropped the microphone and walked off :-)  The whole ensemble posed for a group picture afterwards

We are very proud of how hard Bode has worked on the piano.  We don't really have to bother him to practice--he'll sit down and play a few songs, although we think he does this just to butter us up so we'll let him play Agario, a very addicting and simple computer game.  We don't have much else going on right now.  The garden is winding down a productive year.  We even got a few stalks of corn and some peppers to go along with the tomatoes and broccoli.

The corn was ok--a little rough and chewy.  I don't know if it makes sense to grow it here.  I think next year I'll start six seeds in cups in March, and then transplant them.  Otherwise, I don't think the growing season is long enough.  I spent a couple days this week at the mountain estate cutting, splitting, and stacking firewood.  I think we have close to three cords of wood ready to go.  It took me all of Thursday and part of Friday morning to do this.

We are going up again over Columbus Day weekend in a couple weeks.  I still have about 100 more logs to cut.

Obviously the weather was gorgeous the two days I was there.  In Colorado Springs, it's been great--almost annoyingly hot, as the high for today is predicted to be 87.  A week ago, I took Bode on a short bike ride.  I didn't know if he really liked it or not until last night when he said, "Daddy, can we go on a bike ride tomorrow?"  Of course we will be going.  Pleasant week, and Happy October to all.