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| Forts are awesome. Dad can sleep while Ira plays |
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| Ira had a little trouble sharing with a friend we were babysitting, until he realized there was enough to go around. |
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| Getting creative with the snow. |
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| I hope no one saw me eat that yellow snow... |
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| Dad trying to imitate Ira's camera smile |
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| Exploring music has been fun, I wish we lived near my sister Tiffany so she could teach him. |
I just discovered that my old roommate and dear friend, Andy (S. Andrew Lloyd) has started a blog/website where he has uploaded sheet music and recordings of the music he has been working on. He was an Organ Performance Major at BYU and has been working on his Masters degree in Oklahoma.This week was busy and I have created a couple of posts below to capture the major events. I have put Sharon’s family update first, which is a good quick overview. I should note that Sharon is good about writing family updates and it was suggested that I post her updates for a second point of view and since this is the Quinntessentials it only makes sense to have updates from both of us. I will start posting them from here on out, so without further ado, Sharon’s update….
Hi Family,
It's been a fun, kind of party-ish week and a half. I think I'll try to write it in bullet form so you can skim through all my lengthy commentary. :)
* Balloons: Anthony and I won over $50 in gift certificates at a little town event adult balloon toss. It was really fun. Live music and free food. The fact that I made it out without getting soaked was nice too. If only Anthony could say the same. :)
* Family!: My cousin Mary and her husband Barney arrived late Saturday night from Orem. She's due about 3 days after me, so it was fun to have another prego around. :) I enjoyed showing them how to use the Metro system, and around D.C. a little. We went to the temple on Tuesday to do a session and go out to lunch with my parents who have officially started serving their mission in D.C!
* NYC: Anthony took a couple of days off work (which has been suuuper slow), so we could go up to New York with Mary and Barney. We slept at my parents place in PA, met up with our friend Gabe Proulx and made our way to the Big Apple. It's fun because Gabe, Ant, and Barney all lived in the Bountiful Court apts. and were all friends before I moved in. I grew up with Gabe, who talked me into moving into the BC, where I met Anthony. Yay! And then in a round about way, Mary and Barney met because I had lived there. Anyway, so it was good to be with so many close friends/relatives. In New York, we saw Phantom of the Opera, ate some New York Pizza, saw Ground Zero, the Apple store, took a Ferry to and from Staten Island where we could get a good view of the Brooklyn bridge and Statue of Liberty.
* Amish country: The next day we felt like being lazy, so we checked out Hershey Chocolate World, and went out for some seriously authentic Pennsylvania dutch food. Mmm. Hamloaf and woopie pie. Then back to D.C.
* Mary and Barney headed back last night after we had a fun visit/lunch with my parents and Quoc, and old family friend. And then we headed North to Maryland where we could watch Phish...Anthony's one and only favorite band. They broke up a few years ago, but have reunited for a tour this summer. It was pretty sweet, but it was past my bedtime most of the time. And I couldn't help but wish for tiny earplugs for the baby, who is now 4 moths along! Woohoo!
It was definitely a fun week. I guess it was kind of the last Hurrah before heading back to Pittsburgh (which we're looking forward to) and going back to teaching preschool (which I'm trying to get pumped up for). I guess I'm a little nervous since I've been so spoiled with so much free time to play and sleep.
Love you guys! We constantly feel blessed to have you as family!
Sharon
She also had a lot of pictures attached all of which, plus more can be found in our online photo album for the summer here.
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| DC |
Saturday we bid farewell to Barney and Mary and headed up to Columbia, MD for my first Phish concert (and probably the last) at the Merriweather Post Pavilion. This was Sharon’s Christmas/Birthday present to me. I have wanted to see this band live since I got into them in High School, you can read my previous post about it here.
It was a nice evening and we had great seats in the Pavilion. The concert was really good. I wouldn’t say it was ‘amazing’ just because I had set my expectations pretty 
high. I wish I could have heard the music a little better, but the experience was really fun and totally worth it. I’m looking into how I can get a copy of the show now. Phish is cool that way, they encourage the sharing of concerts, music, etc... One guy behind us was videotaping it, which I think was against the rules at the Pavilion to do so, but there were a lot of illegal things happening. After the first few songs he asked me to switch places with Sharon because I was too tall and kept getting in the way. He said he would send me a copy of the tape. I switched and can only hope he comes through with the tape.
I think I came to learn many things at the concert one of which is that a bunch of the songs I like are sung or strongly influenced by the pianist, Page McConnell. I need to look more into his side projects and band, Vida Blue. I also realized that as much fun as the concert experience is with the crazy people, fun light show, and seeing the band interact, I like having recordings to really hear the music.
In true Phan fashion I will end with the set list
First set: 
Crowd Control
Kill Devil Falls
The Sloth
Beauty Of A Broken Heart
Axilla I
Foam
Esther
Ha Ha Ha
Party Time (World Debut, a Jon Fishman song)
Tube
Stealing Time From The Faulty Plan
Strange Design
Time Turns Elastic
Second set: 
Tweezer
Taste
Alaska
Let Me Lie
46 Days
Oh! Sweet Nuthin' (Velvet Underground)
Harry Hood
Encore:
Good Times Bad Times (Grateful Dead)
Tweezer Reprise
When I walk home from the Metro I walk through a little park next to the library and fitness center. I have come to view this as a place that brings the community together as it has been a happening place this summer. When we first got here we discovered there is a free open air family movie once a month. A few weeks ago they had the “Del Ray Music Festival”, which was a whole Saturday of live bands. On Tuesday I noticed them setting up for another event, as it happens it was ‘National Night Out’.
I had never heard of this, but I did some research today and found out it happens all over the country. It was started in the mid-80’s by the National Association of Town Watch (NATW), a “nonprofit crime prevention organization… which works in cooperation with thousands of crime watch groups and law enforcement agencies”. The purpose is to:
It sounds like there are about 12,000 communities in all 50 states that participate. They all have the event on the same evening. If you haven’t heard of it you can organize one for you community in 2010. (more)
So, for our walk Tuesday we went down and checked it out. It was basically like a huge block party sponsored by local businesses and law enforcement. They had a fire truck out for all the kids to play in, a local band playing for the crowd, and free food:) We got a little bite to eat and sat and listened to the band for a song or two. Then they took a break and had the ‘Adult’ water balloon tossing contest. Sharon and I made it to 3rd place and won $50.00 worth of coupons to some of the local shops! We are excited to use them for dates our last few weeks before we go. One was also to a baby store.
Hurray for community events.
Pandora is a kind of internet radio/ music discovery tool that I've been using for a couple of year. You can define your own stations by typing in bands and songs you already know and they start playing songs from that band and others with similar characteristics.