The Music Show

I'm not sure if, in the future, my kids are going to appreciate me posting this, but it was a significant enough event in our household that I thought it was worthy of sharing. During the last week of February, Merrilee and Jacob started planning a "Music Show" for us to watch. They practiced, made tickets to the event, and gave Jay and me our own personal invitations. It was actually quite impressive. Unfortunately we had several long days with late dinners and we just didn't get the opportunity for the kids to present their show. So it wasn't until March 2 that we finally got to see what they had been working on.

The tickets were personalized for each attendee, and even the instructions on the invitation were personal: "Please turn off all cell phones" on the grown-up's tickets, and "Snacks and drinks are aloud" (sic) on Katie Mei's.

The event was titled "The Music Show" and the tickets indicated that we would be watching the team Hit The Beat Rock Stars. I have no clue how they came up with that name for their "team" (they're totally unfamiliar with the concept of a music "group" so they just assumed it's called a team), but it has kind of a modern, edgy sound to it.

They started with a little opening number that had Merrilee on guitar and Jacob doing vocals. He just kept repeating "Rock stars", so I wasn't really sure if he was singing or if he was trying to introduce the "team", but it was part of the show.

Then Merrilee interrupted the music for a solemn moment. She said this show was dedicated to the men who are in the military fighting for our country's freedom. Now please note that this Music Show took place the day after Jay's promotion ceremony, and the week after she finished her American History textbook, so the patriotic stuff was still quite fresh in her brain. Jay was presented with a badge which reads "Welcom chornl", translated "Welcome, Colonel". He had apparently done a great job in his first 48 hours as a Colonel, since it also had an A+ on it! I'm not sure, but I think the red blob right before Welcom is an eagle.

Now this is the part of the show I have debated posting on the blog. Merrilee decided to sing the National Anthem after the lovely patriotic part of the Music Show. The snag here is that she doesn't really know the National Anthem, and she certainly doesn't know much of the tune. She knows the ending of it-- "and the home of the brave," but that's about it. I hope she forgives me one day for sharing this with you. She did make a disclaimer right before she sang that she had learned part of it wrong and didn't realize it until she re-read the words in her history book the day before the show. We told her to go ahead and sing it anyway. And I hope she forgives me for failing to conceal my snort of laughter in the video when she sang "whose broad red and white stripes...". It really was too much for my poor lungs to hold in!

Jay and I loved the show, and were delighted to be entertained by our kids. Merrilee and Jacob sure enjoyed putting it together for us and did a great job with all the details. Katie Mei sat with us and enjoyed it too. However, I think she would have rather have had a bedtime story. She just didn't quite pick up on the same humorous nuances of the Music Show that Jay and I shared for quite some time after the show was over. Don't worry, Katie mei, your day is coming!