Piano

A small dream of mine has come true--we now own a real piano!  I took 13 years of formal piano lessons growing up, including 7 years of Suzuki method.  In college, I occasionally played on practice pianos at UNI, but I basically abandoned the instrument.  There was no space for a piano in our first two houses.  There was a piano in our Waverly house when we looked to buy it, but the owners took it with them.  I have been dreaming about one ever since.

I wanted to start Emily with piano lessons this fall, so I enlisted the help of a friend who happens to be a piano tuner to help find a decent, used piano for us.  The one he found has some dents and dings in it, and the bench is pretty worn on top, but I figured it would soon become the new favorite writing desk/building table/car road/train track/etc., so I'd rather not have to get uptight about getting scratches in a nicer one.  We ended up hiring someone to move it from Cedar Falls to our house because Austin just didn't have the time or necessary equipment.

The piano arrived this morning.  It needs to be tuned since it was originally moved from Arizona and then sat in a garage for two weeks, but it's still playable.  The kids were fascinated.  I was excited to sit down and play again.  I dug out a few of the old books I had leftover from my high school days, but most aren't the sight-reading type, so I indulged and bought a new book of current popular praise & worship songs.

Don't let the smiling kids in this picture fool you.  Most of the time if they are both on or anywhere near the piano at the same time it quickly turns into this...

  

Emily loved her first piano lesson with a Senior student at Wartburg college.  I think it's going to work out well since Lincoln & I can hang out in the children's book section of the library next door.  Our first couple practice sessions went pretty well, too.  I knew this going in, but it's going to be difficult to find time for me to sit down and practice with Emily when she's in a cooperative mood and without Lincoln disturbing us in a big way.  Since the only working TV in the house is in the same room, I may have to resort to letting Lincoln play games on my phone in another room in order to gain 20 min. of peace and quiet.