Vacation...

I was not aware just how used to Haley's violin skills I have become until I saw her through our extended family's eyes. We went to North Carolina to visit Daddy's family for 10 days. To truly understand the visit, you have to first know that Daddy has 8 aunts and uncles and all of their families living near Wilmington plus his sister and her family came from Charlotte for a few days to see us as well. It is fun and exhausting and there is never a shortage of cousins to play with.

Anyway, Haley took her violin so she could, of course practice and she played for everyone numerous times. Some of the family even invited friends to come and hear her play. Watching my tiny girl fiddling away with her feet tapping or dancing, her body swaying, and the beautiful music coming from that tiny violin was amazing. She put her whole heart into each "performance" and the family was ready to find her a talent agent and send her on tour.

Some of them really got to see her in action because when we left for vacation, she had just been given two new fiddle tunes to learn. She learned the first and polished it right before we left (in two days) then while we were there she learned the first half of the other tune the first day then the second half the next day. So those who heard her the first day down there, heard her only able to play the first half of the tune but when they came back the next day, got to hear what she had learned the next day. They then thought it was fun to see if she could figure out other songs and bits of songs in a "Try to Stump Haley" kind of game. No one could.

The fiddle tune Haley figured out, her teacher had given to her "just to listen to and not to learn." She does not know Haley well enough yet if she thinks my kid will just listen to a piece of music and not figure it out. It was a bit more complicated than the previous songs so even I was impressed that she figured it out so quickly. I keep thinking that a time will come when she won't be able to figure a piece out after hearing it once or twice and I wonder how she will handle that. She has already far surpassed what I could figure out so I don't really even think I could help her at that point without written music to go by. It is pretty sad that my 5yo has greater musical talent than me when I had 10 years of lessons.

They boys had a great time playing with all the cousins and playing in the ocean. I was really nervous with them in the water because there were reports of a 13 yo who was shark-bit just the week before and the water was soooo warm, like a bathtub. But no one ended up missing pieces of themselves so it was a good trip all in all.