The drive took two days but Haley kept herself busy in the back of the car doing schoolwork, reading books, writing her novel, and playing. She is used to riding so does it well. Once there, she had cousins both bigger and littler to play with and she spent lots of time practicing her fiddle. The weather was warm so they played outside, took walks, and even did a little swimming in the lap pool at the house.
We ate out quite a number of times. The older cousins were very excited to go to the "chop, chop with fire" Japanese restaurant though Kendall was scared to death of the actual fire part and curled up in Poppop's lap hiding her eyes. We also had some delicious Mexican food one afternoon. Family style fajitas with a huge metal dish of meat over coals.
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| Chop, chop with fire restaurant |
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| Mexican restaurant Before we left for Texas, I had contacted a young fiddler we met at Swannanoa last year who I knew lived in Texas, though not anywhere near where we were going to be. I asked him if he knew where we could find some Irish music. He put me in touch with a nice husband and wife who happened to be having a New Year's party with an Irish session at their home. They invited us to attend. It was a really nice party and we met lots of new Irish music friends. Haley enjoyed playing in the session and played for the whole 5 hours. She learned some new tunes and played some old favorites. There was a young man playing uillean pipes beautifully. He happened to be the principal horn player for the San Diego symphony just visiting home for the holidays. One day Haley was "Show and Tell" for her cousins Kindergarten class. We took her over near the end of the day and she played some fiddle tunes for the kids who were fascinated by her then she answered their questions. One little girl had just received a violin for Christmas and was excited to let us know. Maybe Haley's playing will inspire her like other people have inspired Haley. |
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