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After her sister & I went to see Wicked for her birthday back in February, Katy fell in love with the soundtrack. Knows every word. I looked around and saw that they were doing the play in Nashville & took Katy as part of her Christmas gift. She said at intermission, “I told myself i was going to mouth the words to all the songs so i wouldn’t disturb the people around me but i just couldn’t take my EYES off the stage! i was just too interested!” All the thanks i needed, right there.

We stayed in a hotel overnight and went to the historic Rhyman Auditorium-the “Mother Church” of country music-and the home of the original Grand Ol’ Opry where my grandfather played the upright “bass fiddle” for Pee Wee King. He is standing with it in the 1942-43 cast photo that Katy is pointing to in the photo above.

They have a nice little “recording studio” set up in the auditorium and Katy sang Amazing Grace with a nice little gospel style accompaniment.

My grandfather also had many stories about honky-tonkin’ on Music Row! One of the favorites for he & his buddies was Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge right around the corner from the Rhyman. So…Katy & I went and had a coke & listened to the guy play for a few minutes around 11am.

Wonderful memories…hope as many for her as for me.

Kindergarten, Fourth Grade & Eighth Grade…where has the time gone??

Ella Grace came to us 4 years ago with no language. She understood Chinese, but had never heard English & didn’t speak at all because of her open cleft palate. She had surgery in Feb of the following year and started speech therapy.

Do you know how much is learned in the first 3 years of life? During those first 3 years, Ella Grace was abandoned, taken in to an orphange, fed the bare minimum…mind you we feel like they did the best they could but there are a lot of babies. In addition, the cleft set up perfect conditions for recurring ear infections that were probably never treated. Her first hearing tests indicated mild to moderate hearing loss due to obstructions.

Last week, she picked up a list of color words and READ them. I had no idea she could do that. This made me tear up. I smiled and told her how very proud I am of her. She’ll be reading before the end of this year. She has come so far.