Maeve and Lilly

The girls have been bugging me forever to be allowed to attend one of my shows. The answer, due to the fact that shows are always in a bar and start after 11pm, is invariably NO. However, when I set up a benefit show for The Neighborhood House Community Center’s Food Pantry it was an early all-ages show at the center so we made it happen. Lisa had the girls nap for a few hours and then brought them down around 9:30pm.

The day before I had shown them how to use their foam earplugs: squeeze and roll, stick ‘em in your ears, and hold them in place until they expand. While I was playing, I saw Maeve holding her ears the whole time. Afterward, I asked if it was too loud for her. “No,” she replied and explained that she was “holding the earplugs in.” Apparently the “until they expand” part of the instructions was missed by daughter #2. Nevertheless, they both enjoyed the show and delighted in ribbing me later about my spastic guitar-playing antics.

Some new(ish) photos are up: the Dad’n'Daughter Dance in February and Snow Tubing last weekend.

The annual benefit for the Madison Celtic Cultural Association was on Sunday at the High Noon Saloon. The girls’ Irish dance school again participated with a performance. I hadn’t seen the girls dance in quite some time and was impressed with how much they had improved since last fall. Maeve’s beginner’s group danced the jig and Lilly’s advanced beginners group did both the jig and the reel. We had to cut out as soon as they were done with their sets as we had some major fraction-equivalents homework to attend to.

The girls got free passes for snow tubing at Cascade Mountain, so why not? It was 50 degrees and the sun was shining so the snow was a bit slow, but we had fun nonetheless. After picking out our tubes (Lilly blue, Maeve yellow, me red) we dragged them over to the Magic Carpet Ski Lift (TM, I suppose). Maeve had quite a struggle jumping on and then yanking her tube behind. In fact, the bored teenager attendant had to stop the MCSL TM so Maeve could get situated. First run down, Maeve was so pokey getting out of the way that my tube hit her tube in the stopping area. Wouldn’t have been a big deal except she had a death grip on her tow rope and didn’t let go as I slammed into her tube. Her elbow was yanked and she took a face plant in the gravel. Through tears, she stammered, “I don’t want to go home.” After that slow start we got the hang of going up (I pulled Maeve’s tube) and coming down (make sure everyone is well away from the stop area). After our two hours were up, we headed home with a quick stop for lunch at Culvers.

Maeve wrote, illustrated, and directed this video.