Part of the reason for Papa Gene’s visit last week was to go to a Duck’s Unlimited banquet hosted by the Wahoo/Saunders County chapter, which Matt, my dad, and brother also attended. They also had an auction or two at this banquet, of which I would have expected hunting related items  to be up for bid. Apparently, anything you can slap a Duck’s Unlimited logo on is fair game, so the Papa’s went in together and got a blinged out DU trike for Kendal.

Although her feet can’t reach the pedals quite yet, she loves to go cruising around on it with Papa’s  help.

and jinxed our healthy streak.

I was just telling Papa Gene and my friend Laura yesterday that we’ve been surprisingly healthy lately and that I can’t remember the last time I had to stay home with a sick kid.

Well, it’s Matt’s day off today, so I’m not at home, but he called this morning to say she’s running a temp.

And Laura was telling me that I could make an appointment at the health department to get her H1N1 vaccination, but I’m guessing they probably wouldn’t appreciate me taking her there if she’s sick.

I just had to open my mouth.

Papa Gene is coming tonight to stay through the weekend. We haven’t seen him since Kendal’s 1st birthday party the end of June.  Boy is he in for a surprise; she’s changed A LOT since then!

 

11/19: RETRACTION – So I was reminded that he was back in September, which, for some reason, I still only vaguely remember. I wasn’t on a four day bender nor was I popping Xanax continuously or any other drug for that matter. I really have no good excuse as to why I have no recollection of this visit.

In passing the other day one of the other daycare mom’s mentioned how smart Kendal is that she can say her ABC’s and 123’s. Not knowing any different, I just assumed that since they practice them everyday at Terri’s (she does preschool there too) it wasn’t a big surprise that she’s picked them up. Apparently that’s not the case. So it looks like we might have the makings of a future geek on our hands.

There could be worse things.

SIDE NOTE:  She can’t say the entire alphabet – the J-K-L-M-N is most often omitted and her numbers are sometimes not in consecutive order especially after four (she can say all the numbers up to nine).

Little did I know, that when I gave Matt a guitar for Christmas last year because he said he would like to learn how to play, that it would quickly turn into a passion for him. If it’s any indication, he’s already upgraded from that guitar to an electric acoustic and now he has an electric as well, and I have to say that it’s really quite amazing how much he’s picked up and how many songs he knows since he’s pretty much self-taught (with the exception of a beginner’s instructional DVD that came with his first guitar, ONE paid lesson, and echords.com) and the fact that he’s not able to dedicate as much time to practicing as he could or maybe even would like to.

Since he’s been playing he’s dreamed about being  in a band, on stage, playing a real gig, and he’s had the opportunity to that a time or two, on a very small scale, with his friend’s local band, Whiskey Blind. It ends up that those performances would be a good icebreaker for the bigger opportunity that he had this past weekend.

The last time my cousin Tyler was in town with (one of) his bands, Shootin’ Blanks, and we went to see them play, he and Matt got the opportunity to talk in between sets and, needless to say, they had a lot in common: the Baumert Family for starters, but more importantly, Shootin’ Blanks plays Red Dirt music, which Matt loves, Tyler rocks the hell out on guitar, which, Matt was amazed and inspired, not to mention that they both started out playing drums first. So when Shootin’ Blanks was asked to come back and play Uncle Ron’s this past weekend, Tyler called to asked if Matt would want to come up and play a few songs with the – he absolutely MADE Matt’s year!

After a lot of practice and with a stomach full of nerves, Matt played with them for five songs both Friday and Saturday night and loved every minute of it! I didn’t get to see Friday night’s performance, but myself, and a number of the Baumert Clan were there on Saturday to cheer him on (and take lots of pictures!).

It was pretty awesome to see him up there on stage looking and playing like a rock star.

Tyler actually gifted the electric guitar that he’s playing in the photo above to Matt as a surprise – so AMAZING of him to do!

Band Picture

It was such an incredible experience for Matt, one that he’ll not soon forget, and I am forever grateful to my cousin for his thoughtfulness and generosity in asking Matt to play and allowing him to live a dream of his. I know it was nothing more to Tyler than just being who he is and just getting the passion that Matt has for playing guitar and for great music, but it was above and beyond anything he, we, could have imagined.