More and More Birthdays

What a great week! On Tuesday, Dalin celebrated his 18th birthday, and my mom celebrated her 65th. Yes, it was pretty amazing that I produced her first grandchild on her birthday. We had dinner with her, Marisa, and the kids, then Dalin and Grammy opened gifts and blew out candles. (Grammy begged out of the candle-blowing, but I should have made her do it!) Dalin claims he is now an adult, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't want all the responsiblilty adulthood really entails for a few more months anyway. Grammy claims she's an adult now, too, at least one who surely qualifies for something. . .

Cassie's birthday was the next day, Wednesday, and we just had dinner and ice cream because the kids and Brent were all headed to the temple for baptisms. I actually did make a cake, of sorts. I put candles in some rice krispie treats and made her blow them out for a video. Cassie isn't much of a cake eater--isn't much of an anything eater, really--so the rice krispies sufficed. The kids celebrated with their friends over the weekend, so I'd say though it was fairly low-key, it was a good birthday week for them.

On Friday, Brent and I and Jensen went to a concert sponsored by the Nampa South Stake at our old stake center. The band is called "Nashville Tribute Band," and this is the second time I have seen them perform here in Nampa. The group is comprised of five band members/singers and two soloists who perform songs written by two of the members (Jason Deere and Dan Truman) about church history. The first concert I saw was songs about the life of Joseph Smith, and the one on Friday was songs about the pioneer trek from Nauvoo to Salt Lake. The songs are country songs (they are from Nashville, after all), and they are very cool. My kids listened to the Joseph CD until it was about worn out; Jensen loves the song about Porter Rockwell. The band members have singing, playing, and writing experience with the Osmonds, She-Daisy, and other groups, and the keyboard player, Dan Truman, is a member of the group Diamond Rio. The soloists, Mindy Gledhill and Tim Gates were phenomenal! Mindy has CD's at Deseret Book, and watching Tim was like watching Keith Urban. It's hard to describe the songs other than to say that they are different from anything I've ever heard, mostly because of the genre. There aren't too many church songs in the country style out there, but these are good! If you are interested, check out their website at http://www.nashvilletributeband.com/. Only the home page is up so far, but you can hear some of the music, and the CD's "Joseph"and "trek" are at Deseret Book. Thanks to my friend, Lynette Parker, for making arrangements to get the band here. Awesome!