Last Saturday morning Nancy and I attended the final rehearsal of the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra at the Von Braun Center. They performed, along with the Huntsville Community Chorus, Beethoven's choral symphony, his ninth. It's one of my favorite pieces of music, and, in the informal atmosphere of a rehearsal, we enjoyed every minute of the concert.

We ate a quick lunch afterward and headed off to Birmingham. That evening I worked the score board and Mark announced the lineups as we watched John Michael play baseball. Good game. The other team scored in the last inning to win by 1 run, but John Michael played pretty well for an almost 8-year-old.

Sunday morning we got up quite early for us because Jackson had to be at the pool by 7 AM for his swim meet. After he completed his 3 events, in which he did pretty well also, we all headed over to Chili's for lunch. That's where I took the picture above using my cell phone camera. That's John Michael on the left and Jackson (10) on the right.

Right after that Nancy and I drove to Cullman to drop in on the 29th annual Bloomin' Festival at St. Bernard's Prep school. No, we didn't win the Jeep Patriot or even 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th prize, but Nancy bought a scarf or two and I purchased a new belt. It was an inch shorter than the one I bought last year. Always a good sign.

For the rest of the week, we concerned ourselves with some garden work and spring cleaning. We did go to a concert last night given by a pianist named Yakov Kasman. He performed 2 of his 4 pieces with his 20-something-year-old daughter. That was the best part of the concert in my opinion. As an encore he included his 12 or 13 year old daughter, and the 3 of them played a couple pieces all sitting at the same piano. I didn't have my camera. Too bad.