Dinner and the Blues Boys

Dinners at Park City were fun, we have two potluck meals and then each adult couple takes a night. We enjoy eating out on the patio and there was a dessert or treat everynight (can you hear the kids scream "oh yeah!")

With 22 people to feed, the eating arrangement was usually "come fill up your plate at the kitchen inside and then find a place to sit - but little kids, please go outside" (since they are prone to spills and such, you know)

Natalie, aren't you going to eat anything?

A little smile, love!

On Tuesday night, Corey's parents were preparing dinner and his dad was out bbq-ing some chicken by the pool.  He struck up a conversation with a guy from a band that was playing that evening. Wayne mentioned that his grandkids played the saxophone and had brought a saxophone up to Park City.  Joseph was out near the pool so Wayne called him over and the band guy invited Joseph to play with them during their performance.  So Joseph came into the room where I was and started to warm up.  (His horn sounded very loud in the room)  Soon he was out ready to jam with the guys, their little Tuesday show is called "Blues, Brews, and Brats" (The hotel was selling root beer, hotdogs and brats to be cooked over the fire pits during the performance.) Near the end of their first set of songs they invited Joseph to play~

Ethan, Corey, and Jeremy watching the performance

I think Corey and Wayne both thought that the band was a little concerned about what they were getting. But when Joseph started to play the band and the crowed all seemed pleasantly surprised at what they heard. Corey stood up close to where Joseph was for a little while to make sure he stayed on key. They invited him back to play during the second set but Joe was cooking his hot-dog, so he deferred instead to Ethan, telling the band members that Ethan was very good. Ethan's only catch was that he can only play in the key of G, so they accomodated him and when they had a song in the key of G, Ethan was invited up. Again they seemed a little concerned, but once Ethan started busting out his fast fingering of the pentatonic scale doing his waterfall or something (I don't know as I'm the only non-musical one in the family) people started hootin' and hollerin'. Anyway, Ethan did great and got a standing ovation and it seemed more applause than Joseph had received (and here comes the sibling rivarly again). One guy came up and gave Ethan a tip in the open saxophone case, pretty funny. He was even called a child prodigy. And now Joseph would like me to state for the record that Ethan would never have had a chance to shine if Joseph hadn't deferred to him. He came to the room and said "Now everyone thinks that Ethan is better than me!"

Joseph has more range in what he knows (more keys and scales and can sight read) but Ethan has more depth in the one thing he knows - C Pentatonic.  Which since he was able to perform that blew everyone away. And he's only 11 years old, wow!

So even if it may have fanned the flames of sibling rivarly, it was really fun and was a great experience and will be a great memory for the kids.

And Grandpa bought each of them one of the band's t-shirts with their logo on it, thanks Wayne!  It was fun, Corey got a real kick out of it. So nice of those guys to let the kids play with them, good times.