Busking at the Mall…And Anywhere Else She Can Think of

Busking at the Mall…And Anywhere Else She Can Think of

The girls were given an oppor­tu­nity to play their harp at the mall this past week­end. So, they have been prac­tic­ing and prepar­ing for their big pub­lic debut of harp play­ing. I sensed some nerves rat­tling around in the girls over the last cou­ple of weeks as the day drew nearer.

Except for with Faith.

On the way to their last harp les­son before the big day, Faith piped up from the back seat, “Mom? I have a great idea!”  {Oh, dear. I can only imag­ine what’s com­ing next…} “I think we should bring Peter’s fedora and get tips while we play at the mall!”

Two things ran through my head:
1. How on earth did she know it was called a fedora? and
2. Do they allow this?
and to be hon­est, there was a 3. WHAT?!?!? Where did she get this idea from?

As I attempted to sup­press my shock and the fact that I found this humor­ous, I decided to duck the ques­tion, and gave all blame and respon­si­bil­ity to her teacher. “You need to ask your teacher. You prob­a­bly won’t be allowed to do it.”

Well, lo and behold, her teacher thought it was a GREAT idea! Faith marched right into her harp les­son and asked if she could have a tip jar. No gig­gles or sur­prise from her teacher. Just nods of yes and encour­age­ment. Ha!

So, Faith got one of my mason jars with chalk­board vinyl on it and wrote out “TIPS” with a red chalk marker. She car­ried that jar to the mall, and stuck it on the floor in front of her harp. Of the three girls, she wanted to go first. She plopped right down in her chair and played “Away in a Manger” 6 times through. In a row. With her sparkly pink shoes show­ing under her flow­ing dress.

faith harp

And she col­lected tips. After some­one would drop a dol­lar or some change into her jar, she smiled and said, “Thank you!” And then kept play­ing. She delighted her audi­ence. And her mother, of course. And, her sib­lings as well. She does that to us.

Not to be out­done, her sis­ters took turns play­ing also. They seemed to enjoy this new ven­ture after they worked out their nerves, and were quite pleased with Faith’s Tip Jar.

duet harpThe girls had a won­der­ful time, the patrons at the mall seemed delighted to see such young girls play­ing the harp. It was so fun to see the older peo­ple and lit­tle chil­dren watch them. I saw quite a few twin­kles in the older generation’s eyes, and gaped mouths in the lit­tle ones. One sweet lit­tle girl even danced for Pey­ton as she played “The Holly and the Ivy”. And one adorable lit­tle boy wanted to give it a try also. Play­ing the harp, that is, not dancing.

So, tonight, we were enjoy­ing some fam­ily time. Faith and I played a game of  Skip­pity while the older chil­dren played Ticket to Ride with Daddy. She read The Princess and the Pea to me, and I asked her to play a song for me on her harp. She ran to get her tip jar, and she told me to go get my wallet…

See her tip jar in front of her harp?

See her tip jar in front of her harp?

Not so fast, you lit­tle stinker!

**The pic­ture at the top of this post is one I took of Faith out of our din­ing room win­dow. We have had a lot of snow over the last week, with tem­per­a­tures falling below zero most days. Faith won’t be deterred. She had Pey­ton bun­dle her up and out she went. Her bright col­ors really cap­tured my atten­tion, so I grabbed my iPhone to see if I could snap a few shots of her with­out her notic­ing. She was busy, hop­ping around from spot to spot, shak­ing lit­tle trees, dig­ging up snow, look­ing for adven­ture. I finally caught this one, and think she looks like a lit­tle snow elf. I really want to pack­age her up and keep her lit­tle for­ever, but I know she must grow up and become the woman God has in mind for her to be. So, we teach, train, dis­ci­ple her daily. And, like the sib­lings that go before her, we com­mit her and her future to prayer, that she will always have a heart sen­si­tive to God, long­ing to please Him, honor Him, and know Him more fully. I feel so unwor­thy for the task.

Old Route 66 and Drive Up Motels

Old Route 66 and Drive Up Motels

We left Col­orado in the early hours of the morn­ing on Mon­day, dri­ving through New Mex­ico and on to Ari­zona. My hus­band had pre-planned our trip and made hotel reser­va­tions for me. He takes such good care of me that way.

I remem­ber him men­tion­ing that in Hol­brook the pickin’s were slim, but that the hotel he chose was rated the best in town, and it had great reviews. He said some­thing about me not freak­ing out when I got there. I was only sort of pay­ing atten­tion. I guess I thought he meant some­thing along the lines that it was prob­a­bly more of a Hol­i­day Inn rather than a Mar­riott or something.

Um. Not quite.

We glee­fully made our exit off of I-40, arriv­ing into Hol­brook, AZ, after a long day of dri­ving. As we drove the 1/2 mile into town, real­iza­tion set in. Um…

Wait? What? The reser­va­tions say Glo­be­trot­ter Inn. Does that sign say… Oh. Wow. Well…

We ten­ta­tively entered the park­ing lot. I snapped this picture:

image

I fran­ti­cally called Mike.

No answer.

Google… I looked at the reviews. All four and five stars. 186 of them. One 3 star rat­ing. Noth­ing below that. Gulp.

I grabbed my strap­ping son to go into the lobby with me. Jes­sica, the adult daugh­ter of my dear friend who hap­pens to be my trav­el­ing part­ner, waited in the car with the girls.

I braced myself, put on a brave face, and told the kids that we were going to be adven­tur­ous. It was all a farce. I was shak­ing in my boots.

Oh! The lobby was adorable. And clean. I think we can do this.

We were greeted with smiles and sweet hos­pi­tal­ity. We were shown our room, which actu­ally had two rooms in it. Per­fectly clean and retro. Adorable.

We moved in for the night. Jes­sica went out­side to call her mom. She ven­tured to the pool area, which I had told the kids was not on the agenda for the night. I could only imag­ine what that was like. Old, dated motel with one of those old pools. If you lived in the 70s, you know what I’m talk­ing about. Right?

Well, Jes­sica came run­ning in excit­edly. “You’ve got to come see this pool!” Really?

I’m a bit slow on the uptake. It was adorable like the rest of the place. We all moved out­side to pool­side. We lounged on chaise lounges: beau­ti­ful, wood chaises. We dipped our feet in the pool. We swung on the swing. We chilled. It was glo­ri­ous.
image

Even­tu­ally, we had to tuck the girls into bed and turn in ourselves.

Morn­ing greeted us with a lit­tle con­ti­nen­tal break­fast. The fam­ily who owns the motel is from Aus­tria, it turns out. Break­fast was delightful.

Thus ended our stay in a motel I would have never slowed down for had I made the call for the night. I have to admit, it gave me the courage to even con­sider the other option we could have had, just across the street:

image

Ok, who am I fool­ing? I could never stay there…

By the way, those old cars in the first photo…they are just for show. They are there to give the feel of vis­it­ing the old Route 66 motel. Clever. Even if it did make me ner­vous when we arrived!

So, should I tell him?

So, should I tell him?

My hus­band trav­els a bit. Right now, he’s on the way home from the air­port after being gone a few days. I can’t wait to see him.

You know that famous quote by Mar­tin Luther?

Let the wife make the husband

glad to come home,

and let him make her

sorry to see him leave.

Does this mean that I shouldn’t tell him that the kids are all throw­ing up? And so is the dog?

Yeah. That’s what I thought, too.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...