jansong

Just checking

2009-11-28T19:52:47Z

One more time - does anyone need the Advent game posted here or have I wooed all of you to Facebook to play?

I was going to wait until next weekend, but...

2009-11-22T18:33:10Z

I was going to wait until next weekend, but we will have company (Mike and Carol Morse) until next Monday and then the next day is December 1st.

Do you want to play the advent game this year?

If so:

1) Do you want to play here or on Facebook?

2) if you joined the Facebook group, do you just get a message from me asking?

My brother

2009-10-11T12:36:40Z

I don't want to forget this delightful tidbit my brother shared yesterday.

I was mistaken (I finally realized) for a restaurant reviewer from WNYC radio when dining at a new upscale French restaurant in Soho. You have no idea what good food and friendly service is until you are mistaken for a critic.

I haven't posted in so long.

2009-08-17T15:01:36Z

And I haven't even been here to lurk very often. Facebook more often, but even there, I've been out of touch. It's travel and company month. August 1st we flew to Chicago for "FlamingOfest '09" which is just as silly as it sounds. It is puppet theater with puppets that are plastic pink flamingos. In the 70s we had student teachers who came to our school for the band program in Michigan, and they had created this in college. The gathering in Chicago was a re-enactment of these songs. Judi flew in from CA, friends came by train from MI, and two people flew up from FL. Many of these people are a big part of our history. Ken and Pam's wedding reception was at our house on Thanksgiving in 1978. We took part in Curt and Judie's wedding when Curt turned 40 in 1972. Bob walked Judi "down the aisle" when she and Scott were wed in 1988. Not sure if all those dates are correct. We had a blast gathering and laughing and remembering and preparing. We need people in our lives who share our history.

From Chicago, some of us drove on down to Indianapolis for DCI -- Drum Corps International finals. What a lovely city downtown. It's always exciting to watch drum corps on finals week. We were thrilled the Blue Devils had an undefeated season as that is the corps where Judi's husband, Scott, heads the percussion department. We celebrated our wedding anniversary there and we had Nutella. Nutella milkshakes are wonderful!

The drive back to Chicago on the 9th was slow and the flight home was delayed, but we arrived safely home at 1:15 a.m. on Monday the 10th. On Tuesday, Lisa Blake and her daughter, Morgan, arrived for a visit. Lisa was a student of ours when we first were married 44 years ago. She has remained a good friend all these years. She left on Thursday and Mike and Carol Morse arrived. I've known Mike and Carol for 49+ years as Mike was my first friend when I got to Olivet College in January of 1960. His father was minister of a church in MA four miles from where my grandfather was a retired minister. I sang for Mike and Carol's wedding in June of 1960 and they have remained close, close friends of ours all these years. Last night we were trying to recall when they first met Bob.

Mike and Carol left this morning and on Thursday a woman we have not seen for many years arrives. Bob first worked with her in an elementary school choir when she was in 3rd grade. She sang for our wedding 44 years ago when she was 13. We eagerly look forward to getting to know her again.

In between all of this we are doing more teaching. Our daughter, Melinda, has joined our studio since her job has been cut back to four days a week. We are finding that we love teaching together and she can work both with my voice students and Bob's acting students. She has strengths and a background "in the business" that we don't have. If you have a desire to read about the studio, check out: http://acttoostudio.com/

"Michigan month" will end this weekend, but how wonderful it is to connect our current life here with all of our Michigan history.

Picking Cotton

2009-04-06T12:13:29Z

http://www.pickingcottonbook.com/home.html

Every so often a book comes along that is intensely moving and filled with lessons. Picking Cotton seems to me to be this generation's To Kill A Mockingbird, only Picking Cotton is not a novel. It is the real story of a young woman who experienced an attempted rape and the man who went to jail for that crime even though he was innocent. More amazingly, they become good friends. In the very first chapter you are given that information. Nevertheless, the first half of the book is painful to read. We are reading details of the horror of being a rape victim, the flaws in our judicial system, and the brutality of prison life. It's not a pleasant read. But then we are treated to the most amazing story of redemption and forgiveness. You can imagine how bitter a man imprisoned for eleven years for a crime he didn't commit might be. Can you even imagine that he isn't? Can you imagine that he forgives, and he helps the woman to forgive herself for wrongly accusing him? For those of us who grew up with a Christian heritage, there is no better example. Also, we are reminded of the flaws in our judicial system even by those people who conscientiously try to enforce justice. What better reason to abolish the death penalty. Too often innocent people are killed. Picking Cotton is a book filled with life lessons. My words only touch the surface. I urge you to seek it out.

The role of music in life...

2009-03-06T13:36:01Z

I hope it is okay to post this speech. It's a thoughtful read.

Well worth taking the time to read this:

Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without."
Confucius (c.551-479 BC)

Welcome address to freshman class at Boston Conservatory given by Karl
Paulnack, pianist and director of music division at Boston
Conservatory.

"One of my parents' deepest fears, I suspect, is that society would
not properly value me as a musician, that I wouldn't be appreciated. I
had very good grades in high school, I was good in science and math,
and they imagined that as a doctor or a research chemist or an
engineer, I might be more appreciated than I would be as a musician. I
still remember my mother's remark when I announced my decision to
apply to music school-she said, "You're WASTING your SAT scores." On
some level, I think, my parents were not sure themselves what the
value of music was, what its purpose was. And they LOVED music, they
listened to classical music all the time. They just weren't really
clear about its function. So let me talk about that a little bit,
because we live in a society that puts music in the "arts and
entertainment" section of the newspaper, and serious music, the kind
your kids are about to engage in, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to
do with entertainment, in fact it's the opposite of entertainment. Let
me talk a little bit about music, and how it works.

The first people to understand how music really works were the ancient
Greeks. And this is going to fascinate you; the Greeks said that music
and astronomy were two sides of the same coin. Astronomy was seen as
the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external
objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between
invisible, internal, hidden objects. Music has a way of finding the
big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping
us figure out the position of things inside us. Let me give you some
examples of how this works.

One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the
Quartet for the End of Time written by French composer Olivier
Messiaen in 1940. Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered the
war against Nazi Germany. He was captured by the Germans in June of
1940, sent across Germany in a cattle car and imprisoned in a
concentration camp.

He was fortunate to find a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper
and a place to compose. There were three other musicians in the camp,
a cellist, a violinist, and a clarinetist, and Messiaen wrote his
quartet with these specific players in mind. It was performed in
January 1941 for four thousand prisoners and guards in the prison
camp. Today it is one of the most famous masterworks in the
repertoire.

Given what we have since learned about life in the concentration
camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy
writing or playing music? There was barely enough energy on a good day
to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape
torture-why would anyone bother with music? And yet-from the camps, we
have poetry, we have music, we have visual art; it wasn't just this
one fanatic Messiaen; many, many people created art. Why? Well, in a
place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare
necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow,
essential for life. The camps were without money, without hope,
without commerce, without recreation, without basic respect, but they
were not without art. Art is part of survival; art is part of the
human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of
the ways in which we say, "I am alive, and my life has meaning."

On September 12, 2001 I was a resident of Manhattan. That morning I
reached a new understanding of my art and its relationship to the
world. I sat down at the piano that morning at 10 AM to practice as
was my daily routine; I did it by force of habit, without thinking
about it. I lifted the cover on the keyboard, and opened my music, and
put my hands on the keys and took my hands off the keys. And I sat
there and thought, does this even matter? Isn't this completely
irrelevant? Playing the piano right now, given what happened in this
city yesterday, seems silly, absurd, irreverent, pointless. Why am I
here? What place has a musician in this moment in time? Who needs a
piano player right now? I was completely lost..

And then I, along with the rest of New York, went through the journey
of getting through that week. I did not play the piano that day, and
in fact I contemplated briefly whether I would ever want to play the
piano again. And then I observed how we got through the day.

At least in my neighborhood, we didn't shoot hoops or play Scrabble.
We didn't play cards to pass the time, we didn't watch TV, we didn't
shop, we most certainly did not go to the mall. The first organized
activity that I saw in New York, that same day, was singing. People
sang. People sang around fire houses, people sang "We Shall Overcome".
Lots of people sang America the Beautiful. The first organized public
event that I remember was the Brahms Requiem, later that week, at
Lincoln Center, with the New York Philharmonic. The first organized
public expression of grief, our first communal response to that
historic event, was a concert. That was the beginning of a sense that
life might go on. The US Military secured the airspace, but recovery
was led by the arts, and by music in particular, that very night.

From these two experiences, I have come to understand that music is
not part of "arts and entertainment" as the newspaper section would
have us believe. It's not a luxury, a lavish thing that we fund from
leftovers of our budgets, not a plaything or an amusement or a pass
time. Music is a basic need of human survival. Music is one of the
ways we make sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express
feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with
our hearts when we can't with our minds.

Some of you may know Samuel Barber's heartwrenchingly beautiful piece
Adagio for Strings. If you don't know it by that name, then some of
you may know it as the background music which accompanied the Oliver
Stone movie Platoon, a film about the Vietnam War. If you know that
piece of music either way, you know it has the ability to crack your
heart open like a walnut; it can make you cry over sadness you didn't
know you had. Music can slip beneath our conscious reality to get at
what's really going on inside us the way a good therapist does.

I bet that you have never been to a wedding where there was absolutely
no music. There might have been only a little music, there might have
been some really bad music, but I bet you there was some music. And
something very predictable happens at weddings-people get all pent up
with all kinds of emotions, and then there's some musical moment where
the action of the wedding stops and someone sings or plays the flute
or something. And even if the music is lame, even if the quality isn't
good, predictably 30 or 40 percent of the people who are going to cry
at a wedding cry a couple of moments after the music starts. Why? The
Greeks. Music allows us to move around those big invisible pieces of
ourselves and rearrange our insides so that we can express what we
feel even when we can't talk about it. Can you imagine watching
Indiana Jones or Superman or Star Wars with the dialogue but no music?
What is it about the music swelling up at just the right moment in ET
so that all the softies in the audience start crying at exactly the
same moment? I guarantee you if you showed the movie with the music
stripped out, it wouldn't happen that way. The Greeks: Music is the
understanding of the relationship between invisible internal objects.

I'll give you one more example, the story of the most important
concert of my life. I must tell you I have played a little less than a
thousand concerts in my life so far. I have played in places that I
thought were important. I like playing in Carnegie Hall; I enjoyed
playing in Paris; it made me very happy to please the critics in St.
Petersburg. I have played for people I thought were important; music
critics of major newspapers, foreign heads of state. The most
important concert of my entire life took place in a nursing home in
Fargo, ND, about 4 years ago.

I was playing with a very dear friend of mine who is a violinist.. We
began, as we often do, with Aaron Copland's Sonata, which was written
during World War II and dedicated to a young friend of Copland's, a
young pilot who was shot down during the war. Now we often talk to our
audiences about the pieces we are going to play rather than providing
them with written program notes. But in this case, because we began
the concert with this piece, we decided to talk about the piece later
in the program and to just come out and play the music without
explanation.

Midway through the piece, an elderly man seated in a wheelchair near
the front of the concert hall began to weep. This man, whom I later
met, was clearly a soldier-even in his 70's, it was clear from his
buzz-cut hair, square jaw and general demeanor that he had spent a
good deal of his life in the military. I thought it a little bit odd
that someone would be moved to tears by that particular movement of
that particular piece, but it wasn't the first time I've heard crying
in a concert and we went on with the concert and finished the piece.

When we came out to play the next piece on the program, we decided to
talk about both the first and second pieces, and we described the
circumstances in which the Copland was written and mentioned its
dedication to a downed pilot. The man in the front of the audience
became so disturbed that he had to leave the auditorium. I honestly
figured that we would not see him again, but he did come backstage
afterwards, tears and all, to explain himself.

What he told us was this: "During World War II, I was a pilot, and I
was in an aerial combat situation where one of my team's planes was
hit. I watched my friend bail out, and watched his parachute open, but
the Japanese planes which had engaged us returned and machine gunned
across the parachute chords so as to separate the parachute from the
pilot, and I watched my friend drop away into the ocean, realizing
that he was lost. I have not thought about this for many years, but
during that first piece of music you played, this memory returned to
me so vividly that it was as though I was reliving it. I didn't
understand why this was happening, why now, but then when you came out
to explain that this piece of music was written to commemorate a lost
pilot, it was a little more than I could handle. How does the music do
that? How did it find those feelings and those memories in me?

Remember the Greeks: music is the study of invisible relationships
between internal objects. This concert in Fargo was the most important
work I have ever done. For me to play for this old soldier and help
him connect, somehow, with Aaron Copland, and to connect their
memories of their lost friends, to help him remember and mourn his
friend, this is my work. This is why music matters.

What follows is part of the talk I will give to this year's freshman
class when I welcome them a few days from now. The responsibility I
will charge your sons and daughters with is this:

"If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student
practicing appendectomies, you'd take your work very seriously because
you would imagine that some night at two AM someone is going to waltz
into your emergency room and you're going to have to save their life.
Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your
concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is
overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again
will depend partly on how well you do your craft.

You're not here to become an entertainer, and you don't have to sell
yourself. The truth is you don't have anything to sell; being a
musician isn't about dispensing a product, like selling used Chevies.
I'm not an entertainer; I'm a lot closer to a paramedic, a
firefighter, a rescue worker. You're here to become a sort of
therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor,
physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they
get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with
ourselves and be healthy and happy and well.

Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music;
I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness
on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual
understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don't expect it will come
from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even
expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem
to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a
future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of
how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it
will come from the artists, because that's what we do. As in the
concentration camp and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the ones
who might be able to help us with our internal, invisible lives."

Birthday reflections, part 2

2009-02-23T20:58:20Z

We had a lovely time on the evening of my birthday, meeting good friends for dinner at a Mexican restaurant with pastries at their home afterwards. Good visit time. I loved the food. And then the weekend continued. Daughter, Melinda brought Lucy dog over to walk on Saturday morning. Good mom and daughter talk time, even though it was cold. Tea time after with Bob joining us was fun, too. Melinda and I ate the leftovers from the night before. Bob joined us for left over donuts and pastries. Then on Sunday, Bob suggested moving a little furniture around in the study. Moving furniture is one of my favorite things to do! Bob usually hates it. And to get the changes in the study meant a few living room and hallway and upstairs changes. I had a grand time. I only like house cleaning if I get to move furniture. We had Sunday night popcorn (nearly all of our Michigan popcorn is gone, I sadly report) and other treats while we watched the Oscar ceremony. Even I stayed up to the end! More good wishes continue to come by snail mail. I've dragged this celebration out about as long as I can.

Written early in the day February 20th on Facebook

2009-02-21T12:24:24Z

No doubt I'll have to add to this as the day goes on, but I must make a few notes now so I don't forget. I'm quite overwhelmed by all the wishes here. Makes me feel most cared for. Also, it calls to mind birthdays of years past in Michigan, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. So many of you have been a part of my life for some years.

We expected to have a meeting here at the house this morning and I had planned to bake something sort of healthy. Meeting was cancelled. I began to crave a coconut doughnut. (This craving goes back to my years as a church choir director in Michigan.) However, nowadays I think I ought to walk to Dunkin' Donuts if I am going to eat such a treat. Thus I did, even though it was bitter cold with a fierce wind. (Reminded me of NYC in the winter.) Arrived there in time to get the last coconut donut and to get something Bob would like, too.

Just before I left, I had a phone call from someone (I didn't catch what she said her role was) at the South Hadley town offices wishing me a happy birthday. What a lovely town gesture.

Later this afternoon I will teach one lesson and then we will go to Northampton to have dinner with friends at a Mexican Restaurant. Bob doesn't like Mexican food, but he will share with me this treat once a year. :)

Yesterday we shopped for my presents. I got some new slippers that I am cozy and warm wearing as I type. My mother often would buy me slippers for my birthday as they would be on sale after Christmas. So it is a nostalgia gift besides feeling good.

And then, because I have this dark sense of humor, Bob bought me, AS REQUESTED by me, a new snow shovel. I don't think my old shovel is going to last the season. They have to be lightweight for me, but the plastic ones do break down. I find some delight (hopefully not at my husband's expense) in saying I got a snow shovel for my birthday.

We finished the birthday shopping with a daffodil plant. This time of year I crave flowers that will remind me that spring will come. I got a hyacinth for Valentine's Day. Just a few more weeks and surely plants will come up in the yard -- and snow will be gone.

That's enough to say for now. Thank you for all the memories, of times spent with each of you, that come to my mind when you are writing to me here. Love and hugs!
Jan

Letter to my grandchildren

2009-01-14T14:26:01Z

Dear Mitchell and Allie,

The inauguration of President Obama on Tuesday will be an exciting and historic day. I'm looking forward to watching the events on TV and I look forward to watching for the float that Proof Productions is building for the parade.

As I was telling Uncle Eric about the float, he told me about the inauguration of President Eisenhower in 1952. I would have said, "reminded me" except that I don't remember the event at all. Uncle Eric remembers much more of our childhood than I do.

In 1952 Eric and I were almost 10 years old, and we lived three blocks from school. All of the children in the neighborhood would go home for lunch each day. Only a few people owned televisions in those days. We were fortunate to have one that had been given to us when someone bought a new one. The screen on our TV was 6".

1952 was the first year that the presidential inauguration was televised. Our mother (who would be your great-grandmother) got permission from our school for Eric and me to stay home an extra hour after lunch on Inauguration Day so that we could watch this event on television. Eric remembers that day very vividly. I don't, but I'm happy that he told me about it this week.

Maybe when you are nearly 67 years old, you will remember vividly the inauguration of President Obama in 2009.

We will be thinking of you on Tuesday, and as always we are sending much love to both of you and to your mom and dad.

Love, Grandma

Passion and Compassion

2009-01-01T17:03:14Z

For days I've been trying to formulate some thoughts going into the new year. I'm having difficulty finding words to express gratitude and at the same time putting words to troubling thoughts that bubble up. 2008 was such a mixed bag. But, I've come out of the morning cleaning frenzy with some thoughts about passion and compassion. I am really grateful for the "passion" each family member has for the things they do in life. We all have different passions, and sometimes we really haven't a whole lot of understanding for each other's directions, but we CAN appreciate that we all love what we do. We all are excited about what we believe and how we understand the universe. And, I believe that we all have compassion for each other and each other's choices. However, I become so excited about my own passion that sometimes I have trouble understanding why everyone isn't as excited about my choices. My resolution for the new year is to work on compassion for other's passions.

Also, as I've once again been listening to the song, "I'm turning into my mother," I realize ever more clearly that you don't understand life's next stage until YOU are in it. Now I realize why my mother and Aunt Pat felt the way they did. Friend, Judi, always hated being told when she was young that she was going through a "stage." Heck! Those stages never stop. Each age is a stage in life. Both a blessing and a curse.

And finally I'm feeling enormous gratitude for the "gift" each person gives us just by being a part of our lives. I've had the intention of sending notes to people telling them ONE thing that has enriched me by knowing them. I may get to this yet, folks......

Merry Christmas! Love to you all!

2008-12-25T09:54:55Z

The crossword puzzle solution can be found at:
http://www.jansong.com/
Let me know if you would like me to attach it in an e-mail. Also, I've recorded both of the tunes to the puzzle songs and can send them to you, if you'd like to hear the tune (tunes.)

The Wise Men from “The Christmas Crib” by Roy Ringwald

From the faroff mountain, over desert sand,
Come the holy wise men from the Eastern land.
On their camels riding, with their gifts in store,
Holy wise men, coming, worship and adore.

Joyful Singing (4 part round) by Adrienne Tindall, 1995

Listen to the angel song;
see the heavens filled with light;
join your voices, sing along:
peace to all the earth this night.

Day 24

2008-12-24T10:18:52Z

Day 24 clue:
____out a song, the day would never end

(To anyone who already has this clue, I wrote "will" and not "would." Odd how memory isn't accurate.)
Seems an appropriate lyric to end our game. The end of this lyric says, "A man ain't got a friend...."

Thank you all for playing. I love this daily contact for 24 days. It has become my favorite holiday tradition. So.... now that you have solved the puzzle, do you know the resulting song? it is pretty obscure, but some of you HAVE sung it under my direction. Melinda doesn't recognize it, but she may have been 4 when she first sang it.

And yes, the breathing test says I have asthma. I'll see the doctor in January to discuss what I need to do about it. At this point, it just makes me cough.

Day 24 kids round clue:
Yuletide by the fireside and _____ mem'ries there

This is a pretty contemporary song, I think. i didn't know it. I went searching the web for a lyric to get the word I needed.

Do you know the round that has emerged?
Thank you for playing. It's been a pretty difficult puzzle for young kids. I'll need to plan more carefully next year.

Day 23

2008-12-23T11:03:22Z

Day 23 song clue:
Far ____ the home I love

Off this morning for round two of "Do I have asthma?" breathing tests.
Cold, cold, cold day, but I was out shoveling in cold temperatures yesterday a.m.
Thus, I don't think I have cold induced asthma anyway.

Day 23 kids round clue:
Bells are ringing, Children _______

Day 22

2008-12-22T11:09:17Z

Day 22 clue:
You put your right foot __

Snow. Snow. Snow. I don't even think the expected rain can take away our white Christmas. I'm not sure all e-mail messages reached me over the weekend. Some gremlins out there on the airwaves with the snow, perhaps.

Day 22 kids round clue:
____ calling birds, three French hens

The next two days are all about the title of this song.

Day 21

2008-12-21T11:09:41Z

Day 21 song clue:
O ____ night

Day 21 kids round clue:
Here we go _____ the mulberry bush

Day 20

2008-12-20T11:29:45Z

Day 20 song clue:
All is quiet on the _______ front

Beware - if you don't know the song, you probably will think of the movie title that will be WRONG.

Day 20 kids round song clue:
When Santa's sleigh bells ring, I ______ all around

(A student of mine recorded this song for her family for Christmas)

Day 19

2008-12-19T10:26:20Z

Day 19 song clue:
____ the river and through the wood

(We tend to sing "woods" but it really was written "wood" just like Deck the "hall" really is one hall though we often make that plural.)

It is high school winter concert time, and we have attended a couple of them this week. At Amherst we heard the best high school chorale we've heard in years. It was a holiday treat. Today we expect our first BIG snow of the season. The college kids are home and we have Billy Ray already lined up to shovel.

Day 19 kids round clue:
Come on and ____ together with the band.

I never have heard this song. My kids game is often harder than the other puzzle.

Day 18

2008-12-18T12:08:52Z

Day 18 song clue:
Take me ______ in the car

I've never heard yesterday or today's song. I found the lyrics on google because I needed these words. Extra bonus points if someone actually knows the songs.

Day 18 kids round clue:
This little _____ of mine

Day 17

2008-12-17T10:44:10Z

Day 17 song clue:
I will see you in ___ ___ places

Day 17 kids round:
___ I want for Christmas is my two front teeth

Day 16

2008-12-16T10:32:18Z

Day 16 song clue:
While Shepherds watched _____ flocks by night

We are home from New Jersey and as soon as I'm rested, I should share some details. Good trip and the train was early getting back! House was very warm - furnace repairman found a problem with a wire from the thermostat. Can't believe we've had the window open all evening to COOL the house.

One player, by the way, solved the song puzzle Sunday with the daily clues thus far and the crossword puzzle. She doesn't know the song. I'm wondering how many of you will. Brava to Marj Leas.

Day 16 kids clue:
Git _____ little doggies

Day 15

2008-12-15T10:45:42Z

Day 15 song clue:
Oh ____, all ye faithful

We're on our way home today after a lovely NJ visit.

Day 15 kids round clue:
But the prettiest sight to ___

Day 14

2008-12-14T12:03:30Z

Day 14 song clue:
Gonna build a ________

Day 14 kids round:
Hear them call, how their ______ ring

Day 13

2008-12-13T11:12:20Z

Day 13 song clue:
Give me some ___ who are stouthearted

We are safely at Laura's though we rode in on the train with the Little Engine That Could NOT from New Haven to NYC where we got a new engine. Thus we arrived 2 hours late and missed seeing the theater they are renovating and we missed seeing friends, Paul and Chuck.
Lovely evening while we watched the grandchildren and friends make a gingerbread train. :)

Kids round clue Day13:
He ______ all the stockings, then turned with a jerk

Day 12

2008-12-12T09:14:46Z

Day 12 song clue:
Some humpty-back ______ and some chimpanzees

Day 12 kids round:
Sing, sing a ____

We're off to see the grandchildren. :)

Day 11

2008-12-11T11:21:39Z

Day 11 song clue:
All good _____ around us

(You really have to know this song to get it on such a short phrase. I'll go on with the sentence, if you need it.)

Day 11 kids round clue:
____ is my country