The Great Musical Surprise

A few months ago, Nate and I started toying with the thought of maybe getting a real piano in the house.  Our children clearly love the piano, have shown commitment and aptitude in regards to learning it, and would certainly benefit from having a higher quality instrument in the home.  When I mentioned my thoughts about this to Nate, I discovered that he had been thinking the very same thing!

However, this would be no small undertaking for us, given the fact that we barely have room in our little house for the little electronic piano that we already have.  Nonetheless, we began the research process, examined our budget, and enlisted the help of our local piano experts, the Reeders.  After a long while, we found one that we felt would work well: a used Yamaha baby grand built in the early 2000's that had spent the previous decade in a church in Castle Rock.

We had to say goodbye to our old dining table and chairs, as well as a couch and love seat, in order to make room for it.  I was a little sad to see them go, because although they were well-worn, they were also well-loved pieces of furniture, carrying lots and lots of wonderful memories within their bumps and scratches and stains.  But, it was so worthwhile to surprise our kids when they came home from piano lessons this week, to find this beautiful instrument waiting for them.  They were all SO shocked!  It was great!

We arranged for the delivery of the piano to happen on Tuesday afternoon when the kids would be at piano lessons.  But we didn't know precisely when it would arrive.  As it turned out, their timing was almost perfect.  Chase walked in the door from his lesson just as they were wheeling in the piano.  This is the picture I took of him as he stood in the entryway, just after he had figured out what exactly was going on.  He was SO surprised, but smiling from ear to ear.  So fun!

Here Chase is trying it out for the first time.  Such a beautiful piano!

This little guy, oddly enough, had actually been asking us if we could get a grand piano over the previous weeks.  He is a huge fan of the Piano Guys videos, and I'm sure that's where he got the idea.  Whenever he would ask, I would just say, "Where would we put it?"  One day he told me he had had a dream that we had gotten TWO grand pianos, and we had put one in his bedroom and the other on the stairs.  Haha!  Imagine his surprise when his wish came true (minus the part about the pianos in his room and on the stairs) this week!

Even this handsome fella got to try it out.  He is a percussionist, not a pianist.  And he knows exactly one song on the piano: Jessica's Theme from The Man From Snowy River.  And he learned it back in high school to impress some girl.  But for some reason, he still makes me swoon when he plays!

I was hoping to upload some video which I took of Avery and Courtney when they arrived home from piano lessons and we took them inside to show them the new piano.  They came home after the piano movers were gone and we had the whole room all set up, so we were ready with the camera when they came home.  They were so surprised, but also grateful--Avery said "Thank you!" only after he had said, "Wow!" when he first saw it.  And then he immediately started plucking the strings inside the piano.  And Courtney was so excited and sat down to play right away.  She is getting better all the time and it's fun to see her enjoy it so much.

...but anyway, for some reason Blogger will not allow me to post the video today.  I will have to find another way to upload it.  Here's to MANY years of piano music in our home! :)