We Got One!

The short version of the story is this: We got a piano! Yay! The end.

The long version is a little, well, longer. :) And is goes like this. It is important to me that my kids learn to play the piano at least well enough to be able to play the hymns. There might be times in their lives (like on a mission, or if they live abroad) where they are in a ward or branch where no one can play the hymns. And I want my children to be able to step up and provide that service. If they want to make more of their music then that, then all power to them, but they will at least learn to play the hymns.

Anyways, ever since we bought our house, I've been thinking that we needed to get a piano and get Lincoln started taking lessons. They say to have kids start taking when they are old enough to read, and we've been reading for awhile. So I've been looking off and on on KSL to see if anyone would list one for $300 or less that was in decent condition. I also wanted one with dark wood to match my house. Aaron and I have both been looking for a long time, and hadn't really found anything.

Fast forward to the other day...this random Latvian foreign exchange student knocks on our door and is trying to sell us books. Maybe we are suckers for this kind of thing, or maybe it was because she was selling books, I don't know, but either way, we let her in to do her "five minute" presentation that took about an hour. She did have some cool books for sale. There was one, that appeared to be a human body encyclopedia of sorts, with awesome drawings, fun activities, and good info about the human body. We don't own anything like this, and I really want to, because the kids ask me questions about how the body works all the time, and some of them I don't know the answers to, and frankly, I'm a little nervous to Google search body parts/systems/functions, because you never know what will come up. So I thought I wanted to buy this book from the Latvian chick. But, it turns out you couldn't just buy a single book...you had to buy an entire set. A set of encyclopedia-like books is not the worst thing to have in your home library, and the illustrations were excellent, and the activities inside looked fun. It was a little more than we wanted to go at the moment, $180, but what the heck? So we put in an order. The girl left, and then Aaron and I had the entire evening to think about our purchase. And it wasn't really sitting well. The books were cool, but there were other things we wanted more. And we thought we could probably just save the $180 and put it towards a piano.

So Aaron cancelled our book order. The next morning, he got up early with Oliver, and got on KSL to look at listings just for something to do while he held the baby. And there was a listing for a piano, in very excellent condition, being sold by a family who was moving to Arkansas and couldn't take it with them, and needed to get rid of it fast. They were selling it for $180 --no joke. It was meant to be. Aaron called on it, and the guy said he'd hold it for us until after Aaron got off work that evening and could go pick it up. Aaron and his Dad took the trailer out to Herriman. And that was that. We are now the proud owners of a piano! And a nice one at that.

We've spent a few hours this weekend rearranging. The piano goes in the front room, which means we had to move the desk into the family room, which means we had to move one of our book cases into the front room, etc. This is how the front room turned out. At some point we'll get an over-sized chair, and maybe another plant to fill in a little bit of the extra space, but for now I really like how it is.

And my kids...they are thrilled with the piano. It's been an on-going concert since Aaron brought it home. We've had to set up a timer for taking turns and everything. It makes me so happy to have music in our home, and to look forward to when it will be real music. :) Bring on piano lessons. For the kids, and for me too, because I totally went on Amazon and bought a beginning piano book for adults. We'll see how good I am at teaching myself to play a little bit. Can't wait!