Black Bean and Kale Quesadillas, The Great Cover Up, and Reading as Rebellion

Food:

Josie was super hungry last night after gymnastics and craving burritos, but we decided on warming up some tomato soup (with focassia bread we bought that day from our local bakery), kale and black bean quesadillas on tomato basil tortillas, and bananas with peanut butter and barberries. Super quick and easy, Josie helped saute the red onions, black beans, and kale which made her forget how hungry she was until the food was ready. Everyone enjoyed it and she had time to play xbox soccer with Rob before we settled in to read more chapters of The Girl Who Drank the Moon*.

Art:

Being true to my resolution to get out and see more local bands, Rob and I made it to our towns annual "Great Cover Up" which features local bands covering famous bands often in extraordinary ways. It is a favorite event for us and it usually last two weekends so we go once to see a band we know, but this year we were there for the first night and the closing night. It was nice to go out just the two of us and great to see bands we knew and others we are getting to know.

We finally got a change to see John Isberg (the director for Listen, a short film Dema was in over the summer, and several music videos the kids have been in) and his band, Tigerbeat, play. They covered The Church. I can't wait to check them out sometime soon playing their own songs.

Ryan Groff and Kayla Brown hilariously covering Flight of the Conchords.

This year Ryan from Elsinore didn't have his band, but joined up with his friend and amazing local female singer, Kayla Brown. It was the laugh out loud fun that I needed.
Here is Ryan and Elsinore covering Whitney Houston two years ago. It will always be one of my favorites:



And three years ago as Nirvana:




We didn't weren't at the Cover Up this year, but here is Ryan as Buddy Holly:


Okay, I got a little carried away there.

Activist Snippets:

*While Rob was in California last week, I decided to revive a favorite family time. All three kids shared a room for a while and even after they split up, I used to read to them. I read the entire Harry Potter series and many other books. It can be hard to find something that appeals to a seven and a half year age range, but some of my best childhood memories are of my dad reading to me and my sister and we are seven and half years apart. I  know 17 is less than a week away for my eldest, but he humored me and my 12 and 9 year old actually asked for more reading time and we started earlier each night. My sister had just given the kids bags of books and I picked The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill at random to read aloud. It ends up being a pretty good book for our current situation in the United States. It has a government lying to their people to keep the elite in place and in power. Sometimes the best thing we can do to "resist" is bring our family closer and read together.