Grass Valley & Weiser here we come

Well this will be my last blog post for a couple of weeks cause I won't have access to my computer for a couple of weeks as we head out tomorrow morning for the big Grass Valley, California bluegrass festival.  We've been to this festival several times in the last 10 years or so and it's always a very fun one that we just love.  In fact Grass Valley was the very first bluegrass festival that my husband John went to.  Before that he didn't think he'd like them and so would never use his vacation to come along with me even to the local ones.
Years ago though our good friends Ron and Barb Cole invited us to come to this festival with them and help them run their booth where he sold the mandolins that he makes.  I finally convinced John to take some vacation time and come see what a festival was truly like.  He had so much fun that afterwards he told me to go sign us up for a CBA membership so that we'd get their newsletters and would know about Grass Valley again the following year.  He was ready to go again and ever since that fateful first Grass Valley festival he's wanted to take me to a lot more of them and even other festivals too.  Anyway now with a bit of that history, I'm excited that we get to head out once again for Grass Valley this year, and tomorrow morning is the day.  The extra bonus fun to the rest of this trip too is that on our way home to Idaho we get to stop for a couple of days at Weiser where they hold the National Fiddle Contest every year.  I always love to camp there and jam with friends who I only get to see at Weiser and no where else, and the last three years I've missed out on getting to go so this year at least I'm going to get a few days there again. 
We're going to get to take with us our 3 oldest grand kids, the ones here in Utah who's brother just left to serve a mission.  Those kids used to play bluegrass when they were younger and I was teaching them.  They even played two different times in the Kids On Bluegrass program that the CBA puts on at all of their festivals.  Now days though the kids don't play anymore and have lost the interest except for Tanner the youngest.  He's 13 and he still has some of the interest whenever he's with us, but when he's home here without us around he's just like the others and doesn't play or have the interest.  This of course makes me sad, but we get to take them to Grass Valley and then to Weiser too, so for this I'm happy. 
I'm hoping that this trip will kindle a fire in them once again and even if it's just for this week at least I can keep a little bit of bluegrass in their life for the moment.  If they decide to play and have fun with it then I'll sure be happy about that.
So now I'm going to post some pictures of these grand kids when they were playing at this festival several years ago. One year in particular was very special to me.  They got to do the grand finale on stage in the Kids On Bluegrass program and for that the people running the program always get the headliner stars to come out and sing with those kids doing that finale'.  That particular year it was Rhonda Vincent, and Wayne Taylor of the US Navy Band.  My grand kids sang and played Rocky Top to a standing ovation of the crowd.  Grandpa and I were so excited and someone took a video of it and posted it on Youtube too.  Now I have a new friend who painted a picture of playing my fiddle and I'm going to save up the money to hire her to paint this picture of my grand kids playing the Grass Valley stage with Rhonda, and Wayne singing and playing over their shoulders as they did a fired up rendition of Rocky Top.  It was a moment in time that grandpa and I will never forget and if I can preserve it with a painting, at least that'll bring back those memories and be a real treasure for me.
 My dream would be for them to someday come back to the music when they mature and get older in life, and my grandson Jeff who just left to be a missionary gave me a blessing on the eve of his departure promising me that my posterity would carry on this music.  I have to have faith that some of my grand kids will stay with the bluegrass music I've taught them.  But if they don't at least I gave them the chance and it was their choice.
As for now it's going to be fun to get to take them once again to this festival.  Afterwards they are going to get to come to Idaho with us for a month so we're very excited for tomorrow to come.  These kids are now Cortney 17 years old, Tori 15 years old, and Tanner 13 years old.  I'll get pictures of them at this years festival and will post them in the blog when I get home. 

                                                I'll post some more blogs,and get lot's of pictures on how our festival part of this trip goes.. I love my family and my grand kids are the icing on the cake of life for me.