musical events

In addition to the children's music lessons, I want to expose them to listening to live music, but even cheap tickets end up costing too much with 7 of us attending a performance. After reading the local paper I learned that some of the churches downtown offer a variety of classical music once a month from handbells to choir. Today we got most of the schoolwork completed before we heading out to hear a pianist and violinist give an hour long free concert. The violinist wouldn't have earned a spot in the Virginia Philharmonic, but the children did learn that playing a stringed instrument is far more difficult than the piano. I ended up standing in the back with the little children, but since it doesn't seem fair to the older ones to miss out on all cultural experiences because they have a host of younger siblings we just do the best we can. To reward everyone's cooperativeness, we stopped at Pizza Hut for a couple of free pizzas through the Book It! program and had a picnic in the park.