My christmas album . . .

I've been working on my Christmas album, here are some samples:
http://www.robbennion.com/christmas.html

Contact me if you'd like to get a copy!

Last night I was in charge of the food for an EQ party, so we made taco salads with chicken, Nicolle made salsa with limes, onions, peppers, and salt. Eveyone helped and it was a great meal.
We brought rock band which Alex hooked up to his projector. The kids played with all the other little kidsnd we all had fun!

Let it Snow . . .

Tears of Joy...

I have never been prouder of the American people. I think we all know that President Elect Barack Obama (oh it feels sooo good to say that) has his work cut out for him, but I have never been able to say that I am as willing to do anything and everything I can to help as I am right now. I think that I am not alone.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/05/amanpour.world.challenges/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

It is such a different feeling, hope has prevailed over fear. Finally.

Important . . .

Halloween with two little monkeys

It took me many hours of labor to create this paper-machet horsie. I can see out of the mesh screen.
Rainbow Brite and Moonglow.
Twink too.
Here's Rainbow Brite and her entourage, Starlight (the horse) Rainbow Brite, Twink, and Moonglow.

We had a lot of fun, went to a few parties then the gateway, won a costume contest (free tickets to the zoo, nat hist museum, discovery gateway, clarke planetarium, amoung other places).

We had fun, but had to convince the kids they wanted candy at first, they didn't understand that people would give them candy if they just went up to them and said trick or treat. Colette finally got sortof close and all night said "I want a treat" to the people. close enough I guess.

October is cool hair month

These were the shades of Nicolle's hair this month . . .

My music blog

For anyone interested in how my music is going, I have a blog on my website now that talks about past performances, has pictures and info about upcoming stuff and past stuff, a blog about all that: www.robbennion.com/blog. I have about 10 posts so far so check it out !

Also this saturday at 4pm and sunday at 2pm is the airing of a KJZZtv show that I was musical guest on . . . www.cookingdelight.tv, check it out if you're not busy and in town.

Cheers!

update?

Hello anyone who's reading.

Haven't written anything in a while, thought I'd give some random updates.

The monkeys are getting bigger all the time. And bolder. They run out the door as soon as I open it. Being a stay at home dad is great, but I've learned a few things . . . it's a lot harder than I thought it'd be!

Colette is going to the potty regularly, as long as she's not wearing a diaper. She's getting better at it.

Johnathan is saying more things but isn't talking yet. He seems to repeat the same phrase but with different intonation to mean different things.

Nicolle has dark blue hair, almost black. So far this past month it's been blond, pink, and blue. we have had fun at the various halloween parties we've been to, and today we're finishing up our costumes for trick or treating . . . Colette's going to be Rainbow brite, Johnathan will be Twink, Nicolle will be Indigo or Moonglow, and I'll be the White horse. We'll be pretty freaky!

I feel extremely blessed with my music career lately, don't feel like I deserve all the opportunities, but I'm not about to turn them down . . . I'm so grateful for Nicolle for supportng me in music and helping me to do it . . .

At the Clarke Planetarium

I knew the kids were martians!

Halloweeny

Old friends . . .

We got to stay with the Nakashimas . . . our Brazilian friends from Marugame. They were so nice to put us up for the night and it was definately the highlight of our trip to see them and Miwa . . .
Miwa ate with us in the hotel restaurant . . .
Okayama castle. . .
Azinete made an amazing Brazilin lunch for us . . . so good! Nothing compares to home-made food "feita com carinho"

The purpose of the trip . . .

We got to go back because I was invited to perform at the Okayama Jazz Festival in Okayama, more or less near where we used to live. I was the main performer so they treated me like a star . . . interviews, lots of pictures, they filmed the festival and I hope to get my hands on a dvd of the whole show in the next few months when it comes out.
Saturday night I performed with Alicia Saldenha in Osaka, very talented up and coming vocalist from Trinidad.
The place was packed, people standing behind and to the sides of the seated audience . . .

I feel very lucky to have performed with such high-caliber players . . . and especially lucky to have had Nicolle there with me. She sold $100 worth of cds while I was performing, so as soon as I was finished she ran up and got me to sign them all . . . there was a line of people waiting for me to autograph their cds and take a picture with them!

BEnnions in Japan . . . Again!

Totoro, Totoro . . .
Osaka ga daisuki desu!
This thing moves . . . I'm not sure if it'd thrill or scare the kids. We don't know cause they stayed home with the folks.
Maybe some of you haven't seen Nicolle's pink phase of hair . . . if you have you're lucky cause it's either going blue or black today, so enjoy the photos . . .

Utah State Fair

My bunny Totoro

more pictures

Ponies!!! Tigers!!!

we are off to see the wizard

Here are some old pictures from our trip to the fair

weee bunny wabbit

This isn't our actual weee bunny wabbit, we pick him up tonight, but this is what he looks like...except smaller...and cuter. We bought him at the State Fair yesterday, which was a blast by the way, and I will post pictures about that later.

better late than never....

Here are some pictures of the silly monkeys...The first of Johnathan at a thrift store with me where he entertained himself for a solid 15 minutes with womans shoes. Next is Colette in a outfit that she picked out all by herself...and finally, when we walk somewhere with the monster stroller what ends up happening is that Colette refuses to sit in the stroller and Johnathan feels slighted because he always ends up in there so to calm them both down we have them hold hands, and since we were going to cross a street (or just had, I don't recall) I had to hold Colette's hand, so we were like elephants holding on to each other, or at least that is how I thought of it.

more Texas pics

I just realized that based on the pictures you would think that I only spent time with my dad, which is not so, I just so happen to only have pictures of my dad, shameful I know, since I spent most of my time with mom, Elisa and Kenzie and even Chris and I have practically no pictures to show for it. Usually I can't get my dad in a picture with out his eyes closed or something so I guess it is just karma.

Texas trip

We had tons of fun. Johnathan opened right up to his long lost aunts, uncle and Bob and Lita. We got to swim, thanks to the graciousness of Anne and Chris, eat excellent soup that Elisa made and had long, wonderful talks with everyone, especially mom. I even got to go on a bike ride on the recumbent with dad. The amazing pictures in this post are because of the amazing talent of Kenzie. If we get to go for Thanksgiving I hope she will be willing to do a family shoot, hint hint. I will put some more pictures on the yu-zen blog too so be sure to check them out as well.