Violin Recital, Cookie Decorating, Dinner At Coppins, Cincinnati Pops

Violin Recital

I went to my first violin recital for my oldest son. We enrolled him in music to see if it’s something that sticks. For years he’s mentioned wanting to play the violin so we rolled our dice to see what happens and he seems to be engaging with it. He’s practicing (at least we can get him to) and improving every week. I’m trying to instill in him the concept of a “growth mindset”, to accept that not all talent is God given and much of it can be developed given the right motivation and circumstances. His mother’s side is very musical so it makes sense that he at least try it. Perhaps later in life he’ll be a violin player, or maybe a fiddler in a Bluegrass band, which I favor more.

Cookie Decorating

My family’s started a cookie decoration tradition. My sister makes a bunch of cookies and the kids decorate them with icing and sprinkles. They seem to enjoy doing it but they also seem to like spending time with each other the most. I’m on keto so I chose not to sample any but they made peanut butter cookies, which are one of my favorites. We also watched a Christmas Carol, the musical one with Albert Finney, which was my mom’s favorite.

Dinner At Coppins

We enjoyed a delicious meal at Coppins, located at the Covington Hotel for my wife’s birthday. We’ve not eaten out at a nice restaurant since Bouquet, so it was pleasurable to be there with the boys, who like to experience dining out too. Ted in particular wanted to “be fancy” and refused to have a kid’s menu, although he did order the cheeseburger and fries off of it, and a tomato soup off the main menu so he could feel a little grown up. Our other son ordered a grilled cheese, which is one of the three things he does eat out when we’re out, and he liked it.

I ordered a lot of food, I find it cheaper to go once and order a lot off the menu than to go several times to try things. Do the math, it will make sense. I started off with an espresso, like I said I am on keto so I am not drinking alcohol. I then followed that up with a wedge salad with salmon added, then for dinner a tomahawk pork chop with navy beans and bitter greens, sided with Brussels sprouts. The food was really good and the service crisp. I would come back here again in the future.

Cincinnati Pops

We are starting to make the Pops a holiday tradition. We’ve already begun attending their Fourth of July concert and now we have the Christmas concert on our calendars. I am sure JMR (John Morris Russell) has his hands full trying to make the show interesting every year and he did for sure. The music choices were more on the emotive side than celebratory but there was lots of traditional music. They also had two vocalists, one an opera tenor and the other a more traditional singer. I don’t know a lot about music so I can’t give a full review of the show, but I did enjoy it and I was sad when it ended. I normally drift off during live performances but I was singing along too.

When we left we passed Zundo, which I am craving. I haven’t been here in so long for their ramen, I want to make a point of coming back here again and having lunch there with Teddy, who is a ramen craver like me.