Guitar Girl

She finally got it ... one of her very own! Annemarie has been wanting an electric guitar for a while now. When she first started out with guitar lessons, she began on a half sized acoustic, maybe about two years ago. All three kids were taking lessons then. She soon moved up to a bigger one, but still not full sized. Quite honestly, lessons were not going all that well for them, and they all wanted to quit. Kate and Chris decided to stop, but Annie was encouraged by her then teacher to stick with it. She thought that Annemarie seemed to understand it more, and so she agreed to continue. Still, her efforts were half hearted. It wasn't until she got an opportunity to play guitar in a rock camp that that changed. Her new teacher loaned her his electric guitar, and then it was on! She fell in love with it! Since that time, she's moved on to more lessons, and eventually her performances with her band, Speed Limit 180, all the while using her 3/4 acoustic and borrowing her dad's electric guitar, and an amplifier that, shall we say, is less than rockin'. Wimpy, in fact. Now that she's fully embraced her role as a guitarist, she wanted a power guitar and an amp of her own.

This Christmas, her grandparents graciously gave her the funds to get her electric guitar. She was so happy to get to Guitar Center and pick it out herself! She found this sweet Jackson electric and really loved it. She's named it Bella -- yes, after Twilight (a fav book of hers) and after the Spanish meaning of the word 'beautiful.' She's also now happy to have moved on to Jon's Takamine acoustic guitar.

We also recently bought her a nice used amplifier to complete the deal. So my guitar girl is ready to rock! With her renewed sense of purpose and armed with her Bella and amp, now I can only hope she doesn't carry through on her threat to wake us up in the mornings with some major tuneage. Oh, and did I mention that Kate got a drum set too? I'm in trouble .....

Rock on, Annie B.! Love, Mom


"Girls with guitars,
Now everybody's rockin'
Girls with guitars,
There ought to be a song about
Girls with guitars,
There's just no stopping those
Girls with guitars. "
-- Girls With Guitars lyrics, written by Mary Chapin Carpenter


Here's my gorgeous guitar girl, with her Bella.






Yeah, she's happy!


But she won't be too happy when she sees this picture. (I can hear it now ..... "MOM?!?!?!?") I can't help it, she was just so darned cute!! Here she is at a birthday party, just about a month shy of turning four -- Round Rock -- 4.30.2003