Fred Penner was fabulous!

I remember as a girl and even as a not-so-little one watching Fred Penner's show, "Fred Penner's Place. And I loved it. I loved his secret grotto, and the ity bity pond, the log he had to crawl through, and his secret spot to hide his guitar. I wish it was still on for the girls to watch! Anyway, this all fostered a love for a Canadian artist, that I wished to pass on to my girls. Umm sure. That sounds really idyllic and planned. It wasn't like that. At all. Instead it was like this: The girls wanted some of "their music" to listen to in the van. I went to the library and felt overwhelmed by the amount of CD's in their children's music collection. I didn't know what would be good. So, I started looking for names I recognized. There was Anne Murray, Raffi, and Fred Penner. Fred and Raffi were the favourites. So, we listen to a lot of his older stuff.

Then, I had a request from R to go and see him. I looked at his webpage and saw he was going to be in some tiny town in Manitoba. So, I emailed him and asked him if he was coming anywhere closer to us than that! He replied that he'd be coming to St. Albert on 2 October 2009. We were so excited!!! Then, to add icing to the cake, I was on Ticket Master buying tickets for the previously mentioned concert I attended, when his picture popped up and said he was going to Spruce Grove and putting on a concert there! Well, I bought three tickets for the FP fans in the house.

The concert in St. Albert was great. It was free and we had to sit on the floor in the middle of the mall. But at least they had that foamy interlocking stuff to sit on. He had teenagers there, grandmas and grandpas, moms and dads, and kids of all ages! He took requests at the end, and my crew wanted him to sing "Ghost Riders in the Sky." But, he didn't. I said that he might do that the next day. He sang a lot of new songs that we hadn't heard of before! It was good.


Look who she found! Lightning MacQueen! Look at that smile! What a happy day! Fun, fun, fun!


Then on the 3 October we went to Spruce Grove and enjoyed another concert, althugh it wasn't free this time. And there were real seats that scared my three-year old because the seat wouldn't stay down-- she wasn't heavy enough! We asked for him to play "Ghost Riders in the Sky" or even better "Rollerskating." He replied something like those songs were so old that he couldn't remember how to play them! See, I told you we listened to his old stuff! We bought his NEW CD! He autographed it and a poster for the girls and asked their names and ages. We took a picture with him and he asked the girls to give him five. A didn't hear him and shook his hand instead. R gave him five and we walked away. A got upset and frustrated. Fred called her, by name, asked her to come back and then gave her five. He is a great celebrity! Well done, Fred!