the rest of the story

It all started when Chea came up for a visit and we were shopping at Salvation Army. We spotted this great piano and discussed the pros and cons of purchasing such a piece of furniture:
Pros: already painted black, great patina, the perfect prop for a photo shoot, and best of all it was only $20!
Cons: over 100 years old meaning the sucker was heavy!, having to ask Colby to pick it up and then transport it down to Queen Creek.
It was obvious the pros outweighed the cons so without REALLY thinking it through, I bought it. Now came the hard part...convincing Colby that it was a good idea. After three guys loaded it into the trailer I wasn't so sure myself that it was a good idea. But since it was already in the trailer I didn't say another word until Colby asked what I was gonna do with such a heavy piano. I meekly replied, "I was hoping we(you) could gut it so it wouldn't be so heavy." Without any VERBAL argument (trust me there was plenty of body language that said otherwise) Colby proceeded to gut the piano. Luckily, gutting is his area of expertise- although usually it is an animal going under the knife. I wanted so bad to take a picture of this process but did not. I didn't want to distract Colby from the task at hand. The gutting took an entire afternoon, and a few hours in the wee morning, along with a saw-zall and many choice words (so I am told. Like I said, I tried to stay out of the way). I have to say that I was shocked when Colby showed up in Queen Creek with the piano in his trailer. Shocked but ecstatic! I would have my photo shoot after all.
Next was Wayne's turn. After the piano was dropped off, Wayne was in charge (I shouldn't say "in charge"- that was Chea) he was responsible for moving the piano so we had the "perfect lighting". He was also responsible for making my boys laugh and smile during the photo shoot. I say thanks to him because there is no way my boys would smile the way they did if it was me trying to do the entertaining. After we were done taking pictures Wayne had the opportunity to remove the piano from the site without damaging it. Let's just say he was not pleased and probably felt like he got "suckered" into it. We were able to get a picture of him though...

With such an "inexpensive" prop, well at least monetarily inexpensive, the pictures turned out stunning! And that is the rest of the story.