Shout out

My brother Marcus is a full-time missionary for the LDS church. I admire his strength of character and moral courage. The people he is serving are not as receptive as he would like. The hardest thing in the world is when you feel that you have something important (life-changing, even) to say and nobody will listen. I respect him for his determination to stick it out, even when things are less than ideal. Marcus, I love you!

I just found out that my brother is allowed to read my blog. So, I make a commitment to update the blog at least once a week. That way he can see his beautiful niece and read all about our life.

Announcement

Found this in my inbox this morning.

"I am pleased to tell you that you have passed the Master of Music Comprehensive Exams. Congratulations!"

Oh, yeah!

It feels so good to finally close the chapter on that epoch.

I "heart" NYC!

So, despite the fact that I was so careful in packing I still cannot locate the camera cord. You'll have to wait a little longer for pictures of this grand adventure.

At first I was a little nervous about coming to the Big Apple and staying for several weeks. I was brave enough to hail a taxi last time I was in Manhattan, so I figured now I'd be brave enough to figure out the metro system and a few other things. For a small town girl, the metropolitan areas that make up New York City are quite daunting at first. But now that we have been here an entire week, I feel that I could happily make this our home just as much as small towns. With Ryan's business interests and my career goals, this is a very good realization to make!

Cleveland Trip

We loved Cleveland. We have so many friends there. It was delightful to be able to see everyone again. I'm still feeling like there were 50 things we wanted to do that didn't happen, so hopefully we'll be able to trek out there again soon.

This time we stayed with Mike and Kate, and Megan and Robby. Hannah got along well with the kids, and Megan was very motherly toward her.

I divided my time between studying for comps (because of the tragic loss of my fully annotated scores) and voice lessons with Mary Schiller. She fit me in whenever she had an open few minutes. Her week was crazy because of production week of the CIM fall opera. I took the comps Friday afternoon, and am now crossing my fingers that I passed.

Ryan and Mike hung out as much as they could between Mike's hospital rotations and Ryan's nanny-ing for me. They played a lot of Rock Band together, even getting Kate and me in on the action whenever possible.

We were also able to visit with Cindy and Craig one evening, which is always a delight. Cindy and Craig and I met in Graz in 2004, so we go a ways back. We always have tons to talk about and, next time I'm in town, Cindy and I want to sing a joint recital. We'll see if that works out.

Top 10 reasons the blog needs an update

1 - We moved again (6th time in 3 years). It was six weeks after Hannah was born. I was not much help, being forbidden to lift after surgery. Packing was a nightmare.

2 - I suddenly ended up in an opera 7 weeks postpartum... And it was a brand new role for me.... And rehearsals began three hours after they called me to offer the role..... Yeah.

3 - School started. Why is it that I never get my final teaching schedule until three weeks into the semester?

4 - I took professional headshots.

5 - Ryan finally found a bibliography leading to fruitful sources on his thesis.

6 - The opera finished performances eight weeks later. I'm still in withdrawal.

7 - Hannah doubled in size. She's now only 2 lbs lighter than her cousin Lucy, who is six months older.

8 - I cut my first demo CD. (Thanks to Ron Saltmarsh at Symphonics, Jeannie Vincent and Chris Koelzer!)

9 - We returned to Cleveland one week for voice lessons (and comps).

10 - We are in New York for three weeks of auditions. A grand adventure!





So... Let's just say we've been busy?



I promise to post pictures soon!