what the world needs now

Annnnnd, finally here are the pictures from our awesome weekend of having the African Children's Choir back in Jacksonville. The Jacksonville Childrens Chorus (who I work for) was able to do a joint concert with the ACC (who I used to work for). It was sooo much fun and the concert was a smash hit! Also, 5 of the children from this group are returners from a previous tour that I worked on! So I got to reunite with those kids who I had spent so much time with in 2004/2005. It was a blast! We had the three boys from choir #26 (my choir) stay with us at the house and they had so much fun with Bella and Stephen. So, now Stephen and I are just trying to figure out how to raise the money to take a trip to Uganda before these kids turn 20! Wish us luck! :-)

We took the boys to the park and we had such a fun time!


Then we went for a walk downtown by the river. Ah, Jacksonville! From left:
Elijah Bwojji, Emmanuel Opolot, and Mark Tumukunde

And the other two children from our tour: Rita Kansiime and Suzan Nakandi!

Yay for sweet fun children!

and so it goes...

So here's the follow up to our church-project gas buy down. It was really fun and successful in that we were able to impact about 200 different families in just over 2 hours! Yay!

Here's the link:

First Coast News Video

And if you watch the video carefully, you can see me! Here's a few fun pictures of our own!

Enjoy!

There's me in the long grey shorts.

it's a highway to heaven!

Sorry, I know that is WAAAAY cheesy, but I couldn't help it. Check out
This Video
for something cool that our church is doing!

Yea! More photos from this past weekend to come!

please don't stop the music

Catch-up time! Sooo.... in the last month or so, things have been (as usual) going a mile a minute. So, let's start at the beginning.

During our honeymoon I was asked to fill a now-vacant spot in the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra's upcoming Opera, La Traviata. Upon returning home, I had approximately 2.5 weeks to rehearse and learn all the Italian before our big performance. It was a very whirlwind experience, but I had a lot of fun! Here are my costumes from the first and third acts. I was a Victorian Lady (with a capital L! I think that just means you are very rich...)




In this picture I hadn't yet put on my gloves, but just imagine black velvet elbow length gloves. :-) Check out how long/big my dress is!!!! It was soooo fun. It followed behind me at least 6 feet! I felt like Scarlett O'hara. hahaha...



First Act: watching the amazing Scott Piper (Alfredo) sing the famous Libiamo ne' lieti calici while I look on adoringly... ha!

Act Three: Gypsy song! I was picked (albeit randomly) to be a gyspy, had to wear a kinda scary looking mask, and luckily got to play a tamborine! woo hoo!


Awesomely hideous angry opera faces. We were supposed to look like that. ;-) Alfredo did a bad, bad thing.

Towards the end when Alfredo is learning his lesson that he messed up, but we are all sad because we know it won't end well...

This is actually during the dress rehearsal. We had to stop for a minute while the Orchestra worked on something. My dress was very hot... so I had to hike it up a bit. I had NO idea anyone was photographing us! Oops!


So, yeah for Opera. You get to sing loud, in italian, with as much over-dramatic gusto as you can muster. Fabulous!

So THEN right after the Opera, I had minor surgery to address some Ovarian cysts (or so they thought). Turns out I have Endometriosis, but the surgery went really well and my prognosis looks good. I actually just went to the Dr. yesterday and she gave me the all-clear as far as my recovery is concerned. So that is good. But anyways, had surgery. Felt Icky. THEN started to feel better just in time for our wedding present from Michelle...

A trip to see this dude in concert:

Michael Buble! It was very fun! Yeah for good music and nights out!!!

And here's a picture of my cute husband after the concert. I just had to include it. :-)

Somewhere in that week there was a Lunar Eclipse. I dragged myself off the recovery couch long enough to ghetto-rig our camera on top of my car to take this picture:

(not bad for an object that is 1.255 light-seconds away!)

AND THEN... we went to the beach with our good dog, Bella. Actually we went twice, last weekend and the one before. Good times! Yay for Springtime in the Florida Sunshine!

Bella likes to attack blankets. and paper. and fringe. and towels, obviously.



This was (for about 30 minutes while the tide was out) our own little private sand bar island! It was awesome! We waded out from the shore and let Bella run around and chase the birds. :-)



Happy dog and happy us. See you again soon!

here's that rainy day!

Wedding photos, at long last! Speciall props to our awesome photographer, Andrea VanKirk. She rocks!

That's Life

Or at least this WAS our life for about 10 days on our honeymoon! Woo hoo!




PS- if you want to see it bigger and/or control the speed, click on the little person icon in the botton left corner of the box and it will take you to the picasa website where you can watch the slideshow. Thanks!

the now and the not yet

Okay, okay... so yes, we're back. And YES, we have about 87,000 pictures, so I'm trying to get them in a format (maybe, slideshow???) that is actually fun and efficient to watch... but until then, this was too fun and random to pass up!

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car) Cinnamon Matrix
2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fave ice cream flavor, favorite cookie) Strawberry Peanut Butter (I am confused... Gangsta? I can't think of any combos of probable answers that sound even REMOTELY Gansta.... hm... new prompt?)
3. YOUR “FLY Guy/Girl” NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of your last name)
L Kel
4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal) Blue Giraffe
5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, hospital where you were born) Dart Candler
6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first)
KelLi (wait, isn't that a real name?) how about JoiLi...
7. SUPERHERO NAME: (”The” + 2nd favorite color, favorite drink) The Green Rootbeer?
8. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers) Robert Wilbur Dorsey
9.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names ) Louis Dart (wait, am I am man in the witness protection program...?)
10. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME: (Your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter) Fust Fairbanks
11. SPY NAME: (your favorite season/holiday, flower) Autumn Orchid...cool!
12. CARTOON NAME: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now + “ie” or “y”)
Pineapple Scarfy
13. HIPPIE NAME: (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree) Kashi Sycamore!!!
14. YOUR ROCKSTAR TOUR NAME: (”The” + Your fave hobby/craft, fave weather element + “Tour”) The Singing Thunderstorm Tour! Hahahaha.