Happy, happy birthday baby!

Congrats to Melodie (my cousin) and Kevin (her husband) Logue!!!

schooooool's out

(for the summer!!!)

...and because it's been sooo long since I posted, I'm going to catch you up to date and describe my last two months with pictures!

First, sweet flowers from my students after our very successful production of Alice in Wonderland, Jr. YAY!



Cool little starfish we found (a little more than an inch) on one of several recent beach trips!

The incredibly rainy but still fun (f0r the sixth graders) 5th vs. 6th grade kickball game.

I think the score ended up being like 21 to zero or something... :-/

If this were China, I think 2008 should be regarded as the "year of the check". The only economy I stimulated was VISA's.

Stephen was sweet enough to accompany meet out one evening to the beautiful Florida Theatre to watch a dance recital that some of my students were in. It was fun!

Who says Florida doesn't have any culture??? ;-)

Our failed Memorial Day weekend camping trip ended up here:

One afternoon, I awoke from a nap on the couch to find this:

Bella had crawled on top of the couch cushions and her face was RIGHT next to mine. Haha!

Next up, Birthday fun!

First off, I went to the movies by myself on my birthday (Steve was working) and it was fun!!! I went to a 1:00 PM show and the theatre had just opened and NO ONE was there. See?

I have been enjoying my awesome b-day presents, such as this Mandolin from Steve-O. Thanks, babe!

And I hope to have a very crafty summer using this great gift from my parents! (I really wanted one!!!)

And my nice sister sent me all kinds of things in the mail, of which this is a sample: (Besides the CD I got chocolate covered popcorn, grahams, oreos, nutter butter cookies, and pecan clusters. Yum!!!)

Stephen also surprised me with some beautiful roses!!! How sweet...

Bella chasing her cousin, Buddy (Dani's dog) at the dog park in DeLand. They had such fun!

It has been VERY hot and humid here lately, but we have had a few gorgeous evenings. This is a picture from the deck at our Head of School's condo (where we had a "TGISummer" party). I have really come to love living so close to the river.

And here's a nice picture of us before we went out to eat for my birthday. We went to Mossfire Grill and used a gift certificate my Aunt gave me as a present. Thanks Aunt Laurie, it was yummy!

Okay, well hopefully now that school's over, I will be better about posting. Especially since we have some adventures planned for the near future! Woo hoo!!!! I love summer!!!!!!!!!!!!!

tout doucement

This is a really great French song (that I heard sung by Feist) about taking time and life and going slow... the translation is something like this:
All slow, all slow, all slowly
Always, all slow, all slowly
This way
Life is amazing.

Maybe I am digging this these days because things have been so busy!!!!

Anyways, during my spring break (like a month ago now!!!) I went to FSU for the first time in nearly 4 years (since I graduated!) for a visit. It was so great to be back and see all the changes and construction. It was just the most beautiful Tallahassee day, and that made me remember why I loved living there (weather-wise). It was like 65 and not a cloud in the sky- everything was in bloom!




Here's Ruby Diamond Auditorium in the Wescott Building. Sadly, the fountain was turned off for repairs.

Then, after returning to Jacksonville, my college friend, Michelle, came and visited us! It was a ton of fun and I am glad to say the weather in Jax wasn't too shabby either! These pictures were taken on one of our long walks through the historic district.

This picture makes me laugh because of the pigeons. I think Pigeons should be the symbol of perseverance, because they will ALWAYS find a way. :-)

Memorial Park on the St. John's River. Note the Spanish-y railing, so pretty!

I thought the bends in this tree's limbs were quite interesting-looking.

This little boy was enjoying a day in the park (and some corn) and I took this picture holding the camera down by my side (to be incognito) but apparently I didn't fool him!

In Jacksonville, Spring has finally Sprung as well. Everything's blooming!

And of course, what blog would be complete without a funny picture of our dog, Bella. The part I love about this is that she is sitting on the ARMREST of the couch. She was just sitting there... keeping an eye on things I guess!

It was way fun to have Michelle with us and hopefully we will be able to visit her sometime in Austin!

So that was my Spring Break... but of course, since then things have been speeding along, so more is coming, coming!

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!