Hi everyone. I'm back home in Houston now, and it's time for one final post about the orchestra's trip to the UK. We left Newcastle on Thursday morning, on the bus, and arrived in Basingstoke about nine hours later. This was definitely the low point of the tour for me. I just felt tremendously homesick. And there's nothing like sitting on a bus with nothing to do but think about how bummed out you are. Fortunately, no concert that night.
Friday, we had the morning off. Some people made an excursion to Stonehenge. I know, it's totally lame, but I slept in. I was completely wiped from too many late nights and socially exhausted. Who wants to see a bunch of rocks anyway? That night's concert was at The Anvil. Despite the cool name, it was a dump. After the concert, we drove into London.
Saturday we had two concerts, one matinee and one evening performance. These were held at the Barbican, home of the London Symphony Orchestra. The last couple days had been tough, but there was a carefree, lighthearted feeling in the air that day. It was nice to play the concerts with that vibe, and they were good ones. I think everyone was excited to be back in London and headed home the next day. That night I stayed up way too late, but had a real good time with some fun friends.
The flight home went surprisingly quickly, thanks in part to the entertainment options on the Boeing 777. Individual screens + movies on demand = quick 10 hours. Katherine and Ben met me at the airport, and I could see Ben on the other side of the customs door saying "I see Daddy!" It was so wonderful to see them. I had a great time, but the truth is I'm not complete without them, especially Katherine. It's good to be home.
I have some cool pictures to share, but too many for the blog. I'll put them up on the Picasa site soon, and link to it from here.
In recollection, here are some of the highlights of the trip for me:
Lots of great food. Britain is not known as a culinary destination, and that's well deserved. I actually only ate two British meals - one bangers and mash, one fish and chips. Despite the reputation, both were quite smashing. I'm told I was lucky to have this be the case. Many friends reported nasty versions of the same dishes. What Britain does have is fantastic ethnic food, specifically Indian. I ate three Indian meals, one Pakistani, one Italian, one Chinese, and one Thai. All were terrific, especially the Pakistani one. It's similar to Indian food, and their staple dish is called Balti. For that meal we went to a highly recommended hole in the wall where they just brought out a bunch of food, no specific ordering from the menu.
Train Rides/Scenery. The train is where it's at. The seats are fairly comfortable, it's fast, and you can look out the window at some fantastic scenery. The grass in the UK is just gorgeous. The climate there is perfectly suited for grass, and even in October, it paints a vibrant green all over the countryside.
Professional challenges. One of the reasons for an orchestra to go on tour is that it has a fine-tuning effect on the ensemble. (FYI, the other is to get enough publicity that the community at home has a renewed interest in the orchestra. "If people in London think our orchestra is great, I should support this local treasure!") Playing in a different concert hall every night is seriously difficult. You often hear things you've never heard before from across the stage, or you can't hear that other musician with whom you share a difficult passage. For percussionists, it involves scenarios like: "Hmmmm. The acoustic is live, so perhaps I should use a harder mallet. But the overall size of the hall is small, so a harder mallet might be overwhelming. Perhaps something harder but light in weight would work well." Before each note is played, consideration has to be given to what volume is appropriate. On our usual stage in Houston, that process is largely subconscious. It really is fun though, and this sort of ramped up listening and thinking do make the orchestra sound incredible when we return to Houston.
Thanks for reading these updates friends. Now back to normal life!
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Tour Update # 3
Greetings from Newcastle Upon Tyne! We are in northeast England tonight, not far from the border of Scotland. These Brits really like to include whatever river runs through their city in the name of that city. Probably the most famous is Stratford Upon Avon, where Shakespeare ran his theatre. It actually sounds pretty cool - very distinguished I think - but it sure does make for a long city name. Tonight's concert was probably the best performance by the orchestra on this tour. Interestingly, today was also the day when it seemed like a lot of people started to yearn for home and some are getting a wee bit apathetic. I actually find this encouraging, that even though the passion for performance was a little less tonight, the musicians dug in and put on a very successful concert. It's a mark of professionalism I was proud to be a part of. I definitely got the homesick bug tonight. I got some photos of the family on email (thanks Howard!), and perhaps that's what did it. Or maybe I just miss the companionship of my wife. I have some fun work colleagues but they're no substitute for a loving family.
Yesterday brought another wonderful train ride on the west side of England that took us down to Manchester. That city was so intriguing. It's not large - less than 500,000 people live there. But there's clearly a lot of money, it has superb infrastructure, and is home to the world's most famous and wealthiest sports franchise - the Manchester United football team (soccer, that is). This was a very standard tour day - leave one city in the morning, arrive in next city, relax for a couple hours, short rehearsal, concert, back to hotel, sleep, prepare to leave next morning. One thing that was very welcome in Manchester was a fairly modern concert hall with a sufficiently sized stage. No more playing from the choir loft! It was great to be back playing in our familiar position in the orchestra - so much easier!
The last two cities have had rather modern concert halls, especially the one tonight in Newcastle. Technically it's in neighboring Gateshead, hence the name The Sage Gateshead. This hall is only five years old, and we are the first American orchestra to have been invited to play there! The manager of the hall gave a brief speech before our rehearsal - it was quite an honor to be the first Americans there, and he seemed to be thrilled with the program we were bringing: Stravinsky, Fireworks Overture; John Adams, Doctor Atomic Symphony (new American piece); and Holst's Planets with accompanying film of the actual planets. Here are some pictures of these halls:
Yesterday brought another wonderful train ride on the west side of England that took us down to Manchester. That city was so intriguing. It's not large - less than 500,000 people live there. But there's clearly a lot of money, it has superb infrastructure, and is home to the world's most famous and wealthiest sports franchise - the Manchester United football team (soccer, that is). This was a very standard tour day - leave one city in the morning, arrive in next city, relax for a couple hours, short rehearsal, concert, back to hotel, sleep, prepare to leave next morning. One thing that was very welcome in Manchester was a fairly modern concert hall with a sufficiently sized stage. No more playing from the choir loft! It was great to be back playing in our familiar position in the orchestra - so much easier!
The last two cities have had rather modern concert halls, especially the one tonight in Newcastle. Technically it's in neighboring Gateshead, hence the name The Sage Gateshead. This hall is only five years old, and we are the first American orchestra to have been invited to play there! The manager of the hall gave a brief speech before our rehearsal - it was quite an honor to be the first Americans there, and he seemed to be thrilled with the program we were bringing: Stravinsky, Fireworks Overture; John Adams, Doctor Atomic Symphony (new American piece); and Holst's Planets with accompanying film of the actual planets. Here are some pictures of these halls:
Bridgewater Hall in Manchester
Interior of Bridgewater Hall
The Sage, Gateshead
The Sage at concert time
Monday, October 11, 2010
Tour Update # 2
On Friday, the factory whistle blew and it was back to work. Okay, perhaps what we do is a little easier than working in a factory, but it's turned out to be much more difficult than I expected. Also tremendously rewarding. We got on the bus Friday morning and drove to Birmingham, England. It's a pretty cool town with a very modern concert hall, lots of canals, and more nightclubs than you've ever seen in a space of 6 blocks. Shortly after arrival, we had one of only two full rehearsals on the tour. We covered all the repertoire we're playing, which is a logistics nightmare for the percussion section - very stressful. We played the first concert a few hours later to a completely sold out house. This concert hall was a refreshing change for us, acoustically. Jones Hall, our Houston home, is very mediocre in terms of acoustics. It's not the worst place to play, but it's difficult to hear each other well, and the sound doesn't really make it out into the audience as well as it does in a nice hall. The result? The orchestra can't play as precisely and we can't play as softly as we otherwise could. This becomes a real challenge when put into a new space like this, where we can hear each other, and the audience can hear even the most subtle details, including imperfections. I think we responded pretty well, and played a great concert - there was a real sense of excitement for this first concert on the other side of the Atlantic.
The next day, we drove to Leeds. It's a former industrial town that has seen a lot of retail development in the last 20 years. It's become a shopping destination in England. It still retains its roots though - the British accent here was very unrefined (think My Fair Lady), and it's not a real attractive place. The concert was held in an awesome old facility. Part government center, part concert hall, the Leeds Town Hall was built sometime around 1865. The inside of the hall was absolutely gorgeous - I'll be posting pictures once I get back. It sounded beautiful too. But it was very small. Some of these old halls were just not meant to hold a huge orchestra. So the percussion section was up on this riser about 6 feet above the rest of the orchestra. I found this exceptionally difficult - very difficult to hear the other musicians, and difficult to find sightlines down to the conductor.
On Sunday, I ditched the tour group. The last time I took a lengthy tour with an orchestra was when I was a student. Things are different with a professional group, and much more fun. There's no checking to see if everyone made the bus, no group dinner outings or anything like that. This affords the freedom to do things like take the train. It was a 7 hour bus ride, so I was delighted to spend three hours on a semi-high speed train chatting with friends and enjoying some amazing scenery as we headed north into Edinburgh, Scotland. Some of the views were just what you'd imagine - ocean waves crashing against rocky cliffs, beautiful green golf courses along the shore, lighthouses, and lots of green fields filled with sheep. After settling in at the hotel, it was time to go to our usual preconcert sound check rehearsal. Before each concert, there is a 30 minute rehearsal - the main purpose being to adjust to the acoustics of that hall and touch up any rough spots from previous concerts. The pieces we're playing on this tour use a ton of equipment - two sets of chimes, numerous tam tams, and an octave of tuned gongs. These 30 minute rehearsals are really stressful, often going through things very quickly, requiring fast equipment changes for the percussionists. The playing part is usually easier than the logistics. And I couldn't believe it, this hall was even smaller than the last one, with the percussionists again perched up in the choir loft. The temporary floor they had set up had steps up and down as you moved across, it was cramped, and it was again difficult to hear the rest of the orchestra. After the concert last night, I was absolutely beat - it just took so much brainpower to deal with all the extra challenges in addition to the usual ones of playing hard music. But there were some wonderful rewards. If you're familiar with the Planets by Holst, you may remember the piece concludes with a women's chorus singing off stage. They are the last thing heard as they fade away into silence. It's an exceptionally difficult part for the chorus, and ours in Houston is not very good. Usually, this is a subpar part of the performance, and I routinely let my mind wander at that point to avoid the disappointment. Last night though, we were joined by the Edinburgh Women's Chorus, and wow, these ladies can sing. I was caught off guard a bit - the music there is just gorgeous when done well. We've performed it a few dozen times now and I was surprised to find myself re-engaging in that spot and my eyes getting a wee bit moist hearing it performed so beautifully. Despite feeling a bit beaten down by the challenges of the last few concerts, I am relishing the satisfaction that comes from dealing with the adverse conditions and working hard to overcome them by playing well. Today was a day off - a climb up the mountain outside Edinburgh, laundry, St Giles cathedral, and dinner with friends. Tomorrow, chop chop!
The next day, we drove to Leeds. It's a former industrial town that has seen a lot of retail development in the last 20 years. It's become a shopping destination in England. It still retains its roots though - the British accent here was very unrefined (think My Fair Lady), and it's not a real attractive place. The concert was held in an awesome old facility. Part government center, part concert hall, the Leeds Town Hall was built sometime around 1865. The inside of the hall was absolutely gorgeous - I'll be posting pictures once I get back. It sounded beautiful too. But it was very small. Some of these old halls were just not meant to hold a huge orchestra. So the percussion section was up on this riser about 6 feet above the rest of the orchestra. I found this exceptionally difficult - very difficult to hear the other musicians, and difficult to find sightlines down to the conductor.
On Sunday, I ditched the tour group. The last time I took a lengthy tour with an orchestra was when I was a student. Things are different with a professional group, and much more fun. There's no checking to see if everyone made the bus, no group dinner outings or anything like that. This affords the freedom to do things like take the train. It was a 7 hour bus ride, so I was delighted to spend three hours on a semi-high speed train chatting with friends and enjoying some amazing scenery as we headed north into Edinburgh, Scotland. Some of the views were just what you'd imagine - ocean waves crashing against rocky cliffs, beautiful green golf courses along the shore, lighthouses, and lots of green fields filled with sheep. After settling in at the hotel, it was time to go to our usual preconcert sound check rehearsal. Before each concert, there is a 30 minute rehearsal - the main purpose being to adjust to the acoustics of that hall and touch up any rough spots from previous concerts. The pieces we're playing on this tour use a ton of equipment - two sets of chimes, numerous tam tams, and an octave of tuned gongs. These 30 minute rehearsals are really stressful, often going through things very quickly, requiring fast equipment changes for the percussionists. The playing part is usually easier than the logistics. And I couldn't believe it, this hall was even smaller than the last one, with the percussionists again perched up in the choir loft. The temporary floor they had set up had steps up and down as you moved across, it was cramped, and it was again difficult to hear the rest of the orchestra. After the concert last night, I was absolutely beat - it just took so much brainpower to deal with all the extra challenges in addition to the usual ones of playing hard music. But there were some wonderful rewards. If you're familiar with the Planets by Holst, you may remember the piece concludes with a women's chorus singing off stage. They are the last thing heard as they fade away into silence. It's an exceptionally difficult part for the chorus, and ours in Houston is not very good. Usually, this is a subpar part of the performance, and I routinely let my mind wander at that point to avoid the disappointment. Last night though, we were joined by the Edinburgh Women's Chorus, and wow, these ladies can sing. I was caught off guard a bit - the music there is just gorgeous when done well. We've performed it a few dozen times now and I was surprised to find myself re-engaging in that spot and my eyes getting a wee bit moist hearing it performed so beautifully. Despite feeling a bit beaten down by the challenges of the last few concerts, I am relishing the satisfaction that comes from dealing with the adverse conditions and working hard to overcome them by playing well. Today was a day off - a climb up the mountain outside Edinburgh, laundry, St Giles cathedral, and dinner with friends. Tomorrow, chop chop!
Friday, October 08, 2010
Tour Update # 1
Hi friends. This is Mark writing. I'm on tour in the UK with the symphony right now, and I'd like to write down a few details before I forget them. And why not write them here, so you can read about what goes on during an orchestral tour? I'm hoping to put a series of blog entries up here over the course of the next couple weeks.
This trip is 13 days long. We left Houston on October 5th and will return on the 17th. Our flight left Tuesday evening and arrived in London on Wednesday morning. The travel experts say that you should sleep as much as possible on the plane. That way, when you arrive in the morning, you'll feel like you had a night's sleep and can stay awake until normal bedtime at your destination. This was my plan - I brought a neck pillow, an over-the-counter sleep aid, and I was ready to make it happen. Not exactly. The neck pillow was really uncomfortable, as was the crowded airplane. I think I slept for about twenty minutes. On the bright side, the Boeing 777 is really well equipped for passing the time. Dozens of movies available to watch on your own private video screen.
Our hotel was located in Watford, a suburb of London. It would be like Katy, TX or Wheaton, IL - about a half hour train ride into town. The oldtimers in the orchestra love to talk about how the orchestra used to stay in fancy hotels and have minimal time on a bus. Things have changed I suppose. The hotel was clean but not at all upscale, and we do have substantial bus rides on this tour - almost every day.
Once settled in, I ventured into London with some friends, and we did a whole lot of stuff. We were all afraid to go back to the hotel, because we knew we'd fall asleep prematurely. We spent about 8 hours in London, all of it in this sleepy haze. It was kind of bizarre, but I had a good time with these folks. Here's what we did:
-Ate Indian food at a place recommended by a dude on the train. It was tremendous as most Indian restaurants in London are.
-Toured the Tate Modern, London's modern art museum. It was okay, but not nearly as good as MOMA in New York.
-Walked a lot, ending up at St Paul's Cathedral. Stunning, beautiful building - the intricacies everywhere on and in the cathedral were incredible.
-Had a spot of tea in the late afternoon. It just seemed right.
-Attended the Evensong service at St Paul's. Mostly, we wanted to hear the choir in that beautiful space, and they were great. The choir consisted of men and boys only, no women- a little different sound that was beautiful.
-Rode the double decker city bus to the London Eye - this huge ferris wheel type thing that offers great views of London. The line was really long and it was getting dark so we passed on that.
-Walked a lot more, ending up at Gordon's Wine Bar. Somebody told us it was the oldest wine bar in London. I'm not much of a wine guy, but it was fun to be someplace hip and trendy.
-Took the train home.
I neglected to set an alarm that night, and my body clock decided to revert to American time, so I slept for 13 hours. Normally I get to spend a little time with Katie in the middle of the night, so this was a welcome treat. The only bad part was I didn't have much time for Thursday's activities. I went solo this day to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. This is where the zero degree meridian lies - I was able to stand with one foot in the western hemisphere and one in the right. This is also the home of Greenwich Mean Time - the timekeeper to which the entire world sets their clocks. Time and navigation and closely related, or at least used to be before modern things like GPS. So they have a great display there about how timepieces evolved and became reliable enough to make accurate astronomical charts by which sailors could navigate. It was really fascinating. Had another delicious Indian dinner and headed home.
Supposedly recovered from jet lag, we went back to work on Friday. But I'm really tired now, so I'm going to save that for another post. To be continued...
This trip is 13 days long. We left Houston on October 5th and will return on the 17th. Our flight left Tuesday evening and arrived in London on Wednesday morning. The travel experts say that you should sleep as much as possible on the plane. That way, when you arrive in the morning, you'll feel like you had a night's sleep and can stay awake until normal bedtime at your destination. This was my plan - I brought a neck pillow, an over-the-counter sleep aid, and I was ready to make it happen. Not exactly. The neck pillow was really uncomfortable, as was the crowded airplane. I think I slept for about twenty minutes. On the bright side, the Boeing 777 is really well equipped for passing the time. Dozens of movies available to watch on your own private video screen.
Our hotel was located in Watford, a suburb of London. It would be like Katy, TX or Wheaton, IL - about a half hour train ride into town. The oldtimers in the orchestra love to talk about how the orchestra used to stay in fancy hotels and have minimal time on a bus. Things have changed I suppose. The hotel was clean but not at all upscale, and we do have substantial bus rides on this tour - almost every day.
Once settled in, I ventured into London with some friends, and we did a whole lot of stuff. We were all afraid to go back to the hotel, because we knew we'd fall asleep prematurely. We spent about 8 hours in London, all of it in this sleepy haze. It was kind of bizarre, but I had a good time with these folks. Here's what we did:
-Ate Indian food at a place recommended by a dude on the train. It was tremendous as most Indian restaurants in London are.
-Toured the Tate Modern, London's modern art museum. It was okay, but not nearly as good as MOMA in New York.
-Walked a lot, ending up at St Paul's Cathedral. Stunning, beautiful building - the intricacies everywhere on and in the cathedral were incredible.
-Had a spot of tea in the late afternoon. It just seemed right.
-Attended the Evensong service at St Paul's. Mostly, we wanted to hear the choir in that beautiful space, and they were great. The choir consisted of men and boys only, no women- a little different sound that was beautiful.
-Rode the double decker city bus to the London Eye - this huge ferris wheel type thing that offers great views of London. The line was really long and it was getting dark so we passed on that.
-Walked a lot more, ending up at Gordon's Wine Bar. Somebody told us it was the oldest wine bar in London. I'm not much of a wine guy, but it was fun to be someplace hip and trendy.
-Took the train home.
I neglected to set an alarm that night, and my body clock decided to revert to American time, so I slept for 13 hours. Normally I get to spend a little time with Katie in the middle of the night, so this was a welcome treat. The only bad part was I didn't have much time for Thursday's activities. I went solo this day to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. This is where the zero degree meridian lies - I was able to stand with one foot in the western hemisphere and one in the right. This is also the home of Greenwich Mean Time - the timekeeper to which the entire world sets their clocks. Time and navigation and closely related, or at least used to be before modern things like GPS. So they have a great display there about how timepieces evolved and became reliable enough to make accurate astronomical charts by which sailors could navigate. It was really fascinating. Had another delicious Indian dinner and headed home.
Supposedly recovered from jet lag, we went back to work on Friday. But I'm really tired now, so I'm going to save that for another post. To be continued...
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
10 Years!
Mark and I hit our 10-year anniversary in August! It's hard to believe that we have already been married for 10 years! We hoped to do something significant to celebrate the occasion, but with a 3-year old and 5-month old, we were limited in our choices of "get-aways."
We thought that our best chance for some alone time would be to take the kids to Oregon, and leave them with my parents for a few hours while we went out for a nice dinner. Unfortunately, the evening we had planned our date, Benjamin was at the peak of a nasty cold (which the rest of us got when we returned home), and very clingy, so we cancelled our date and watched Veggie Tales and Thomas the Train in bed with him instead. :)
We did manage to escape for a delicious bagel and coffee breakfast by ourselves during our visit with Mom & Dad, and enjoyed sitting outside(!) enjoying the quiet together.
I often like to remember what we were doing on specific days in previous years (ie kid's birthdays, anniversaries, etc). Somehow, for almost all of our anniversaries, we have been in-transit. While I remember most of them, I'll go ahead and record them now. Sorry, no pictures from the first few anniversaries - this was way back when, before digital photographs were common! :)
How fun to remember the past ten anniversaries in our lives! Hopefully the next ten will be as much fun!
We thought that our best chance for some alone time would be to take the kids to Oregon, and leave them with my parents for a few hours while we went out for a nice dinner. Unfortunately, the evening we had planned our date, Benjamin was at the peak of a nasty cold (which the rest of us got when we returned home), and very clingy, so we cancelled our date and watched Veggie Tales and Thomas the Train in bed with him instead. :)
We did manage to escape for a delicious bagel and coffee breakfast by ourselves during our visit with Mom & Dad, and enjoyed sitting outside(!) enjoying the quiet together.
I often like to remember what we were doing on specific days in previous years (ie kid's birthdays, anniversaries, etc). Somehow, for almost all of our anniversaries, we have been in-transit. While I remember most of them, I'll go ahead and record them now. Sorry, no pictures from the first few anniversaries - this was way back when, before digital photographs were common! :)
August 19, 2000 - Got married!
August 19, 2001 - Moved from Miami Beach to Starke, FL. Mark had won his first full-time (sort of) orchestra job with the Jacksonville symphony, and I was enrolled to begin studying Engineering at the University of Florida in Gainesville. We have wonderful memories from our time together in Starke. We were thrilled to be living in our first (rental) house, and soon after moving, adopted our first dog, Buster.
August 19, 2002 - On the road back home from spending the summer with my dad in Oregon. This was a special, yet difficult summer to spend together with him. We stopped for a short visit in Duncanville, TX with Mark's parents and to attend Mark's 10-year high school reunion. I remember returning to our home in Starke extremely late on a Sunday night, and I had my first early morning class for the fall semester the next day. I also remember being thoroughly disgusted by all the dead bugs that the house had acquired while we were gone, and being surprised to find a VERY tall yard had grown in our absence, even though we had paid a neighborhood boy to mow it while we were gone. :)
August 19, 2003 - Mark helped me move into my "apartment" in Orlando to begin my first semester co-op at Disney World. Disney had a large apartment complex to provide housing for their "interns." Most were non-specialized interns who took tickets for rides, etc. hoping to eventually land hospitality-type internships after they had paid their dues. There were also a few engineering internships, namely a very large group (about a dozen) of industrial engineering interns. I shared an apartment with 7 other industrial engineering interns, a bathroom with three of them, and a room with one. It was certainly a change from our cozy Starke house with my husband!
August 19, 2004 - Moving to Houston! I can't remember if we were driving our moving truck to Houston on this day, or actually moving into our rental house on Chippendale. Either way, we were SO excited! Mark had finally won the "big" job earlier in the summer (while I was completing my second co-op semester with Disney). I had one more semester to finish my degree at UF, so after helping Mark move into our new home, I returned to small apartment in Gainesville to finish up my studies. That last semester was a pretty rough one (hurricane through Gainesville, tick infestation, etc) - but that's a story for another day. :) At this point, though, I noticed that in our first four years of marriage, we actually only spent three of them living together!
August 19, 2005 - Moved into our first (purchased) home! The house has changed a lot since we bought it - but we loved it then, and we still love it now.
August 19, 2006 - I think this may be the first year that we actually were not in transit. This summer, we remodeled our kitchen and shortly after our anniversary, I got pregnant with Benjamin! I am sure we went out to dinner, or did something fun to celebrate six years of marriage --- but I can't remember exactly what. We may have gone to the Cheesecake Factory, one of our favorite restaurants.
(Note: don't have a picture from this day, but here is a picture of the two of us a couple of months earlier during a vacation to the Midwest. Here we are at Cedar Point, about to ride the Millennium Force).
August 19, 2007 - We now have a two-month old baby. I do remember (because I blogged about it) that Benjamin slept very well the night before, so we enjoyed the day in a less sleep-deprived than normal state. I believe this day was a Sunday, so after church, we went to Colina's, a low-key Italian restaurant. I remember being very proud of ourselves for getting out and doing something to celebrate, even though our lives felt a bit overwhelming at that time.
August 19, 2008
I can't actually remember what we did for our anniversary this year. By this point, we regularly hired a neighbor's teen-aged daughter Eliza to watch Benjamin for a few hours while we got away for dates, etc. So my best guess is that we hired her for our anniversary so we could go on a date. I wonder what we did? Good chance we went to the Cheesecake Factory, since it used to be our all-time favorite place to eat when we lived in Miami Beach, so reminded us of our early days of marriage.
(Note: this picture is not from our anniversary, but it is from August of 2008).
August 19, 2009 - Mark was in transit on this one, with Benjamin in tow. The two boys flew solo to Mexico to visit Grandma and Granddaddy. I stayed home alone, now pregnant with Katie to focus on work (my role in recruiting was ramping up now, and I was approaching my full-time hours) and rest (and feel nauseous). I think I actually forgot it was our anniversary until Mark sent me a text message! (Note: the picture of me and Ben is from my dad's visit earlier that month while Mark was on a mission trip in Guatemala. The picture of Mark and Ben is taken at Grandma & Granddaddy's house in Mexico. And, yes, I am recognizing the lack of pictures of Mark and I together!).
August 19, 2010 - Well, you've seen the story above.
How fun to remember the past ten anniversaries in our lives! Hopefully the next ten will be as much fun!
Friday, September 17, 2010
15 lbs, 4 oz
That's how big I "grew" Katie solely from my own body. That's right - my newborn baby girl has started solids. We started her about a week ago on rice cereal, and she LOVES it! She knew what to do right away. Ben gave her the first bite, and she went right after it!
As with Benjamin, beginning Katie on solids is both exciting - to be entering the next stage of babyhood with her - and also sad, a marking of the end where I provide her with 100% of her nourishment. I love looking at all that baby chub and knowing that she got it all from me! That first I grew her within in my body, and then after she was born and I had to share her with the rest of the world, that still only I had something that she needed. And that my body was able to grow a healthy 15 lb, 4 oz baby.
But now, it's time for her to take that next first step in independence - and allow the rest of the world to nourish her little body. And it also marks the initial stages of weaning. Which, actually, is sort of nice --- as since I am not back at work, we do not regularly give her bottles, and at this point, I'm not even sure if she would take one. But a couple of days ago, I took Ben to a friend's house to go swimming and could leave Katie at home while she napped, because I knew Mark could feed her a bowl of rice cereal when she woke up. And that was, admittedly, sort of freeing.
So here are a couple of pictures of Katie getting her first bowl of rice cereal! We offered the honor to Benjamin, who was quite excited about it - and actually has looked forward to feeding her the cereal every day since! It's a wonderful activity for Ben and Katie to do together. We have challenges with Ben's "enthusiasm" for touching his sister a bit too energetically, so all of their interactions have to be carefully monitored (no, Benjamin, it's not okay to sit on your sister or rub your feet on her face), but he really "gets" the feeding her process. I explained to put some on the end of the spoon, wait for her to open her mouth, and then pull the spoon back out. And he totally gets it! He's gentle and attentive and really does a good job! Our only challenge is that he wants to wipe her mouth after EVERY bite, which she doesn't really like, so we compromised that she gets a few bites before getting her mouth wiped.
Okay, that felt really good to finally write a blog post --- and it didn't even take that long! Man, I really need to do this more often - it just feels hard to find the time to actually sit down and do it. Hopefully I'll blog soon about a few other topics I've wanted to capture: Mark and my 10-year anniversary (wow!), and our progress on our exterior projects and my determination to make a few changes in our lives (both of which are going well!). So stay tuned...
As with Benjamin, beginning Katie on solids is both exciting - to be entering the next stage of babyhood with her - and also sad, a marking of the end where I provide her with 100% of her nourishment. I love looking at all that baby chub and knowing that she got it all from me! That first I grew her within in my body, and then after she was born and I had to share her with the rest of the world, that still only I had something that she needed. And that my body was able to grow a healthy 15 lb, 4 oz baby.
But now, it's time for her to take that next first step in independence - and allow the rest of the world to nourish her little body. And it also marks the initial stages of weaning. Which, actually, is sort of nice --- as since I am not back at work, we do not regularly give her bottles, and at this point, I'm not even sure if she would take one. But a couple of days ago, I took Ben to a friend's house to go swimming and could leave Katie at home while she napped, because I knew Mark could feed her a bowl of rice cereal when she woke up. And that was, admittedly, sort of freeing.
So here are a couple of pictures of Katie getting her first bowl of rice cereal! We offered the honor to Benjamin, who was quite excited about it - and actually has looked forward to feeding her the cereal every day since! It's a wonderful activity for Ben and Katie to do together. We have challenges with Ben's "enthusiasm" for touching his sister a bit too energetically, so all of their interactions have to be carefully monitored (no, Benjamin, it's not okay to sit on your sister or rub your feet on her face), but he really "gets" the feeding her process. I explained to put some on the end of the spoon, wait for her to open her mouth, and then pull the spoon back out. And he totally gets it! He's gentle and attentive and really does a good job! Our only challenge is that he wants to wipe her mouth after EVERY bite, which she doesn't really like, so we compromised that she gets a few bites before getting her mouth wiped.
Okay, that felt really good to finally write a blog post --- and it didn't even take that long! Man, I really need to do this more often - it just feels hard to find the time to actually sit down and do it. Hopefully I'll blog soon about a few other topics I've wanted to capture: Mark and my 10-year anniversary (wow!), and our progress on our exterior projects and my determination to make a few changes in our lives (both of which are going well!). So stay tuned...
Thursday, September 02, 2010
Before
The blog posts about home improvement projects continue. Sorry to those of you who would prefer updates about our kiddos. We are immensely enjoying time with them day in and day out, and often several times during the night. So, for now, I'm a little more interested in writing about something besides our two beautiful children. :) If you remember an earlier post - these Projects are what get me through the hum-drum (at least for me --- nothing meant for you other SAHMs) of this lifestyle.
(but seriously, all sarcastic-ness aside, Ben is responding well to a few small changes in expectations in our household, and Katie is turning into a pretty fun, go-with-the-flow five month old --- so I do want to write more about them - maybe I will update tomorrow, which will be the one-week point since making my "statement" to be more disciplined about a few things in my life...)
Our interior projects are almost complete. Most of our interior home remodel came courtesy of Hurricane Ike, and I've spent a lot of time over the last five months (!) of my maternity leave organizing our many possessions. The only area left to tackle is our kitchen - and I hope to do that in the next few weeks.
So now, with the promise of fall in the air (I get giddy every time I feel the hint of a cool breeze), we are moving our efforts outside. And I am thrilled. Equally excited to:
(a) update the exterior of our home. Some of this we'd meant to do two years ago, but redirected our efforts (money) to the Hurricane Ike remodel
(b) spend time outside together as a family. With cooler weather, and less intense sun, it's been fun to begin taking Katie outside with us, and I have hopes of us all enjoying time outside together as we tackle the exterior of our house.
So what is there to do outside? What isn't there to do!? First, we've hired a contractor to replace our siding on the whole house and garage and also to build a new carport. We signed the contract last week, and carport demo begins on Tuesday! We are so excited to finally be having this work done. You would think that having someone else do the work would make it easier, but Mark and I really drag our feet when it comes to making decisions about contractors, as well as just coming up with a larger-scale plan that we have to communicate to someone else. When we do the work ourselves, we can just make up our mind as we go. With a contractor, you have to make all the decisions up front. We actually spent a fair amount of time this morning simply trying to decide whether to replace the shutters with painted shutters, wood shutters or to omit them all together. Again, it's often the decisions, not the actual work that slow us down.
But don't worry, in addition to hiring a contractor, we've got plenty of work planned for ourselves too (and don't forget that Mark's garage remodel is also underway):
So, here are our before pictures!
(but seriously, all sarcastic-ness aside, Ben is responding well to a few small changes in expectations in our household, and Katie is turning into a pretty fun, go-with-the-flow five month old --- so I do want to write more about them - maybe I will update tomorrow, which will be the one-week point since making my "statement" to be more disciplined about a few things in my life...)
Our interior projects are almost complete. Most of our interior home remodel came courtesy of Hurricane Ike, and I've spent a lot of time over the last five months (!) of my maternity leave organizing our many possessions. The only area left to tackle is our kitchen - and I hope to do that in the next few weeks.
So now, with the promise of fall in the air (I get giddy every time I feel the hint of a cool breeze), we are moving our efforts outside. And I am thrilled. Equally excited to:
(a) update the exterior of our home. Some of this we'd meant to do two years ago, but redirected our efforts (money) to the Hurricane Ike remodel
(b) spend time outside together as a family. With cooler weather, and less intense sun, it's been fun to begin taking Katie outside with us, and I have hopes of us all enjoying time outside together as we tackle the exterior of our house.
So what is there to do outside? What isn't there to do!? First, we've hired a contractor to replace our siding on the whole house and garage and also to build a new carport. We signed the contract last week, and carport demo begins on Tuesday! We are so excited to finally be having this work done. You would think that having someone else do the work would make it easier, but Mark and I really drag our feet when it comes to making decisions about contractors, as well as just coming up with a larger-scale plan that we have to communicate to someone else. When we do the work ourselves, we can just make up our mind as we go. With a contractor, you have to make all the decisions up front. We actually spent a fair amount of time this morning simply trying to decide whether to replace the shutters with painted shutters, wood shutters or to omit them all together. Again, it's often the decisions, not the actual work that slow us down.
But don't worry, in addition to hiring a contractor, we've got plenty of work planned for ourselves too (and don't forget that Mark's garage remodel is also underway):
- Rebuild a few of our fences that need repair and/or we want located in different places. These are all very short sections of fence, so this shouldn't be too bad.
- Pave the area by our back door. Currently this area becomes a mudslide every time it rains, which is just great when little people forget to take their shoes off upon coming inside. We also hope to (maybe) get a dog next summer, so I really want to not have to wipe muddy paws every time doggie comes in and out.
- Improve our drainage. We may actually hire this out to a contractor. Not sure yet whether we are going to try and actually install some drains in low spots or just even out the yard. Either way, our grass is a bit spotty and lumpy, so with or without drainage, we need some evening out.
- Install a sprinkler system. We considered hiring this out, but I've heard it's pretty simple (and cheap) to do yourself, and I thought Ben might like hanging out outside with Mark while he does all that digging.
- Landscape! Including figuring out how to make a rain garden for the area outside our front porch, where the roof run-off has killed our attempts at sod.
So, here are our before pictures!
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