A very full weekend....

We had a very fun, very full weekend... the Burgoynes were in town, which we always love. And of course that means the whole family was together hanging out for a large portion of it. :)

Cameron arrived a few days earlier so Troy and I did our best to help entertain him... first the ReAL Soccer Game (Futbol Match - for Troy's sake) and then we took him to his first ballet. We all had a great time at the game, and the ballet was excellent as well.

The soccer game was very fun.... but it was also VERY WET! It started raining pretty hard during the second half, and ended up pretty chilly, but we still had a great time! Not sure you can see the rain in the photos... but I tried. :)
First the ominous clouds...
The ballet was the "Treasures of the Ballet Russes" and was 3 different pieces from one of the original ballet companies in the world -- I think... Troy is that right?? Anyway... all three of us really liked "The Prodigal Son"... it was emotional and touching and performed very well. I think Cameron was pleasantly surprised by the ballet overall. At the first intermission he said, "it's not nearly as boring as I expected." Haha! Hopefully he will try attending at least a few more.

Anyway.... here are Avery and Emma.... such little angels when they are sleeping (or getting along.) And Troy and I were in charge of dessert for Sunday dinner... we bought pie for the adults and I made "yummy cookies" for the kids. Troy talked the cookies up a lot... I hope they didn't disappoint. :) And of course, we have one photo of chubby little Henry...

Busy Weekend...

We had a VERY busy weekend, but it was enjoyable too! Friday was Ballet West's Madame Butterfly and we both thoroughly enjoyed it! There was an opening piece called "Gong" that we both disliked, but Madame Butterfly was great! The dancer who played the part of Cio-cio San (Butterfly) has never performed a lead role before from what I understand and I thought she was amazing!

Saturday night we went to the Symphony - Tchaikovsky's 1st Piano Concerto. The concert was amazing! Troy and I both thought that the pieces performed were absolutely beautiful. Excellent concert!

Saturday afternoon, while it was very nice to see many of Troy's relatives, we were unfortunately attending his Great-Uncle Victor's funeral. I only met Victor a couple times but he seemed to be very kind and loving man. The funeral service was very nice and Victor was buried with full military honors after serving valiantly in World War II.

Back in action...

Yeah! I am back in action.... working computer with a nice big screen, a battery that holds a charge and a touch pad that works... LIFE IS GOOD! :)

So.... more updates will come very soon, but in the meantime we had a great weekend! The Symphony on Friday was beautiful! The Cedar Lake Ballet show on Saturday was great! It was more contemporary dance than ballet but we LOVED it!!! The Studio D After Party was a bit of a bust but we still had a good time. :)

Then of course Sunday was Paul and Pat's mission farewell and lots of time hanging out with that whole family.... which Troy and I always love. The kids were especially loving to use Troy as a jungle gym today... Haha! We will miss Paul and Pat when they head to New Zealand... perhaps we'll have to go visit. :)

Here is Troy entertaining Emi, Nellie, JJ, William, and at times Peter, and Andrew as well. Haha! Last of all we had Troy's birthday dinner with his family. It was great to see everyone and Troy received awesome gifts, as always. :) Thanks again, Colleen (and all the Hickmans) for including my Dad in the fun!

Winter has arrived!

I think its been below freezing for 3 or 4 days now... haha! And the snow has arrived in piles! It looks really pretty as long as you are inside a warm house and not trying to drive in it. :) Actually... its not so bad...

These pictures are from the last storm a few days ago... much more snow now, but you get the general idea...

Tomorrow we start all our Christmas festivities!! We are going to the Nutcracker Ballet tomorrow evening and then to the Christmas Spirituals (Symphony) concert on Saturday! I have never seen the Nutcracker so I am very excited for that! Also, the Christmas Spirituals concert is supposed to be really cool - I have been looking forward to it for weeks!

Hopefully somewhere in there we can squeeze in the ZOO LIGHTS! We were going to go tonight, but Troy's last paper was more important.... maybe Saturday evening before the Symphony...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Mid-week Date Night....

It's rare lately that we are able to find time during the week to see each other, let alone go out on a dinner date... but this week we did! And it was awesome! We went to Macaroni Grill and did a little shopping, etc.... basically just enjoyed some time together. This semester has been really tough on Troy so it was a much needed night off. :) Gotta love mid-week date nights! :)

Tonight we are off to the symphony to celebrate Halloween... haha! No, we aren't in costumes, but I am at least in a orange top and shoes. :) And tomorrow is the Ballet... looking forward to that too!

The crazy life we lead...

Thursday - the Dance Koester Dance show was AMAZING! and of course school for Troy!

Friday - the Monet to Picasso Exhibit was just as good the 2nd time around and we even went out for Sushi with some friends after... Great times! And I ran into my old roommate from BYU Freshman year at the dorms.... SMALL WORLD!! and of course school for Troy!

Saturday - Jessica and Ben's wedding... great fun, beautiful place!

Monday - Ballet West's Curtain Up (preview of the new season and premiere of the new dances that may be selected for the Innovations show in May) - lots of good potential in the new pieces and a fun evening! and of course school for Troy!

Tuesday- working on my lesson for Relief Society and still have NO CLUE what I will say! Why exactly did I agree to substitute??????? and of course school for Troy!

Wednesday - Paulette was in town for her Grandfather-in-law's funeral and so she stopped by the office for a quick visit with me... it was WAY too short but we had a great time none-the-less. Atlanta is just too far away! :( Then Troy and I headed off to our RWDC Board meeting... my first meeting as the official vice-chair and I am also taking a larger role in the planning of the annual fund-raiser (March). Troy is also more involved this year... he is the co-chair of the Hospitality Committee. He and Tracy(co-chair) have some great ideas of new things they want to try and I know it will be wonderful! and of course school for Troy!


And still to come....

Thursday - Stitiches coming out! Yuck! and of course school for Troy! (AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO DARREN AND TJ!!)

Friday - 70's Party----- I really wish I still had Shelly's purple suede fringe vest!! No clue what to wear....... and of course school for Troy!

Saturday - Opening concert for the Utah Symphony... can't wait!

Sunday - sub for Relief Society..... have no clue what will be said....

Monday - Studio D planning meeting/party... looking forward to it! and of course school for Troy!

Early start to the weekend...

OK – can I just tell you how very cool this site is - http://www.nowplayingutah.com/. It seriously rocks! It’s such an awesome tool for finding out what’s going on in Salt Lake….. use it!

Anyway, last night we got an early start to our weekend with our attendance at Ballet West’s Innovations – what a phenomenal show! Unfortunately I am paying for it today because we were out WAY too late for a school night, but it was such a fun evening!

About the show - Three of the pieces were choreographed by dancers from Ballet West, and these numbers were all spectacular. It also seemed that the dancers really enjoyed performing the numbers, which made it that much more moving for the audience. The other two pieces were also very good and we enjoyed them very much. The whole show was more of the contemporary ballet style than Ballet West has done in the past, and it was welcome change for this show. It really was wonderful!


Saturday we have the last Symphony of the season, and while we are very sad for the season to end.. we are very much looking forward to the show!


Have a great weekend everyone!!

Slacker...

Sorry I have been such a BLOG slacker the last week or so! Things have just been a little nuts with Troy back in school and me editing the 2^nd edition of Money For Life (my boss’s book) and trying to make time to work on the brochure/proposal for the Children’s Foundation (SKIDS). But…. It’s still no excuse! So… I will just update and move forward with more timely blogging. :)

Memorial weekend was a fairly mellow weekend for us… school, work, etc took up most of our time it seems but we still found time for renting some movies and enjoy the rain. On Memorial Day we went to visit Troy’s Father’s grave and take him some flowers. We also took some flowers to Grandpa Hansen and Colleen’s Grandmother while we were there too. Then we headed across the valley to visit Colleen’s Mom’s grave and to stop in and leave some flowers for Grandma and Grandpa Streiff too. They have added some pretty new garden areas at the graveyard, which we were very happy to see. Next we stopped over to leave some flowers for Grandma and Grandpa Anderson… As you can see from the photos, a few other family members stopped in to visit the graves as well. It was a fun trip down memory lane and despite the pouring rain, we had a lovely day.

On Thursday night Troy and I had the opportunity to hangout with Avery for the evening while her parents were at the new Indiana Jones movie… they said it was great! Troy and I will have to go see it soon! We worked on my car which wasn’t especially fun for Troy who was doing all the work but Avery and I raced up and down the driveway, took turns pretending to drive the car and trying on all the exciting bracelets that reside on the gear shift knob of my car. Haha! After the headlights were all fixed, we loaded up and went for a drive… which Avery thought was very cool, despite the fact that it was only to Wendy’s and back. Haha! It’s not very often that Avery gets to ride in Jen’s car so it was quite the thrill apparently. The evening took a pretty boring turn for Avery after that as she was forced to watch a movie with us that was not at all her speed. Oh well, she seemed to enjoy climbing all over the couch and all over me…. Haha!

Saturday was the Symphony…. Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5. There was also a guest conductor who was very entertaining to watch… at least for me. Troy was less than enthusiastic about his style, but I thought he was hilarious. He would get very into the music in certain areas and start doing these dancing moves with his shoulders, or making these “jazz hands” type moves at the musicians. Haha! Anyway… I loved the piano concerto and the Prokofiev piece was excellent as well. I was not familiar with Prokofiev before that night but the piece had a dark, Russian kind of feel and it was very cool. It was Troy’s favorite piece of the evening.

Let’s see…. What other things do I need to catch up on? Ahhh.. yes, the latest Dog rescue. I am not sure what it is about Troy and I finding stray dogs in every neighborhood we go to!?! But, none-the-less, it seems to happen quite often. A little while back we were up in my old haunting grounds of Holladay and the surrounding area… we came across Newman (pictured below with Troy) roaming a rather busy street and getting increasing closer to Highland Drive (which many of you know is a very busy street). After several attempts to get Newman to trust Troy enough to let him grab his collar (attempts which included bribery with whatever snacks we had in the car… namely yogurt raisins and Doritos, neither of which are usually very good dog snacks) we were able to call Newman’s Dad. Unfortunately he was in Park City for the day but asked us if we would do him the huge favor of taking Newman to his house and putting him in the garage. So…. off we went. Newman was home safe and we were on our way. :)

This week we have the last Ballet of the season – Innovations, as well as the last Symphony of the season. We are looking very forward to the Deer Valley Music Festival and our picnics with the Symphony up in the mountains, under the stars!

Gotta love ballet dancers in drag! Haha!

Cinderella was great! We just loved it! As we have gotten to know a few of the dancers more, each show just becomes more entertaining to watch. The new artistic director changed a few things up from the last production of Cinderella that I saw, but all the changes were excellent. :) Next month we have Cinderella, the Opera, and we are very much looking forward to that as well!

Before the ballet we had dinner at Bambara – excellent food and phenomenal service! We even decided to go back after the ballet for dessert… we loved it and may make this a new tradition. :) We chatted with our server for a while too and found out that she is a composer, so next weekend we are going to try to introduce her to the new non-profit composer’s collective that some friends of ours started.

We also went to the Symphony on Saturday – Greig’s Piano Concerto, which also featured a Bartok piece that was wonderful! I think due to it being Valentine’s weekend, the place was packed! It was great to see, but also made it a bit warm in there… not good since we had been up so late the night before! Haha! Despite all that, we both thoroughly enjoyed all the pieces and the conductor was a riot to watch! It was a guest conductor, from Germany, I think and he was very enthusiastic!

This week will be a little crazy… we have a dance show in Park City tomorrow, Askie arrives on Wednesday (Yeah!!!), I have a planning meeting for the fundraiser on Thursday, symphony on Friday, and then a birthday party and the Salty Cricket Composers concert on Saturday…… I am tired already! I better get to bed early tonight!!

Plus we are hoping to find time to go see Menopause – the musical! It’s been getting great reviews and they are donating to the MS Society for every ticket purchase – you all know what a sucker I am for stuff like that! Haha!

Is it the weekend yet???

OK.... my brain is just too fried this week to write much of anything... Haha! It's been a crazy week with book edits, cover designs, print bids, web site launches, partner agreements, etc. While its always challenging, and fun in a work-a-holic kind of way... I am very happy that the week is ALMOST over! Tonight we are off to the Symphony and tomorrow night we are going to the Ballet with a fun after-party for the Studio D crowd. Can't wait! :)

So... since I have very little brain power left today... I am simply posting a funny joke that Mom emailed me today. :) It cracked me up and reminded me of a little trip that Troy and I made to Home Depot just last week. Haha!
____________

Three men were hiking through a forest when they came
upon a large raging violent river. 

Needing to get on the other side, the first man prayed,
"God, please give me the strength to cross the river."
Poof! God gave him big arms and strong legs and he was
able to swim across in about 2 hours, having almost
drowned twice.

After witnessing that, the second man prayed,
"God, please give me strength and the tools to
cross the river."
Poof! God gave him a rowboat and strong arms
and strong legs and he was able to row across in
about an hour after almost
capsizing once.

Seeing what happened to the first two men, the
third man prayed, "God, please give me the strength,
the tools and the intelligence to cross the river.
Poof! He was turned into a woman. She checked the map,
hiked one hundred yards up stream and walked across
the bridge.