Happy Christmas! and other things

I was able to visit my parents for the second week of December. This was a special treat since I won't be able to visit for Christmas or Thanksgiving. It was a fun week. Dad let me go with him to get the tree and then Brandon pretty much decorated the tree all by himself. It was great to see my family!

Every time we have gone tree shopping, Dad always goes to the first tree he sees--usually a little tree--and wants to buy it. Poor Dad, I think I may have dragged him through all the nobles at that tree farm til we finally found one.

Brandon steadying the tree. I think it's a little crooked, but I also held the camera a little crooked too.

Sweet baby Grace and Becca.

The happy and ever-mischevious Will. What a cutie!

The finished product with Christmas village over the fireplace.

Since graduating and being unemployed, I've enjoyed making jewelry. Here is a fun woven bracelet and a pair of Venetian glass earrings. Fun fun.

We actually have never had a tree in our five years of married life. Kind of sad, but I've compensated a little by decorating our windows.

This is my first ever blueberry pie, from my mother-in-law's excellent recipe--better than Cook's. Kind of random, but I was happy with how it turned out, so I thought I'd add it to the post.

Summer in Chicago

We haven't been very good about posting lately. Mostly, I have neglected to bring the camera to any of the fun things that we've gone to, and I don't like to post without pictures.

Chris has been very busy this summer with an internship at Schiff Hardin Llp. It has been a great experience for him and he has really grown to appreciate the firm. We are prayerful and hopeful that it may work out into something permanent. We should know by the end of August what will be going on.

When Chris wasn't working, we were able to do some fun things in Chicago. We went to the Taste of Chicago (which, by the way, is overrated and overpriced, and the Bite of Seattle is much better in my opinion), or the exciting circus show on Navy Pier, The Spirit of Shanghai. We've had lots of fun walking around Chicago and visiting some fun restaurants and visiting the Art Institute on the free evening. While we don't really have pictures documenting these activites, I have collected a few pictures to post.

This is a bird's nest right outside our bedroom window that we only realized was there the day we took these photos. These baby birds look old enough to take flight very soon.

Baby birds with the mother. Very sweet.

A lovely painting at the Art Institute. I can't remember who it's by, though! I'll have to go back and find out.

Van Gogh's self portrait. Somebody said that it looked like Chris could be related. Beyond the red hair, I'm not sure I see it, but we thought we'd take a picture anyway.

This sunburn was the aftermath of our trip to the Taste and the Circus (which I do not have pictures of).

Congratulations to Chris and Class of 2009!

Yesterday was particularly exciting, marking the end of Chris's time in law school. Yay! He worked so hard and did a great job, and I am so proud of him! I married a smarty! :) I'm also glad it's overwith because he spent almost ALL of his waking hours studying, with the exception of meal time and Sundays. It is so nice to have him back and be able to spend time together.

This is the view of the graduates entering the Rockefeller Chapel for the Hooding Ceremony. This building is really fun and we were fortunate enough to get seats up above in the back of the nave.

I thought this window was particularly beautiful.

The view of the ceiling (can't remember the architectural term from my Art History Class--Sorry Mr. Sieger).

This was actually the first part of graduation: Convocation. They received their diplomas at this part. The guys playing the bagpipes were awesome.

This is kind of a funny picture. Apparently the guy looking at the camera is also named Chris. So, when we were yelling out for Chris to look at the camera, this guy thought it was for him. I guess Chris thought it was for this other guy too, because he didn't realize it was us until after the picture was taken. Very funny.

Chris's parents were able to make it for his graduation. They were very proud of their law school graduate. It was good to visit with them. Thanks for coming!

Senior Recital

I recently had my senior recital on April 28th. I've just been slow about doing a post. Words cannot express the relief of having it over and done with. Oddly, it was much easier to do than I thought it would be. And, I can honestly say that it was kind of fun. Somehow, I was able let go of my inhibitions and get into the music, which isn't the easiest thing for me to do when I perform. So, I'm grateful to report that it was a good experience.
As a little girl, I remember looking up to my older brother (who is an awesome opera singer now) and thinking that I could never get up and do a whole recital by myself on stage. It's a bit of a running joke that I'm a performance major, and especially that I'm a soprano. I'm so opposite of a diva--at least in the idea that I don't enjoy being in the limelight--it's not even funny. Anyway, it feels pretty good to have accomplished something that has truly frightened me for so long. I look rather silly in this picture, but I didn't get very many pictures, so here is a pose onstage after the recital was over.

This is Kiyona and me. Kiyona is an awesome pianist. I was lucky enough to get the best student pianist at NEIU to accompany my recital.

I was grateful that Chris and some friends from church could come. Poor Chris has barely any time do to anything besides study, so it's almost astonishing that he was able to make it. :) I'm not sure what is causing the expressions in this picture. All I can remember is how good it felt to be done!!

This is my program. Hopefully it's not too small to see... Anyway, I really want to thank my family for their encouragment and faith and prayers on my behalf, because this is what gotten me through it all without freaking out too much. :) And thank you in particular to Brian, who has been so instrumental in helping me to learn to sing better and who gave me so much encouragement.

Into the Woods again

Many thanks to Michelle for all these pictures. This is backstage with Mike (The Baker) and Michelle (Little Red), both of whom were wonderful as their respective characters.

Little Red is sad because we made plans to kill the giant and thinks we ought to have shown forgiveness. This is right before Cinderella sings the famous song from the show: No one is alone.

This is the wedding scene, of course. John played an awesome Cinderella's prince. One of the best lines of the show is after Cinderella gets mad at Cinderella's prince and he responds, "I was raised to be charming, not sincere," as some kind of excuse for infidelity. Nice. John did a great job and hammed it up.

Here is my solo song onstage about how the prince spread pitch on the stairs of the palace and how I lost one of my gold slippers as a result and also what my plans are.

We're all singing about how happy we are in this scene. From left to right, Dave (Cinderella's Father), Rose (Cinderella's stepmother), Chrissy (Lucinda), Carrie (Florinda), all of whom were great and fun to work with.

Backstage shot of Cinderella's princess attire.

Backstage as the wedding couple. Fun fun.

Into the Woods

Finally, we have made it to production week for Into the Woods. This is the final scene of the show right before our final dance number. This show has been very challenging. Of my limited experience with opera scenes--specfically Massenet, Mozart, and Kurt Weill (operetta)--that I've been involved in, they have been much easier for me than this show. First of all, Sondheim likes to mix song with rhythmic speech in his music, and it makes it very difficult to coordinate. Also, since there is dialogue in between the songs, the orchestra has to find its cue from our lines (a challenging thing if someone happens to drop a line), and we in turn have to figure out when exactly to start singing, which isn't always as obvious as it could be. I'm glad that tomorrow will be our last show.

On opening night, I had a pretty terrible cold. I was just REALLY glad I was singing broadway and not opera, because that would have been very interesting to try to get out any technically difficult notes. Thankfully, due to faith and prayers, I got through the performance. My part wasn't fabulous by any stretch of the imagination, but I was grateful that I had a voice at all and didn't have to hold a tissue to my nose the whole time.

This is my first costume for the show. Note my curly hairpiece. It's kind of weird to look at myself with a mass of hair in the back. Especially when I just got my hair cut nice and short:

Here is another picture of me in Cinderella's ballgown. It was supposed to be on the shoulder, but the sleeves kept falling off, (I have a very short torso, and the ribbing of the dress kept the dress up too high for the sleeves to stay on) and so I had to wear it like this. Note the gold shoes. In Sondheim's production, Cinderella has gold shoes instead of glass. I'm rather glad about that.

Happy Valentine's Day

It's been a while since we posted, mostly because I can't ever remember to bring my camera with me. I guess I could post without pictures, but that's not as much fun. Things have been going well for us. Chris is busy with school and is now seriously thinking about a clerkship. So, it'll probably be another three years at least before we're actually settled somewhere.

I'm involved with my university's production of Sondheim's Into the Woods and so I've been keeping busy with that. Maybe I'll get some pictures of that in the future. Apparently I get to have a wig since Cinderella doesn't usually have short hair. That'll be interesting. I'm also trying to schedule my senior recital. I still don't know when that will be, but I'm shooting for May 10th.

Anyway, the first two pictures are of the fun costumes and wig I'll get to wear for Into the Woods and the rest of the pictures are from our Valentine's Day trip downtown. We had a lovely time and had a very yummy lunch at a little Irish restaurant by Millennium Park called The Gage. If you know me well, you know that I'm always looking for the best fish and chips, and this place can definitely compete. If any of you come visit, we may have to stop by.
This is Cinderella's outfit when she becomes a princess and marries Cinderella's Prince (that's as much identification as his character has in the play--no name, just Cinderella's Prince).

And this is the ball gown. Fun fun.

So, this is an interesting sculpture rendition of American Gothic. It's quite large, as you can see from the picture.

This is Utah's claim to fame on the Chicago Tribune building. We didn't get a close up shot of it, but it's a piece of the Salt Lake Temple...we're not quite sure how they got a piece of it, but here it is, nevertheless.

And here is the piece of Mount Rainier. Home sweet home.

Chris and I took the Metra to downtown. It's kind of a fun experience to take the train every now and then. Note our Valentine's tradition of getting breakfast at McDonald's. I have a weird affinity for their bacon, egg and cheese biscuits.