Monday, October 30, 2006

Halloween

So, it's Halloween tomorrow and our kids have all carved pumpkins to put out on our steps. We decided that I will stay home and answer the door tomorrow night and Lani will take the kids out trick-or-treating. I'm thinking that quite a few of my students will probably come by throughout the night, so it might be nice to be here and greet them.

It's been cold lately! Several nights this last week with frost and tonight is supposed to be a little below freezing again. Fall is definitely here and Winter is around the corner! It's been nice to enjoy all the Fall colors.

We're singing a Stabat Mater in Portland Symphonic Choir right now and will be performing on Nov. 11 & 12 with the Vancouver Chamber Orchestra. The traditional text is basically about the grief that Mary, the mother of Jesus, feels. This setting is by Salvador Brotons and has a lot of dissonant, modern harmony. It's tough to sing and not terribly enjoyable really. I'll be glad when we're working on our Christmas program music!

Hannah will be performing soon as Rapunzel in the Gresham H.S. production of "Into the Woods". If you're in the area, come see her and an excellent cast Nov. 9-12 and 16-19. Let us know if you need tickets!

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Oct. 15 and I really need to post something!

I know, I know. It's been a long, long time since I wrote anything here.

Well, life is good and life is busy! I often think of things I'd like to share here, but seldom have the time to actually go do it. Anyway, here are some recent things of note:

We have finally decided on a new church home. It's been hard and no one place met every family member's criteria, but we are going to be a part of the Abundant Life Church. They have great children's and teens' programs, dynamic preaching, very lively worship, and are really growing alot. They seem to have lots of good ministries to hurting and recovering people, they offer many service opportunities, and they are baptizing 100-200 people each year. You can see their website at: www.coolchurch.com

I sang in my first concerts with Portland Symphonic Choir this weekend. We get really busy during concert week! This past week we had evening rehearsals on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, & Saturday nights and then did an afternoon and evening concert today. Whew! Tomorrow night we're back to just our regular Monday night practice time until the second week of November when we'll do the concert-week schedule again (and then again the third week of December). We shared this program with Seattle Pro Musica, each doing a section alone and then two pieces together to conclude. Saint Mary's Cathedral was a gorgeous and reverberant place to sing and both choirs performed at a pretty high level. You can see what we're singing the rest of this season at: http://www.pschoir.org/Season2005/Programs.shtml

Saturday, while Lani was out of town at a TAG conference in Bend, I rebuilt our front steps. Like any project, it took more than I thought to do what I was attempting. As I tore off the old step boards, some of the framing and stair risers broke apart and couldn't be reused. I ended up having to cut two new stair risers and reinforce both side risers that I could reuse. I got the steps done finally, but don't have a railing back up yet. It's wider now and does look nicer!

Hmm. . . there are probably plenty of other things to say, but I'm ready for some rest. Brian & Eryann Maki -- along with Lani's mom -- are coming from Missoula this Thursday and staying through the weekend. We may try to go to the Oregon coast, or a local pumpkin patch, or do something else special. Looks like we'll be here during Thanksgiving and then make a trip to Montana during Christmas break. We've ordered new kitchen cabinets (to install ourselves) which should arrive in early to mid-November, so we'll be working hard to get those all done before Thanksgiving break is over. I started up a choir at my elementary school and have about 62 kids in it so far! It's cool and rainy today; the weatherman says that we may have had our last 70-degree days for this year. The leaves are turning lots of beautiful colors too!