Rosa Lately

Rosa's a busy little bee. Recently she joined our softball team for a game.

Not only was she a great catcher, but her swinging bunt set the pace for what ended up being a very successful inning.

Besides playing softball, and working nearly full time, Rosa's also getting all prepped for her big show.

She actually has direct orders from the show's director that she can't cut her hair!

They want her to grow it out so they can put it into a lovely turn-of-the-century style.

This was the first attempt. She doesn't like this photo 'cause the hair is falling down (the photo was taken a couple hours after they put it up), but I think it looks great! I'm excited for the show (opens Dec 6).

And if you watch close enough, and remain patient, every once in a while you can catch a glimpse of Rosa actually relaxing.

Love you, Rosie!

She's got pipes

Check out Rosa's blog for some amateurish videos of some very professional singing.

SoJam

In true a cappella nerdiness form, Rosa and I traveled all the way down to North Carolina this past weekend to attend a big a cappella festival. Bringing together dozens of groups and hundreds of fans, this is truly a mega event if there ever was one. Fortunately, it had less of a trekkie convention feel and more of a sweet concert feel.

Friday night there was a great collegiate competition. Saturday they had classes all day (including a few by yours truly), and then Saturday night was the greatest pro concert I've ever been to. We saw an energetic young group from NYC called Duwende, an unbelievable heavy metal (yes heavy metal) group from Finland called Fork, and the coolest batch of street guys from the Bronx called Naturally 7. I highly recommend looking these guys up on YouTube. The show was jaw dropping.

Overall, we had fun teaching, helping groups, helping the event producers, and especially meeting old friends. A great weekend!

Autumn Abounds

It's finally getting cold here in Virginia. The low was 25 last night. I wouldn't have noticed, except through a series of unfortunate events, I ended up locked out of our apartment for quite a while. Luckily, my new iPhone kept me up to date on the latest temperature, just so I'd know how freezing I was.

I digress. Now that it's getting cold, fall is finally upon us. Having been raised by a New Englander mother transplant in California, I was taught to appreciate the colors on the trees during this amazing season. Here are a few of my sites walking back and forth to school each day. Eat your heart out, Mom.

Simpsons Dave

Eat my shorts. Or something.

Marathon Weekend

I have definitely run more than 26 miles in my life. But not in a row. Yesterday Rosa's sister Monica and her husband Matt did just that in the Marine Corps Marathon up in DC. We drove up there after church to catch them in the end of the race. They did it in under 5 hours, which as far as I'm concerned is a miracle.

Matt is a firefighter in the Cleveland area. They met up here with a bunch of fellow firefighters. This is their group outside the IAFF tent.

Back inside the tent, there were a million little bottles of Gatorade, bananas, cookies, bagels, and Goldfish crackers. The gatorade and bananas I understand, but cookies? I guess they're shooting for replenishing carbs. Matt and Monica told us that pretty much everything tastes good after the race.

It was so fun to see them! We don't live near any family, so we gotta take every chance we can get.

In front of the Iwo Jima monument. Congratulations, M&M! See you again at Christmas!

Chocolate Festival

This past weekend, right here in our own little city of Charlottesville, they held a Chocolate Festival! Could there be anything in the world so exciting?!

A few steps into the tent, and who did we find? Our good friend Jenni Bowman, selling her beautiful faux chocolate.

Her husband Jeff was reeling in the crowd with real chocolate.

Jenni makes these deceptively delicious looking cakes and candies for decoration. They look great at parties, weddings, or as a fun gift.

This tree is covered in beautiful handmade faux chocolates. You can store this tree and bring it out every December. And you don't have to worry about little hands eating your ornaments.

Don't those cupcakes look tasty?

Yum.

I like the dipped apples. They'd make a cool holiday decoration.

While our senses of smell and taste were being entertained with fudge samples and cupcakes, our ears were filled with the fun folk music of... these two dudes.

Virginia's favorite son Robert E. Lee looked on approvingly.

I think the cream cheese chocolate muffins were Rosa's favorite.

Or was it the Melting Pot strawberries and pineapples dipped in warm chocolate?

I think the Melting Pot chocolate won. This is the cleanest picture I had of Rosa eating it. Don't worry - her fingers were clean before she started "scooping" out the chocolate.

Although Rosa was in heaven, I found something I loved too - dark chocolate fudge! What a delicious day.

Rosa's Charlottesville Debut

The Curtises and I packed into the back seat of the Olsons' car this past weekend to go out to Barboursville. Why are we so dressed up? Because Four County Players was having its 35th anniversary Musical Revue and Celebration, that's why! Rosa had two big solos in the production of "The Little Theatre That Could."

While we were packed in the car, she was busy getting ready backstage. Note the two bags of kettle corn.

She did a GREAT job! We were so proud! She got a jillion compliments from the audience members after the show. Of course. Some of the older ladies were especially fond of her beautiful dress, commenting that they wore similar dresses "back in the day." I seem to recall the word "classy" being used several times.

After the show we gathered out front of the beautiful building with the big red doors to take photos which ended up looking like awkward prom photos. It was fun despite our awkwardness.

We're so proud of you, Rosie!

Shadow Puppet Show

Raymond Crowe is one of Australia's leading contemporary magicians. And I say he's one of the most incredible shadow puppeteers ever born. Check out his stuff:

A Day in the District

I had a little break from school last week, and Rosa took Wednesday off of work just so we could spend a day together. We decided to take a little day trip to Washington, just two hours to the north of our home. Our first stop was a visit to the LDS temple in nearby Kensington, MD. It's one of the largest temples in the world, and it's absolutely breathtaking. It was, as always, a refreshing couple of hours we spent there. So good! (except for my crooked tie in this picture)

We grabbed a quick bite in nearby Silver Spring, where Rosa discovered... a JAMBA JUICE. After chocolate, Jamba Juice ranks as Rosa's number two biggest addiction. She's basically obsessed. And surprise surprise, we found that Silver Springs also has one of my favorite places from California: Baja Fresh. Yum.

Since we've both done the DC tourist thing a few times, we decided to try to find something we hadn't done before. Rosa went online and found a place we had both never been: the International Spy Museum! So cool! I've always wanted to be a spy, so of course this was the perfect place for me. Actually, maybe I already AM a spy! Just kidding. Or am I?

So we got there and it was CLOSED. What?!! We had checked online and the website advertises in multiple places that the museum closes at 8pm. We got there a couple minutes after 6pm. Yes, two hours before closing time. But some bus full of teenagers informed us that it had just closed a couple minutes earlier. So after we spied the hours on the door, apparently "Hours Vary By Season." SO HELPFUL!! And of course it would be very hard to put the hours of the different seasons. Or a sharpie-handwritten 8.5" x 11" explaining the current hours. Or seventeen seconds updating the so-called "website."

Oh well. We cut our losses and decided to make an evening of it. We headed over to check out Ford's Theatre, the famous theatre where Abraham Lincoln was shot. We knew ahead of time that the theatre is closed these days, so it wasn't quite such a shock when we saw the closed sign out front. But did you know they're still using it as a theatre? It hasn't been continuously open since 1865, but it has been running again since like the 80's. They're doing A Christmas Carol there this December for example.

After walking around and seeing a few more sites, we visited la Casa Blanca. I don't think W was there, but if he were, I know he would've hung out with us. Even though we were a couple acres away and in front of the big bars. And there are probably fifty snipers between us and the mansion. Okay, so maybe he wouldn't have hung out with us, but he'd be pleased to know that we're still among the 3% of Americans that approve of the job he's doing. Except for Guantanamo. That's just messed up.

We ended the night doing cool camera tricks. And by "cool," I mean a 7th grader would want us to be in their cool club after seeing these pictures.

Even though we were fooled by the tricky spy museum, it still turned out to be a really fun day.