Big Hole in the Ground

News from Texas:

~Maintenance decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and replace our drywall, respackle (sp?) the wall and ceiling and give everything a poor paint job. I don't know why they thought they should do this BEFORE ascertaining the chimney was fixed. It POURED yesterday while I was at the library and I came home to find a puddle in my fireplace. How do you make an eyes-rolling emoticon?

~You know you're in Texas when you see a hearse made out of a pick-up truck.

~You know you're in the Bible Belt when Harry Potter comes out, your local library only purchases 10 copies, and no one comes to pick them up the day they're released! (Mike and I bought one copy and are reading it aloud to each other. While this is great fun, it makes it rather slow-going, so don't anyone spoil it for us!)

~We FINALLY found a gym. We were going running at our duck pond but it's turning into a horribly muggy Texas summer. We thought we'd try the local YMCA, figuring it would be cheap. Unfortunately, it was ridiculously expensive, rather Stepford Wives-ish, gave the decided feeling of a cult, AND we were already asked to join someone's church--just because we were getting a tour of the facility. So we checked out another gym, only to discover that the only plan we could afford put limits on when and how many days you could go to the gym. But hurrah, we persevered, and found a gym just down the street. Now we can run in comfort!

~And last but not least, our trip to Arizona! Our friends Emily



and Tim (he's saying the word "blog")



are working at Northern Arizona U--Emily is the flute professor, and Tim is heading up the music preparatory department. They invited us out to give a masterclass/coaching at the summer music festival held at NAU, thereby making a tax-deductible trip to the Grand Canyon!

We had a great weekend with Em and Tim--playing with their puppies, playing duets without warming up (!), visiting Sedona, meeting a bunch of their colleagues, and walking part of the rim trail at the GC. Texas is not as interesting as Arizona!



Church in Sedona built right out of the rocks. The view is spectacular. How you'd ever pay attention to a sermon I cannot say!



The Big Hole in the Ground. It really is quite grand!



Proof we were there :)



The trail that leads to the bottom of the canyon. (There's just a few switchbacks...) Now that we've found a gym, maybe someday we'll be well-trained enough to hike that!



The World's Largest Kokopelli, in Cottonwood, AZ. How could I not get a picture with this guy??

6 months

Hi everybody!
Today is our 6th month anniversary. I was just in Portland this past week, and when I left, my mom requested that I take our piece of cake that we'd saved from the wedding. Laura told me that if we kept it to a full year, it would be throroughly disgusting, so we decided to put this cake out of its misery tonight.
Of course, this is cake that was in my mom's freezer for the past 6 months, then was placed in my backpack, handled through airport security, tossed in an overhead bin and then squished in our overflowing freezer...This is the result of its journey:








It actually didn't taste as bad as it looks. The frosting was a little pasty but the cake itself was still very tasty.


And just to report in on our marriage--we both seem pretty pleased with the first 6 months. We'll give it another 6 and see how things go :-)

~Ruth Ann

Agua update

This morning we had a huge downpour. I'm very sorry to have to report that our chimney does NOT have "no more leaks;" in fact, things look very much like they did before. >:-P All that leaping about for nothing!

Muchos agua

I was just berated by one of my friends for not posting regularly. So, Emily K, as promised, here is your blog. We expect comments!!!

First of all, we just bought new furniture. FINALLY. We have both a den and a living room in our apartment, and were suffering from a lack of furniture. The den had a futon that was once my uncle's, but the living room became the catch-all for anything we needed to dump or laundry that was trying to dry. Recently, the futon began to spontaneously shed armrests and we began to think that we should really have some furniture when guests came over. Luckily for us, Rooms to Go was having a sale, and we are now the proud new owners of a couch, a loveseat, and an armchair. They are all VERY comfortable and very nap-inducing!









(You can still see what's left of the futon!)


In other entertaining news, our ceiling has a hole in it.


Our chimney has been leaking pretty much since we first moved in. I think we've become a bit of a running joke with maintenance because we always have a puddle of water in our fireplace. An contract roofing company has been in charge of fixing the problem and kept patching it from the outside. Finally, after about the 5th time this hadn't worked, they sent a crew to check out the inside of the apartment. This crew consisted of one very Texan supervisor, and three men who only spoke Spanish. After checking out the chimney, the supervisor turned to the rest of the team. "There's a problem with meoo-chowus ah-gwah here. Do you understand? Meoo-chowus ah-gwah!!!" He promised to send a team to rip out the sheetrock and fix things from the inside, then went away.

A few days later, I was innocently taking a shower. Mike was off teaching, and, since our bathroom has no fan, I was showering with the bathroom door open. Suddenly I heard some thumping of workboots up our front steps and a knocking on the front door. "COMING!!!!!" I squealed and FLEW out of the shower. I just knew that it had to be my Meoo-chowus Ah-gwah men, and that if I didn't let them in on my own terms, maintenance would be there with key in hand. So I kept squealing "COMING" as I hopped around the apartment, digging for my bathrobe. When I opened the door, it wasn't Mr. Texan standing there, but a very astonished (but very polite) Mexican man who spoke very little English. (Certainly his English didn't cover the fact that I was standing there in a bathrobe, but this is probably a good thing.)

They spent several hours cutting holes in our ceiling and finally left us with this lovely patch:



But before he left, my polite but astonished Mexican proudly told me that there would be "No more leaks!" I'm happy to report that he is good to his word!

I am still hoping that one day we may have the ceiling completely patched and looking like a ceiling again. There's also the problem of the wall...the rain made the drywall so wet that when I went to poke it to see just how squishy it was, my finger went right through!!!



Meoo-chowus ah-gwah indeed!

~Ruth Ann

Many things to tell!

Hello to our faithful readers from your not so faithful bloggers!

We have been meaning to write a blog for a while but, SURPRISE!, we haven't gotten around to it until now! Lots has been going on lately. We finished off the school year with a bang. We're still teaching over the summer but much fewer students: I have 2 so far and RA has around 10. One of the big exciting pieces of news: RUTH ANN IS MAKING BASSOON REEDS!!! I taught her how and she has made her first reed. I'm very proud to say that it makes a sound! It doesn't play very well, but that is because I didn't give her a very good piece of cane to start with. Here is a picture of the lovely reed.



Now, my plan is to teach her how to make all my reeds so I don't have to anymore!!!! Every Double Reed player's dream!









Juliana turned 2 last week. We had the exhausting fun of going to the birthday party. Here is the birthday girl in her birthday splendor:





There were lots of her friends from across the street. Eric grilled hot dogs and everyone had a lot of fun. I learned that Skittles, birthday cake, and bratwurst don't mix so well in one's stomache.








Our latest excitement was a trip to Santa Fe! Ruth Ann had an audition there and I thought I had better go along and take care of her :b. Ruth Ann advanced to finals but alas, they gave the job to the local sub. BUT she is on the sub list so we're hoping she'll get to play with them sometime. When that happens, I think I may need to go along to make sure everything is alright! We liked Santa Fe so much that we didn't want to leave! RA's aunt and uncle let us stay at their place. The took us to all the haunts and restaraunts. We had some of the best Tex-Mex food ever. On Sunday we went to Bandelier N.P. There are numerous Anasazi ruins and some of the ancient cliff dwellings.






There was one dwelling that we had to climb 140 feet to get to! We were comforted by the fact that many thousands of Indians went before us....





Despite RA having to 'work' on our little vacation, she and I both had a fabulous time and feel very rested. Even though we'd rather still be there.

~Mike

Juliana and Diego!

When we're not practicing in Texas, we spend our time plotting how to entertain Mike's niece and nephew.





Juliana will be two in a few weeks. She likes me OK, but LOVES her Tio Michael. As soon as she sees him walking up the drive she begins to scream "TIO MICHAEL! TIO MICHAEL!!!" and bounces all over the house.







Diego (born on Christmas Day of 2006) doesn't really seem to be phased by either of us. He's perfectly content to suck on his fist (or our fingers), and as long as he's given something colorful to look at, is perfectly happy. (He is fascinated by Mike's odd mouth sounds, but then--who isn't?!)

~Ruth Ann

Strawberries and swans

We've been quite busy here in Texas! Mike recently discovered a pick-your-own strawberry farm down in Arlington. Last Saturday we headed out and had a wonderful time. I had never picked strawberries before but now I'm hooked!! It's a not-too-big farm but very family friendly. There was a light breeze blowing and strawberries EVERYWHERE, plus the house right next to the farm had a charming set of windchimes. We got so excited by the berries that we ended up picking about 18 pounds of red happiness. (They melt in your mouth....yum.....!!!) We quickly consumed about 6 of those pounds and froze the rest, but already the freezer is getting empty. Today we're headed back and will try to show some restraint, but I doubt that's going to happen!!



In other news, teaching is going well, I guess. I'm starting to get a lot of calls for summer lessons, so I should be fairly entertained with that. I'm hoping that if I get my hands on the kids before certain band directors come anywhere near them, the kids might actually stand a chance. I'm encouraged because one of the mothers actually asked for my recommendation on an instrument, so maybe more will follow suit.

This weekend we both have what should be a fun gig. The program is for Peter and the Wolf and a bunch of other random pieces that don't truly go together. Mike will be playing P&W, but I've been called to play second on a Looney Tunes medley. Should be the easiest $250 I've ever made!

In other unrelated news (this blog is seeming like the program we'll be playing this weekend!): Our local library has a nature preserve out back, and since it's spring, all the baby ducklings are in full force.



Once we actually saw a mother duck with 20 babies following behind! I'm not sure if she was running a day care or what, but I was truly impressed. There are also 2 swans with their little ones in tow. There were orginally 6 baby swans, then 5, then 4, and now we seem to have settled at 3, which is how it goes, I suppose. :o( But they're all adorable!!!!!



~Ruth Ann