Family Christmas Pictures

Not Me Monday #11

This week's Not Me Monday will be fairly short and sweet...here goes...

I did not finish up making our Christmas presents Christmas Eve night and Christmas Day morning.

John did not forget to confirm our Christmas functions with his family until Christmas Eve.

John did not take a personal day from work on Friday to spend the day with me to play with our Christmas presents.

Both John and I did not have wayyyyy too much fun playing our new Mario Kart game for our Wii.

John did not forget to write his performance reviews for work and did not end up doing them the evening of the day they were due.

I did not have to turn around after leaving for work this morning to go get my employee badge from the kitchen table. Worse yet, I had not already picked up a coworker who was carpooling with me to work.

The service engine soon light did not come on in my car about 2 blocks from home tonight.

I am not totally frustrated with Blogger and uploading pictures after trying to fix my Christmas Band post.

I did not originally think that I wouldn't have anything good for this week's post....silly me!!

The Gennrich Christmas Band

Back at Thanksgiving we brought up the idea of having a "band" at the Gennrich Christmas. Since Christmas would be at my parents' house there would be a lot more room than at my Grandparents' apartment, we wouldn't have to keep quiet for any other residents and it would give everyone an excuse to dust off the instruments. Between all of the Gennrichs and Petersons we have quite a few musicians in the family. I volunteered to get the music together for all of the instruments. I didn't get too creative this year - just the standard 4-part carols (sorry Rach, but thanks for improvising!).

Here are the 8 carols we played:

• Angels We Have Heard on High
• Deck the Halls
• Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
• Up On the Housetop
• Jingle Bells
• O Christmas Tree
• Silent Night
• We Wish You a Merry Christmas

Enjoy the following pictures of the 1st annual Gennrich/Peterson/Lewis Christmas Band:

(Me and John)

(uncle Jon and John)

(Me and Mom)

(sister Rachel and cousin Aaron)

(cousin Marta and brother Kevin)

(The Percussion Section...cousin Tim, Dad, and cousin Greta)

This was the first year for having the "band" and we plan to do it again every year and probably incorporate more and more pieces every year. Let me know if you have special requests and I'll try to accomodate.

To watch a video of three of the pieces we played, click here:

Not Me Monday #10

Just to warn you, not much exciting has happened in the past week. I'm excited that it's almost Christmas, just to get rid of all the stress that comes with the Holiday. Don't get me wrong, I also want to spend time with my family and relax (and the days off of work that come with it are a nice bonus!). Since John and I got the majority of our shopping done the weekend before last I just had to wrap everything and finish up on a few last minute things.

I did not bake more cookies yesterday even though the garage is full of freshly baked goodies.

I did not get told by my sister that she feels sorry for me every week when reading these posts.

I did not go the entire weekend without doing my hair or touching any bit of makeup.

I was not the first person at work last week to realize that all the answers to the "Guess Who's the Baby" contest were in order. (For those of you who I didn't talk to...We were invited to bring in Christmas pictures from our childhood to hang on the Christmas tree at work. Each picture was numbered. We were given a sheet with 16 blanks and 16 names to match up. The names were left in order so it was a good test to see how well we could copy names from one section of the paper to the other.) The other sad part is that I did not think about how funny it would be if she left the answers in order while I was laying in bed the night before.

Some of the only questions I knew the answers to from the Christmas Trivia contest at work were not from...you guessed it...A Christmas Carol...go figure.

Someone from the Chaska School of Music did not call me today at work to tell me that the entire studio was under 1-1/2 inches of water. I did not remember that I have a whole bunch of music lined up on the floor.

I did not wait until 4 days before Christmas to start reworking on wedding pictures for the CDs I'm putting together.

The weather outside is frightful, but since we've no place to go....

....we'll bake cookies of course. And that is just what my mom and I did last Sunday. It was warm and rained the day before and they were predicting bad weather for Sunday. If it had been colder on Saturday I'm sure the early drive to church last week would not have been very fun. My dad had to go to a funeral at church that Sunday but my mom was able to come right after church. After we cleaned the kitchen we could finally start in. My dad was able to come late in the afternoon to help with the pretzel cookies and John came home from work just in time to start sampling!

Here's a sampling of our work:


Our assortment consists of: Gingerbread Cookies, Mini Turtles, Tea Cakes, Pretzel Hugs, Oreo Balls, Wheat Thins, and Peanut Butter Surprise Balls.

I still have a couple more recipes I want to try this Christmas so we'll see what time allows.

Winter...

....It's that time of year again when...
The garage doubles as a 2nd refrigerator (or freezer).
You need to start your car half-way through work to make sure it starts when it's time to go home.
You can't leave a glass of water in your car to drink on the way home from work.
It takes a lot longer to drive anywhere and you relearn the meaning of the word "patience".
You can't go to the mall because there isn't a parking spot left in the parking lot.
Your coat crunches as soon as you step outside.
Glasses-wearers wish for either contact lenses or lasik eye surgery.
You don't leave the house if you don't absolutely have to.
You wait in line to make a purchase longer than it actually takes to pick out a gift.
One of your favorite outside activity is kicking off the snow that collects behind the tires of your car.

In the middle of all the stress of trying to get everything done, don't forget the real meaning of Christmas and enjoy the Christmas/Holiday season where...
You can sing along to Christmas music on the radio.
Cuddling up in the blankets never felt so good.
You feel like a kid again.
Old friends reunite.
Families are drawn close together.
You are reminded that it's better to give than to receive.
You get to enjoy treats like hot apple cider and fresh Christmas cookies.
Heaven came down to Earth.

Happy 1st day of winter and have a wonderful Christmas Holiday week! May you remember the real meaning of Christmas in spite of all the Holiday stress.

Not Me Monday #9

I know it's a little late...but better late than never...

I am not writing this "Not Me Monday" post on Tuesday.

I did not stuff, label, and stamp my Christmas cards last night in the time I allow to normally write my "Not Me Monday" posts.

There is not a desk chair in our downstairs bathroom for lack of a better place to put it right now and to get it out of the hallway.

The swiffer did not melt because it was leaning against something hot in the furnace room.

I did not freak out on Friday after work when I thought I lost the recipes I copied from a co-worker several weeks ago. I did not try to find most of the recipes online that night since I was going to be cookie baking with my mom on Sunday. I did not find them the next morning in the paper recycling sack.

I was not totally disorganized for cookie baking and my mom didn't have to step in and help me wash the dishes before we could start.

John and I are not broke after Christmas shopping all day on Saturday. (At least we've got the majority of it done and hooray to super good sales! Yay Kohls!)

I did not have to stand in line for 15 minutes at the post office during my lunch break today just to buy 7 stamps for the rest of the Christmas cards.

I did not use the garage as a 2nd refrigerator for my chili. The chili did not freeze preventing me from bringing it for lunch today.

I did not have to clean snow off of my car 4 times today.

Not Me Monday - A Christmas Carol special edition

For those of you who have ever played in a pit orchestra you know that something always goes wrong, or simply not as planned. This was one of the toughest shows to get synced up with the actors. We had many, many laughs (while trying to play this 90 minute non-stop music show) and I thought you'd like to laugh along with me and the rest of the pit.

I did not use the same bassoon reed for all 7 shows. Not me, a good double reed player always alternates between at least 2 reeds.

We were not one viola player short for the Thursday matinee. He apparantly did not know we had a morning show.

After a really, really loud opening clock chime on Thursday night (opening night) we did not have to have a "chime check" before every show to test the volume.

While the pianist was changing the keyboard setting from the clock chime sound back to the regular piano, she did not hit one of the demo buttons which did not made the keyboard start playing a heavy drum beat. (Luckily the director was able to turn the volume down quickly!)

After the clock had chimed, our director did not have to hold up two fingers to let Scrooge know exactly what time it was. (I think he started his line before the clock had finished chiming. "When the clock...........strikes......two...)

The same keyboard player as above hit two keys at once when playing the clock chimes which did not make for a pretty bad sounding clock chime. It was not supposed to be two o'clock and it did not take her forever to play the second chime even after we were all practically screaming for her to hit it again!

The soloists did not constantly come in early and we did not have to skip measures to catch up to them.

One soloist did not always come in late and after we figured out a measure to vamp until he was ready he did not all of a sudden start coming in right!

The trumpet players did not totally overpower all other players in the pit. (Especially the one that blared really loud!)

The snowflakes that fell at the end of the show were not the size of golf balls on certain nights.

The fog did not billow into the pit so heavily that our pit director couldn't see the actors.

We (meaning the pit as a whole) did not suffer from a really bad case of intonation. We did not adapt the motto "tuning is a waste of time".

I did not start erasing the pencil marks in my music during the first show on Saturday. On Sunday I did not find out that we didn't have to erase our music at all!

The snowy weather did not delay most of our start times. We did not try to play faster to make up the extra time so the show would still end after 90 minutes.

John did not send me Vikings score updates throughout the show.

I did not write all of the ideas for this blog during my random measures of rest.

I did not just agree to play for Sound of Music which will run for three weekends and is it is not one of my least favorite shows. (It's good music, I just think it's overdone.)

Other quotes from the show:
Will Tiny Tim Live? Not of we can help it!
Link by Link - also titled Kay by Kay - Kay Link was one of our flautists.
Jeremy, play all the glisses as abnoxiously as you can.
Vortex? What?!?!?
We had so much room in the pit but no time to goof around.
Elves or Elks?
Sounds as written
About a 1/4 measure that was supposed to be vamped: "Why isn't it just a 2/4 measure?"

Not Me Monday #8

I am not typing this blog while watching Kung Fu Panda.

I still did not have A Christmas Carol songs in my head the entire work day even though show ended yesterday.

I did not have seven Christmas Carol shows and a piano recital all in 4 days.

I was not told that I could not use a $2 internet coupon for cereal at Rainbow. No, not me, master coupon shopper....Heaven forbid I get a box of cereal for free.

It did not take me three days to clean the bathroom...Thursday, Friday, and Saturday...No, not me, I am much more efficient than that.

While cleaning the bathroom, I did not decide to wash the lightbulbs which did not make three of the eight bulbs burn out. Two of the lightbulbs were not already burned out.

John bought new lightbulbs and while I was carrying them inside, I did not drop one package, shattering one of the four lightbulbs in the package.

While getting into the Explorer to go to work on Friday I did not drop my two pieces of toast. One did not land on the passenger seat and one did not land on the snow covered driveway.

I did not eat the piece of toast that landed in the snow.

John did not have bad luck while trying to start the Explorer when we going to ride together to work on Friday and did not have to take the Saturn.

While getting into the Saturn, I did not drop the other piece of toast again.

I was not so flustered by time I got to work on Friday morning that I couldn't remember what I had done the day before on my day off when asked by a coworker.

John and I both did not always end up behind slow drivers to and from Chaska last weekend.

The Explorer did not refuse to start again Sunday night which did not prevent John from coming to my piano recital.

We did not try to push the Explorer into the garage from the inclined driveway.

A Christmas Carol

One of the main reasons for me not posting in such a long while is my involvement in A Christmas Carol. It is the Broadway musical version of the famous Charles Dickens' tale. I have been playing in the pit orchestra of CVFT's (Chaska Valley Family Theater) shows since 2003. Here are the past performances I have played in:

2003: West Side Story
2005: Jesus Christ Superstar & State Fair
2006: Fiddler on the Roof & Once Upon a Mattress (played trumpet)
2007: Camelot
2008: A Christmas Carol

Every musical has its own challenge and A Christmas Carol was no exception. Our books for this show were the usual handwritten parts. This musical was written maybe 10 years ago and each year edits are made to the score. The catch is that they don't rewrite each individual part, just make edits and white out measures. This has made it extremely challenging to read and learn the parts, especially as a pit and coordinating with the singers. Each book seemed to have been edited differently. For instance, in my book measures 72-83 had been whited out or removed, however, in the trumpet's books they were still there and they had to cross them out. Little things like occurred through the entire score and were very frustrating at first.

The show opened last Thursday night, December 4th, and we have seven shows between Thursday and Sunday night - wow!! The show is short, 90 minutes in length, but it is all music. no dialogue breaks like other shows. it will be interesting to see how we all hold up on Sunday when we have two shows back to back. Good luck, lips! The music is tough and hard to coordinate with the singers. By the last show we should all have it down!

Last night, Friday, John and both sets of our parents came to the show. We purchased tickets for our parents as birthday presents since three out of the four had birthdays last week. It was nice to sit in the pit and know that I was playing for my family out in the audience. For what they told me, they all enjoyed the show. My dad commented that it was the first time he understood the storyline for A Christmas Carol. I think that CVFT did a great job with this show (like usual). Unfortunately, we are unable to see what is going on onstage since we don't have TV monitors in the pit to watch the show, but the costumes and set look phenomenal. Other things I'll remember about this show is the fog billowing into the pit and the gigantic snowflakes falling into the pit.

Not Me Monday #7

I didn't just realize the only posts I've done for the past few weeks have been Not Me Monday posts.

At the Lewis Thanksgiving dinner everyone did not take turns saying their own "not me" lines.

As I bent down to pick something off of the floor one day last week and was standing back up, my head did not come in contact with the edge of the kitchen table. I did not forget about it until I touched my head in the sore spot during pit rehearsal

It did not take me 3+ hours to fall asleep on Saturday night.

John and I did not arrive at church as the bell was ringing. It was not my fault that we were late...

I did not finish hand stiching the baby blanket just hours before the baby shower.

I didn't discover last night that most of the dishes I talked about in last Monday's post were still sitting on the countertop as we wrapped up the 4 day weekend.

I am not looking forward to the Christmas Carol getting done because I do not want to get back to my regularly scheduled life.