First Anniversary Weekend

This past weekend John and I celebrated our 1-year anniversary. To keep with tradition, we saved the top tier from our wedding cake to eat on our first anniversary. Last Friday night we had both sets of our parents over for a little get-together and to break open the cake.

First John had to take the tape off of the ice cream pail.


Off goes the cover...


"It looks edible..."


A close up shot...


Aww...


Cutting the cake!


"Ummmm, cake.....Can't Wait!"


"Oh yeah, it's still good!"


So as you can see, we were successful at keeping the top tier of the cake for an entire year. Thanks mom for packaging the cake up so well and thanks Bertha for the good step-by-step instructions.

On Sunday, which was our anniversary, we slept and took it easy in the morning. In the afternoon we went to a matinee movie at the EP theater and saw I Love you, Man. Then it was off to Red Lobster for a nice dinner.

As a wedding gift to us, our friend Rachel gave us a puzzle. What a great gift! We had fun putting this together to wrap up the weekend. It only took an hour or so to do but all of the white made it a little challenging.

This same time last year...

...we were...

...calling and confirming times with all of our wedding vendors...finalizing our honeymoon plans...moving my belongings from my parents' house to John's, soon to be ours...praying for good weather for the big day...packing for the honeymoon...putting together all of the wedding favors...trying to come up with a seating layout at the pavilion...putting together the reception/dance playlist...figuring out the final guest count...typing up timelines for everyone to follow...praying for good weather (did I mention this already?)...stressing out, just a little, yes me...but most of all, we were just happy we were getting married!

I can't believe it's almost our 1 year anniversary. How the time flies! There's been good times and bad, but I've loved every minute. Thanks again to everyone who helped us out with our wedding. It was one of the best days of our lives and glad you could all be a part of it.

Not Me Monday # 17

Haven't done one of these posts in a while, but it's just like riding a bike! Here's what we've been up to last week. Also, look for a Vegas post sometime soon.


Switching over from satellite TV to cable is not a lot tougher than both of us imagined it would be. A little frustrated right now but we'll get the hang of it sooner or later.

We did not walk to the library on Sunday to return some books instead of just driving there. I did not enjoy the 40 minutes of fresh air with my hubby.

I am so not ready for the summer slow-down (meaning a break from bells and lessons). After having some days off I always start to realize how extremely nice it is just to be HOME.

My brother is not having a tough time during his clinical in Tanzania. Please think of him as he is scheduled to be there until mid-June.

I did not get some pretty fabulous grocery deals at Cub and Rainbow this weekend. I also had a fun time hanging out with my parents while shopping all day on Saturday. We did not go to three separate home improvement stores (we did not go to Menards!) thoughout our 6+ hour shopping trip. I made them go to the EP Home Depot to buy the paint for their bedroom even though we were at the Chaska Home Depot earlier that day.

John was not pleasantly surprised when he got his success sharing bonus check at the employee meeting yesterday morning. I, on the other hand, am not still waiting for my check from the CMC for playing 3 church services.

I haven't gotten even more addicted to Fish Wrangler and now a new Facebook application, Farm Town.

We didn't recently discover that the c0-0p no longer carries the only kind of vanilla ice cream that I can eat and like. Booo....

Wanna make more money? Start at home.

We all wish we could make more money, but sometimes the best way to have more is to look around your house and simplify and save on things you do and use every day. Two big monthly bills for us were internet and television. John knew that I wanted to bundle our internet and TV services for a while but we never thought there was a provider who could offer us a good price and meet our needs. Last week we were offered a bundled price for internet and TV for the same we were paying for TV alone! Best yet, that low price would be locked in for 2 years. It seemed like a good deal and we just got done making the switch. We actually bundled with our current internet provider so television was the only thing we had to change - satellite to cable. I think we will end up saving about $60/mo. which, over 2 years, will save us a lot of dough. We do have a whole set of new television channels to "relearn" but in the long run it's worth it.

So, while I continue to clip coupons and look for bargains on clothes, groceries and the like, I strongly encourage everyone to take a step back and look where costs can be cut in things you do every day - you just might be surprised.

Back on the Bench

I just got back from rehearsing for Sunday's worship at the church I used to work at. They invited me back to play for a few Sundays while their current pianist was out of state. I can honestly say that it's nice to be back on the bench again praising God through music. At the CMC they have a blended worship service which is a mixture of traditional music (hymns) with contemporary praise songs. The contemporary songs are so upbeat and fun to play with their syncopated rhythms.

While I don't want to do it every week, it sure is fun to play every now and then. Hopefully after my five Sundays are done they'll invite me back!

Why I LOVE Community Theater - The Sound of Music edition

One of my many musical hobbies is playing in the pit orchestra for community theater productions. Even though doing 14 shows in 3 weekends is a lot of work (especially doing two tough shows back to back - Christmas Carol and Sound of Music) I still love it! I also have oto thank my wonderful husband for his help in keeping me going through all of it. There wasn't much free time there for a while and his extra help with the housework was greatly appreciated!

When I first found out that we'd be doing the Sound of Music I was not excited at all. This is probably one of the most well-known and overdone musical of all time, and at the time not one of my favorites. Despite all that, it turned out to be a fabulous production and I had so much fun working with my "CVFT family" again. After playing 6-7 shows with a group of people you start to have a special bond with them.

Here is a picture of my Sound of Music pit "family" and a list of what made this show so special and fun! (Also can be called "What went wrong during the shows and what the pit laughed at during the performances". Please note: Everything listed really did happen in live shows - another reason that I probably enjoyed this production so much! )

1. The nuns scooping up when singing "Ska" in the opening chants.

2. Our pianist, Jon, hitting his fingers with the drumstick instead of the chime that he was supposed to be striking. Ouch!

3. The nuns getting all of the other nuns' names messed up during the dialogue in the "Maria" scene. "There's Christine....There's no doubt about Ermegarde..."

4. Captain von Trapp needed a lesson on how to blow the whistle - sounded way too airy. Maria also had a couple times where nothing came out when she blew!

5. Liesl's awful sounding pitchpipe. How the von Trapp kids ever got a pitch out of that thing is beyond us.

6. Liesl's circular conducting pattern. Again, how anyone followed that is beyond us.

7. The children are supposed to run and come to a screeching halt at the top of the stairs. Once, Gretl ran so hard and, not stopping, ran into Marta and bounced right back. Another time, they all ran so hard that Liesl almost fell down the stairs. Good thing she was holding on!

8. Rolf left in the middle of one of the performances to go to the gas station! What was he thinking? First of all, he was in his Nazi uniform but most important - he missed an important scene. Good job improving cast and tech crew!

9. During the "bedroom scene" the thunder kept coming before the lightning. 2nd grade science would tell you that the lightning always comes first.

10. Storm, what storm? Half of the time you couldn't even tell that there was a storm coming in. If the von Trapp children were afraid of that storm they've got bigger problems.

11. In the same show where Rolf decides to take a break, Brigitta gets distracted in the party scene and misses saying an important music cue line. Boy were we glad when the first act of that show was done.

12. Max is supposed to hear church bells in the distant and say "Georg, is that a Cathedral?" Instead, he frequently asked that question after hearing silence and thunder.

13. The von Trapp children's game of Leap Frog didn't always go as planned. Once Gretl forgot that she was first and kept running. Another time, Maria's dress got caught on the children so she couldn't jump freely.

14. Kids started forgetting the words to "So Long, Farewell".

15. Did you know that they had LED flashlights in 1938?

16. When reading off the children's names in the program for the festival, he is supposed to say Gretl's name last and she would reply "Why am I always last?" Instead, he read Friedrich's name last once, but Gretl still said her line!

17. In Edelweiss...Blessssssssss my homeland forever...

18. Oh, yes, we did try to mute the bassoon.

19. There seemed to be a cursed song. A couple beats were supposed to be complete musical silence, however, there was always someone who got an unexpected solo every night.

Me and my bassoon.

In the pit.

We have a lot of fun in the pit, but I really like playing for family and close friends. Co-workers, Julie and Jenny, came to see one of the shows! It's nice playing when you know friends are in the audience.

We also got to meet Debbie Turner who played Marta von Trapp in the original movie. How cool is that!

A long time...

I just visited my own blogsite and discovered that it has been almost an entire MONTH since I've had a new post. How time flies! So much has happened in the last month including finishing up on Sound of Music, an early anniversary Las Vegas vacation and me picking up a few Sundays of work at the Moravian church. I promise there will be new posts soon! Thanks for baring with me! Love you all!!!

Not Me Monday #16 - a bit overdue but worth the wait

I know, I know, I know...I haven't done a post in a long time. I am not going to blame my lack of posting on my lack of time for which I am not going to blame The Sound of Music. For those of you who do not know, I have been playing bassoon in CVFT's Sound of Music. The show ran for the last two weekends and we have this weekend to go still. Check in next week for a special Not Me Monday, Sound of Music Edition. Anyways, back to the post at hand... Since I haven't done this for a few weeks, I am going to try to remember as much as I can since my last post.

John did not get told that he is going to be going to Key Carrying Department Head classes. Yay!!

We did not run out of supplies twice, almost thrice, when making Angie and Jim's save-the-date magnets. Paper, adhesives and almost magnets.

John did not make me breakfast in bed for Valentine's Day. He also gave me some photo editing software and a really cute card. We spent the day at the Mall of America where we played mini-golf and ate at Famous Dave's. During mini-gold I did not get frustrated and start throwing my ball instead of putting. I actually did a lot better throwing!

I did not agree to play for up to 5 Sundays at the CM Church and recently find out what that would do to our 1-year anniversary vacation planning. I guess I hadn't really taken that into consideration when I was telling them when I could not play - at least I took our anniversary off. My manager at work is actually going to be gone over our anniversary weekend and that was one of the weekends I requested to not play piano. So...John and I did not book a March 10th-14th trip to Las Vegas. John has been there twice and this will be my first. We're looking forward to a relaxing weekend at the Bellagio and enjoying the Blue Man Group!

I did not witness a car accident on my way to an early performance of the SOM. Luckily I was through that intersection already.

I did not have one of my scariest drives home last Friday night from the SOM. I thought it was only supposed to snow an inch but it was 4 inches! Where were the plows when the roads were covered with snow and I couldn't see the road? I did not have to use the rumble strips down the center of the road to help me tell if I was on the right path or not.

At Grandpa's b-day party yesterday John and I did not give him a card that played the Chicken Dance. Best yet, I did not have the card for 6 months - luckily I was able to find it Sunday morning!

John and I did not power clean tonight. The house was a mess and we thought Jenny might come over. She didn't but at least we have a semi-clean downstairs!

We are not bummed that we can't find the plecostamus in the fishtank.

I did not have to go grocery shopping inbetween shows on Saturday because we were so low on food, and beef!

Saved the best for last...For anyone who knows me, I like good deals and free stuff by mail. When I signed up for a pantyliner sample, I did not receive an overnight pad. Seriously, this is one big pad. Anyone have nighttime leaks? I need to get rid of this thing!

Happy Valentine's Day

Just a simple picture I made up for my Valentine today. John surprised me with breakfast in bed this morning and also some photo editing software. We spent the afternoon at the Mall of America just taking it easy.

Not Me Monday #16

I did not get sucked into "Fish Wrangler", a Facebook application, by my husband and father-in-law.

John did not find out that Home Depot layed off about 7,000 employees from Expo stores. Luckily, his position is unaffected.

I am not even more convinced that our creepy neighbor does not own a pair of pants. We've really only seen him in short cutoff jean-shorts. Saturday it was gorgeous outside and he was wearing a pair of snowpants, probably with the short shorts underneath!

I did not go to my first Lia Sophia jewelry party on Saturday (and then soon realize that it was really, really expensive). My friend Angie and I did not combine our orders in an attempt to save money. I did not win the doorprize drawing!

I did not get home from dinner with the girls around 10:30 Saturday night...that means we were at the Ranch House for 4 hours!

I did not find out that it was the Pastor's wife who spread the news of Angie & Jim's engagement, and they tried so hard to keep it out of Carver County.

My whole Sound of Music rehearsal on Saturday morning did not seem to be a Not Me Monday post in itself. Highlights included:

• Me not using a luggage cart to wheel my bassoon into the practice room and then leave big puddles of dirty water from the wheels.
• Me not awkwardly taking the bassoon off of the luggage cart.
• Me not forgetting to tightly put the cover on my bassoon reed cup tupperware.
• Me not putting that tupperware full of water into my bassoon accessories bag.
• Me not putting that bag on my lap leaving the water to soak through the bag and onto my lap!
• Me not starting to play on a totally different piece than the rest of the orchestra - actually, multiple times...
• Me not realizing that maybe, just maybe, I should have ordered new bassoon reeds more than, um, two weeks before opening night. uh, oh...

I have not been tagged about 25 times now in the "Top 25 things about..." chain post that is going around. I do intend to come up with 25 things but I know that this Not Me Monday post is more important!