California trip and Met Competition 2010

We decided to take an extra long trip to California this year for the NAMM convention Kevin goes to every year. Usually we are there about a week or so, but this time we stayed for 2. We figured we could either go out for Christmas, spend $1000 on flights and come back in a couple weeks for the convention, or we could save the money and just come out early and stay long for the convention. It was great! My parents saved all the Christmas stuff for us and we opened presents when we got there on the 5th. I was slightly nervous about the flight even though Josie has always been pretty easy and I had Kevin there to help too. My main concern was if she would be able to nap on the plane on our laps. She is not usually able to sleep if people are around cause she just wants to play and is too distracted. I look at parents with sleeping children on their shoulders and laugh cause I don't think Josie would ever do that. At least not now. Anyway, she did have a nap on my lap, though it was a short one. I brought a nursing cover and put it over her so she would have less distraction and light. She was so excited about flying! She loved looking out the windows and interacting with people. Her favorite part was when I would let her walk with me to the bathroom. She would want to stop at each person to talk or share a peice of trash she found on the floor. Other than that, she sad happily on our laps and read books, played with toys, sang and ate snacks. I think she really loved having Kevin and I hold her the whole time. She loves to snuggle lately.



We spent lots of time at my parents house and Josie immediately took to them. I think she may have remembered my mom a little from when she came a couple months ago. She especially took to my dad too. They ended up being best buds! She would plop down on his lap and read books forever! It was great cause Kev and I got to go on dates!! Yeah!

At P.F. Changs. Love those lettuce wraps!

Eating with the CEO of Steinway Music Co. at Angelo and Vinci's

We love Auntie Andrea!!


Of course, we HAD to go to Disneyland!!! We were very excited about this. My whole family came except Sarah who probably was not in the mood for rides. Pregnancy has not been easy on her. Josie had been a little groggy and had a runny nose for a couple days prior. I wasn't sure what it was exactly, but she seemed to be happy enough so I didn't think much of it. She has been so healthy her whole life so far, I don't worry about much. Little did we know, she would be full blown sick later that day! Poor thing! We couldn't figure out why she was so indifferent about the rides and such and thought she was just tired. As the day went on, she got worse and worse and my mom took her home early to put her to bed. The next night, she ended up with a fever and still seemed to be feeling poor. Her first fever ever!! (That I know of, at least.) We gave her some tylenol and a blessing and she was perky as ever 2 hours later! What a trooper. It turns out all of us got something. We all got sick. Josie and I got better pretty quick and were fine 2 days later.

She LOVED the tram. It was about the best ride to her. She loved when it went fast so we figured the rest of the day would be nothing but fun for her.

By the time we got to Dumbo, she was pretty tired and probably not feeling to good. She thought it was fascinating anyway.




The Grandma and Grandpa tickle ride.


Then she spotted the characters and was smitten........

Waiting in line was tough for her. She wanted to see Pluto and Mickey NOW!!!!!

Reaching for Pluto while waiting her turn.

She LOVED the characters!!! They were probably like big stuffed animals to her. She just kept smiling and touching Pluto's nose.


Mickey was on his way out, but we asked if she could see him real quick. She went straight in for a kiss. She didn't want to stop kissing him!

If you look closely or blow up the picture you can see her face scrunching up in tears as her beloved Mickey leaves.


This is what she thought of the characters leaving.



She did perk up on Small World. She thought that was pretty cool. Much better than her last experience with it.


I never knew they did this, but everyday they do a flag raising and lowering ceremony with the Disneyland Band. They ask anyone who has served to come up while they play each armed services anthem. Arron was with us so he went up and was honored. It was very cool!



We got home from Ca. and had about a day to unpack and repack so we could drive 9 hours to Lincoln, Nebraska for the 2010 National Metropolitan Opera Auditions. Basically, it's a competition for serious opera singers between ages 20 to 30. There are several different levels, first starting at the state level (called the district level), then Regional level (usually several states) then onto the semi-finals and finals in New York at the Met. The final winners, usually about 5-10 are picked, get a big cash prize and a performance at the Met. Usually, they will go on to have successful careers at the Met or other big companies. Many of those at the lower levels already have successful careers too. It's a bit intimidating and you want to make sure you are ready. This is the first year I felt ready to compete.
28 contestants were chosen to compete in the Nebraska district. (You can compete in any district you want, but only 1 district a year. I chose Nebraska cause the date worked for me and we have family there). I was FIRST on the program!!! You provide them with 5 arias in different languages and styles and you get to pick the one you sing first. If they want to hear more, they will ask you to sing another one. You don't usually sing more than 2. I began with "Durch Zartlichkeit und Schmeicheln" and they then asked me to sing "Chacun le Sait."
I was really glad they asked me to sing 2 cause my second ended up being better than my first! I actually sang much better than I thought I would and was proud of my performance. I was not counting on winning and new it would be a long shot. I feel that I have the ability to win someday, but I am not practiced or polished enough to be there now. I love singing, but it is not all I do. Most of these people do this all day every day. It's their life and they practice a heck of a lot more than me, so I don't feel bad. I suppose if I wanted to be that good, I should start practicing more! All in all, I did really well, though. I got great feedback from the judges and they encouraged me to compete again next year. They ended up choosing 3 winners to compete at regionals. The twist was that they were kind of set up to win.
This was the last district of the year. The rest of the winners competing in the regionals have already been chosen. So naturally, they wanted to choose winners that they felt could compete with those already chosen. So, they chose 2 tenors and a dramatic soprano. I guess there was no room for a coloratura! It was a big suprise still cause there were SO many amazing singers that I thought should have won and were WAY better. I guess they thought they wouldn't stand a chance at regionals. Sorry I didn't get any pictures at the competition!!

We were able to stay with one of Kevin's sisters and brother in law Kim and John and thier family. They were so sweet to accomidate us. It was so fun to spend time with them since we don't get to see them enough! His parents were also there at the time and Josie got to spend lots of time with Ana and Papa.

Kim and John and 4 of their 7 kids.

Josie with Ana and Papa.

"So, where were YOU born?"

I just saw this story about a woman that unexpectedly gave birth in the Tonga Temple. All was well and a nurse working in the temple that day assisted the woman.

Seriously, what a cool place to have a baby! If I weren't afraid of making a mess (sorry if that's gross) I would love to have a baby at the temple! Is that inappropriate to say? I mean, I think birth is a very sacred thing and so is the temple. It's pretty much guaranteed that the baby would be safe and the Spirit would guide you to know what to do. How peaceful!

It may not be temple standards, but we are planning to give birth here. It's a stand alone birth center in Goshen down the street from the hospital. We are touring it next week to make sure that's what we want to do, but I'm pretty sure. I don't really want to use the hospital my midwife delivers in.

In other news, I'm now into the second trimester and everything is looking great so far. My belly is really starting to show some now. I am in that is-she-fat-or-pregnant stage. Rather than have lots of symptoms in the first trimester that taper off to the second, my pregnancies seem to become more eventful as they go. I'm still feeling pretty good, but feeling more pregnancy symptoms every week.

We just returned from a 2 week business trip to California. We had lots of fun, saw friends and family, went to Disneyland, and enjoyed the warm weather. Pics and a post about it to come!!

I started back at school, but only taking easy classes. I am competing in the Metropolitan Opera competition this weekend. I am #2 of 28 singers for the day. I was really lucky to get a spot in the competition. Wish me luck!!

Josie is now 15 months and growing so fast! She has become quite a talker and has such a cool, happy personality. I need a whole post about that, so I'll do that later.

I am really going to try to be better about posting now that the holidays are over and we are moved in more now. New years resolution, maybe?

Hi Santa!

I forgot to post Josie's meeting with Santa! As soon as she saw him she started waving and got that "wow" look on her face. We had to really distract her so she would look at the camera instead of him. As soon as we took her off his lap, she turned around and ran right back up to him. She is so friendly and doesn't seem to be afraid of anyone!

Hooray for Babies!!!

So, as you already probably know, Kev and I made another one! We decided after having Josie to just let things happen naturally as far as when the next would come. Since I have breastfed her so long, I knew it would take a little longer, but it ended up being perfect! A couple weeks after Josie turned 1 we found out about # 2. We had been really hoping for a few months that it would happen soon. So, little baby Packard is going to join us hopefully sometime in July, or August if it decides to be real late. We had an ultrasound at 7 weeks and saw the little bean and heard the heartbeat via doppler at 10 weeks. I have felt more or less the same this pregnancy as with Jos. I don't seem to get morning sickness, but I do get tired and hungry. It's not bad at all though. I am getting close to the 2nd trimester so things should get more exciting soon. After Josie, I lost all my baby weight by about 4 to 5 months postpartum. Even though I am petitie and only weigh in the double digits, I already had a little pooch at 9 weeks! You can't see it in pics, but I have to suck in a little now. I think its all the organs that just never went back to their original spots, lol!! Anyway, I also found out that my older sister Sarah is also pregant and due about a week or two after me! It was crazy cause when she called to tell me, we hadn't told anyone yet and the family didn't know. I had to tell her, and when we finally told the family they freaked out cause they had already been excited about Sarah. It should be a fun year for babies!

This was about 10 weeks. See anything? Ok, maybe I'm sucking in a little........

Holiday catch-up

So here is what happened the last couple months. First, we go all the way back to Thanksgiving. We were moving the next day so we decided to stay home. We thought it would be fun to do what we did last year, so we went to the Studabaker mansion and had the awesome Thanksgiving feast. We invited some old friends from California that live in Chicago now, Nate, Kelly, and Lyla, and a couple from our ward. It was so much fun! The food was great and the babies were really well behaved.


It finally snowed just before Christmas and has been snowing ever since. It's actually not bad this year. It made for a beautiful Christmas. Josie loved getting into her winter clothes for her first romp in the snow.

She helped daddy shovel the walks out by the garage.

She loved trying to catch the snow as it fell. She didn't seem to mind the cold at all!



We decided that since this would be our FIRST Christmas EVER by ourselves in the past 7 years, we decided to get a real tree. We drove out literally in this middle of nowhere to a tree farm. It had snowed and the plows don't go through that area (tells you how rural it is) so we were thankful we have good snow tires. We pulled up to this farm and the people who live there sell trees off their lot and other Christmas goodies. We picked an 8 1/2 foot beautiful tree and they strapped it to our car as we waited inside. We took a pic in front of all their Christmas stuff.

They gave us some free warm cider.

Josie had a great time.

I sang in a concert a couple days before Christmas at St. Mary's Church of Loretto. It's this beautiful dome church that really makes for a great concert. I sang as the soprano soloist for the "Messiah" excerpts. Nothing like singing Christmas music in a beautiful church to get you into the spirit!


Christmas morning. It doesn't look like much, but we were so excited to open presents. Most of Josie's presents are hidden in the back. She got a cool house thing that you see on the right, some puzzles, little toys, and lots of clothes. I got us bikes off craigslist so we could go for family bike rides in the Spring and I FINALLY finished Kevin's t-shirt quilt that I started 2 years ago. I'll post pics of that later. Kevin got me a bunch of cute clothes and had a ton of pictures framed
for our walls. I loved it!
After nice Christmas naps, we headed out for Christmas dinner. Our bishop invited us to his home for dinner. The theme was "Charles Dicken's Christmas." It was a 4 course meal, each course named for the ghosts in "A Christmas Carol." They were all traditional English foods of the time. First course, the "Marley" course was this yummy wild rice mushroom soup. I forget the name of it. Second course (Christmas past) was these steamed apples filled with pecans and apricot, and pinapple ham. Super good!


Third course (Christmas present) was potatoes, carrots with this awesome sauce, bread, and roast goose. That's right, just like in the story. The goose was actually really good!

Christmas future course was Figgy pudding (the left one), this traditional spiced plum pudding and pumpkin pie. The plum pudding was not what I expected. It is made with rum, or in this case, rum extract and is quite strong. It was pretty good though. The dinner was excellent and they were awesome hosts.

We spent the rest of the evening playing old English party games and chatting. Josie had fun playing with the dogs. Also, she was AMAZINGLY good. We sat her on phone books so she could eat with us and she sat quietly and ate the entire dinner. No mess, no whining. I almost forgot she was there. Perfect evening!