Friday, October 30, 2015

Bunker Hill Monument

Hello everyone!

Awhile back, we had a full house full of boys when David's brothers Jack and Jason came to visit.  In my family, I am the only girl surrounded by my baby bro and my baby cuz, and I realized during this weekend that when David and my family comes together, I will still be the only girl, even more outnumbered by boys!  Le sigh...  haha

Anyway, before gorging ourselves on hotpot, we went for a bit of an unintentional exercise to the Bunker Hill Monument. 'Unintentional' because initially, we just wanted a historical outing, not an exercise one,,, but have you climbed this thing?







We visited the museum, spent some time learning about the Revolutionary War history surrounding this landmark, and then started the long climb.  
guys. it was 294 steps.  Oh. my word.  
It might not have been so bad if we had climbed slower, but I went with three very fit boys, and I wanted to keep up with their pace, ya know?  I wasn't going to be the reason everyone had to slow down, so I kept pushing through the screaming thigh muscles.
I guess one good thing about going quicker is that the climb is over much sooner?  that's about it though..  haha


After spending a few moments at the top to catch our breaths, and to enjoy the view that can only be seen by being higher than anything else for miles, we started the climb down.  That was much easier haha







It was so much fun having them here, and I hope they will get to visit us more often!  =)
Have a safe and fun Halloween everyone, and thanks for stopping by!
--Janny

Thursday, October 8, 2015

Performances!

Hello everyone!

A week or so ago, I had 3 huge concerts back to back; Mozart Violin Concerto #5 with Matt Scinto's orchestra, our Meadowlark Piano Trio Concert, and BU Symphony Orchestra concert for which I was the concertmaster.

I meditated regularly through it to help manage the stress levels, and mentally I felt pretty grounded through it all.  Systematically knocking them out one by one is what I found to be the best strategy!   haha  My body, however, couldn't keep up, and I ended up getting gastritis/ulcers from exhaustion. Thankfully, I have had a few days off from performing before I have to prepare for another 3 back to back performances, so it has gotten much better.  I've been enjoying eating healthy-like a rabbit-, and sleeping at least 7 hours a day.  =)

Anyway, I wanted to share a few photos from the performances taken mostly by David.  Bless his heart--his social calendar filled up dramatically once he started dating me because of all of my concerts!  =)  It's always nice seeing his smiling face during/after concerts though.



with some of my favorites! Matt, the awesome conductor and Grace, the fearless concert master  ;)




Another person who was there for all of the back to back concerts was Bayla, my amazing teacher.  I didn't expect her to come to all of them, or even any of them, since she is so busy, but she was there. For all of them.  But that wasn't all of it!  She also spent so many extra hours with me at dress rehearsals and coachings outside of the performances, and I am so grateful for her presence in my life.  She probably has no idea how much it meant to have her there, but she is one of the most supportive, encouraging, and wonderful mentors I could have ever asked for, and I feel incredibly blessed to be studying with her.  =)







This photo (April's face) perfectly captures Bayla's personality - she tickled us as we were standing there being all good for the photo  haha   Love. Her!


It can be easy to get into the complainy mode when you are sleep deprived, your body is sore from 10+ hours of playing the day before, and you're looking at another 10 hours today...  but there is really nothing better than making music with all of the people I love, constantly working on and improving myself in my craft, and getting to work with such amazing mentors that I have in my life. As cliche as it sounds, even though this was a hard path to choose 4 years ago, I would not change any of it (even the exhausting parts) for the world  =)  

It got a little sentimental there, but you know, sometimes, it's like that.  and that's ok.  Nothing wrong with being thankful for what we have, and what we have been called/chosen to do with our lives  =) (especially if you don't know how you are going to survive the hectic schedule for the next few weeks haha)

Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful day!
--Janny


Monday, October 5, 2015

Boston Food Festival and Legal Seafood

Hello everyone!

Boston has gotten quite chilly recently, so I thought it would be fun to look back to only a week or two ago when the weather was quite balmy.

It's so hard these days to find time to do anything but work.  I'm rehearsing and playing with 3-4 orchestra at any given moment, and teaching BU undergraduate classes and a few of my private students.  Not to mention the fact that I still have my own school work to do!  And David's working on multiple projects all at once, trying to publish papers and presenting at different conferences around the country.  

But we think it's very important to still continue to go on dates, and do 'couple'y things with each other, so we have been trying to carve out a few hours for that every week.  And of course, whenever we have any free time, our favorite things to do together involve eating food.  and dance. But today's post is food oriented  =)

There was a food festival going on in Boston a few weekends ago, so we decided to check it out and enjoy what was to be one of the last really warm days in Boston!




The weather was absolutely glorious!


and you already know my love of farmer's market-esq settings  =)





I never thought of tomatoes as particularly delicious, but I'm always happy when things change my mind!  and these were absolutely delicious!  =D



my date =)


and what seemed like all of Boston out to enjoy the weather!




Jerk chicken!







I kinda wanted to go on this, but decided that I will just wait until I have lil bebes like the rest of the folks there haha


and because we tend to eat mostly Korean foods at home, we thought we would indulge David's side of the culture here ;)
green onion pancakes filled with pork belly!



mmm! Boston's never ending supply of fresh seafood!




and kids enjoying the fountain.  They were having so much fun, and their laughter was contagious!  It didn't succeed in getting us to go into the water ourselves, but we did spend quite awhile just watching them play  =)







Enjoying the last wear out of this sundress before I pack it away until next summer!





To continue with the fresh seafood theme, we visited Legal Seafood for a date one evening!
We had never been, and we were told that it was a must!


We ended up getting the New England Clam Chowder, crab cakes, and the seafood platter full of lobster, clams, and mussels!




haha, hi there Mr. Lobster.   Definitely David's handywork  ;)


It was pretty good, and the seafood was fresh.  The atmosphere wasn't anything special, but if you are just after basic, fresh seafood, this would be a good place to visit!





Even though there's laundry to be done, our floor hasn't been swept or mopped in more than a week, and of course, there's always practicing to be done, it has been quite therapeutic to just sit here after finishing grading and doing my own homework to do some 'journaling' on my little corner of the interweb =)

Thanks for stopping by to catch up on our lives, and have a wonderful day!
--Janny