Houston for a few days

Hello everyone!

Snowmageddon is here in Boston!  BU has cancelled school for this evening and all of tomorrow, and everyone is prepping for 2-3 feet of snow and hurricane speed winds.  I have never experienced a blizzard before, so while I know that it's extremely dangerous, I'm also rather giddy to see a completely white world tomorrow when I wake up!  

outside my window a few days ago  =)

Being stuck at home for a full day and a half also gives me time to catch up on my blog!  I know it's been awhile, but since I got to Boston, I've been so swamped with school and my new job as an orchestra manager that it's been difficult to even find time to eat sometimes.  Needless to say, this snow day could not have come at a better time.  I'm looking forward to baking cookies, maybe drinking some hot chocolate, catching up on some homework, practicing, and just enjoying this God-send day off.

Now, to catch up on a few events before my life became incredibly hectic...
I spent a few days in Houston before school started, and though I couldn't see everyone I wanted to see due to lack of time, I still got to pack in a few adventures  =)

The first one, of course, (I mean, it's David and I haha) was going dancing!  We used to love going to Second Saturday Dances put on by USA Dance, and my visit coincided with the Second Saturday Dance for January, so we got to go!

It was before school started in Houston, so we didn't see all of the Rice dancers, but we did see a few of our old Rice friends + an adopted U of H dancer   haha.  They had a little 'photo booth' there, so obviously, we had to take the awkward dance family photo  ;)

Then, our old apartment reunited!!!!  

If you've been following my blog for awhile, you would be familiar with seeing Amulet around here since we were roommates for 2 years!  

it was really great to catch up, have some lunch, and some coffee to warm up in the frigid(?) Houston weather (little did I know what I would be facing in Boston)

Later, for tradition's sake, the double daters got together for some game night!  We used to do this so much, and Chris (Amulet's bf) has quite an extensive collection of board games, so we had to get together again while I was visiting  =)

We played a Polish game (I forget what it's called since it was in Polish) that was a cross between the game 'Dixit' and 'Clue' that got us all warmed up for a night of non-stop laughter.

we were joined by our favorite four-legged friend, Houdini!!  such a charmer this one  =)

After two rounds of the first game, we proceeded to build our castles with the game 'Castles of Mad King Ludwig' which was so much fun!  Chris built the fattest castle, Amulet had the most well-balanced castle, I had the sleepiest one, and David had the creepiest, strangest castle full of dungeons and other questionable underground rooms  haha

It was so good to be back hanging out and catching up with our favorite double date couple, and I hope that we get to do it more as we visit each other in our respective cities  =)

If you are in the New England area chillin with the blizzard Juno, I hope that you will stay warm and safe, and if you are enjoying the balmy weather in the 50's (like in Houston), then... well...  harumph.  haha  =)  

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great week!

--Janny

Exploring with McKinley

Hello everyone!

Here's the part 2 of the forgotten Seattle blogposts!

just a few photos of our beautiful neighborhood and my loves  =)

exploring the forest that is our backyard..

and no, it doesn't rain all the time in Seattle, especially during the summer, but when it does, we get the most beautiful rainbows!  and sometimes double rainbows!  =)

and as always, taking McKinley to the dog park  =)  such a silly pup

ahhhh Seattle life.. how I miss thee  =)

If you are thinking about moving to Seattle... I would highly recommend it!  ;)

Thanks so much for stopping by and have a wonderful hump day!

--Janny

Garth Newel :: Everyday Life

Hello everyone!

As you can imagine, everyday life at Garth Newel Music Center includes lots and lots of,, well, music.  In all different forms.  

Most of the day is spent rehearsing...  everyone does this for the better part of the day, including us fellows, guest musicians, and the faculty.

Then, if we have enough energy at night, we sight read for fun.  In case you have never heard of sight reading, it's when musicians come together and read chamber music without ever having had time to rehearse.  It's usually a pretty funny train wreck, but sometimes, when you have the right group of people, it can also be incredibly satisfying.   like when we read this Schubert Cello Quintet a couple of nights ago.  Oh My Lord.  If you have not heard of this quintet, please go to Youtube or Spotify right this second and listen to the first movement.  you'll fall in love.   =)

and if you have more energy after the sight reading session, you can also just break out in spontaneous, memorized, Brahms Cello Sonatas together.   Here are my favorite two men at Garth Newel doing just that!  Our Timmay, of course, and Robbie, the pianist.  He teaches at Boston University, and I am soooo excited to get to work with him when I got there for my doctorate!

We have our final official Fellows concert on August 3rd, but we have been performing quite a bit outside of that in different churches and other community venues this week.  Most of the churches are quite small, and incredibly charming, like this one!

When we're not performing, we are probably watching the guest artists and faculty performing, along with this little fellow.

Oh, sometimes, we have a performance classes, or master classes, with the faculty and guest artists where we play for each other and get feedback.  At Garth Newel, these are also accompanied by some 4 legged friends!  I mean, shouldn't everything be accompanied by our 4 legged friends?  I think so!  =)

It can be pretty tiring, but it is also awesome spending all our days among amazing music and friends (including the 4 legged ones), and I can't believe 3 weeks have gone by here already!  We have a pretty crazy week remaining though with more concerts and rehearsals than ever!  we're all pretty exhausted at this point, and well all like to be dramatic and say things like 'I don't know if we can survive!' 'We're all gonna die...'  but the craziness...  well, somehow we are all drawn to it. and perhaps we crave it.  because in the end, what we get to do, performing amazing music with the people we love, is really an incredible gift, and we really can't ask for much more than that.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful weekend!

--Janny

Playing with the new camera =)

Hello everyone!

I hope your week is going well so far!

In less than 2 months I'm going to be saying goodbye to Rice and Houston, and for some reason, it had never felt real.. until a couple of days ago.  but soon, we'll be moving out of our apartment, going through the graduation ceremony and 'walking through the front gates' thing that Rice does, and most likely leaving Houston to relocate to a different city and a different school....  I'm definitely getting a little bit sentimental over here...  sigh...

Anyway, a little while ago, we took the new camera David got for me for Valentine's Day (it's a Sony NEX 3N) and took a stroll around the neighborhood and our campus with Pucci.  It was a good chance to play around with the camera, and to take a few photos of our beautiful campus  =)

This camera is kind of a cross between a point and shoot and a DSLR in that it has all of the functions of the point and shoot, but you can change out the lens.  The lens that I have seems to work best for shooting scenery, or subjects that are farther away, and it also does a beautiful job with natural light.  It isn't so good with macro photos though, but that makes sense considering the type of lens I have.

So, a few outdoor photos around our neighborhood...

With Pucci!

and walking around Rice

with Mr. Sleepyhead...  haha

and my favorite photo from the day  (a photo of a coffee shop at Rice that David snapped while I went into the Rice library for a second)  =)

I did little to no editing on these photos, and I really love how great the quality is on the photos!  I mean, do have a Canon point and shoot, but most of the time I feel like the quality is comparable to my iphone5, so I never bother taking it out.  But now that the photo quality from the camera is significantly better than the phone, I think I'll take it out more often  ;)

Do you guys own a similar camera?  how do you like yours?

Thanks for stopping by!
--Janny

Another game night!

Hello everyone!

Yes, yes, we have game nights all the time (like here and here), and yes, I am blogging yet another one.  haha  If you haven't tried game nights with a couple of your closest friends (and add the four legged friends too if you are so inclined) you are totally missing out!  so grab a couple of your favorite games, people, and animals, food and block off a couple of hours to hang out.  It's as easy as that!

For our game night, we picked our favorite double date couple, a couple of poochies, multiple games, and some pizza, and we were set!

Here is David with pup #1, Pucci.  We were dogsitting her for the weekend, and she is such a delight! we can't wait to get a pup of our own!

pup #2, our favorite/the most regular four legged addition, Houdini, nicknamed 'jammies'

and Amulet getting really into the game with the help of pup #3, Odi!

And some deliciously greasy pizza!  mmmmhmm.  We usually try to eat healthy, but a little bit of grease once in awhile never hurts, and this was just so good!  

We started off with a quick little game called For Sale, which was so quick I didn't really get a chance to snap many photos other than this one of Odi and David  haha

Then we moved onto our favorite game of the night!  

Have you heard of Dixit? It's kind of like Pictionary and Apples to Apples got together and had a baby.. and it is so much fun!!

and the illustrations on the cards are really wonderful too.

So the gist of the game is that you pick a card and a saying that goes along with it, and the others choose a card from their hand that they think matches what you said.  Then, you lay it all down on the table and the other players try to guess which one was yours.  The tricky part is that you don't want to be too vague that no one guesses it (because then you don't get any points) but you also don't want to be too obvious because then everyone will guess yours and again, you won't get any points.  It's quite tricky to walk the line between the two, and the scientists in the group (the boys) had the hardest time coming up with a not too obvious description of the card  haha.  

Pictures below shows our last round, and we're dying because David, the obvious-king of the night put, down his last card, and without him even having to say anything, we all correctly guessed which one was his!    XD

The last game we played was Munchkin, and while it was fun, I think we were a bit too tired to be playing the game.. It has a pretty steep learning curve at first, but it would be fun to play it again =)

super focused David  =p

Overall, it was such a fun night with wonderful company (both the 2 legged and the 4 legged kind), and we can't wait to do it again soon!

Hope you had a wonderful weekend!
Thanks for stopping by!
--Janny