I realize it’s been a little while since I have last blogged, so let me catch you up! I had a great time with my family in Florida for a quick visit, and the happy news is that the JSO settled with the musicians and my parents are back to work! Then I went up to Savannah to spend time with Jenn and Dana. I was rather cold and rainy, but we still had lots of fun!

The week I came back California was really drenched with rain every day – The picture above is of the mountain behind us with the clouds so low that you can’t see the top! Steven had a surprise waiting for me when I got back – an iPhone!!! All the pictures in the blog were taken with it, and Steven made me some super cool ring tones

I’ve been throwing myself into the new life of a teacher and musician, and I really am just so much happier. Here’s an example of a typical day for me:

Early morning walk with Apollo (he has to wear his sweater because it is COLD in the morning!)

Have breakfast while watching the Today show (I was so surprised to discover that Ann has a personality without Katie around!)

Clean up, organize, do email, practice oboe or other random instruments

Spend the afternoon teaching beginning instruments of some form

Take Apollo out for his evening walk

Cook dinner

Clean some more, practice again

Sounds pretty good, huh? It’s so fun to be surrounded by kids again, there are a couple really special ones that just light up my days. I also have two private students (one oboe, one trumpet… don’t laugh!) that are also precious.

Emily and Andy come to visit this weekend on their long roadtrip – I haven’t seen Emily since our wedding, and Andy since his wedding so we expect to have a nice time with them.

Speaking of visiting, since many of you East Coasters probably aren’t going to be able to visit us way out here in CA, here’s a better explanation of where we live. Glendale and Burbank are in a valley between two “hills” (mountain ranges). We are on the north west side of Glendale, right next to Burbank.

The mountains to our north, that our street slopes up to, are the Verdugo mountains:

The ones to the south of us that separate us from Los Angeles are part of the Santa Monica Mountains. If you click the picture to make it larger you can see a large wire tower/rigging thing – that is the back of the Hollywood sign!

Happy Almost February!