Ammee and Dadada

My parents (or Ammee and Dadada as they're known to their grandkids) came for a visit over Thanksgiving and my birthday.  We had such a fantastic time and Charlie LOVED having them stay at her house!  We saw some sites, ate at a few pubs and Charlie got to take another ride on the London Eye with my folks.  We all agreed that their visit absolutely flew by and we were all sad to see them leave!

Some of these photos showed up on our Instagram feed and a few are from the camera (which we kept forgetting to bring along!) but they all give you an idea of what we were up to:

post pub lunch

matching buggies

dad eats his first "full English" breakfast

There was lots of relaxing and book reading to be had:

We also got into town quite a bit:

dad and me on the upper deck of a bus

occasionally we found ourselves out and about during nap time

three generations

I guess this is a bit of a random photo dump, but I treasure each of these pictures!  Thanks for coming all the way to London to see us!  We miss you!

Thanksgiving Recap

As I write this, I sit on the floor in a gorgeous condo in Miami eating the biscuits I brought to share with the choir.  (I'm still in my pj's and hoping to fall back asleep soon, but I woke up STARVING!)  I'm here until Christmas Eve singing Christmas concerts and a few Messiah concerts.  I already miss Jason and Charlotte terribly, but I'm happy to be back working with friends in Florida!

Thanksgiving is a funny holiday to celebrate in London.  Obviously there are no festivities (decorations, parades, etc.) so we have to make our own.  Since everyone works on the actual day of Thanksgiving, we've decided to celebrate it on the following Saturday instead.  It (as they say in the UK) works a treat!  (Wait, is that what they say?  It sounds odd now that I've typed it . . . ) 

For the second year in a row, we've celebrated Thanksgiving morning with Jason's famous pumpkin pancakes and the lovely Lorriman family (who are expecting a fifth child very soon!).  A great time was had by all and the kids even made us a fantastic "Happy Thanksgiving" banner that I've already rolled and saved to put up again next year!

(Check out last year's Thanksgiving posts here, here and here.)

The rest of the day involved cooking and socialising and watching American football (which Jason rigged so we could watch Thursday's games).  We had a full house of friends and family:  The Hungerfords, my parents, Mary and Emily, Josh and our neighbours Jayne and Patrick from upstairs.  It was Jayne and Patrick's first Thanksgiving dinner and we were happy to share all of the silly traditions with them (homemade "French fried onions" included!).  

Mom came up with the idea of putting flowers in the pumpkins.  They were so fun and festive!

A dirty joke was likely made before this photo was taken . . . 

Jason's plate (complete with homemade challah rolls (thanks, Josh!!)

Dad reenacts his version of "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" for a captive audience. 

And then there were Charlotte and Emily.  These two had the best Thanksgiving of their lives.  They did lots of running around, playing with each other's Bitty Babies (Charlie's is the blond and Emily's is the brunette) singing songs together and basically having the time of their lives.  (It is much improved form last year when Emily fell into a vat of turkey fat . . . )  Given their giddy state, they were a bit difficult to capture on film, but I did my best:

As the evening wore down, they decided to climb into Charlie's bed together to snuggle and read books.  It was the sweetest thing ever!!

And then some general silliness ensued:  

And general sleepiness was quick to follow:

All in all, another fantastic UK Thanksgiving!

Pa and Grandma Barbara

Pa (Jason's dad) and Grandma Barbara (Jason's step-mom) came to visit with their friends Karen and Mark.  They flew in from France where they'd been living it up for the first part of their vacation.  We all had a fantastic time visiting and site-seeing together but I think we all agreed that their visit could have been longer!

Here are a few pics from their visit:

We sneaked a group photo in by using a big (rain spotted) mirror:

Here is a group of Pa and Grandma Barbara with their good friends Karen and Mark:

And a group photo of the Hungerfords on Hungerford Bridge!

One of Charlie's favourite parts of their visit was holding their hands and walking around the city:

We tried to get a good shot of the three of them, but couldn't quite manage:

But we did get a good picture of Jason and his dad in front of the Tower Bridge while we were visiting the Tower of London:

Our last hurrah together was to take a flight on the London Eye.  Jason and I had take a ride on The Eye back in 2007 for our fifth wedding anniversary and we were excited to ride it again.  It was a stunning view at dusk, but it made it a bit difficult to get pictures of people in our pod!

Charlie still talks about them all the time; we can't wait for them to come back!

Highlights from Ohio and Indiana:

It is SO wonderful to be back home with my two favourites, but I sure did have a great trip.  One of the absolute highlights was to see a bunch of my family that I hadn't seen in years!   My Aunt Mary Lou and Father Uncle Dale (my dad's two siblings) took me out on the town one day in Cincinnati (AML drove all the way from Michigan to see me!).  

Uncle Dale treated us to a nice lunch at a restaurant with a gorgeous water view.  I only had my iPhone with me, but I'm hoping the two of them got some decent photos of our visit as well:

We then went on a tour around Cincy.  One of the places we stopped was the church where my parents were married!  Well, at least it was a church when they were married there.  Now it's a parking lot.  Haha!

 

We also visited my grandparents' graves.  Grandpa Peterka died in 1985 and Grandma Peterka died in 2010.  We used to visit grandpa's grave when we would come to Cincinnati to visit grandma, but this is the first time I had seen grandma's grave.  

I have a nearly identical picture of me in a very similar skirt (but with a Snoopy t-shirt on top!) from when I was eight.

Uncle Dale was able to come to our concert in Cincinnati.  He sent an email around with a review afterwards.  Here is my favourite part of what he wrote:

"The best part of the concert was watching the faces of the performers.

The five of them sat in a semicircle facing the audience, so we couldwatch them play, switch instruments, and enjoy the performances. Theysmiled a lot during the solos, and in general acted like a bunch ofkids jamming in the backyard."

We performed the same show in Indianapolis the next night:

And then we had an abbreviated family concert on Saturday morning.  Aunt Mary Lou drove all the way from Michigan to see me again and this time brought my cousin Kathy!!  We had a fantastic time catching up:

I'm super bummed that I didn't get any group photos with my fellow musicians, but alas, we were pretty busy rehearsing when we were together!  Maybe next time.  ;)

Grandma Peterka's Art

My Grandma Peterka was known for her artistic abilities.  She was a regular painter of greeting cards and also made and painted ceramics.  When she passed away a few years ago, I asked my aunt if she had left any paintings behind, but she wasn't sure.  I was thrilled when she showed up to see me this morning with a great big stack of them!  Here are a few of my favourites:

The bottom one is the largest of the bunch and (obviously) not at all like the others.  It will probably be the first one I frame, however, because I LOVE it!  Strangely, it is also the only one of the bunch that she didn't sign, so I don't know which way she intended it to be oriented . . . anyone have any thoughts?

Speaking of Grandma's name, I was recently telling a friend that my Grandmother's family was German (she was actually born in Germany!) but I was confused as to why her last name, Adams, didn't sound German.  I asked my Uncle Dale and he said it was actually "Adam" but changed to "Adams" when they arrived in America.  I am curious to know if her full name, "Amalia Myrtle Adams," was perhaps originally "Amalie Mirta Adam" (the German versions of her name).  More questions for Uncle Dale!

CORRECTION:  It was my GREAT grandma who was born in Germany, not my grandma!  

So Long Tampa. Hello Cincinnati!

Though I was sad to leave great friends in Tampa, I am excited to start rehearsals with the Catacoustic Consort and Gut, Wind and Wire here in Cincinnati!  I arrived this afternoon and was greeted at the airport by my Uncle Dale who is a priest here in Cincy.  We went out to lunch before he dropped me off at this gorgeous home that I will be staying in for the next four nights.  Here is a quick peak at my lodgings:

view from the bed

My dorm roomies in Tampa were AMAZING, but I'm pumped to have my own bathroom complete with a huge vintage tub!!

It is quite a step up from my dorm room!

Tomorrow I will be meeting up with my uncle again and my Aunt Mary Lou will be joining us from Michigan.  It should be a lot of fun.

Speaking of Aunt Mary Lou, here is a picture Uncle Dale took of the two of us when I was about eight or so.  He gave me a big stack of photographs when I arrived and this was just one of many great ones:

As always, I'm missing my two favourites and can't wait to get home to see them!  From the looks of their recent blog posts, it looks like they're having a great time, but being apart this long is always a bit heartbreaking for us all.