New York Girls Trip

To celebrate my little sister's birthday we ate Begium waffles, shopped, ran & biked in Central Park, saw Guys & Dolls and Lion King from our outpost in a quaint brownstone B & B.

Exciting Week

Mary (finally) pays tuition then comes home to celebrate her birthday...she gets to attend Enemy Slayer along with our house guests: Alonzo -from Quereterro and and the Composer Mark Grey, Navajo Librettist Laura Tohe and Photographer Deborah O'Grady of the Navajo Oratorio. What an amazing Week!

Deseret News article reported "Musically, "Enemy Slayer" is stunning. It moves from breathtakingly beautiful and lush passages to sections that are stringently dissonant, and finally ends peacefully and simply. Yet everything is cohesive and quite seamless. It is a hypnotic work that makes quite an impression on the listener.
With a libretto by Navajo poet Laura Tohe, the work tells a compelling story of Seeker, a Native American returning home to the reservation from the war in Iraq. He is emotionally scarred by what he has been through, including the death of his brother who was killed in action. Plagued by these inner demons, he undergoes a traditional Navajo healing ceremony to be cleansed.
The oratorio itself is the actual ceremony, and underscoring that, Seeker, sung by baritone Gary Sorenson, was dressed not in traditional concert attire but in everyday clothes: jeans, open shirt and sneakers. And Allred, symbolizing the medicine man in this ceremony, wore a ceremonial silver and turquoise necklace.
The visual element is quite forceful in this story, aided by Deborah O'Grady's photography taken on a reservation and projected on a large screen onstage to one side of the orchestra"

Escape from Mexico City

We thought we were just going down to promote the school, give away some wheelchairs and visit Mary... little did we know it was to resue her from the ravages of swine flu...those who appreciate fine photography check out Christine's pics (she is the cute brunette in the front of the bus with the blue mask)

You SPOKE I listened!

I have had request for pics from Scene & Cynthia's wedding and rightly so...here they are. What a fun memory it was.























We'd been back from Mexico just one day and had this great temple wedding-sealed by his grandfater; ...then a great Indian dinner & dance celebration! WE LOVE MANGO LASSIS and CYNTHIA!

back from long leave of absence

Just returned from a wonderful meeting with relatives in Holland
The man in the pic is Harry VDBerghe and the two cute white haired sisters on right are Wil and Hennie van den Berghe.

Spent time at the den Haag archive trying to find Grt (etc) Grandfather Wilhelmus Koning who went to Curacao in the military and died there in 1802. No luck finding him in Holland...Bryson suggests we go to Curacao.

Anybody want to join us?