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Yesterday, Mark and the freshman rowing team headed to Indianapolis for a regatta.  While there, some horrible person(s) broke into the Michigan van and stole Mark's backpack and the backpack of a fellow rower.  Mark's backpack held his wallet, keys, Michigan ID and phone. To put this in perspective, think about Mark when he arrived back in Ann Arbor: his car was locked, and he had no keys, so he had no way to drive home. he could have called a taxi, but he had no money.  No cash, and no credit card. he could have called someone, but he had no phone. Thankfully, somebody gave him a ride home, and he called us from there. This morning, this SUNDAY morning, John got up early enough to start calling locksmiths.  He needed to find someone who could break into Mark's car, because Mark's car held his french horn which he needed for two performances today. The car was then towed to the Honda dealer, because we have only one key for that car (mind you, I have been s...

I laugh at the title of this post.  It is a direct copy of what John wrote on the blank "NAME:_____" space on his Yahtzee score sheet:  John the Stud. John the Stud on his throne at Interlochen I know I've said it before, but my husband is the best.  He IS a stud! Over the last few months, I've been especially sensitive to the fact that John is a provider for our family.  I am thankful, beyond belief, that he has given me the comfortable life that I have now.  I don't need to work outside of the home because HE works so hard outside of the home.  When the kids need something (like Mark does this weekend), we have the money to buy it.  When I can't find a music teacher that meets my high standards, he's willing to give up time with me and money from the bank account so that I can drive down to Philadelphia for lessons.  The summers we spend at Interlochen, our favorite place on earth?  Completely made possible because of John.  Th...

The sewing machine and I are not friends.  In fact, the only reason I have  a sewing machine is because I got tired of paying someone else to sew on my boys' Boy Scout patches and badges.  I shouldn't feel this way. Growing up, I loved to sew.  In fact, I was known to make a few of my own clothes as a pre-teenager.  In high school, I actually made dresses for a couple of girls and made some money at the same time. Sometime, between then and now, I lost my sewing prowess.  In fact, sewing anything that anybody is actually going to wear scares me to death. Four years ago, when I was in the depths of back pain, I lost my mind, bought a pattern for a Halloween costume and even bought yards and yards of fabric.  Johannah wanted to be an Egyptian princess.  The fabric was the shiny, metallic looking stuff--not your average cotton percale. I would think that I could do the same thing that I always did.  Follow the pattern, and voila, a costu...

Yes, we got hit with our first snow storm in October...again!  Thankfully, most of the trees had lost their leaves, so we didn't lose large branches and such.  Of course, Glo and the pups were happy about it! Dash, catching a snowball At the end of the day...

I love singing. In fact with the exception of horn, I love the singing the most out of every art form because I really believe with singing, there are a lot more emotions and novelties that can be portrayed than with an added element of an instrument. Plus, it just feels natural and easier, thus allowing for more expression I guess(: I recently had the AWESOME experience of going to the Detroit Opera House with one of my best friends from Interlochen, Meghan Jolliffe, and her family to see Carmina Burana! Actually, I don't think awesome quite covers it as I was at a loss for words at the end of the performance. All I could envision was minds exploding(: Anyways, here's just a brief synopsis of what made this great night JUST SO MIND-BLOWING! The setting was beautiful. Not only was it in this huge opera house (and of course we were in the balcony which is where the cool people sit) with all kinds of fancy architecture and stuff, but the set was this big circle of like a boat...

For the first time in ...  forever, maybe? ...  I have a moment to breathe. It feels like since we got home from Interlochen, life hasn't stopped.  Granted, this isn't abnormal for me, but usually I'm busy playing agent for everyone else's busyness.  However, it's been all about me and what I have to do, and I'm exhausted. Seriously, I woke up this morning, got the girls off to seminary and school, ate my breakfast, and wondered what I needed to do before my hair appointment.  I couldn't think of anything.  No music to practice, no essay to write, no lesson to prepare, no grass to mow, no party to plan. It feels wonderful to just breathe.

I'd like to think that Ethan really knew what he was doing by not sending me photos for almost a year--the ones I received today in the mail are GOLD!  It felt so good to see him again.  Here's the collection I got with the captions he wrote on the backs of the photos: Polish-German border.  Crazy story.  See the umbrellas over my right shoulder?  We were still taking pictures when they walked up.  They were these two old ladies, and one of them made a comment in German about us taking pictures.  I struck up a conversation.  Turns out, the white umbrella is from Koeln, and the blue umbrella?  Dahlem.  Do you remember Dahlem?  It's literally 10 minutes from Scharfbillig!  She knew EXACTLY where Preist was and everything.  It was SO cool to be able to speak with them, and my German was actually good!  I don't think I'll have a problem when I get back picking it up :-) The Baltic Sea.  How AWESOME is it that...

Johannah is growing up. This pains me to no end. I know, I know.  I can hear my visiting teachers even now--"Now Larisa, you know this is a good thing." No it's not.  In fact, it kills me to see it happening. She is taller than me now at 5'9".  She wears my shoe size when it's convenient and my shoes match her outfit better, even though she wears a half size larger than I do.  Her hair is the hair that I would die to have.  I know she's counting down the days until she gets her braces off (I think we are at 57 days).  But braces, or no, she's growing up. One of the hardest things for us to find is modest dresses that are cute.  Being so tall, most dresses that would be modest are really short on her.  Or, something that I've noticed about fashion, is that if the dress is actually long, the designer must make up for the lack of skin that is showing by giving the dress a plunging neckline.  I don't even know how many camisoles Hannah ...

There is no other quality that I appreciate more in a friend than loyalty.   Honestly, being able to trust that someone has my back (even when I'm not there) means a lot to me. Cherry is Glo's dog.  We have five dogs, and Glo loves them all, but Cherry is her dog.  Cherry is a funny little thing.  We got her when Dodge died, and she is actually Dodge's half sister.  Although she's the smallest of our dogs at 35 pounds, she is the fiercest when it comes to working.  She's also the smartest.  Like Glo, she suffers from stage fright, and refuses to perform in any training class.  Glo loves Cher-Cher. Glo throws the ball for Cherry, rubs her belly with her feet when Cherry naps under Glo's chair at the kitchen table, and Glo always takes Cherry on her runs with her (even though she's not the best on a leash). We have a running track that runs up to our land, runs parallel to it for 500 feet, and then turns away.  For the past two months,...

Why is it that we, as musicians, can play 999 notes out of 1,000 correctly, but we focus on the one note we played wrong?  Seriously, why?

This week, I asked Ethan for a couple of pictures of himself.  He doesn't regularly send any photos to us, and yet I know he's taking them.  He happily agreed, and one of the photos (shown below) says so much about him and encompasses so much of his life: I love, Love, LOVE this picture!  Like, I want to look at it everyday because it makes me soooo happy!  This photo was taken at the Poland/Germany border.  Ethan lives just 30 minutes from the border, and he says it's taken some adjustment to hearing all the German spoken around him (yay!) Anyway, looking at the photo, here's what I can see that makes me unbelievably happy: He looks happy.  There's a reason his Uncle Mike gave him the nickname of "Cheeser" so many years ago--that cheesy grin shines through. He's standing on the Polish border.  Poland has been his home now for over a year. Behind him, I can only assume, is Germany.  Germany was his home for most of his childhood.  Six f...

Today, in Primary, I was treated to a viewing of the movie "Johnny Lingo".  While I know just about every line from the movie, I love watching it every couple of years.  For those of you who don't know the story, he's a recap (although you can find it in three parts on YouTube): Johnny Lingo was the richest and shrewdest trader in the in the South Pacific Polynesian Islands. He was young, handsome, a very eligible bachelor, and now it was time for him to take a wife. As was customary, he would have to sit with the father of the potential bride and bargain for her, offering livestock, typically two to four cows. After marriage, the women of the village compared their value and beauty based on the number of cows that had been offered for them. A “four cow woman” was obviously more highly esteemed than a “two cow woman”. A rumour had now emerged that Johnny Lingo was expected to ask for the hand of Mahana, the ugliest girl in the village. But that didn’t make...

Saturday was the Baltimore Marathon!  Yes, this is becoming an annual event for John.  It's a very friendly marathon with good support, a great t-shirt (thanks to Under Armor being the sponsor), and it's easy to find a hotel within walking distance of the starting line. At the starting line.... He knew he was a champion before he'd even begun the race! This year, in fact, our hotel was directly in front of the starting line!  This was convenient for so many reasons! John did really well.  In fact, I've never seen him finish a marathon in such good spirits.  The weather was even perfect running weather--sunny, but cool. Can you spot John? In the last mile... Still strong which is good.  It's always a long walk back to the car :-) Check out this video of John, post marathon.  (Blow it up to full screen to see it best.) Back on the home front, Hannah and Glo got their 3 miles of running in for the day.  In fact, Hannah wen...

Although I don’t run anymore, I’m thankful that I did run when I had the physical capabilities.  I’m especially glad that I chose to run the two marathons that I did, because long distance races are great metaphors for life.  As you know, every mile or so along the race are aid stations.  Water, Gatorade, bananas.  I don’t know about you, but I was always thankful to see the aid station—it was a place to refuel and to get encouragement from the workers.  Remember how they cheer and clap and encourage you on?  Too, I always ran my strongest in front of them because I didn’t want to look like a loser :-) Since I returned home from Interlochen, life has been difficult for me, to say the least.  The one shining moment was all the fun I had with Mark and the kids before he left, but other than that, it’s been really hard.  I haven’t gone into many of the details because I haven’t wanted you to worry—I figure you have enough on your plate!  Ho...

My heart is once again full of thankfulness for teachers.  I guess in many ways, we are all teachers, but today I'm thankful for the trained, talented teachers who have blessed my life and the life of my kids.  Here are a few specifics: Today, I went in to play for the 10th grade choir, and I spoke with their director, Mr. Drafall for a few minutes afterwards.  He was holding a piece of music in his hand (Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind) that Ethan had sung with the choir in Carnegie Hall back in 2008.  We reminisced about the choir, singing atop the Empire State Building amid the cold and wind.  He said it was those moments that made him love working with kids.  Yes, their voices were in jeopardy for their performance the next day.  Yes, it was cold and miserable and all adults would have called the visit a wash.  What Mr. Drafall won't give credit to is himself.  Because he had taught those kids to sing, and had engendered in them a lov...

Our family first met the Morans on the first Sunday we attended church in Germany (over 10 years ago!)  Jared had been assigned to be our home teacher, and so in true Jared style, he went above and beyond and invited our entire family over for dinner that evening. Since then, the Morans have been the best of friends.  They have supported us through thick and thin, and they love our kids as if they were their own.  When we visit Germany, we stay with the Morans.  When we travel, we travel with the Morans.  When we get unexpected packages in the mail (as we did this past weekend), they're from the Morans. John and Jared run together whenever they are together, and it's always a hoot to hear Jared's recap of any run with John!  Usually the stories involve ...  well, they involve a lot of funny things that only runners can appreciate, right Mark? John has always "encouraged" Jared to run a marathon.  Imagine John's delight when Jared called him up ...

Oh my goodness... Can it be? Glo is TWELVE! Happy Birthday, Glo!

I love conference.  Nothing is more wonderful than hearing the words of the Lord through his prophet and apostles.