Watkins Glen Wine Festival 2011!

This year I went to a wine festival in Watkins Glen NY. Let me start out by saying it was awesome! The wine festival has over 90 wineries that attend from the NY Finger Lakes region and a few from Penn. Some friends and I decided to stay for both days so we turned it into a camping adventure. This is our camp site.


Below is a shot of some of the other campers. We are all camped out around the race track.

Lunch on our first day
Two beautiful girls! The lanyards have a holder on the bottom so you don't have to hold your complimentary wine tasting glass and risk dropping it. Got to go prepared when you start tasting wine at 10am and have the potential to be there till 5pm =)

That would be Jenn and me on our last day.... the sun was brutal, along with the hangover.
Just a glimpse of the inside of one of 4 wine tasting tents, they were packed with people. It was so much fun!
This was an awesome trip and on the plus side most of the wines I tried are sold right in my town for roughly the same price. As I told my friend Andy I can never live to far from NY Finger Lakes wine because my 10$ bottle of wine cost him 25$ (he is from Penn.). This will definitely become an annual trip.

Shannon's graduation and party!

The Family



The Cake


The wall-o-shannon

Believe it or not, that's our garage

From this point on i did NOT take these pictures. I had an irrational moment and trusted my camera with Shannon... I don't know what I was thinking...

Water Fundraiser

This bulletin board was themed for our water fundraiser. The church assembly collects money every year for a program through World Hunger. This year we were raising money for wells. They asked each church to raise $300. Our little congregation managed to raise $350.52! I was so proud. The pictures below are what we did to water theme the church!

Just Had To Share

Went to Brian's (my boyfriend) cousin Nick's (valedictorian) graduation in New Jersey. We stayed at a Courtyard Marriott. Had an awesome room, with a whirlpool tub!

Church Assembly Meeting

Every year I get to go and vote for our church. Some years it's fun, others not so much. This year was... alright. The meeting is for the ELCA Upstate NY Synod. We vote on church policy, rules, and what we want to send to the Nation wide assembly. They do themes every year and this year's theme was 'empowered to serve.' They were VERY big on prayer ( I was told to pray about EVERYTHING, seriously). They did have a prayer cross for people that did not want to say them out loud.


This was our conference room. We go to the Radisson Convention Center every year! (don't eat their food, trust me)

Sherburne Pageant of Bands!

Pageant of Bands went very well for Norwich this year. We got first place in Middle School Concert Band, Middle School Jazz Band, Color Guard, Drum Line, and Marching Band. I was so proud of them all. Below are Morgan's Jazz performances. They are the same songs from his other performances, only different solos and preformed a little better =P.

Coming Soon

Coming Soon

Coming Soon (have to wait for it to upload to youtube... my internet connection kinda sucks)

Morgan's Concerts

Every year the jazz band, and more recently the select choir, preform for the 4th and 5th graders; to show them what the programs are like. First up is Morgan in the jazz band.






With this next song the group was showing the younger kids how you can play one song in two different styles.





Every year the jazz band, and more recently the select choir, go to the elementary school and give a performance for the younger kids so they can see what the programs are like. The actual Middle School Choir has about 80 kids in it. This group is just easier to transport =P.



Every year the Middle School Choir director (my friend from high school =P) lets the kids pick one song to write the vocals and instrumentals too. They present their song to the group and explain why, musically, it would be a good song to pursue. The kids then vote and if everyone, director included, agrees they get to write out the vocals, piano, and any other instrumental parts. Then they preform the song at the last concert. The song they choose this year is 'Firework' by Katy Perry.




And last Morgan's actual concert for the parents that evening. I unfortunately only got his jazz songs because my camera died =(.



Coming Soon

Shannon's Birthday!

Shannon turned 18 yesterday!
Yes that is a birthday hat and just so you know, those glasses have candles on the top and say happy birthday.

The lovely family

I realized to late that I was out of wrapping paper, so I got creative with some plastic grocery bags.
She loved her present, 1st season of Dexter, regardless. And before anyone judges us, her big gift was a shopping spree at the mall. Don't judge it's not nice =P.
The last picture I got before I ran away to Morgan's concert was a pic of our favorite birthday girl serving her own cheesecake; she just couldn't wait for the rest of us. =P (plus birthday flowers in the background)

And Some More Flooding....

Just a few pictures of the flood we had last month.

That's right, it's a cow

That poor little park gets owned every time the river floods

That was taken as Shannon and I were driving, no zoom required

Sorry for the blurriness, Shannon wanted to stop, but I wanted to be able to get over the bridge before it closed. Didn't want to make that phone call 'Hi mom, remember how I said I was just going to the store; well I took a detour, one thing lead to another, and I'm stuck on the wrong side of the bridge.' No thank you.

Lent/Easter Bulletin Board

Again sorry this is getting up so late. This is the board I had up at the church for the Lent season.

The small spots of color have other names on them as well.

And here is the Easter board!


and just for the South Park fans....

Morgan's Birthday!

Sorry this is getting up so late, April was a crazy month. This month is kinda crazy too but there are no finals and classes. Anyway, onto Morgan's 14 birthday!
We realized to late we had no candles, but matches make a good substitute. Fastest we've ever sang happy birthday too =P


Morgan got an Ipod Touch, he was so excited he was shaking; it was awesome.

All County Choir

For those who do not know, All County Choir is a choir of different age levels that kids in the county get to try out for. Only the best auditions make the groups. I say best auditions because just because a kid has the best audition doesn't mean they are the best kids from that school. Kids are busy these days and usually the best are also the busiest. This will be Shannon's last year for All County Choir. I personally did not go to this concert, I had a previous engagement in the form of a Mary Kay party/dinner. Which I planned before I knew about All County. I found out about All County about 12 hours before Shannon had to be there; thank you for the fair warning little sister. Well without further ado here are the songs my dad recorded in no particular order.

Blue Days


And this is what happens when Shannon doesn't try out for a solo....

Shadow of Your Smile


Georgia on My Mind


And the best for last...

I Don't Know Why

SHARKTOPUS!

That just happened...for ten bucks at walmart. For those of you who don't know sharktopus is the offspring off mega shark and giant octopus...awesomeness

Evening Music Club

Last night Shannon and Morgan were both in the Monday Evening Music Club. Morgan in the middle school jazz ensemble and Shannon in both the madrigals and as Christine from Phantom of the Opera. Morgan's first tune was 'Old Devil Moon'.

Sorry they start so zoomed out, apparently in record mode I don't get to enjoy the full range of my camera's zooming capability. It takes me a few songs to figure it out unfortunately. In this last video Morgan is the shorter of the two alto saxes playing the duet. The next song is 'On Broadway'.

I didn't record it as one long performance because the jazz instructor Mr. Burke, who was my band teacher, talks...a lot. I loved having rehearsal with him because there was always a chance you might not even have to play your horn because he would talk for the entire rehearsal. A couple of things he did mention were that the songs he had the kids play were hard songs for middle school kids, possibly songs that a normal instructor would not chose; but the kids are doing great. Also the tenor sax player is a 6 grader, which is awesome. Without further rambling here is the last song 'Saint Thomas'. (Morgan has the alto sax solo)

Next starts Shannon's portion of the show. First is the madrigal choir. Shannon is the girl in the center back standing next to the tall guy. The following two videos are of 3 movements from Requiem.

Next are some songs from the High School musical. The musical this year is 'Phantom of the Opera' and Shannon is Christine! (in case you don't know that is the lead) First up is 'Music of the Night', in this song Shannon is just a 'prop'. She is in the scene in the musical, but doesn't have a speaking/singing part.

Next up is the 'Managers' Office'. Shannon is not in this one at all, but her friend from across the street(Malory) plays Carlotta (the girl that comes in screaming about a letter) and she is in this one.

In the 'Phantom of the Opera' there is a play called 'Il Muto' where Christine(Shannon) plays the part of The Page Boy, a silent role, and Carlotta(Malory) plays the part of the countess. So yet again Shannon has no speaking part, but if you are wondering why she is acting like a boy that's why. So here is 'Il Muto'.

Next up is Shannon and Dillon's duet! It's just amazing, so without further ado here is 'All I Ask of You'.

The last song is 'Masquerade'. One thing you don't get to see is the dancing and poses, which I hear are pretty cool. On a personal note this is my favorite song in the whole musical, the kids do a pretty good job.

Overall the concert was great. The kids are so talented. This song brings the concert and this post to end.

Flooding Already

You can always look forward to a good spring flooding in this quiet little town, but this year it decided to be an 'end of winter' flood.

This lovely little river is usually low enough that you can stand on the pebble strewn bank and easily skip rocks to the other side. Oh yeah, and this time of year there is usually a small amount of ice, but not this year. The bridge in the bottom picture is currently closed. Lets take a look at other parts of town.

This is behind the high school and the parking lot that goes with the ball fields. In case you were curious where the river usually is; it would behind the tree line and down a bank. On a normal day you would not see the river in this picture or the seagulls. And now onto one last part of town.
That's right, it's the bus garage! Can't have pictures of flooding and leave this one out. The river is a) usually not in the parking lot and b) usually hiding back by the tree line past the field. It's been awesome. The best part, this was from yesterday, last night it rained, this morning it snowed, and there is still a fair amount of snow just laying around. All I have to say is thank goodness I live on a hill top. =)