Tag: family

こんばんは！How’s it going?

Tonight Koa’s band had another concert where they previewed their songs that they will perform in Chicago over the holidays. The played 7 songs and they all sounded fantastic! It’s amazing and wonderful how awesome their musical abilities have become.

In other news, at work I organized a photoshoot with 9 people and it went well! I was a little nervous because I wasn’t sure about the locations around the office, but I am pleased with how the photos turned out. And the models are all co-workers so we had fun taking the photos. Tomorrow and Thursday I will take more photos, but instead of a large group, we’ll be splitting into groups of three, and doing solo shots.

FYI, these photos will be used on our website. Instead of just using stock images like we have done quite a bit the past couple of years, we decided to create our own photos so they are absolutely unique. It’s not the first time we’ve done something like this, but I haven’t done a “stock” photoshoot in a while, so it’s a lot of fun, with plenty of nervous energy. I enjoy it a lot, surprisingly. I guess it has a lot to do with self-confidence which is something that I’ve gained quite a bit over the years. It’s a good thing!

I hope you had a nice day. 😄

おやすみなさい！

– B 

こんばんは！How’s it going?

Tonight was Halloween 🎃 and we celebrated by dressing up, having a couple of friends over, eating good food, drinking lots of wine, and handing out candy 🍬 to the neighborhood kids.

I was wondering how many trick-or-treaters would knock on the door, and was pleasantly surprised that we had so many! I’d guess that about 50-60 kids stopped by for candy, maybe more. There was one group that came by at around 6:30 which maybe had 20 or so! They were lined up all along our walkway. It was amazing!

Our friends who joined us this evening live in an older neighborhood that doesn’t have many trick-or-treaters. All the kids have grown up. So they enjoyed handing out candy tonight at our house. Lots of fun!

As you can see, we even dressed Lani up in her cowgirl costume. It was a bit tight on her, and when she was wearing it she was pretty much paralyzed so we were able to get some good photos of her before we took the costume off.

By the way, I was dressed up like a prisoner, while our friends were dressed similarly as thieves. It was a coincidence that we were all alike. 😊

I hope you had a nice Halloween!

おやすみなさい！

– B 

こんばんは！How’s it going?

Tonight Koa performed with his middle school band as a warm-up for their big performance in December. Their school band was chosen to participate in the Midwest Clinic, which takes place in Chicago. They’ll be performing several pieces, so tonight was a good chance for a dress rehearsal. 🎶

Koa is in the percussion section, and plays several different instruments. Tonight he even played the gong! In the photo above, he’s in the top left corner next to it. He said the gong tonight was “horrible”… they used the high school auditorium’s gong which Koa thought was much worse than his middle school’s gong.

But besides that, he said the percussion section did pretty good! I’m proud of him because he shows a lot of dedication to playing percussion and says he enjoys performing. It’s nice to have the opportunity to take part in such an awesome band program. His school’s band is one of the best (if not the best) in the state of Texas. We’re really fortunate that both our kids participated in band! 😄

I hope you had a nice Thursday!

おやすみなさい！

– B 

こんばんは！How’s it going?

Today Bay (15) competed in a piano contest at the UT campus. 🎹 It wasn’t like a recital, but basically he performed his piano piece for a judge in one of the classrooms at the music school. We’ll find out the results of the contest later. Last year he didn’t win an award, but received some really good comments and feedback from the judge and Bay’s teacher was happy.

It was kind of neat to visit UT (University of Texas at Austin) since I haven’t been there in a while. I made sure to take my camera, and although we didn’t really wander around campus, I got a couple of shots I am pleased with.

While I was waiting in the hallway of the music building, a nostalgic feeling came over me from being back at a University. The aging interior, cheap bulletin boards with messages to and from students, want ads, and office hour notices were all so familiar and haven’t changed at all since I was a student 30 years ago. It was both comforting and depressing… comforting because the experiences that today’s kids are having are similar to what my generation experienced, but sad because the facilities have not kept up with the times. Adding to that second point, I could see network cables and routers strung haphazardly from the ceilings… tuition is so expensive, but the facilities are really kind of crappy. At least from what I saw at UT today. 😔

Anyways, after the contest, I treated Bay to an ice cream at Amy’s to reward him for his hard work. 😄🍨 I’m very proud of him.

I hope you had a nice Saturday!

おやすみなさい！

– B