Happy New Year! (prepare yourself...I'm long-winded today)

Well, here it is, 2013, and apparently maybe I need to make a resolution to update the blog a little more frequently. I was thinking I should go back and do a little bit of a partial "year in review," just for the sake of anyone who is interested. Lets go back to September.

September:
I started working officially for the Conservatory. July and August were nutty, because I basically had two months to get a school ready to go. My biggest concerns were scheduling, faculty, registration, communications, and the website. September was welcome because all of that had to be in place, and I could finally just teach! The Conservatory is a really lovely environment...sweet kids with good attitudes and motivation. The physical building is wonderful. We have two really nice spaces with the best Harlequin flooring money can buy. I feel really blessed to get to work in the space that I do with the students that I do. Aside from regular weekly classes, I teach company class on Saturdays, choreograph for the company, and work with the Trainees.

October:
Started to look like fall in NWA. We enjoyed lots of park time in the beautiful weather. We took a trip to Norman for OU/TX weekend. And we had a host of different dress-up events for Halloween. The multiples club fall festival was a blast. The kids got to dress up at dance, at a church festival, and at Daddy's office trick-or-treat. And one of the most exciting things that happened in October was that on the 24th, MoMo (Aaron's mom) came to visit us. She got to enjoy all of the Halloween activities and lots of fall fun, since she stayed through Thanksgiving!

November:
We celebrated MoMo's birthday on November 6th. We ordered Thai food (her special request), and presented her with some beautiful flowers and a cake. She had a great day, and we were so happy that we could spend it with her.

November 10th, the Conservatory held it's first Fall Showcase performance. I wanted to give the Trainees an opportunity to present an in-house showcase of the choreography they'd been working on. I set the Kingdom of Shades from La Bayadere on them. Along with that, the company was also featured in an original contemporary piece by one of the dancers and also the Hallelujah Chorus, which they were preparing to perform with the Singing Men of Arkansas' Christmas production.  The showcase went so well, and I was so proud of all of the dancers.

We were able to take MoMo to Silver Dollar City one weekend in November, to see the Old Time Christmas lights. It was awesome! The weather wasn't super cold yet, and we got to ride everything without a long wait, including the train and seeing the parade.

We all drove down to Texas for Thanksgiving, which we haven't celebrated with Aaron's family in several years. We had a great time with all of Aaron's family in Victoria and Goliad, and I got to see my friend Veronica's new baby, Lily. She is just a doll, and we throroughly enjoyed our time in TX. We also thoroughly enjoyed our time with MoMo here. She was such a big help with the house and the kids...and it was just nice to spend the time with her. I think we should make it an annual event (HINT HINT, MoMo!)

December:
The very first weekend of December we had our company performances with the Singing Men of Arkansas. They are an all-male choral group that sings an evening of Christmas songs. It's usually a sold-out event. They did two shows in Bentonville, and also two touring dates in Van Buren and Russelville. I choreographed three of the pieces that the dancers performed: Hallelujah Chorus, Gesu Bambino and Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring. My friend, Emalie, choreogaphed the Nutcracker Jingle. The dancers performed beautifully at all of the shows. So, Christmas performances were over as of December 8th.

I guess I should mention that I did have an opportunity to help with a Nutcracker that the Northwest Arkansas Arts Foundation was producing. But I decided that this year, I needed a break from Nutcracker. Last year, Nutcracker was...well, lets just say that a few key people made the experience very difficult. And everything for Nut this year was getting drawn together with haste, and I felt there might be a few loose ends. Several key choreographers could not participate, and let face it...Nutcracker is big. And it ended up being a "Holiday Show." That means it was an hour and a half variety show and then 30 minutes of Snow and Act II Nutcracker excerpts. I decided that it was going to be more stress than I was willing to undertake considering the amount of time I sunk into last year's production, and everything that I had taken on this Fall with the Conservatory, the company, the trainees...and the other two studios that I teach for on the side. Let me just take a moment to say I AM SO STINKIN' GLAD I SAID NO. Even without Nut, I still had a very busy schedule with the other involvements...but what I did have was a whole lot more time on Sundays and throughout December than I've had in the past doing Nut. I fully enjoyed having less stress, less worry, less drama...and a lot more time with my kids and family.

Now, plans are in the works for the company to produce a Nutcracker next year, and I'm signed on for that. This way, I have a whole year to plan and gear up for it...and I foresee it being a really good experience. At the Conservatory we closed out the year with little Christmas dances and parties the last week of class. Parents could come in and observe a short piece of choreograph and then everyone was able to enjoy cookies and cider. That was really fun.

Christmas itself was a little different for us this year. We've NEVER spent Christmas at our house, and this year we did. You see, Aaron is going to be taking a trip to India with our pastor in February, to dedicate a church and visit some orphanages, and he needs to conserve his vacation days for that. Since we'd seen his family at Thanksgiving, my family agreed to come to our house for Christmas, so he could get the extra work days in. We still had a wonderful Christmas. It was kind of nice not to have to pack for 10 days, along with ALL of the presents (don't worry, family! We're ready to make our cross country tour again next year). And we had plenty of fun with my mom, Nana, sister and niece. We ate lots of good food and had a blast opening gifts. We even got to go to our church's Christmas Eve Candlelight service for the first time. That was really nice. Some of my dancers presented Gesu Bambino at our service, which was great...and Aaron and I did special music (Winter Snow by Audrey Assad). The kids loved lighting the candles.

The only cruddy thing was that I had started to get a sore throat on Christmas Eve. I rallied through Christmas day, but then Wednesday and Thursday was feeling pretty bad. Aaron came down with it Thursday into Friday. It had been predicted to snow on Christmas day, but we didn't get one single flake. Then on Friday, out of the blue, we got about an inch. It was enough to get out with the kids and make the smallest snowman ever. He was cute though! We've had a pretty laid back winter break...spent a lot of time in pajamas chillaxing with the fire going. It's been nice. New Year's eve was the same way. It was too cold out and we're too old to party. :-) We did get out to Walmart to get a new battery for the Pilot (which I had drained completely when I left the keys in the car after using our compressor to air up Kylie's motorized razor scooter. Yay me!) It's a pretty wild life we lead.

Today, I took the kids to the library and duck pond. The pond was frozen and it was awesome watching the ducks walk (skate) on the water. And watching them fly and dive bomb into the one little area that hadn't frozen yet was just too funny. We just stood there watching them for a while, getting some good belly laughs. I just love my monkeys so much. We've had some really good times this holiday season...reading Christmas books, singing Christmas songs (Rudolph and the 12 Days of Christmas are the favorites), doing our advent readings, making gingerbread men, decorating and undecorating the house, anticipating Christmas day and a New Year. I'm so so grateful to have these times to share with them. They've both been extra sweet and loving and helpful, and it seems like I've gotten more cuddles lately and more sweet words said to me by them than my little heart can hold. As I look back on 2012, it's really been a year of some new beginnings and of savoring my littles before they go off to school next Fall. We have experienced so many good things, and had very few difficulties. I have, however, sent up numerous prayers for some very dear friends who have dealt with some very difficult things in 2012: illnesses, financial stress, sick little ones, deaths of loved ones. I don't know what 2013 holds for us, but I pray the Lord's favor upon us all, and especially for those who my heart has ached with in their difficulties. And I pray that we will be equipped for the times that we are in the midst of the challenges and difficult days.

Tomorrow, one of my besties, Charlotte, is flying into Ft. Smith. We're going to go to a student's wedding this weekend and have some fun girl time. I'm so excited! She's also going to teach a little workshop at the Conservatory for us. School starts back up on Monday, and then it will be back to the grind.

And for those of you who are like "enough talk, Jen...where are the pictures???" my next move is to go through all the pics from Oct to the present and post the best. So, hang in there friends. Your patience will eventually be rewarded! Happy 2013! The Davises love you!