Hope all of you are doing well, and I'm sure you are.
So what's new?
Here's what's new....
Well, the last couple of weeks have been a blur. We'll start with my sister.
So my sister has been with her fiancee Peter for some time, which may or may not have alot to do with their son Brandon, who was born about 3 and a half years ago. Together they've joined families, both having children from previous marriages, and now all of them reside happily in Roswell. And after 4 happy years together, my sister decided to make an honest man out of Peter. So the wedding was set for Sunday the 14th of June.
In addition, they decided to utilize my brother's services as well.
As you may or may not recall, when Crystal and I tied the knot three years ago, we had my brother ordained so he could perform the ceremony. I had already chosen my best man, but had wanted my brother to have as important a role as possible, so it was a thoughtful way to include him in the wedding without relegating him to usher or some other nonsense. So the 'no
brainer' answer was to have him ordained online, which we did. So they flew him down from Hawaii to visit and perform the ceremony.
Of course, as life would have it, my last concert with the Juarez Symphony took place as well in the same week. Originally planned for Saturday the 13
th, the concert was moved to the 14
th, overlapping my sister's wedding. As much as I would have liked to skip the concert and attend the wedding, it was too much of a double whammy to miss out on the extra money (i.e. spend money to be at the wedding
and lose money by not playing the concert). So we split the difference and I played the concert while Crystal and
Caitlyn attended the wedding. More on that later.
So all week long it was your basic wash, rinse, repeat with work and symphony rehearsals.
Thursday (6/11), my brother flew into El
Paso from Hawaii. I took some time off from work and we all went out to The Olive Garden for dinner in El
Paso, and everyone went their separate ways (Crystal and
Caitlyn to
Las Cruces, my parents and Chris to Alamogordo, and me to my rehearsal in El
Paso).
My sister's wedding took place in Ruidoso, where her and Peter had reserved a hall specifically for such occasions. One of those nice, all inclusive package type deals where one price covered food, decoration, music, libation, etc. The whole family, sans yours truly, travelled up to Ruidoso on Saturday to check into the hotel and unwind for a bit. Meanwhile, we were in Cruces doing whole lot of nothing.
On Sunday, Crystal and I parted ways as she left to Ruidoso with the baby, and I left for my morning rehearsal in Mexico. I was in it for the long haul, as the morning rehearsal went from 10am to 1pm and the concert started at 6pm, so there was no sense in enduring the wait to travel back to El Paso for the afternoon. So I stayed in Juarez for the whole day, just hanging out at the concert hall playing the DS. On the plus side, I did complete the New Super Mario Bros. , so hooray me.
This time around we were playing Donizetti's "
Elixir of Love", which is really a great opera if you have a chance to see it. Take your basic love triangle, toss in a travelling salesman with a magic elixir, add a pinch of
coincidence, and
BAM! Great music, one really great famous tenor aria (
Una Furtiva Lagrima), and some comedy to boot.
But I digress...
So Crystal drives up to Ruidoso to meet up with my parents and my brother. Once she arrived everyone started getting ready for the afternoon. As with most weddings, there was the usual catastrophic event, as my sister's hairdresser failed to show up. Some rainfall as well moved the locale from the outdoors to the indoors. But in spite of some delays, everyone arrived safely and the wedding went swimmingly, much to the delight of all in attendance. I've only seen pictures, but it all looked beautiful, and I'll get some online eventually (about as fast as I've gotten Caitlyn's pictures up).
Meanwhile, back in Mexico, I finished up the opera around nine and promptly headed up to
Ruidoso. The bridge back to the states only had about a 30 minute wait, due the the new Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative
requiring everyone from the US to have a passport or passport ID, plus they're still killing people pretty regularly down there so the Mexican army is everywhere. All in all, if I didn't have to be there, it would probably discourage any recreational travel there on my part. Of course I've been procrastinating so I didn't have the necessary documentation (just my driver's license and birth certificate), so I got a stern talking to both on Sunday and after Saturday night's rehearsal. No worries though, because I'm not headed back that way until September, leaving me plenty of time to obtain a slick new passport ID.
So I haul ass all the way up to Ruidoso and get there around midnight. I've missed the whole wedding, but I'm still in time to spend some time with the family before everyone falls asleep. The following morning we all had breakfast and everyone parted ways again after a nice morning swim. Nancy and Peter left for their honeymoon in San Antonio, and the rest of us drove back to my parent's house in Alamogordo. We spent the day there relaxing and then left later that evening back to Las Cruces, and brought my brother along.
Back home, we picked up some
cerveza, some food from Sonic™ (I know it sound's weird, but they don't have them in Hawaii), kicked off our shoes, and relaxed.
Tuesday morning we slept in, then hit up Santa Fe Grill for some Breakfast Dream's (egg, green chile, cheese, potato, and your choice of meat - our's being chorizo). We went to Mesilla to shop the afternoon away, as my brother picked up some gifts for the return trip home. That evening we went to Si Señor's for dinner and margaritas, then it was back to Alamogordo to hang out with my parents the night before my brother was flying back to Hawaii.
Wednesday morning (6/17), we all had breakfast and then high tailed it to El Paso once more to deliver my brother back into Hawaii's open arms. It was quite the caravan, as my mother and father packed in all my sister's kids and my brother rode with Crystal, Caitlyn and I. We had some coffee at the Starbucks™ in the airport, gave him one last round of special-ed-sized hugs, and watched his plane take off (albeit, after waiting forever thanks to "security").
My parents took the kids over to Ft. Bliss to do some shopping at the PX there, while Crystal, Caitlyn and I travelled back to Las Cruces to wind down. We were all feeling a bit under the weather, so we arrived home and promptly slept the rest of the day away.
Since then, back to work as usual... wash, rinse, repeat.
Friday (6/19) was Crystal's 25
th birthday. We celebrated by going to Peter Piper Pizza for her niece's birthday party...
yay. But no, really, we'll find a way to make it special, just as soon as she finds something she wants so we can buy it as her gift (that's just the way it seems to work with us).
Saturday we went to the mall and shopped for Father's Day for her dad and my dad. We ran into some friends at JCPenney whom we haven't seen in awhile, and were invited to hang out with them that evening, which we did. Just drinking some beers and catching up on old times.
Sunday, of course, was Father's Day. We all slept in,
Caitlyn and I especially, and left the house at about
noonish to pick up some desserts for our visit with Crystal's grandfather. We spent a couple of hours out that way than returned to town and went by her dad's house to give him his gift. After relaxing for a short while, it was off again to Alamogordo to meet up with my parents and give my father his gift. We were able to see Nancy, Peter, and the kids once more, as they returned from their honeymoon over the weekend and were in town to pick up their kids and visit for Father's Day as well. Finally, it was one last long drive back to
Las Cruces, and our cozy beds.
Ahh, nothing like being jarred from your peaceful slumber by a crying baby. It's ok though, as it made a whole lot of sense to arrive to work early today. As you can see below the server which generates payroll was down all of last week. The result? 10 days work of backed up time cards and a whole shitpile of work for yours truly. 
As you may or may not know (I for one did not, but fortunately for me the internet makes me appear both intelligent and insightful) today marks the 138th anniversary of the great Chicago fires. Thanks to the O'Leary's cow kicking over a lantern in a barn, 200+ people died, 17,500 buildings burned, 100,000 people were left homeless. All in all an estimated 200 million dollars in damages occurred, which today would equal roughly 7 billion dollars.
My my it's been a long time.
As you may or may not recall, when Crystal and I tied the knot three years ago, we had my brother ordained so he could perform the ceremony. I had already chosen my best man, but had wanted my brother to have as important a role as possible, so it was a thoughtful way to include him in the wedding without relegating him to usher or some other nonsense. So the 'no brainer' answer was to have him ordained online, which we did. So they flew him down from Hawaii to visit and perform the ceremony.
Of course, as life would have it, my last concert with the Juarez Symphony took place as well in the same week. Originally planned for Saturday the 13th, the concert was moved to the 14th, overlapping my sister's wedding. As much as I would have liked to skip the concert and attend the wedding, it was too much of a double whammy to miss out on the extra money (i.e. spend money to be at the wedding and lose money by not playing the concert). So we split the difference and I played the concert while Crystal and Caitlyn attended the wedding. More on that later.
Thursday (6/11), my brother flew into El Paso from Hawaii. I took some time off from work and we all went out to The Olive Garden for dinner in El Paso, and everyone went their separate ways (Crystal and Caitlyn to Las Cruces, my parents and Chris to Alamogordo, and me to my rehearsal in El Paso).
This time around we were playing Donizetti's "Elixir of Love", which is really a great opera if you have a chance to see it. Take your basic love triangle, toss in a travelling salesman with a magic elixir, add a pinch of coincidence, and BAM! Great music, one really great famous tenor aria (Una Furtiva Lagrima), and some comedy to boot.
Meanwhile, back in Mexico, I finished up the opera around nine and promptly headed up to Ruidoso. The bridge back to the states only had about a 30 minute wait, due the the new Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative requiring everyone from the US to have a passport or passport ID, plus they're still killing people pretty regularly down there so the Mexican army is everywhere. All in all, if I didn't have to be there, it would probably discourage any recreational travel there on my part. Of course I've been procrastinating so I didn't have the necessary documentation (just my driver's license and birth certificate), so I got a stern talking to both on Sunday and after Saturday night's rehearsal. No worries though, because I'm not headed back that way until September, leaving me plenty of time to obtain a slick new passport ID.
Back home, we picked up some cerveza, some food from Sonic™ (I know it sound's weird, but they don't have them in Hawaii), kicked off our shoes, and relaxed.
Friday (6/19) was Crystal's 25th birthday. We celebrated by going to Peter Piper Pizza for her niece's birthday party... yay. But no, really, we'll find a way to make it special, just as soon as she finds something she wants so we can buy it as her gift (that's just the way it seems to work with us).
Being married that is... 
Ahh, nice to finally have some time on the ol' blog. 
Of course, as you all know (those of you that care about these sorts of things) Chad and Amy welcomed a new addition to their family. Margarita Jean is the newest addition to the clan and we can't wait to meet her. DC has jumped into the top 3 on the list of places we're looking to travel to over the next year.
So this week nothing amazing, which is as it should be. NBA Finals are on, so I'll tune into that. Just watched the Magic get their asses handed to them last night so I'm hoping they can exact some revenge on that date rapist Kobe Bryant.
Ahh, welcome back friends! 
In addition, I had the pleasure of spending some time with my old friend Liz Gaylor. Liz was the bees knees of viola players when we played together both at Alamogordo High School and for a time in the Las Cruces Symphony before she moved on to bigger and better things. Through the magic that is Facebook we were able to reconnect, providing us an opportunity to catch up on lost time.
Saturday I played with the New Horizons Orchestra. New Horizons is an organization which oversees the forming of community music groups to cater to adults and senior citizens whom are just learning a new instrument, or may have played before but have been inactive for some time. The purpose is to provide, you guessed it, new horizons for those local educators, casual musicians, would be musicians, and all those who love playing music but never get the chance.
So, in grand coincidental style, it turns out that Liz's mother performs as the principal flautist with the New Horizons Orchestra, which worked out great in terms of finding a time to get together for a beer. I must say for the record that she hasn't aged a day since we were in high school (a strange phenomenon amongst AHS alumni). We headed over to Farley's for a pitcher of Dos Equis Lager, and Crystal and Caitlyn met us there to shoot the breeze.
On Sunday, the family and I went down to El Paso for the day. Crystal was shopping for a dress to wear to my sister's upcoming wedding, and I was searching for some top notch Chinese buffet action. We were both successful. In addition, we procured some knockoff shades, so when you see Crystal rocking her Coach and Chanel sunglasses, make sure you envy her. But really, it's pretty fucking bright over here, so we bought the first sunglasses we could find. In the evening, Liz and her mother came by the house for a quick final visit before she left back to Fort Collins on Monday. 
So, this week I'll be adjusting to my preferred sleeping schedule of staying up late and waking up not as early. Can't wait for the weekend and the drunken stupor that is the Southern New Mexico Wine Festival. Should be, again, a great deal of fun.
Posts
