Woah! Slow Down '09!

Happy New Year!

My! What a whirlwind 2009 has turned out so far! Our lives here have been somewhat crazy, especially since the holidays. Our life really hasn't stopped for a few weeks.

For the past two years Ruben has been working toward completing his Masters degree in Double Bass Performance from De Paul University. It has been a long and hard road, but Ruben has traveled it well, and accomplished some great things while doing so.

The major project after Christmas was preparing for his recital.

Here he is practicing in his "Bass Room."

At the same time, my dear friend Sarah O'Neills' family visited Chicago from Texas. Ruben and I had a wonderful time getting to know Sarahs' family. They are a really fun bunch of people. Below is a pic of Sarahs sister, Amber, Me and Mrs. O'Neill looking at art at the Art Institute. We spent the day there starting from the earliest works and moving through time in art. It was amazing! What was great was that Sarahs' mom has an art degree, so we hung out and she showed me examples of things and shared stories that were related to the paintings. Made for an extra special experience looking at them.

Sarah has gotten this amazing opportunity to work as the Director of Audience Services (or something like that...:) for the Lubbock Symphony in Lubbock, Tx. She started there in January. Besides the visit, Sarahs' family was there to help her move back to Texas. Sarah is one of my best friends, I miss her being close to me here, but really excited about her great chance to do some good work for the arts! I'm definitely about that!!


Sarahs' final day in the city was New Years Eve. She and I said our fair wells over lunch up in Wrigleyville. Here we are just before we parted. I look like I'm not going to let her go! Miss her!






Sad as I am, I am still lucky to have some great friends here in Chicago. My friends Jessica and Justin are two people made from similar cloth as me and Ruben. Jessica is a musician who is getting a masters in Arts Management and Justin loves old stereos and crazy movies. We always have a ball hanging out together! They had a New Years Eve party at their house, which Ruben and I attended. Luckily, Ruben had gotten a gig to play for a symphony that evening, but he made it to the party 15 mins prior to Midnight. Got there just in time to ring in the new year with me!


Jessica and I





Ruben and I welcoming in 2009!


Jessica and Justin during the countdown!

Then, on Monday, January 5, 2009 Ruben has his graduate recital.

It was a great evening. There was a wonderful turn out of friends and musicians. Several people who had worked with Ruben in the restaurant industry showed up. It was so nice to see some friendly old faces there to support him. As far as the performance, Ruben did great! Although, it wasn't perfect (a fact which bothers Ruben), it was very musical and he had a beautiful tone throughout the performance. I was very proud of him. That evening, Ruben played the Bottesini Bass Concerto, Bach Cello Suites and more. It ended up being about an hour and a half program.
Below are some friends and colleges who came to support him.

Here he is on stage getting ready to play. I did get some video of his performance, but I have been having a hard time uploading it. I promise I will have something up soon.

Afterwards some of his fellow bass players took him out to celebrate. It was a lot of fun.

Weldon and Ruben

Ruben and fellow bassist, Oz and Brandon

The next day Ruben left for Lima, Peru. His mom, Catalina, took Ruben & his niece Lauryn for 10 days. Ruben and I did not communicate the whole time he was away. It was interesting.

Here Ruben gets ready to head for the airport.









And then the next day, January 7th. I left Chicago in the Jeep for Texas.

We're all together starting out on our trip! Texas or Bust!


It was still dark when I left town and it was very cold and kind of snowy.

Cloudy sunrise.

Snow on the ground at on of the rest stations. The dogs did great on this trip! They were very chill, hanging out in the back of the Jeep. They looked out the window and slept most of the way.

The TomTom that the Hills gave me turned out to be an awesome tool on my trip! I definitely put it to use getting me there and back.

I figured what better way to break it in, but a cross country trip! At that point I had 734 miles to go! Whew!



And then many miles later I end up in the Houston area where it is sunny and warm. I'm holding my arms out in a short sleeve shirt! It's January, right?!

The dogs definitely enjoyed the grass!

On my way to Moms I stopped in Dallas as a layover to Houston. There I stayed with my dear friends Leslie and Dakota Moncrief and hung out with their son Mason. He is a doll!

My visit with Mom was really great. Moms surgery hadn't gone as planned and they were not able to complete the procedure, but is set to be completed this summer. So, Moms recovery wasn't as severe as it will be. She was feeling closer to normal by the time I got down to her. I did try to help her out a bit. I clean out the dead in her garden and planted some flowers as well as doing some cooking for her so that she would have good food at the ready. I made two pots of soup and a giant quiche.

My camera was out of order by this time of my trip and I wasn't able to get any photos. Boo!

I got back to Chicago last week on Tuesday. While I was gone, Chicago had a snow storm and when I got home, I had to shovel away about 8 inches of snow just to open my front door!

Ruben got back in town on Friday Jan 16, one day after his 35th birthday. To celebrate I took him to a great Blues club Kingston Mines. It was a really chill place to jam out to some great Blues.

Aww! I love this pic. I'm wearing a shall that he got me while in Peru!

You would think that our life would slowed down, maybe a little bit. Well...not just yet. Unfortunately the pipes in our place froze and busted. This left the house completely without water, and no bathroom for 5 days. We have been sort of camping out in the front property that has a working bathroom. And then we both got a stomach bug. The good news is that they finished the job and tonight I have brand new pipes in my place with a wonderfully working toilet! More good news is that Ruben found out today that he has a job and will be starting next week. He will be a bar tender for a new restaurant opening up close to our house! More good news is that this week we got a new president! A president that I have a lot of hope in! My favorite line from his speech yesterday was this " The people will judge you by what you can build, not by what you can destroy." I'm looking forward to building great things in 2009. Building new relationships, building new works of art. It's going to be a great year! I hope that you will continue to follow my journey.