End of Season, Start of Spring

The opera season ended March 27th. It was a jam-packed season! I am very proud of the productions we produced, but also glad to have some time off and prepare for next season.

This year we had two long time employee's leave Lyric.

In the middle of this group shot is Rick Jarvie, long time head of the wig and makeup department. He was with the company for 20 years. This picture was taken at the goodbye dinner party thrown for him in his honor. He is standing with some members of his make up and wig crew.

The head of the props department, Tom Gilbert, retired after working at Lyric for 37 years!

There was a big retirement party for him in our large rehearsal room. There were a lot of Lyric employee's there to wish him well during retirement. It was a great party. This is Tom, letting us know he "will not miss the long hours," but he "will miss the wonderful people" he works with. A great guy, and I wish him lots of good r&r!

This is a great shot of the room, a lot of my co-workers partying. :)

These are my work buddies, Charlie Reilly and Mike Smallwood!

Now that the season has ended, work in the office has definitely slowed down.

Some of the seasonal staff, who are gone for the spring and summer, left me their plants to care for while they are gone. I have them in a empty office next to mine. I'm calling it the Tech Office Solarium! :)

This past weekend my best friend Sarah's sister, Amber O'Neill, came to visit Chicago. I had a blast hanging with these ladies!! They are so much fun! We got together and ate a lot of great food.

Here we are at Giordano's famous for their Chicago style deep dish pizza.

This is the medium! Huge, delicious pizza!

After dinner we head out to downtown. These two girls are hilarious! They definitely crack each other up for sure!!

We made our way to Blue Chicago, a small dive blues bar. We had a great time listening to live blues!And laughing...lots of laughing!

Early the next morning we met for breakfast and indulged into some greatness! We got an awesome eggs benedict and tried 3 different flavors of pancakes. We all decided that the favorite was the caramel, white chocolate pretzel pancakes. OH MY!

Here is Amber, smiling through the full belly! :)

Later that afternoon, I let the girls have some quality sister time, and I went to support friend and co-worker, Tim Holbrook. He was performing in an a capella choir concert. It was a great concert, with tons of wonderful pieces that embodied spring!

Tim is in the middle standing next to the column.

One piece had audience participation. We helped create a thunderstorm in Eric Whitacre's piece "Cloudburst." It was a lot of fun!

Meanwhile Ruben has been playing bass like crazy. Last week he had 2 auditions. No full time job yet, but every audition he learns something, and that is always a plus. His next opportunity is for Cleveland Symphony. They have asked him to submit a recording of him performing the audition list, and we're excited at the opportunity for him to be considered with out the cost of travel. Ruben has been playing non-stop since November! This weekend he performs Brahms with the New Philharmonic Symphony, and I'm really excited to see it. Life is good! We are blessed!!