This week seemed like one continuous party. Tuesday night Tom and I drove to Akron to watch Renee Fleming in concert. Thursday was my birthday and Tom and I celebrated together, Friday morning we had a special Passover Breakfast for our seminary students, Friday night we had a bunch of friends over for a birthday party, and today we had a beautiful Easter dinner with friends. We love having people over, it makes having a home seem more logical.

The Renee Fleming concert was amazing. I ended up getting a free ticket the week before through the school and Tom was able to get a ticket for $20.00, instead of the regular $50.00, so we drove down, had a nice dinner together and then enjoyed the concert immensely. I was so impressed by how comfortable she was to sing in front of thousands of people. It was obvious that this was something she did regularly. Her command over the performance and the audience was remarkable. She took many vocal liberties, which some dislike, but I always appreciate a musician who tries to make the piece her own. I am always amazed by people who have sought and achieved excellence in any given field.

Tom made my birthday very special. We came home after seminary and he made me crepes with two different sauces, one Strawberry-Grapefruit and the other Banana-Cinnamon, both were delicious. He had also set up a timer on our lamps so that they would gradually turn on arriving at their full brightness by the time our alarm went off. (Unfortunately, he hadn’t set it correctly so it didn’t actually work, but I’m excited to use it this week!) He read a study that said that a great part of seasonal defective disorder is caused because people wake up in the dark. What a wonderfully thoughtful man!

I had class of course, but one of my classes was Vocal Pedagogy in which I taught my friend Mary. She drove up from Oberlin and we went out for lunch after our inclass lesson. It was so nice to have some one and one time with her. We went to a nice restaurant down town, “Lola”. Tom and I haven’t really explored downtown that much, and I really enjoyed seeing a new side of Cleveland. I must say, everytime I go downtown I think: “Man, Cleveland really gets a bad rap, this city is beautiful!” The area where we ate was lined with enticing restaurants and shops.

Tom’s Pasta Primavera

As celebrations when you get old tend to revolve around food, we finished up the day with another great meal. Tom made an amazing Pasta Primavera with green beans, peas, asparagus, mushrooms and tomatoes. It’s hard to describe, but it was far better than anything we could have afforded in a restaurant. Tom bought me an icecream maker for my birthday as well, so we made some raspberry grapefruit sorbet that was fantastic. I love gelato, so I’m excited to have the apparatus to experiment with other cold desserts- especially with the oncoming summer!

I want to thank all those who sent cards or called and sang! I always feel so loved and cared for on my birthday through those simple “Happy Birthday” renditions. I often save them on my phone and listen several times before I finally delete them. Thanks to those who sent gifts, I am so blessed.

Setting up Seder

Friday, our Passover Breakfast went really well. Luckily the girls all had school off because of the large Jewish population, so we were able to have the breakfast at 8:00, rather than 6:30. I had the symbolic seder plate for each student and we talked about the symbols of each item, and then how Christ took the Passover and imbued it with new meaning and turned it into the Sacrament. I really enjoyed researching the topic and felt a renewed appreciation for the sacrament and its symbolism as well as a desire to make Easter more spiritual. Afterwards the girls sampled their Matzo, Charoset, eggs, bitter herbs, and vegetables dipped in salt water and then we had pancakes. It was nice to have the students over to our house. We have grown close to “our girls” and having them here seemed to make that even more clear. What a blessing it is to teach seminary.

The Seder plate

Friday night we had a party. Tom made a bunch of different kinds of popcorn- the carmel corn being the best. We had invited a rather mixed group- we invited several families with kids, a couple couples without kids, some friends from school and a neighbor. It was so nice to get to know some of the people in our ward a little more, and after it was done we both felt the desire to do it again soon. It was great to have kids in the house, though we were quickly aware of how unchildproof certain parts of our house are. For example at one point we all heard a horrible scream coming from upstairs, only to find that one of the boys had stuck is hole in the top of the four poster bed and then fallen off the bed, and was thus hanging from his finger!

Mary made me her famous carrot cake for Easter and my birthday!

Easter has been wonderful. Mary, Steve and Erin came up from Oberlin and Kristi and Ryan joined us for Easter dinner. We served Ham and potatoe soup, homemade bread, and had a salad bar with an assortment of toppings. I felt a little guilty because I had decided I wanted to have a salad bar, and despite the realization that others might not like it as much, I went ahead with it. In the end I think it was a dashing success!

After such a party week, I’m planning to really hit the grindstone and get things done this week. I only have two more weeks of class. This week is also our scenes performances so I have rehearsal every night, and two performances this weekend. Wish me luck! (For those in Cleveland, if your interested the Scenes program is Fri, Sat at 8:00. I perform on Friday.)