The last two years at a glance

Well, I haven't been keeping up with the blog or my obsession with archiving our trips with videos and more, but I caught up today on mega videos from March 2016 to today, August 6, 2017. Being the documentarian is not a glamorous job and maybe no one will ever watch or need these, but it's important to me to have at least some kind of journaling, even if I do get behind and only hit the high points. Most of the getting behind with my usual "hamstering" was due to too many jobs. PAS President, Percussion Studies Director and Department Chair at UTM, all at the same time = bad idea. After two years of term appointments to help me with percussion duties, we have now hired a tenure track position with Dr. Shane Jones. Shane and I started working together last week and I can already tell that he is the right fit for the job. Just to say, this time next year, I shouldn't have to do nearly as much as I did this year. Good news.

So here are the highlights since my last post at least with regard to travel:

2016:
March - REMO, Pinnacles NP, Pebble Beach, Venice
April - Peru with Caixa
Summer - we stayed home for the first time ever due to all the PAS and Chair stuff - tough.
October - Julie in Brazil, Projeto Bate Solto
November - Poland/Czech Republic
December and... London and Scotland

2017:
January - New York on the way home from Europe
January - T and T with UTM
May - Ju Percussion Festival in Taiwan
May - Acadia NP and New England
July - Western 4100 Camping Trip, David's Family Reunion, Big Bend, Guadalupe Mnts, Carlsbad Caverns, Rocky Mnt. NPs, and Julie's Family Reunion.

David's health has been very good and so has mine. I have even lost a little weight and am getting back to my "happy" #.

We are proud God parents of Avienda Micah Barnes - Avi (born Feb 2016)

UTM won the PASIC World Percussion Competition and performed in Indy in November 2016 which was really great for me, especially ending the past two months of my presidency.

CJ Barrow, Rachel Steiner, and Katherine Felthauser all got married this summer and we went to all 3 weddings.

We keep playing music in more bands/chamber groups than we can keep up with. X4 won the PAS Italy Chamber Ensemble Competition in 2016 and couldn't go - too little notice and too busy.

We continue to look for land out in the country for our "farm fantasy" and pour money into Paraiso. New bathrooms, paint, office/walk in closet conversion, and just this week new paint on the outside to replace the money pit/bad job done by our handy man #pouredmoneyintoahole Gutters are next week. The joys of home ownership.

Mom will have been gone 20 years on August 18th and it's freaking me out a bit. Damn, how time flies and hard to believe we get through it all, yet we do.

David and I are happier than ever and he is my soul mate, best friend, and my rock. I am truly happy and so fortunate to have this amazing life.

Oh, we have started tracking our NP visits now with Air Table which Claire told us about. Lots of fun. We have done 29 of 59, long way to go!https://airtable.com/invite/l?inviteId=invjzpzuoi8XytmCk&inviteToken=6b23cdea8fd2685654dcccc204f9b70c

August 6, 2017