Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Time has been flying by so fast this last fall. I have been busy trying to keep up with work, school, and flute events. At work, I had several concerts including the big musical for the year in December. It is nice to have that done for the year because I feel like I can actually teach this next semester instead of being in performance practice until the end of the year. I have played my first two concerts with the symphony and also been hired out to play two different concerts for a local choral group. I even played in Titanic the Musical this fall! I spent many nights a week playing until 11pm after a full day of work, so I have been quite busy performing myself. This December I was able to organize a flute event where flute players from all over the Tri-Cities and of all ages played Christmas Carols at the mall. I may have some pictures to add later, but it was pretty awesome because there were at least 25 flutists from third grade through adults playing.


Christmas break was quite welcome after such a crazy fall. Anthony and I went up to his Aunt's in Idaho for Christmas. There were a lot of people there and it was nice to see everyone. The kids seemed to have a really good Christmas. The Shimizu's and Katey came up for Christmas this year and I was able to visit them a bit. Anthony and I (and it sounds like many of his family members) got sick with some wacky, no good bug. I guess it would be worse to be sick while working, but it sure put a kink into vacation.

It is getting cold here. I am usually okay with the cold and can even enjoy it, but I am already thinking about the warm days of summer. Right now a detour of Hawaii sounds grand. It has me thinking that maybe I should try going there for Christmas next year...well see though as it will probably be quite spendy.

Since it is the last day of 2012 I thought I should put down some of my goals. Having this blog as something to look back on down the road is nice, so it would be good to see later what my goals were and if I met them...or changed some. For 2013 I want to continue getting healthy. I have lost almost 15 pounds (14.8 on my tracker). I still need to loose 30 more to get back to my fighting weight. If I keep up weight watchers, I should get there! With health, I am also working on my strength and back. I am weaning out of physical therapy and I hope my back pain goes away while playing the flute. I also want to continue working on running. It would be good to actually find and do a 3K race this year. Other goals that I have right now including graduating with a master's degree, staying active and improving my skills as a flutist, spend more time with my brothers, and going on some sort of vacation this year. (Vacation is still on the brain)