She's an Adult!

Kathryn turned 18 today!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE BEST SISTER IN THE WORLD!!!!!!!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Sorry... couldn't resist. :-)

We love you, Daddy!

Liberty Day 2010!

Another Liberty Day gone... hard to believe! This year the guest speakers were Dr. Paul Jehle & Herb Titus. As usual, the sessions were great and as usual, you should buy the audios. :-)




We were very busy during the day and none of us took many photos. Tara took the most; I seriously only took 9 pictures, 3 of which came out blurry and 4 of which were of Bella (I know, big surprise).



The evening program was fabulous; we enjoyed some rousing, toe-tapping tunes from the Heirs of Baird (formerly the Fiddlers Three who performed at Liberty Day 2 years ago).


Below is a video playlist of music from the evening. It's fairly long, so you can watch a bit and stop if you want; but it's also pretty fun so you may just want to watch the whole thing! :-)



The Erberanteys, due to the fact that Charlie Zahm was not attending this year, found the courage to take the Liberty Day stage once again. The Heirs of Baird (along with Joanna) accompanied them in singing the song Jessica wrote (Charlie Zahm sang it last year). Here's video:




This was a "big" day for Raeanne, Kristen and me as we performed a harp trio. We have performed together before... but not in front of 800+ people. :-) Despite nerves, seat issues and a few technical difficulties *grin*, the song went quite well and none of us were half as nervous as expected. We might have even had *gasp* a little bit of fun doing it. :-) Great job, girls!! More video:

Justin and Wyatt were so cute just sitting there and chatting. Love Wyatt's outfit! :-)

Like father, like son.

Two lovely ladies! Tara is sporting her new dress she created after seeing Cranford - if you've seen it, you will recognize that she looks exactly like Sophie Hutton with brown hair. *wink* Sokea did a great job whipping up her dress the week before!

If you want some more (and better) photos, you'll have to check out Dawn's blog (so far she's the only person who has posted).

As always, we have to thank the Erbers (and especially Jessica!) for all their work that goes into making every Liberty Day marvelous!

Hope to see you next year! :-)

In 6 Months...

...this will be me:

And not just because Raeanne & Kristen will be over having a harp practice and I'll be playing Raeanne's big harp, like in the photo above.

In 6 months, I will have my OWN big harp!!!

Due to some circumstances that I will not take the time to explain here, I finally have enough to buy my own harp! I have been playing on Raeanne's little harp for over a year now, which has been wonderful! This past weekend I ordered my harp and so in 6 months I will have it! (They make the harps to order and are backed up on orders, thus the wait time).

I am soooo excited I can hardly wait... but I will have to. :-)

So... there is your latest update from Yenland. Next up... LIBERTY DAY!

Just Normal Life

I was chatting with my Nini the other day and she was wondering what we have been up to since we haven't been updating our blog with any real "news" for a while. So here is a post for her about what we've been doing! :-)

We haven't been doing much out of the ordinary lately, but it sure seems like we have been incredibly busy.

Lots and lots of sewing going on....

Britta and Anna came over and we had a very fun, very full day of sewing. Robyn came over two days later, but we didn't get any pictures to document the day, so you'll just have to take my word for it! :-) All the dresses turned out lovely, and if you want to see them, you'll just have to come to Liberty Day!

Simplicity patterns, scissors, pins, rulers - what could be better?

Maybe a Janome sewing machine??

I love this thing! :-)

Sneak peak at the lace on the dress I am making!

And music...

I've been having fun with this "toy". It hooks up the the computer and you can play on it and it'll write what you are playing! It's sooooo neat! There is so much more that you can do with it, but I won't bore you with my ramblings about it. Come on over and try it out if you want sometime! :-)

Kathryn is practicing up for a big event at which she'll be playing along with Kristen and Raeanne. You all sound great!!!

And of course we are having fun with the antique piano which just got tuned again today (YIPPEEEEE!) and Mr. D made the black grand piano sound fabulous as well. I'm in "piano bliss"!
Panflute is going pretty well.... still need to get a book of good music for it - anyone have any panflute music handy??
And we're practicing with Emily for a couple three-part-harmony performances in April. :-)

Other "normal" stuff....

Kathryn's been doing a good amount of work for Prairie Rose Designs, but she's always ready for more, if you need something done...

This little guy has discovered the bird seed that we put out on the window ledge outside the kitchen. We put it there because we like to watch the birds come and go while we wash dishes, etc. but now this guy thinks we put it out for HIM, and thinks he is our pet. He is there every morning when mom comes downstairs. He's a pest, but a pretty cute one!

Gavana isn't too interested in Mr. Squirrel, but will watch him for a few seconds before going off for a nap.

We've been working on landscapes with acrylic paint for art these days. I don't have a picture of it yet, so you'll have to wait to see them. It's been challenging but really fun! :-)


We went with Wendy to see a CYT play that our friends were in. Here we are eating chocolate during the break! :-) The play was very well done and it was fun to see our friends on stage! I still have all the songs stuck in my head....
"I use antlers in all of my decorating....."

And just one more picture of our snowy yard - isn't it pretty?

Peek-A-Boo!

DeL's Visit!

After 3 years of not seeing each other since they moved, Hannah & Esther came up for a visit! I can't even begin to tell you how fun it was to see them. I wasn't really sure how it would go - you know how if you don't see someone in a long time, it can be hard to know what to talk about and awkward.

Let's just say, we didn't have that problem. In the least. :-) In fact, they arrived Thursday afternoon, and by Friday afternoon, Hannah lost her voice from talking too much!

I think between the four of us we got around 300 photos. Here are some of the highlights:

We played "Would You Rather" the first night... wow. Talk about making memories...

Here we're all stirring the baked oatmeal Friday morning (actually we were just posing)

Friday morning was a bit of a rush because somewhat last minute we decided to go downtown and tour the Lyon & Healy harp factory. Another WOW. I'm so glad we went!

Hannah is playing a harp designed by Carlos Salzedo, a famous harpist. She played several pieces for us. Below is a video of a Salzedo piece. It's a modern piece using lots of pedal work.

(photo credit: Esther)

Would you LOOK at all those harps! I could spend a week there. Heavenly! :-)

I played the Salzedo harp too (both harps I played were concert grand pedal harps - HUGE, especially compared to my harp!)

(photo credit: Esther)

Anyone have a spare $20,000 laying around that you don't need? *hopeful look*

Two happy girls! The lady who checked us out said, "These are better than Tiffany bags, don't you think?"
We agreed. :-)

We stopped for a very late lunch at Sweet Tomatoes and introduced the girls to beets and jicama...

And then took them to Ikea. And at Ikea, they don't give expectant mothers priority parking like some places. Noooo... hybrid cars get the prime spots. We were thinking about suing them for discrimination. Ironically, apparently nobody in Shaumburg owns a hybrid car because the parking spaces were empty...

After that adventure, we were all pretty tired out and one of us had no voice left, so we curled up with popcorn, tea and chocolate and watched the new Emma.

Saturday we took pictures outside, and I got a harp lesson (thanks Hannah!) while Dad, Esther and Tara had a jam session (classical jam you know).

Hannah enjoying the snow! They don't get much of that down south!

Boots!

The girls were supposed to be posing for a snowball throwing shot, but as you can see, they did more than pose. :-) Thanks to Hannah's good aim, Esther got a nice handful of snow down her shirt.

This is a delicious cheesecake dessert we made. Except, it's not really cheesecake. You'd never believe it was made from nuts!

There are so many more photos I could post but I will leave it at that. We all can't wait for the next time we will see them!