last friday at the grand america...

nothing more flattering than 20 little girls at a tea party standing in front of you watching, then singing along, then dancing around, then telling you you're pretty and your music is beautiful.  made my day.

workin for the weekend

ever feel like you're just going going going??! that's how this weekend has been.  but it's been so much fun. 

thursday was the ingrid michaelson concert! i saw her a year ago (quite possibly the worst date ever....) regardless, i love her voice and i love seeing her live! she is never pitchy and her personality is really honest and easy going. i loved when she sang "can't help falling in love" and the only accompaniment was the piano. brilliant.

the opening band was called harper blynn! harper haha... i thought they were really good and you can download their latest album for free on their website: harperblynn.com

us girlies at the concert

friday night two other harp teachers and i combined our studios for one big harp recital.  i realized that as a teacher i get wayyy more nervous watching my students perform than i ever do performing myself! i think it's because i have no control of how they're going to do once they get on stage.  some of my students were really nervous but they all played really well and i was so proud of them!  AND one of the students of the other teachers was BLIND!  i sold this blind woman her harp and was pretty skeptical of how she would do.  i've got to give mad props to her teacher.  i think it would be so hard to teach someone that was blind!  especially since on the harp all of the strings feel the same.  you don't have "markers" like the black keys you have on the piano, but she played 2 pieces (ave maria and greensleeves) beautifully and you could tell she was really enjoying the music.  everyone in the audience was amazed and inspired by her.

friday night part 2 - we drove down to provo and i played harp with the band gothen at muse music cafe.  it's been fun playing with this band - when we rehearse/practice/jam they'll play a song and tell me where they want me to play and just kind of tell me what chords they're playing.  then i try some different things out to see what sounds good with what they're playing.  since most of the stuff i play in other venues is classical, it's an interesting change for me and i feel like i've grown more as a musician because of the experience.

evan jolley on guitar/vocals, me on harp, danny orme on drums

saturday i attended a suzuki teachers' convention at the u.  always great for getting new ideas of how to be a better teacher.  that evening we headed to the joseph smith memorial building for a friend's wedding dinner.  it was a gorgeous reception.  i played the harp for 2 hours during the dinner. 

after the reception, we dropped the harp off at home and then headed back downtown for the jazz game!  we got to go with a bunch of people that dustin works with, including our friends taylor and emily. (who are also coming to corpus this summer!!) the game was intense and the jazz beat the magic in overtime 117-107.  woot jazz.

taylor and emily

one last shout out to dustin harper for being the best harp mover! (i also played in church today..) he's so supportive of all my stuff. love that boy :)

corpus christi

our next adventure begins in just three weeks!

we're moving to corpus christi, texas for the summer!  dustin will be working for vivint and selling security systems there.  his first summer he was in alaska, and last summer he was in oklahoma.  it was sooo hard saying goodbye to him when he left last summer so i'm excited to get to go along with him this year! and luckily i have a great job that is allowing me to come back to work in august. 

whether or not i get a job while we are down there, this is my list of things to do in texas:

•      lots of beach time (our apartment is 5 mins from the ocean!!)
•   find an awesome seafood restaurant
•   go to the huge aquarium in corpus
•   read nienie's book "heaven is here"
•   work out! (i'm bringin my insanity dvds...)
•   practice my cooking skills
•   pool parties with the vivint peeps!
•   find some awesome mexican food
•   listen to lots of country music! (when in texas, eh?)
•   visit dustin's cousins in san antonio!
•   maybe run into my friend sis tillmann in san antonio? ;)
•   shopping/hanging out with the other vivint wives
•   lots of beach time
•   blog
•   go to a rodeo

these next few weeks are gonna be carazy with finals/harp gigs/work/moving etc but i am so excited for our summer!