Christmas!!

Thought we'd post some pictures of our Christmas decorations... Guess who did the decorating? Not me!!

This was my 2 cents...



Merry Christmas!!!!

Half Way There...

Yes, that's right, I'm pregnant! I'm a few days shy of the 20 week mark and it's a GIRL! I'm due in March. We're very excited.

The last couple of weeks have been really scary and humbling. We've had some pregnancy complications and fears about chromosomal disorders and other things, but after multiple tests, high-level ultrasounds and an amniocentesis, the docs are almost positive that she's perfectly healthy. We just got the test results today and couldn't be more thrilled. (Shout out to the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals. Seriously amazing healthcare here in Cleveland. The fact that the top NICU, reproductive and neonatal specialists in the nation are here has given me some peace of mind over the last couple of weeks).

So here's to the little belly that has just recently emerged and to a healthy baby girl!

You know you're living in Cleveland when...

Drivers insist on passing you on the right despite empty left lanes (we believe that NASCAR fanaticism is a factor here)

72 degrees is the high temperature on the 4th of July

Getting your out-of-state license plates replaced takes an act of God... or 8 hours of your time

You find yourself stopped at an eight-way intersection

The roads are pot-hole-icious

The first whiff of morning air comes courtesy of your backyard neighbor Pepe le Pew

Your home has no air conditioning -- because it doesn't need it

People consider you a model because you're from someplace other than the Midwest

The garbage collection consists of a "golf cart crew" that zips up and down your driveway. Your tax dollars at work!

You have to re-take the written driving exam to obtain your driver's license (the claim is that Ohio driving is "unique" compared to the rest of the country... like with the NASCAR passing rule...)

The ratio of American cars is greater than foreign

You attend sporting events expecting your team to lose. Buy hey, at least there's the beer!


FLEE TO THE CLEVE!!

Welcome home!

We're almost officially residents of Shaker Heights, Ohio, the most adorable semi-suburb of The Cleve.

Shaker Heights is absolutely the "cutest" city I've ever visited in the US (sorry Georgetown, it's cuter than you, too). It's a master planned streetcar suburb developed in the early decades of the twentieth century with parks and lakes and a variety of beautiful homes. More than 70 percent of the city is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It really sort of feels like time travel. If you want to see pics of Shaker's nine neighborhoods, click here .

We'll be renting the second floor apartment of this darling Colonial.

We'll have a guest room, so please come and visit! (and if any of you church history geeks need another reason to visit, we're only 30 minutes from Kirtland)

We're moving to...

...drumroll, please...

CLEVELAND.

Yeah. Not on any of my "places I want to live" lists. And not even on my "crappy places we might have to live" list. I guess my paparazzi sighting of LeBron James during all-star weekend was a sign of some sort :) The assignment from FORD was really a surprise, we were expecting to be near headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan and I was quietly praying that we'd be miraculously assigned to Dagenham, England. I am, however, grateful that we were not assigned to Buffalo New York, Windsor Canada or any of the other "scenic" places that Ford has operations. We'll be in Cleveland for the first two years of Tim's rotational program and likely Dearborn and (hopefully) international after that.

I'm cautiously optimistic and looking forward to Cleveland. Several Cleveland-lovers have come out of the woodwork since we got the news and have told us what a great city it is. I am excited for several things...

1. The job. This wasn't the exact path either of us thought we'd be on right now, but I am grateful Tim has such a great opportunity despite the miserable economy.


2. An income. This will be a new thing for us. All we've known is the student loan lifestyle since we got married. Although, we'll probably still be living the student loan lifestyle to pay off said loans for quite a while.


3. Trees and seasons. The desert rat in me officially died somewhere between London and DC (although I'm sure I'll be pining for cacti sometime in mid-january).


4. Public transport, parks, beautiful neighborhoods and historic homes.


5. Low cost of living


6. A diverse ward (hopefully, pretty please). I'm tired of being the token liberal feminist.


7. Proximity to DC. It's only a 5-6 hour drive and really important to me to be able to get down there frequently over the next year

I'm hoping Liz Lemon was on to something and that I fall in love with "The Cleve" just like she did :) http://www.hulu.com/watch/856/30-rock-cleveland-get-away

Excitement and Anticipation for Six Wives

Most people who know me also know that I have unique (some would say strange) musical tastes for my age. It is true that I have many times wished that I were born a Brit and passed my adolescence in the late 60's and 70's, because in my opinion, the greatest bands and musicians in rock & roll have come from Britain (The Who, Yes, Zep, Floyd, Tull, Cream, Beatles, ELP, Crimson, Genesis, and I could go on and on). The fact that I wasn't there doesn't prevent me from going to see old rockers in concert who are the same age as my parents. This weekend marks probably the most anticipated concert event of my life -- not only will we be seeing my favorite musician of all time, but we will be seeing him in London (thanks to Breena and my mom & dad).


We are going to the Hampton Court Palace to see Rick Wakeman perform his 1972 album The Six Wives of Henry VIII in a special celebration of 500 years since old Henry took the throne. The album has never been performed live in its entirety and it only will be this weekend in front 5,000 people this Friday and Saturday. He will be accompanied by the English Chamber Choir, 72-piece orchestra, dancers, a narrator, the whole shabang. We have 13th row seats, center stage!!

Every time I tell somebody who Rick Wakeman is, that he is a "keyboard player," people seem unimpressed and disappointed. For some reason, they think that being a keyboard player somehow makes you less talented because the sounds are mostly electronically generated. Well, take a look at this solo excerpt from a Yes (ABWH) concert in 1989 (the mullet alone is worth a look):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDsvZGM1vD8

If I have your attention now, you can see that not all keyboard players are created equal. Wakeman is a classically-trained concert pianist who left the Royal College of Music in London in the late 60's to pursue a career in rock. Rivaled only by Keith Emerson (of Emerson, Lake, & Palmer), he is a virtuoso that has pioneered and influenced the use and development of keyboards for more than 40 years. He invented the concept of stacking mulitiple keyboards (organs, moogs, mellotrons, & pianos) on top of one another and on all sides so as to have access to them at all times. Though most known for his solo work and keyboard playing for Yes, he is also a comedian and talk show host, and has lived a fascinating life, releasing dozens of albums and selling tens of millions of records worldwide. Six Wives alone has sold 15 million.

If you are interested in hearing some of Six Wives, here is Catherine Parr and Catherine Howard performed in Buenos Aires in 2001 with his band The New English Rock Ensemble.

Rest assured there will be a full report following the concert!!

Kiss me, I'm Irish...

...well, not really, but my name is. Breena means "fairy palace" (as in, the place where fairies live) and, yes, this explains much about my constant state of absent-mindedness and overall flightiness.

May you have the luck of the Irish...all day. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Cliffs of Moher, West Coast of Ireland, May 2008

Nothing says Happy Valentine's Day like Roses, Prokofiev and...LeBron

For Valentine's Day this year, Tim and I decided to make good use of our student status and bought discounted student rush tickets to see the matinee of Prokofiev's ballet "Romeo and Juliet" in downtown Phoenix. Tim's not really a fan of men in tights, but his love for Prokofiev and angsty Russian composers outweighed his discomfort with nearly-nude Romeo and we really enjoyed it (I was a bit worried the flesh colored tights might push him over the edge, but he survived). If you haven't had the pleasure of listening to Prokofiev's score, get a little taste here (forward to 1:35 for the best part). Or better yet, go download it right now. The "Montagues and Capulets" is one of my all-time favorites. (And yes, Lou, I always think of Warwick Castle and Sue's candlelight picnic when I hear it). The Phoenix Symphony did a great job with the score, but they always seem to turn down the volume a bit for the ballet. I guess that's why we like the symphony better...louder please.


Also happening in Phoenix this weekend, was the NBA All-Star weekend. Here's a photo of the "block party" with some beautiful construction in the background. We walked around and did a lot of people watching, wishing we had tickets to the slam dunk contest.

As we were grabbing a sandwich for lunch, we heard a voice we recognized. We looked down and guess who was being interviewed right below us? LeBron King James, himself. I'm not really much of a LeBron fan, but I have to admit I was a little star struck. Tim kept calling me paparazzi as I was taking pictures...

We had a really great day out and decided to spend the night in, eating take out and watching the Slam Dunk Contest on TV. Hope you had a wonderful Valentine's Day, too.

Jordan Part 4: Wadi Rum

For the grand finale, the best was saved for last. Petra was amazing, no doubt about it... but 4x4ing in the Wadi Rum desert (famous from Lawrence of Arabia) was the highlight for me. The scenery reminded me of Moab and Southern Utah, though the beautiful red and pink sand dunes are just amazing. Plus, out here anything goes.

Below is a photo of me with our Bedouin driver, Am-Jet (don't quote me on the spelling). He took four of us on the ride of our lives. There were about 6 vehicles, and he always managed to trail behind the others just so we could have some REAL fun. Nearly all of the roads were deep sand and he was fish-tailing all over the place (to put it mildly). And I kid you not... the truck nearly rolled 4 times. As soon as I get a decent internet connection, I'll upload video of one of the instances and you can see for yourself. For a grand finale, he took us up top this 50 ft high sand dune and took us what felt like straight down. From my position, all I could see was sand in the windshield -- no horizon. Did I mention that there were no seat belts? Shhhhh... don't tell

Here is a pic of another vehicle cutting us off.

Some of these rock formations are reminiscent of a Roger Dean painting...

Can you see the elephant head & trunk in the mountain?

Camels make the most awful groaning sound when brought to their knees. Sounds kinda a Ton-ton from The Empire Strikes Back.

Hmmm... somebody was here previously....

The T-bird group in front of the 7 Pillars Mountain (which Lawrence named his book after).

Jordan Part 3: Petra

Petra (which means "rock") is a spectacular place. The Nabataeans who lived and thrived here had some serious rock carving skills. I had seen parts of it before... you know, at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Speaking of which, this is the first thing you see when entering the park

Immediately upon entering the park, you see caves and carvings everywhere. The main entrance consists of a long pathway down some narrows

Along the way there are some interesting things to see. For example, can you tell what is/was carved in the wall below?

If you look closely, you can see a man leading a camel... the camel's feet remain below and you can make out its body on the wall.

As we came to the end of the narrow, Ahmed our tour guide made us line up, single file, and close our eyes
He led us farther down the path and then told us to open our eyes. This is what we saw

Besides this site which they call the Treasury, I had no idea how extensive Petra really was -- hundreds of man-made rock formations and tombs. I heard several different figures, but they believe that as of today they have only discovered about 30% of what Petra has to offer. Most of what has survived in the last 2-3 thousand years of earthquakes and erosion are the tombs -- not homes -- built into the mountains. It really is mind-boggling -- no wonder it has been classified as one of the new "Wonders of the World."

Look closely at the mountains in the background

A long hike up "1,000 stairs" to the top of park led us to what is called the Monastery. These tombs are just massive. Howd dey du dat?

Not exactly the top of the world, but it felt like it!!

Jordan Part 2: Ajloun & Jarash

The next day following our trip to Mt. Nebo and the Dead Sea, we ventured farther North to the cities of Ajloun and Jarash. In the former, we visited a castle on top of a hill that was pretty sweet. I can't remember the name of it, and I'm too lazy to fill you in on the educational pieces of this blog entry, but check it out:

These guards weren't as fierce as I'm sure they were back in the day
This is a view of Ajloun from the top of the castle. The only other thing I can remember about this castle was that it would take a carrier pigeon 12 hours to get to Cairo.
From Ajloun, we went a bit farther south to check out the ruins of Jarash. This place was an amazingly large town center back when the Romans had a strong presence here, and most of what was left standing were hundreds of pillars.This is the tour guide using his swiss army knife to show us that the pillar is still moving. Once he got his knife in there, you could see it move up and down. We could also feel it move by sticking our hands in the crevice

An amphitheater that was still in surprisingly good shape

The Royal Jordanian Bagpiper and Bass Drum Player playing us several tunes, including Amazing Grace and Yankee Doodle.
A view of one of the few water sources in Jordan

Jordan Part 1: Mt. Nebo and the Dead Sea

So here I am in Amman helping to reconstruct a business plan for an energy services consulting company, and this weekend we finally got out of the office to see some sights in the surrounding area. Below are some pics of Mount Nebo, where Moses is said to have seen the promise land. It wasn't a clear enough day to actually see Jerusalem (46km away), but we could see the Jordan River, Jericho, and the Dead Sea.


From 2700 feet above sea level, we drove down from Nebo to the Dead Sea, which is about a 30 minute drive down hill to 1200 feet below sea level.

On the shore of the Dead Sea... and yes, that is salt.

The lowest point on earth, the Dead Sea has some strange mojo going on. Floating in this salty water has to be one of the strangest things I've ever done. The water is 8 times more salty than the ocean, which gives the it some interesting buoyancy power. It's impossible to sink in this lake... the force just lifts you to the top of the water. You can stand straight up with your feet pointed and arms down and you won't sink. The only way I can describe it is like playing with a Coke bottle in the water -- it bobbles, but doesn't sink.


After floating around for a bit, we decided to get the "full" experience by cleansing ourselves with dredged mud from the bottom of the lake somewhere. My shorts still haven't recovered.