September busy-ness

Hello! Its been so long since I have last written anything on here but I figured that for the few of you that might still check this, I will update you on our lives. On labor day weekend, Kyle, Riley and I went to NY to visit Kyle's family. We had such a great weekend and Riley really loved it there (especially running up the driveway as fast as he could after his walks). While we were there, Kyle and I found one of our new favorite restaurants: The Dinosaur Barbeque. This place is pretty great and was filled with really interesting motorcycles and people. I took some candid photos of some of the locals so you too can enjoy.

My graduate school class is also in full swing and I am reading about all sorts of interesting topics such as the different philosophies towards music, the psychology of sight-singing and the history of American music education. I am also in the middle of compiling research for a big paper that I am actually really interested in. Going to school at rush hour in downtown Cleveland proves to be a challenge, but I am happy I am tackling it at this phase of my life.

During the month of September, we have also had a few more visitors. Kyle's family and his grandma came to visit us for the weekend and we luckily had beautiful weather. Also, our dear friend Lisa Walters came this past weekend to visit and to be a guest speaker at my school. She told my students about her past year studying to be an ethnomusicologist and how she plans to use her gifts to write music in the people's native style starting this winter in central Asia. This past Saturday, Abbie and I drove down to Canton to hear Lisa perform in the Gospel Joins Symphony concert. She shared her story about her journey through cancer and played two of her own songs for an audience of over 1,000 people. She is so gifted in many ways and I can't wait to hear how God uses her to bring his word to Asia through music!

On top of all of this, school is going well and I really like what I do this year! My students are showing great progress and our first performance is this Friday night at the high school's homecoming game. A choir of 300 and a marching band shouldn't be much to handle, right? Hehe. Well, this is a short glimpse of our life in September as official buckeyes and it has been quite good. I'll try to do this more often.