Time for an update!
Whew! I finally have time to do a real update on the Harris family. We've been hopping ever since December and I don't see it letting up until summer.
I'll do me first: I just got back from spending 5 days at the US National figure skating competition in Omaha! My friend and I have had the tickets forever and it was a blast. Neither of us could really believe that we were actually abandoning our families for that long for so selfish a purpose, but we did it! There was a lot of fantastic skating - if you watched it on TV, you totally saw me, even if you didn't know it - our seats were 5th row for the whole week. We also had close encounters with many of the luminaries of the sport - Scott Hamilton, Kristi Yamaguchi, Evan Lysachek, Tara Lipinski - the list goes on and on. Especially earlier in the week before the crowds were there, they just mingled with everyone and were so nice (well, except for Tara...).
And I got hired again by the Broadway contractor!! I played for Mannheim Steamroller at Christmas and just got the call to play for Mary Poppins in April. I was his first choice for both of those, so hopefully I'm his new cellist! I feel bad for the old cellist, but just a little. This is how the business works.
Heath is doing OK. He's not real happy at work and is considering making a change again. It's a good company, but they are mired in procedural things and he feels unproductive. He HATES meetings and he's in them all day. They talk about stuff way more than they do stuff and that drives a driven person like Heath crazy. He's been there for a year and a half, so I think that it wouldn't be crazy to start applying for new jobs, but he's reluctant to give up so quickly. He had a talk with his boss today and will see if anything changes. Other than that, though, he's good. We've been hanging out with his old friends and their families a lot and having a great time - we do game nights and it's been really fun.
Avery is super awesome. Man, I'm crazy about that kid. She finished her run of the Nutcracker and missed it immediately and can't wait to do it again next year. She's hoping to be a soldier next. And she got 4th place in the school spelling bee - the only 3rd grader in the top 5. She went out, ironically, on the word "fallibility". She told me "I just got lost in all those l's and i's!" And she's feeling like a little mini celebrity because she's in a local commercial that runs A LOT on our cable channels. Our friend runs the StarPower program for the local children's hospital, which emphasizes healthy eating and exercise for kids, and she asked Avery to do the commercial since they had almost no budget this year (she didn't get paid or anything). No new career for her, but it's fun to see our kid on TV during Top Chef! Here's a link to the commercial if you want to see it (featured videos on the right, hers is the bottom one):
http://www.childrensmercy.org/starpower/
I'll do me first: I just got back from spending 5 days at the US National figure skating competition in Omaha! My friend and I have had the tickets forever and it was a blast. Neither of us could really believe that we were actually abandoning our families for that long for so selfish a purpose, but we did it! There was a lot of fantastic skating - if you watched it on TV, you totally saw me, even if you didn't know it - our seats were 5th row for the whole week. We also had close encounters with many of the luminaries of the sport - Scott Hamilton, Kristi Yamaguchi, Evan Lysachek, Tara Lipinski - the list goes on and on. Especially earlier in the week before the crowds were there, they just mingled with everyone and were so nice (well, except for Tara...).
And I got hired again by the Broadway contractor!! I played for Mannheim Steamroller at Christmas and just got the call to play for Mary Poppins in April. I was his first choice for both of those, so hopefully I'm his new cellist! I feel bad for the old cellist, but just a little. This is how the business works.
Heath is doing OK. He's not real happy at work and is considering making a change again. It's a good company, but they are mired in procedural things and he feels unproductive. He HATES meetings and he's in them all day. They talk about stuff way more than they do stuff and that drives a driven person like Heath crazy. He's been there for a year and a half, so I think that it wouldn't be crazy to start applying for new jobs, but he's reluctant to give up so quickly. He had a talk with his boss today and will see if anything changes. Other than that, though, he's good. We've been hanging out with his old friends and their families a lot and having a great time - we do game nights and it's been really fun.
Avery is super awesome. Man, I'm crazy about that kid. She finished her run of the Nutcracker and missed it immediately and can't wait to do it again next year. She's hoping to be a soldier next. And she got 4th place in the school spelling bee - the only 3rd grader in the top 5. She went out, ironically, on the word "fallibility". She told me "I just got lost in all those l's and i's!" And she's feeling like a little mini celebrity because she's in a local commercial that runs A LOT on our cable channels. Our friend runs the StarPower program for the local children's hospital, which emphasizes healthy eating and exercise for kids, and she asked Avery to do the commercial since they had almost no budget this year (she didn't get paid or anything). No new career for her, but it's fun to see our kid on TV during Top Chef! Here's a link to the commercial if you want to see it (featured videos on the right, hers is the bottom one):
http://www.childrensmercy.org/starpower/