Friday, February 17, 2012

Trip to Spokane

A week ago today, I boarded a plane for the booming (please note sarcasm) city of Spokane, WA, where I was privileged to attend our niece and her choir perform the opera "Venus & Adonis" at Gonzaga U. My sister flew up from San Diego and one of our other nieces drove up from Lewiston, ID for our girls' weekend of music and fun.

This was my first night away from Conor and my second night away from Annika; that said, everyone was very brave and I don't believe any tears were shed. (We're so brave!) Eric and the kids had a grand time turning big cardboard boxes that littered our living room thanks to our remodeling into houses and boats for the kids. How could I possibly compete with that kind of fun?!?!?!

While Eric and the kids were constructing Cardboard City, I was catching up with my sister (aka, teaching her how to use her her iPhone) and nieces (Emily and Anna). We had a fun lunch together at Red Robin, where Anna very wisely pointed out that "bloodhounds sniff" and all four of us ate our body weight in those yummy Red Robin fries. After that, we hung out in our hotel room for a bit where I did a little work, Anna napped, Emily studied, and Suzanne sorted the girls' Valentine's Day goodie bags. That night, Suzanne and I attended Anna's choir's performance of "Venus and Adonis". Once again, Anna proved that she is a natural on stage; she did a fantastic job, not only vocally, but in terms of having presence on stage. She was amazing!! Anna had multiple solos, both during the prologue and during the actual opera. That girl has a great set of pipes! The extra bonus was the Baroque instruments that accompanied the singers; there were instruments I'd never even heard of before!

After the show, we went to a late dinner of soup and salad and then fell into bed. The next morning, we had coffee and breakfast at Starbucks, dropped off Anna on campus so she could prep for the matinee performance, and I packed up and took the shuttle to the airport.

Feeling so blessed for my quick trip to Spokane.

Choir and orchestra

Anna's prologue solo

Anna having fun

I can't remember what they spelled out, but the girls held up these
letters during the performance - quite funny!

Better visual of the letters sequence

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