The past week has been a very eventful one for our family.  Arriving home on the second of January, we were soon pulled in to all sorts of house duties, and, as we had not been home for almost three months, it almost seemed like vacation .  Homeschooling was re-instituted for the new year, AMB meetings and work were put underway, the rhythms of the house took up beat once more, and the time went by very quickly in the busy, bleak, and beautiful midwinter.

On Friday Annie and our wonderful scheduling coordinator and friend, Jill, flew to Manhattan, New York for the Association of Performing Arts Presenters convention.  Their time there was very fulfilling and enjoyable, and they were happy to make so many new, exciting connections and acquaintances.

The rest of us joined them on Sunday night for a delicious dinner at the famous Carmine’s restaurant in Times Square, while reminiscing of the time six years ago when we, too, were New Englanders and frequenters of the City.  I still have familiar and pleasant memories of roasted chestnuts and blisteringly cold walks down the many blocks from Juilliard to the School for Strings as a little nine- and ten-year-old girl.  

After a quick shut-eye the men were up at four in the morning to load in our gear in preparation for the showcases scheduled to happen that day.  After an early performance at eight o’clock, the band spent a few hours rehearsing and writing new repertoire, grabbed a quick brunch, and then performed eight times in hourly succession, except for a snack of cheese and fruit at five o’clock, and a few naps on various and sundry chairs in-between concerts. 

We were quite exhausted by the final performance at nine o’clock in the evening, but the new ties and future prospects created were well worth the effort.  Afterwards we packed up our gear, changed into some comfy pseudo-pajamas, and began the stressful adventure of making our way out of the Big Apple in the eery cacophany of midnight in the urbane universe.  It took us an hour to navigate our way with our very bulky trailer, but, at long last, we drove through the flashing neon lights of Broadway and out through the white underwater tunnel named after old Abe Lincoln, passing two rather expensive tolls while muttering under our breath that such tyranny would never have lasted in Texas .  As you can perceive, we are all country folk at heart, and were very glad to leave the concrete streets for the lush, snowy meadows of Pennsylvania in the silver light of the stars.  As Gretchen once said on a trip to NYC at the age of six, “If I lived here, I’d clean this place up!”

All the next day we travelled home, cheered by the roaring fireplaces of Cracker Barrel, Starbucks’ Vanilla Rooibos Tea Latte and Caffe Mocha (soy, of course ), and the relatively clean bathrooms to be found at Pilot Fuel Stations.  Finally arriving at our sweet and rather dirty home around eleven o’clock that night, we wearily crawled into our beds, which are about as familiar as Hampton Inn’s , and drifted off into the Land of Nod.  

And that’s the fortnight-in-review …