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| Stonington Borough, August 2013. |
Dear Family and Friends,
Stonington is truly a spectacular place during the summer. I could easily spend hours watching sailboats come in and out of the harbor, or listening to the lapping of the ocean waves on the shore. The Borough is so alive with people shopping, enjoying the various restaurants or walking down Water Street to swim or relax at Dubois beach down at the point. Growing up in Minnesota, I always enjoyed summer very much. Some of my best memories are from spending time at the lake cabin of some of our dear family friends.There is something about the ocean, however, that is intoxicating and magnificent. Maybe it's the salt in the air, or the cry of the seagulls, but it leaves a lasting impression. I treasure the past two summers that we have been able to live in Stonington and enjoy such a beautiful community. I love that Clara goes to bed at night humming along with the fog horn, and Stonington is always a wonderful place to share with family and friends. So now I feel a bit sad having to say goodbye to summer. It was a good one.
We have stayed busy this month with teaching, choir camp, and other various projects. Joey took time to fix up the guest room in our attic. It was dirty and unpainted, and not a very welcoming place to be, but now it is a nice, cheerful room and we have already had guests use it.
Joey has also been cooking some fabulous meals lately, including a lobster and sweet corn chowder. It was delicious!
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| Fresh lobster from the local sea food market and sweet corn from a farm stand. |
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| Yum!!! |
We have also had a lot of fun doing things as a family, such as swimming, going to the beach, visiting the Providence zoo, going on picnics, and enjoying our vegetable garden. We grew tomatoes, basil, green and red peppers, and green beans this year. Joey has experience with canning, so we spent last weekend and this weekend canning various vegetables, as well as making fruit jams. We canned 81 jars of various jams and vegetables! It was actually a lot of fun, and Clara and I are both very much looking forward to the canned dill pickles, since we both love them.
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| Clara's upgraded pool at our house. |
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| Enjoying a friend's pool with an awesome view. |
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| Clara's arts and crafts. |
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| Two love-struck Giraffes at the zoo. |
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| Picnic Time! |
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| A small sample of our canning. |
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| Vegetables from our garden. |
As I sit and write this blog, there is noisy pounding happening on the outside of our house (Calvary House.) The house is in the process of being completely fixed up on the outside. It has needed a lot of work for quite some time. The exciting thing is, once the outside of the house is fixed, it is going to be repainted to look more like it did historically. Word on the street is that it's going to be white with some kind of iridescent blue trim which picks up the stones of the church. The color of the shutters is still being debated. It is going to be so much more beautiful than the current grey color, although we will miss referring to it as the "haunted house." Once it is all done, I will be sure to include a picture. Hopefully it will go quickly, since Clara is having a hard time napping with this pounding going on.
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| Practicing Piano. |
Clara is talking a mile a minute these days. She is so interested in the world around her. She loves to be silly and laugh, and she is an extremely physical child. She continues to enjoy dancing and will return to ballet classes soon. This year she will be in a class with 3 and 4 year olds, and while I have no doubt she will be able to do all the moves, I hope she does ok relating to the other kids. We will see how it goes. Clara can also be quite serous, and will sometimes become very fixated on an activity or sit and observe other kids. I see both Joey and myself in her, depending on her mood. She is definitely our child.
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| Practicing for ballet class. |
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| Clara's serious face. |
We are looking forward to the fall and are excited about the things we have lined up. It is going to be an extremely busy fall. Joey will of course maintain his full-time duties at Calvary Church, as well as his part-time position as Artistic Director of Calvary Music School and the piano and organ teaching he is doing. He is still acting as dean of the New London American Guild of Organist (AGO) chapter, and he also has several organ/piano recitals lined up as a soloist, and in collaboration with me as the "Ripka Duo". Our first recital is in October and will be a violin and organ program. We also have two other recitals scheduled in CT and MN. In between our joint recitals, Joey has several solo organ recitals and organ presentations lined up. I will give more details in the next blog for those of you who are local and might like to come to some of these events.
I am expecting to have anywhere from 18-23 private students registered for lessons this fall, which begin on September 3rd. I will be teaching Tuesday, Thursday (every other week), and Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings. Joey will teach Wednesdays and Thursdays along with his Wednesday evening chorister and adult choir rehearsals. He will also lead hand bell rehearsals on Thursday mornings. Somehow Joey and I have managed to make our schedules work and still have Mondays off for family time. We don't really have weekends free for obvious reasons. Trying to fit practice time in with everything else is usually the biggest challenge, but somehow we make it work.
We hope you have had a wonderful summer and that you have a nice start to fall.
Till next post...
Joey, Erin and Clara
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| Our sweet, energetic 2 year old. |
