Happy New Year! 2013

Merry Christmas 2012!

We had one beautiful snowfall during the holidays!

Dear Family and Friends,

A lot has happened since my last blog. Christmas has come and gone, and we have welcomed in a new year. We hope that you all enjoyed a nice holiday break.

Clara's Christmas portrait

Overall we had a very nice Christmas and New Year. My parents were here for a couple of weeks, and we also enjoyed visits from my aunt and uncle from Michigan, my cousin from Massachusets and her husband, my cousin from Texas and my aunt and uncle from Virginia. It was great to see everyone. We missed seeing Joey's family, but we were able to have some nice Skype sessions. It's not the same as being together, but Skype really is a wonderful thing when you have to be apart. 

Clara was much more aware of Christmas this year. She knew that Santa would be coming down the chimney, and she would say "ho ho ho" whenever she saw a picture of him. I think the true story of Christmas is still over her head. When we ask her where God lives, she points up and says "sky," but that's about the extent of it so far. We had a beautiful Christmas Eve service at Calvary Church; it was even snowing a little bit during the service. Joey, of course, led the music, and I played my violin on prelude music, as well as a descant on "Silent Night," which my dad wrote. The church was full, and it was a beautiful service. I always find the late-night Christmas Eve service to be so magical.

Joey and I won 1st and 2nd place in the Calvary Church "Ugly Christmas Sweater" staff party!

Clara was not interested in sitting in Santa's lap, so I had to help out.

Santa did come visit Stonington and left a lot of nice things for Clara. Unfortunately, we were also visited by illness. Shortly after my dad arrived, he came down with a cold. He started to feel worse and worse and complained of difficulty breathing. At that point we insisted that he visit the ER, and it's a good thing we did, because he was diagnosed with the early stages of pneumonia. He was put on antibiotics and slowly, over the course of his visit, started to feel better. After the new year Clara, Joey and I developed colds. Clara and Joey had relatively mild colds, but mine turned into some type of stomach upset which left me unable to eat and exhausted for several days. We are all feeling much better now and are hoping to keep well. The amount of flu going around this year is pretty scary. We are washing our hands a lot and trying to stay home more and avoid crowded places. We hope that you have not been touched with illness, especially the flu. We are praying for my brother, sister-in-law and their three children in Wisconsin, because all three children have the flu right now. We hope that they do not suffer too much, and that they recover quickly.

Family

Santa's little helper

Clara with her Godparents

Joey and I are back to working, performing and teaching. Joey broke his toe and sliced his finger over Christmas break. He tripped on a rug in our hallway and somehow broke his toe, and he sliced his finger while preparing his annual New Year's Eve fondue dinner. Fortunately, both the toe and the finger seem to be healing ok, but it was a little scary since we rely on both his fingers and his toes for our livelihood!

"Is Santa there?"

The holidays are exhausting!

Clara is growing and changing all of the time. She loves to learn. She recognizes and can say all of her alphabet letters and she can count to 10. She talks a lot and knows many words. She has started using two and three word sentences such as "Mommy up please" and "cracker on please." "Cracker on please" means "turn the Nutcracker ballet DVD on please" We hear that multiple times a day, since dancing to the Nutcracker is still her favorite activity. The first thing she asks for in the morning is "tutu on please" because she is ready to dance. As you can see, she is very good about saying "please." "Thank you" is a little bit more difficult to say, but we try to encourage it. She is such a happy girl and has a really silly sense of humor. She likes to make faces in order to make people laugh. We have so much fun with her.

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Ripka!

Thank you Santa!

Well, that's the news for now. We hope you have a happy and healthy 2013!

Until next post,

Joey, Erin and Clara

Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time.

 Laura Ingalls Wilder

Turkeys, Nutcrackers and a baby!

19 moths old!

Dear Family and Friends,
Let me first start off by saying NO, I am not expecting! The "baby"part of the title of this post refers to the beautiful baby girl my brother Alan and his wife Cara brought into the world this afternoon. Her name is Aravis Moore and she is my third niece and my dad's ninth grandchild. We are so happy for Alan and Cara. They already have four wonderful little boys and now a precious little girl. I was thrilled to be able to send many of Clara's gently used clothes to Aravis and she will certainly be receiving more in the future. Before I had Clara I really never understood the magic of bringing a child into the world. Every child is such a miracle. Congratulations Alan and Cara! 

In other news...We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. It seems as though this month flew by, but I realized that the last blog I posted was on Nov 7th, so there was a shorter lapse between blogs. Thank you to those of you who have expressed your enjoyment of our blog. I appreciate your interest and I will do my best to keep the posts coming. This is going to be one of my shorter blog posts. I have to make up for the never ending post from last month. I'm sure I will end up posting a lot of pictures, but I will try to keep the writing to a minimum.

Trying on her new holiday sweater dress

Clara and daddy

Happy girl!

Joey, Clara and I enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. It was nice to have a little break from work, especially for Joey. It felt a little like the calm before the storm since December promises to be an extremely busy month. We spent Thanksgiving day with our good friends Richard and Lois who live in Stonington. We shared in the food preparation. Lois prepared the turkey, stuffing, sweet potato puree and a delicious pumpkin pie and eggnogg cranberry tart, among other things. Joey prepared corn casserole, an Italian green been dish, and cranberry sauce. The meal was wonderful. We ate our adult meal while Clara napped and let her enjoy the feast after she woke up around 6pm. It was a fun and relaxing day.

Skyping with both sets of grandparents

We spend black Friday the way we always traditionally spend the day by visiting a Christmas tree farm and decorating our home for Christmas.  We drove to Olsen's Tree Farm in Voluntown, CT and picked up some wreathes. Clara really wanted to get a real tree, but since we have such a nice fake tree we decided to continue using that. When we got home we ate leftovers and drank eggnog while decorating the house. The house looks very Christmassy now and feels warm and cozy. We have candles in each of the windows at the front of the house. They are light sensitive so they turn on as it gets dark. The tradition of placing candles in the windows during the winter seems to be big here on the East Coast.

Christmas tree farm

"I want this one!"

"I also want this one!"

Trying on the tree skirt

Helping with decorating

Dreaming of Christmas

Decorations are up!

Come on down the chimney Santa!

Relaxing after a day of decorating

Clara is now 19 months old and has found a new passion in life; dancing to the Nutcracker ballet. Clara has been dancing to music for a while now, but this month we pulled out our DVD of the Nutcracker ballet with the American Ballet Theatre. The ballet features two incredible dancers, Gelsey Kirkland and Mikhail Baryshnikov. In my opinion it is the best version of the ballet available on DVD.  The music is well done and the dancing is incredible. Clara has completely fallen in love with the DVD and will dance for the entire hour and 18 minutes it plays. She wakes up in the morning and asks for "cracker" and asks for it again after dinner. Needless to say, Joey and I are getting to know the ballet very well. The interesting and fun thing is that I grew up dancing to and loving the exact same version of the Nutcracker. Back then I watched it on VHS. I also studied ballet very seriously when I was a child and the highlight of my year was performing in the Nutcracker production. Clara seems to take after me with her love of dance and of the Nutcracker.

Dancing up a storm

Pure joy!

Trying to do the splits!

                                   
Well, that's the news for now. December is going to be very busy up until Christmas for both Joey and me. Our students will perform in a recital on Dec. 15th. Joey is conducting and playing organ for the Calvary Church Messiah sing a long again this year. He is also leading lessons and carols for advent at Calvary and accompanying a couple of services at St. Paul's Episcopal church in Fairfield where he used to be organ scholar. My parents will arrive in CT on Dec. 22nd and will stay through the new year. My aunt and uncle will also be with us for the new year. We have talked up Santa Claus to Clara during the last several weeks and now if you ask her what Santa says she will reply "HoHoHo!" It's really cute and we are looking forward to taking her to meet Santa Claus sometime this month.
We hope you enjoy this holiday season and that you can spend it with the ones you love. In my opinion this truly is "the most wonderful time of the year!"


Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!
Joey, Erin and Clara

October Craziness

Calvary Church

Dear Family and Friends,

Well, you can blame hurricane Sandy for the lack of an October blog. Sandy hit on Monday Oct. 29th, and we were without power until Nov. 2nd. There were already many things I planned to blog about this month, and that was before Sandy decided to come ashore. Anyway, in an attempt to keep things organized and compact and avoid writing a dissertation, I will try to summarize our crazy month of October into the beginning of November.

WORK:
Joey and I have been staying busy professionally. Joey's work at Calvary is going well. He is also teaching private lessons, accompanying for Anglican Singers and acting as Artistic Director of Calvary Music School. On top of that, he gave two organ recitals this month. I am also keeping busy teaching. I now have 14 enrolled students. My studio has grown much more quickly then I had anticipated, and Joey and I are working to balance our schedules and still be able to care for Clara. So far we are managing fine, and I am grateful to have so many wonderful students to work with.

MEGAN"S VISIT:
My dear friend Megan, who lives in Alexandria, VA, came to visit us at the beginning of the month. Megan and I met when we were in 9th grade, while attending a chamber music summer institute. We were roommates and became instant friends. Megan has two daughters and is expecting another baby in February. Clara had a lot of fun getting to know her girls, and it was great to see Megan and catch up with her. We spent a lot of time at the playground and also visited the Mystic Aquarium.

VACATION:
I celebrated an early birthday with Joey, Clara and my parents in Stowe, Vermont. The trip was a gift from my parents. They rented a 2 bedroom town home for three nights. Stowe is a beautiful place, surrounded by mountains. Unfortunatley we just missed the peak of the fall leaves, but it was still beautiful, and we saw a lot of color on the drive to Vermont. We had fun touring Stowe and taking scenic drives. We had some awesome apple cider and donuts at Cold Hollow Cider mill as well as some great meals at various local restaurants. We also stopped at a place called Kringle Candles in MA. It started out as a candle store and now has several stores including a Christmas and toy store, as well as a wonderful farm to table restaurant. Clara had a lot of fun exploring a new place and seeing her grandparents. Thanks mom and dad for a wonderful birthday experience!

BIRTHDAY:
I officially turend 29 on Oct. 19th. Clara and I had a joint birthday celebration since she turned a year and a half on the 20th. Joey made us a ghost cake, and boy was it good! I am looking forward to the last year of my twenties and love the fact that I can continue to tease Joey about being 30 for one more year!

PIANO:
Joey recently had his piano delivered from MN and moved into the front room of Calvary House. He will teach his students on it, and we will use it to practice and prepare for recitals together. It's really nice to have it, and it has quickly become Clara's favorite "toy". She loves to play the piano and listen to daddy play while she dances.

I made this violin for Clara before her wooden violin arrived.

CLARA:
Clara is a year and a half old now and is learning new things every second. Her vocabulary has really grown over the last few weeks. She is able to recognize 9 of the alphabet letters by sight and say them out loud, and she can count to 5. One of the most exciting things for us is hearing her sing. She now sings the first phrase of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star", and she almost always sings it perfectly on key. She loves to sing and dance. I have started giving Clara violin lessons. I know what you are thinking. "That crazy woman, how does she expect an 18 month old to play the violin?" Of course Clara is not playing a real violin. She has a fake wooden violin that I purchased online, as well as a fake bow, and she is able to take a bow with the violin in rest position and put it onto her shoulder in play position. She also knows which hand holds the bow and will pretend to bow on her violin. We are also clapping rhythms, which she is pretty good at. She loves the violin and often wants to play with it as soon as she wakes up in the morning. I am interested in helping her enjoy learning about the violin without pushing her too hard too soon. We have fun little practice sessions, and she is given a sticker at the end.

Keeping warm during Sandy

                    

HURRICANE SANDY/HALLOWEEN:
As you know, a major hurricane hit the East Coast early last week. Hurricane Sandy merged with a Nor'easter to form a hybrid storm which resulted in terrible destruction and tragedy in several states, including Connecticut. New Jersey and New York were hit the worst. Because we live so close to the ocean, we were not comfortable staying at home during the storm. We were concerned about the storm surge. Also, the borough was placed under mandatory evacuation the night before the storm, which meant we might not be able to get help if we decided to stay home. There is nothing more eerie then listening to police sirens and announcements outside telling you that you have to leave your home. Our wonderful friends Richard and Lois from church offered to let us stay with them. They had a generator which provided power to the house even after the wind knocked power out. The borough did suffer quite a bit of damage, and coverage of the damage in Stonington could be seen on the national weather channel. A huge tree fell on the local library destroying the roof. There was also some serious flooding in the low lying areas of the borough. We were lucky though, Both Calvary Church and Calvary House were ok. We did spend a few nights at home in the dark. We had a fire going in the dining room and basically stayed there until we had to get into our cold bed. We have a small generator which was able to power an electrical heater in Clara's room. We actually spent the final night without power with some other generous friends who had power. The whole week was a bit surreal, and we were so relieved when the power finally came back on. We missed an entire week of teaching, and Joey's adult Evensong had to be cancelled.

We were excited about Halloween. We were going to take Clara trick-or-treating for the first time. However, the mayor of Stonington cancelled the holiday because he felt it was too dangerous for kids to be out immediately following the storm. Not to mention nobody had any power. He officially changed Halloween to November 16th. I'm not sure why he picked such a late date.; it's less than a week before Thanksgiving. I am glad that he rescheduled it though, and we do plan to participate and hand out candy. Maybe Clara will still get to go trick-or-treating this year. She has an adorable strawberry costume and it would be a shame for her not to be seen in it.

Although the storm and lack of power was difficult to deal with, we feel so lucky in many ways. Many people are still suffering because of the storm. Some lost their property and some lost their lives. This was the second hurricane Joey, Clara and I have experienced in CT, and I pray we don't have anymore for a very long time.

LOOKIN AHEAD:
We are hoping that November won't be quite as eventful as October. We look forward to celebrating Thanksgiving with friends here in Stonington and putting up our Christmas decorations. The weather has turned colder now, and most of the trees have lost their leaves. We hope you have a wonderful November and a happy Thanksgiving. I tried to keep this post short but it seems I have failed. Oh well, November should be pretty straight forward.

We took Clara with us to vote but she wouldn't tell us who she voted for.

And now I leave you with a Thanksgiving poem:

May your stuffing be tasty,
May your turkey plump,
May your potatoes and gravy
Have nary a lump.
May your yams be delicious
And your pies take the prize.
And may your Thanksgiving dinner
Stay off your thighs!

-Anonymous

Joey, Erin and Clara