Merry Christmas!

Hey folks! We're back in Frankfurt and enjoying a little time at home before hitting the road again. We took Rowan to the Christmas market for the second time today, and even though we only intended to have some raclette and a cup of glühwein, a couple other tasty treats grabbed our attention. The surprise hit of the evening was Baumstriezel, which is a fried, tube-shaped pastry coated in hazelnut deliciousness. It's good to know that after nine years of visiting German Christmas markets we can still find something new (and tasty).

Our flight from London to Frankfurt last Wednesday marked Rowan's tenth flight. All that flying with our little nine-month-old has taught us something: people are nicer to you when you are traveling with an adorable baby. Oh, you're carrying a baby? Go ahead and skip to the head of the line. You're traveling with six bags each and most of them are overweight? No problem. You have a baby after all, you can't be expected to both parent and follow the rules. You need to check into your hotel room three hours early? Well, your baby does look sleepy so we'll go ahead and check you in and give you a free upgrade. Huh. Who knew that babies came with such perks? We should have had a child years ago if for no other reason than the travel benefits. OK, maybe not, but all the kind treatment has certainly made our frequent traveling with Rowan over the past several months a lot easier.

Our time in Frankfurt is brief and packed with friends and Christmas celebrations. On Saturday we travelled to Biedenkopf and had a lovely day with our friends the Schuberts (minus Andi who we will see later this week). On Friday we will have our annual Feuerzangenbowle evening with the Plocks, and on Saturday we have Christmas Eve dinner with the McCowns for what, I believe, is the eighth year in a row. Believe it or not, we are also doing some things that don't involve hanging out with friends and/or eating Christmas treats. Last week we went to the foreigner's office and got Rowan his German residence permit. He is now able to stay in Germany (and, according to his permit, even work) for the next five years. We're going to have to find him a job that allows napping.

Next week at this time we'll be in Munich for Brenda's role debut as The Queen of the Night in Mozart's The Magic Flute. I hope you all have a wonderful week and a very happy holiday season, and we'll talk to you next Tuesday!

on time arrival

Hey all! Brenda, Rowan, and I are settled in for the night in London after a very relaxing flight from Minneapolis. We fly to Frankfurt tomorrow and are looking forward to being back in our apartment for the first time since late September. Our stay in Frankfurt will be brief (less than two weeks), but we'll definitely have enough time to visit the Christmas market. Brenda will be very busy in the coming weeks as she prepares two new opera roles and a recital for Carnegie Hall. Meanwhile Rowan will no doubt be busy trying to figure out how to crawl, which means I'll be busy child proofing the apartment. So as you can see, we've all got our jobs to do once we get back to Frankfurt.

Our past few weeks in the U.S. were wonderful, especially because we were there during the holiday season. We celebrated Christmas with our families a little early this year (which has me wondering why there are still Christmas decorations everywhere), and Rowan definitely liked opening presents. In fact, he enjoyed every part of the present. He'll happily chew on the gift, the box it comes in, and even the wrapping paper. We have more Christmas celebrating to do in Frankfurt, including buying a small Christmas tree and our annual Christmas Eve dinner with our friends Barb and Michael. I quite enjoy spreading Christmas out over the whole month of December.

We hope you're enjoying the holiday season as much as we are. Until next time, have a great week!

very happy holidays

Whoops, another late blog entry! So late that we get to combine two entries into one! Sorry about that! We are literally on the road right now. Chad is driving, Rowan is sleeping, and I'm doing a bad job at entertaining the driver. We just finished up a week at my parents' home, where we enjoyed lots of delicious food, cozy fires, Christmas carols around the piano, fun outings to local libraries for baby story times, and even some beautiful snow! It was a truly wonderful family time. We're so looking forward to continuing the fun family times with Chad's family for our final days in the States before heading back to Germany!

When Chad last wrote, we were enjoying some time with my twin in Minneapolis. It's always a great time, and he really spoils us! Gives us his bed, cooks for us even though he's working full time, is a super fun uncle... You get the picture! We also usually get to see some good friends while we're there, as well as my aunt and uncle, so we pack a lot into those few days! It's lucky that our immediate families are in three neighboring states so we can just drive to see everyone! Rowan is a great little flyer but it's so much less stressful to drive! Although we'll be happy to be done with the car ride soon! Speaking of which, I think the drive is soon coming to an end, so I'll sign off here! Next week at this time we should be in London for one night, after flying across the Atlantic the night before, so we'll see if we can do an on time blog entry. Until then, have a great week!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey all! Now this is a really late blog entry. Sorry about that! This past week has been a blur of traveling, seeing family, and eating. We spent Thursday with my parents who have been hosting a Thanksgiving dinner for the last forty-six years or so. There were thirty-seven of us in all including four babies under a year old. Brenda and I don't get to go every year because of the nature of her career, so we were thrilled that it worked out this year. We certainly had a lot to be thankful for, not least of which was all the delicious food (including lefse - yum!).

By all accounts Brenda's last performance of Lulu was excellent. After putting in so much time and effort learning and rehearsing this difficult piece, it's too bad they didn't have more than five performances. Hopefully Brenda and her castmates will have the opportunity to sing it again someday. 

Our flight back to the midwest on Sunday was quite pleasant. Rowan was the only baby on the plane, and now that he's a little bit older he didn't sleep as much as on previous flights. He made friends with the people sitting around us, and most of them were surprised to learn that it was his eighth flight. He fussed a little bit during the flight, but he never cried, and he was very happy when I walked up and down the aisles with him. He'll have four more flights before his first birthday, three of which cross the Atlantic. We're hoping our little guy continues to be a happy traveller.

This weekend we're visiting Drew in Minneapolis, and on Tuesday we're off to Wisconsin to see Brenda's parents. Rowan is loving seeing so many of his family and friends in the U.S. We thought he might get a little overwhelmed by all the people on Thanksgiving, but he was relaxed and smiley the whole day and still managed to take his usual naps in spite of all of the happy commotion. We will probably be late with the blog again this week, but I'll try to get it up before the weekend. We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Until next time, have a great week!

mama drama

Hello all! Mama Brenda writing to you all tonight. Sorry we're a day late with the blog, but Chad's parents had their last night in London yesterday, so we thought we should spend it talking to them, instead of staring at our computer screens! Their time with us flew by, and we really enjoyed having them here. They were kind enough to babysit Rowan one night so that Chad could come to my second performance of Lulu, and they even got to see the third show themselves! Hard to believe that we've had three shows in the past week, and will have two more in the next few days, and then we go to the U.S. on Sunday! Such a massive amount of work (I think for both Chad and myself!) and then just like that, it's over! Chad and I thought I should write a blog entry before the memories fade about my experience of going back to work full time after having Rowan, so I hope this doesn't bore anyone too much!

We had just over five weeks of rehearsals, 6 days a week (a half day on Saturday) and with the commute, I was away from Chad and Rowan for about 9 hours most days. That first day I definitely got teary-eyed multiple times when I thought about my sweet little baby, and in general the first week was quite difficult. I'm still nursing, so I had to pump during my breaks, (sometimes in bathrooms, until a very kind stage manager set up a little private pumping area for me in the rehearsal room!) and since this is the biggest and most difficult role I've ever performed, I was studying every free moment I had. Add to this a teething baby who doesn't sleep through the night, and you get a quite exhausted Brenda! But gradually I adjusted to the schedule (and also gained a lot of comfort with the role!), and now instead of feeling exhausted, I feel quite energized! It's still crazy during performances: I'm onstage almost constantly, and when I'm not, I'm doing very quick costume changes, and during the first intermission I pump, and then during the second intermission I have to do a big costume and wig and makeup change, so I don't really get much of a break for 3.75 very intense hours! But I'm so grateful that it's all going well, that Rowan seems to be doing great, and Chad is being the most wonderful dad and supportive husband. I feel so lucky that the three of us get to travel together for at least the first year of Rowan's life, and neither of us have to miss out on spending time with this incredible child of ours. The feelings of love when I hold Rowan after being away for hours is quite overwhelming!

Well, I may end up editing this post from time to time to add other memories, but for now, I'm feeling the pull of sleep! We really can't wait to see our families in the coming weeks and celebrate some early holidays. Hopefully Rowan will continue to be a good little traveller! Oh, speaking of travel, yesterday we went to the U.S. Embassy here in London to get Rowan's Global Entry application finalized. He didn't get fingerprinted, contrary to what the border agent told us last July when we entered the States, but he did get his photo taken, which I must say is so much easier now that he can hold his head up (which he couldn't do when we had to get his passport photos taken)! He's certainly having a very different childhood than Chad or I had!

Have a great week!

(I didn't really want to talk about this, but since this blog serves as a sort of time-capsule for us, I just have to mention that Chad and I both lost some sleep last week over the election results. I'm rather horrified that Donald Trump will be our next president, and I'm sorry that so many people felt that the right choice for our country is a seemingly hate-filled, misogynistic bigot. We're aware that not everyone shares our beliefs and we don't want to use our blog as a platform for arguments, but I'm just so terribly sad about the results. Love to all.)

showtime

Happy voting day one and all. (Is happy the right word? Probably not. But I'll definitely be happy when it's over.) I'd like to stay up and watch the results roll in, but that's not going to happen since we're on London time. Although if Rowan wakes up particularly early tomorrow I may get my wish.

The final dress rehearsal (and first complete run-through) of Lulu was last night, and from what Brenda tells me it went well. At the very least they made it from the beginning to the end without stopping which is no small feat considering the difficulty of the music. Brenda's first performance is tomorrow night and she'll have four more over the next week and a half. I'm really looking forward to seeing the show and hearing all of the great singing Brenda's been telling me about.

On Saturday I worked up the courage to take Rowan to visit Brenda at work. It was a risky outing because it stretched Rowan's awake time beyond his usual two or three hours. Once you get beyond that he turns into a time bomb, and I would prefer he's at home in bed when he explodes instead of strapped to my chest in the middle of London. Even though he ended up being awake for well over three hours Rowan did great. We walked partway and took the Underground (Rowan's first time) the rest of the way. He didn't seem to mind the loud ride or the throngs of people in central London. Once we got to the theater we kept Brenda company during her dinner break and met several of her colleagues backstage. It was a fun trip.

It's time to call it a night. I hope you all have a great week, and we'll talk to you next Tuesday!

tech week

Happy Belated Halloween to one and all! In case you're wondering, they do celebrate Halloween in London (there's a zombie outbreak just two doors down), but as far as we could tell they don't trick-or-treat.  We didn't get into the Halloween spirit much this year, although we did put cute pumpkin pajamas on Rowan and continue our tradition of watching a not-so-scary movie (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies). The real highlight of our weekend was that we got to spend the whole thing together. Brenda was not called to rehearsal on Saturday so we enjoyed a relaxing weekend and slept as much as Rowan would allow us to.

Tech week began on Monday for Lulu which means that Brenda is rehearsing this week in costume and on the stage. Her rehearsals are keeping her at work longer and later so Rowan is getting more time just with me. Today we took a trip to the library to use the printer. The powers that be in Iowa were kind enough to send me a ballot via email, and I needed a place to print it. The public library to the rescue! Unfortunately, I have to mail the ballot back to Iowa the old fashioned way, but at least I'm one step closer to casting my vote. Brenda has already voted thanks to Wisconsin's handy online absentee ballot request form. Hey Iowa, why don't we have one of those? Wisconsin has professional sports teams, cheese hats, Door County, a couple of Great Lakes AND easier absentee voting. Let's step it up a notch, OK? I'll write in my suggestions for improvements on the ballot.

I'm going to call it a night. I hope you all have a great week, and we'll talk to you next Tuesday! (Don't forget to vote!)