What's Up?

Although it has been a week or so since our last post... life goes on. We have been quite busy and I thought I would share a couple of pictures and catch you up on the happenings in our house.

Sarah celebrated her 7th Birthday on the 12th! Sarah's feet show what she and Mom along with a couple of friends went and did to celebrate. I guess it goes to show that you are never too young to start pampering your self on your birthday. The "girls" had fun having a pedicure.








Later we opened gifts. This is Sarah's favorite part of her birthday. Presents!








Grandma Kay and Grandpa Dee came over later in the week and shared strawberry cake and ice cream. Strawberry cake is a Curtis Family tradition that Nancy brought to our marriage. Sarah has embraced the strawberry cake tradition whole heartily!










This short video clip shows our family taking part of a Jacobs Birthday tradition. My dad went on a mission to Sweden, and since then we have always sung "Happy Birthday" followed by the Swedish version "Ya Mon Hun/Han Lever" All I can say is Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!








We have also reached a milestone with Grace. She now is eating real food! She loves and gobbles down carrots, green beans, peas, sweet potato's, and LOVES any kind of fruit. I am sure the bewildered look on her face is due to the fact that I stopped feeding her to take a picture. She was not amused.
















This next picture is of the Kids adorned in our families new favorite attire! I believe we will be wearing a lot more BYU issue in the coming years!






















The reason for the emphasis on BYU apparel is due to the recent news that I was accepted into BYU's Masters of Public Administration Graduate program!



This of course means many changes for the Jacobs Family. We plan to move to Provo or there abouts this coming August and will be in Provo for the next couple of years as I work on earning my MPA degree. We are really excited, and at the same time sad to leave our family, home and friends here in California.

Nancy and I are also sad having just finished what may be our last Danville Children's Musical Theatre show "Mulan". Nancy has been the musical director at DCMT for the last 13 years, and I have been the set designer and builder for the last 8 of those years. Pam(the director)has been so good to us over the years and we truly feel like we are a part of her extended family. It feels as though the theater has always been an integral part of our family life. For the past decade plus it has alway been there. It is hard to leave and we will miss it! Change is always hard to face. After all it is true what is often said "The only thing constant is Change."

Even so we are looking and moving forward! Returning to BYU and graduate studies fills me with an excitement that at times is hard to contain. Even though we are leaving friends and family here, we look forward to seeing all the friends and family we have at BYU and around and about in Utah. Yahoo! See ya in August!

The Piano Diaries

The first weekend of Mulan performances is over and I'm exhausted by my piano drama. As you will recall, after the last show, it was reported to me that my trusty steed, the Yamaha piano at the theater would be going away. The Village Theater personnel ripped it from my loins and put it up for auction to be replaced by a digital piano.

At the beginning of rehearsals for Mulan, I arrived one day to see "my" piano gone and in its place, practically a toy piano. It doesn't quite have a full keyboard, it's smaller than me and has a plug-in pedal. I swear I could knock it over heaven forbid I play with too much gusto. I feel very exposed.

I'm a teamplayer. I'm flexible. I've really tried hard to make a go of this dumb thing. Fast forward to tech week. Pam is kind enough to appease me by bringing her clavinova (a much better digital piano with REAL pedals). I hear it took many of her offspring to load it into her car, she had to drive very slowly down the streets of Danville listening to incessant honking for her to speed up and then wait all day for my husband to get there to help move it into the theater. But Pam is good to me and does it anyway.

I sit down to play it, and the pedal is broken. The sustaining pedal doesn't clear so everything is mushy. I feel terrible and fearful to tell Pam that all her efforts have been in vain. Now I have two digital pianos in front of each other and I have to play the dippy one. And you know how superstitious I am about how my piano area must remain as it is from the beginning of tech week throughout the performances.

What a mess! I won't even mention what a difficult time I've had hearing the dumb digital piano. I have to wear earphones because the piano is hooked into the monitors on stage which turn off my piano speakers. In case you didn't know, you use your ears more than you think when you play the piano.

I Love Photoshop!

I do love Photoshop. It seems the possibilities for great photos is endless. Yes it is true that you must start with a good photo; But It is amazing what can be hidden, changed, faded or completely wiped out. On the surface I am really Okay with this. However, I do have to admit that there is one part of me that feels like I am cheating, changing reality, and in a sense offering a cute photo that did not really exist when the "moment" was captured.

Now for the story. Nancy took the time to take about 10 or 15 really cute pictures of Gracie as she crawled (army crawled) around on the floor. She got some really cute shots including the one I am presenting today. When I first downloaded the pictures I noticed that Gracie had spit up and there remained a residue on her face. My first reaction was what the heck, the pictures were cute but really unusable because really... who wants to look at even a cute baby with spit up on their face? Not me. Nancy's indicated that she noticed the spit up on her face but she really could not "see" in on the view finder on the camera and if it did show up (which of course it did) we could Photoshop it out. This also is true.

This leaves me with only one question. Is is easier to wipe a baby's face or photo shop the crud out of the shot? Hmmmm. Really it is sixes. Six of one or half a dozen of another.





Regardless I love Photoshop.