Tolleson Tapestry

Hello Family!

We're counting down the days to Christmas break! As always, October and November were packed with many fun-filled events. We made a trip to Bedford, PA for our friend Karen's wedding the weekend of October 17th. You may have met her at our wedding. She married a wonderful man named Kyle in a beautiful Jewish ceremony. Bedford is a historic small town with ties to President Washington and the American Revolutionary War. There are a lot of covered bridges, and being there in the fall meant that the leaves were stunning. We did manage to be there during a cold spell, so we experienced rain, sleet, hail, and snow all on the wedding day :). 

The supposedly haunted 1760s Jean Bonnet Tavern. Excellent ambiance and food a short distance from Bedford!

Our Fall Concert was scheduled for Friday, October 30, but the weather had other plans. We spent over an hour in our tornado shelters that morning and  experienced flooding in the orchestra room (thankfully no damage). The district canceled all after school activities which meant our concert was canceled. We will be playing some of the pieces on our Winter Concert, Monday, December 14. November 3rd was our annual Fall String Festival, which fell on the only sunny day between two bouts of rain and floods.

Austin ISD's Fall String Festival 2015 at Zilker Hillside Theatre!

Thanksgiving marked the end of the very busy Fall semester of recruitment events for James. Applications to the University are up again, which leads to an always-busy season of application file reading. His class, Organization and Administration of Higher Education, will meet for the last time this Monday and then require a final paper. 

A 360 view standing by the creek at the ranch for Thanksgiving.

For Thanksgiving, which also happened to be our 4th anniversary, we drove out to James' relative's ranch outside of Blanco, TX. There was a bridge destroyed by the floods and a few other detours along the way. His relatives were not able to get into their property for over a week due to flooding. To get to their house, you have to drive through a creek, which makes for access problems when the water is high. The house is up on a hill and safe from the floods, so thankfully there was no damage to buildings, just the dam, rocks, and trees around the creek. After a nice lunch at the ranch, we drove back to Austin for the UT football game. It's a good thing we had ponchos! It rained on and off the whole game even during the half time show which featured Jimmie Vaughan (including him famously playing the guitar behind his head).

Pretty good seats! We were on the 55 yard line. Thankful for ponchos!

Before we head to Kansas for the holidays, we have our Cedar Park Winds Concert, which will include a Sousa march, Grainger's Molly on the Shore, the Leroy Anderson traditionals (Sleigh Ride and A Christmas Festival) as well as a few other nautical themed pieces. I will perform with our choir on their concert and conduct on two band concerts in addition to an orchestra concert. Let the concert season begin!

Duncan posing with the pumpkin.

Rimsky helping with Christmas decorations.

Many Blessings to you all this holiday season!
Hannah and James