Happy New Year!

Hello from Austin and Happy 2018! We've now been in our house for a year, which doesn't seem possible. New additions include two hazelnut trees in the backyard (a gift from my Aunt Susan), and outdoor Christmas decorations, which are now back in the garage until next year.

New hazelnut trees (one Jefferson and one Yamhill)

Putting up the Christmas Lights

The finished product

As you all know our big event for the season was a trip to Chicago where James and I performed with the Cedar Park Winds at the Midwest Clinic. We were so blessed to have James' family in Austin for the send off concert and my family in Chicago for the Midwest performance. The whole experience was so much fun! Many of the composers were in attendance and gave us specific comments in the dress rehearsal. We premiered three of the pieces that we played, and performed for a standing room only crowd. Following the performance we stayed in Chicago to celebrate Christmas and Theo's baptism.

The family following the Midwest Clinic performance

Katie and Theo buddled up for the Lincoln Park Zoo Lights

My favorite light

Alice in Wonderland themed lights that flashed in time to music

Downtown Chicago

Chihuly glass art at the Garfield Park Conservatory

    

Part of my Christmas gift from James was tickets to the UT vs KU men's basketball game. We flew home from Chicago that morning and then attended a great game that evening! With the freezing temperatures that made their way to Austin, the farm that we get our CSA box of vegetables from sent out a call for help harvesting. I helped with the carrot and radish harvests, which was a lot of fun.

Rimsky and Duncan say hello!

James is back to work and I will be back on Monday. Here's to a beautiful 2018 full of love, kindness, family and friends.

Love,
Hannah and James

Happy New Year from The Rowland’s Pack

Happy New Year!

Hello Family,

Tyson, the pack and I are ready for 2018 but we are so grateful for the wonderful 2017 we had. It was quite eventful with our engagement and wedding so we are ready for a quieter 2018.

We want to thank all of you for attending our wedding and for participating in it. It turned out to be a beautiful day with everything that we had envisioned. We'll be sending out thank yous soon now that we have a few professional pictures from the day (the rest will be coming sometime in January). Our photographer (X) took over 4,000 so he's having to take a bit of time editing them. :)

I can't tell you how much it meant to me to have as many of you there as there were. I know for several of you it was hard to rearrange schedules, grab flights, drive for many hours to make it and it means a lot to me that you made that effort. And to have the musicians be entirely members of my family also means more to me than I can say. You all do so well. Thank you for being willing to play/sing some non-traditional and new songs.

Our honeymoon was spent in a hobbit hole in Eurkea Springs Arkansas. Sadly, Tyson spent most of it suffering from a man cold but the Hobbit Hole was the perfect place to rest up.

Since returning from the honey moon we've mostly spent time preparing for Christmas and then having various Christmas gatherings. We enjoyed some of you yesterday at the sock exchange and missed those of you who weren't there.

Our plans for the new year include working more on our house including the kitchen and our upstairs rooms. We also will be teaching 4-H dog classes together. We also will be working to form a non-profit so we can begin training service dogs which as you know has been a life-long dream of mine.

Tyson will still be working at Cox Communications in Newton and I'll be mostly doing work with Sunflower Training Services and looking at some other jobs I can do from home.

For those of you who do not have Tyson's contact info here it is so you can add it to your phones and email contacts. You can also find him on Facebook Tyson Rowland: 

Email: tyson.rowland88@gmail.com

Phone: 620-474-3990 

Here are some pictures from Christmas and a few from the wedding. 

Our house decorated: 

At my bridal shower everyone attended made us ornaments. We hung all of them on our tree. Here is some pictures of just a few of them. If you look closely you can find Emily’s portrait!

Here are a few pictures from our honeymoon: 

And a few from the wedding. These are ones Uncle Randy took allowing us to have some early and capture some special moments: 

And here are the few professional pictures we’ve gotten so far 

We look forward to sharing more pictures as we get them!

Love, 

From Kate, Tyson and the pack. 

Hello Family:

Well, as you all know we had an eventful Fall.  Most of it was spent preparing for Kate and Tyson’s wedding.   What a good time that was.  Then it was on to the holiday.  Oh, yeah we did work and  everyday things in there as well!

A new activity for me is doing puppets with Pamey for the Early Learning Center chapel.  Stop in some time on Friday mornings and meet Elcee and Oral.  Oral is a slightly grumpy and slightly clueless rabbit.  That would be my partJ

In November, I kicked off the holiday season by marching in the Christmas parade with the Cosmosphere.  It was wet and cold.  We tried to convince our gift store manager we needed matching Cosmosphere umbrellas so as to dance down the street but he wasn’t as excited.  We decorated our tree, Grandma and Grandpa’s tree and helped with the church ones. Oh and my office.  It all was fun and festive.

We’ve added some new things and of course have our favorite old things as well.  Here are pictures.

For years, I've dutifully decorated the office with a space theme.  Not so this year-it PIGS1!1

The piggy on stilts has been a favorite!

One of the guys from Space Works made the little display area!

A new display by Tim for his village.  We haven't had it all out in years.  Now if it just survives the dogs' tails.

New to us.  Found this at the thrift store.

I've had this Christmas towel and roll of  TP for the bathroom since my dorm days in college.  Moral of the story-if you visit please don't use this TP roll:)

Tim's skier from his boyhood.

I remember picking this ornament out in Macy's in Topeka.  It's been around awhile.

Wishing everyone a blessed holiday.

Love

Auntie and Tim