Friday, December 25, 2015

Christmas Day - 2015

Today is Christmas day of '15, and it has been 7 months since I last blogged.  I figured today would be a great day to catch up :)


Wow, I am not even sure where to start. So why don't we just start with the fact that the front door you see above is a different front door from our last blog.

Yes, we moved.  We finally bought our dream home in our dream town and have been loving it.



And since today is Christmas...we have a couple of elves who were up at 6am ready to find out what Santa brought them...


The other little elf slept for a couple more hours, but then woke up...






We enjoyed having G&G Southworth here on Christmas Eve and here to open presents this morning, and then they took off to Oregon to see Grandma Lindsay.

Our lives have been incredibly busy these past few months because I released a new album, and I can honestly say it has been THE busiest I've ever been.  There have been many nights working until the early hours of the morning not because it was the only time I could get things done, but because even after working ALL day during the day I still had so much to get done I continued to work through the night.


And I don't want to bore you with all the details, because one might ask what could I possibly be THAT busy with when it comes to music?  And I can't even tell you everything now. It all seems like a blur.  But I know it had a lot to do with deadlines, writing music for a commercial where the producer was super picky, finishing transcriptions for live orchestra, working on video editing, promotions, writing, composing, editing, photo and artwork editing, etc.

But, it is finished at last.

Since today is Christmas, it is officially the last day I can technically mention my album until next Christmas season.  And while it seems weird to have just gone through an immense amount of labor to produce an album that I only got to promote for a short 6 weeks, it is also a huge relief to know that I have a break.


It is surreal to think it was just a little over a year ago when Will decided to quite Microsoft and help support me in my music career. Just him letting me do that and us working together has allowed me to blossom and flourish.  And it feels like for the first time ever that my music has a higher purpose other than satisfying my own desire to create music. I've started to see how it touches other peoples' lives for the better and that is the best reward ever.


Will and I also took a trip to Europe in August!  It was and 2 and 1/2 weeks long and SOOOO needed! We celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary while we were there, and had a really romantic time.


We started off in Sweden to visit our friends Glen and Sofia, and were there for 5 days. And then we went to Paris, France.  Then drove from Paris down to Monte Carlo, then on to Lake Como, and onto Venice.  Then to Milano, and then onto Switzerland for Will's 100 mile race that was in Chaminoux, France.
































We finished the year with a concert tour. I played Carnegie Hall...






And also had concerts in Park City, UT, Salt Lake City, UT, Houston, TX, and Seattle, WA.

The big finish was two shows at Benaroya Hall in Seattle, which you can watch here:












We also produced two music videos to accompany my new album this year, and plan to do some more music videos next year.

Carol of the Bells:


 and "Alleluia"



Hopefully it won't take me as long to blog next time, but I can promise it won't be until next year ;)

Happy New Year!