Last 2 Weeks + Flash or No Flash

The last two weeks have been full. The week of September 15th I started teaching the beginners at each of my three schools. I'm excited this year. I have around 160 students spread out at three schools. I took off work on Wednesday September 17th because I lost my voice. I went to say Good Morning to Mari and nothing came out. When I went back to work on Thursday I still did not have much of a voice. It is hard to teach when you can not talk. But God helped me and the students were very well behaved.

I'm going to skip ahead to yesterday. My Mom bought the wii fit so I set it up at her house. After I set up the wii I met Mari downtown at the National Book Fair. I love seeing Mari get excited about her education at Towson. She loves it! Last night was fun at the hotel, I still look forward to every time I get to play ladders and buckets!

Now I'd like to post an photographic experiment I did. I am officially a novice photographer. But here is my study of whether or not using the flash is better or worse when I take pictures of Mari's food ... you decide and guess which one use the flash. I know ... not to difficult.

Mari made some home made pizza and it was great too!

Care Group Peeps, My Mom's iMac + This Weekend (Buckets + Sitar)

Well, this weekend was jam packed. Friday and Saturday night at the National Harbor ... Sunday was Church, the Sitar Center Drum Circle, and Care Group. Last weekend, I went to an engagement party for two people in my Care Group. Here are some pics and captions will be below.Here are some members of the small group Mari and I lead at Covenant Life Church.

Here are the soon to be married couple Jason + Juliana.

Here is my friend Scott who celebrated his birthday with us on Sunday (his actual birthday was Sunday)

This is a sweet site ... My Mom purchased on iMac (24") about 2 weeks ago. She is doing a great job learning about it.

Just in case we needed more pictures of the bucket show.

This is me facilitating a drum circle for Adam's Morgan Day. My brother is the executive director of the Sitar Arts Center. It was great to see him and work with again. We haven't done any projects together since the Eddie Lounge Show.

No blog entry is complete w/o a picture of Mari. This is one she took using photobooth to show off her new haircut.

Mari Food + Wii Fit

Well, it's been a long time, so I though I'd post some food. What's a blog with the word "Cookbook" doing without food? So, here are two dinner's Mari made over the week. The pork chops and Taco salad were amazing!

Thanks to a co-worker at one of my schools, we got the wii fit on Wednesday. So far my favorite game is the slalom. My second favorite is the push-up/ plank exercise. I did so well that the game unlocked a push-up competition game. I beat my virtual trainer, he couldn't do 10 push-ups. Anyway, I can't wait until they come out with some cool interactive music games (different than rock band and the upcoming wii music). I highly suggest the wii fit for anyone who wants to have fun.

First Week w/ Students ... First Purchase ...

Well, I made it through the first week w/ students. I don't start teaching a full load until September 15th. So the question would be ... what did I do all week? I lead three Instrumental Music Recruitment Assemblies (one for each school.). The assemblies consisted of the following: a power point presentation, me demonstrating how certain instruments sound (if anyone would like to hear me play a minuet on the violin, it'd be a pleasure), specifics on how the program works, how to sign up, and the grand finale ... me performing my rap: "WIND GOES".
When I went into one of the fourth grade classrooms, one of the students said, "Hey look ... it's the rapper." My goal is that the rap will spark excitement about the instrumental program.
Now to the purchase ...
Mari has been talking about getting a book shelf for our living room for about three months. Well, today we purchased it from Ikea. This is the first piece of furniture we have bought together. As I'm typing this blog, she is busy organizing. Since we purchased it from Ikea, that means we put it together ourselves. I was concerned it would be a long sanctifying day, but with only a few small mistakes we put it together without any conflict. That is success in my book.