Alpha Chi Omega Alumnae Chapter

At Stetson, I was a collegiate member of the Alpha Chi Omega sorority for four years and it was an experience unlike any other. Before I got to college, I could never have predicted that I would join a Greek organization, but it shaped my college life like no other activity would. After graduation, my life was swept up in a whirlwind of living on my own, trying to build a career and make a name for myself, and of course, meeting the love of my life. The Orlando alumnae chapter of ΑΧΩ had been sending me mail describing all of their fun events for the year, and now that the storm has settled, I decided it was time for me to get involved again in ΑΧΩ.

The first meeting of the year, a tailgate party, was last night in Maitland at the home of one of the members. I carpooled with my pal Rachel whom I met through going to auditions but by coincidence is also a Photopass Photographer and also a member of Alpha Chi! We both had a grand time and funnily enough we both ended up as officers on the board at our first meeting! I inherited the duties of Lyre Editor, putting together articles and photos detailing our activities and submitting them to our national quarterly magazine. Rachel is the Historian, responsible for chronicling the year's events in a photo album. We decided that, since we both love to write and take photos and that those skills are needed for each position, we could make it that much more fun and collaborate on our tasks.

I don't know if any of my fellow collegiate ΑΧΩ alumnae from Stetson follow this blog, but if you are reading this you should totally join in the fun!

Movin' On Up

We keep getting these exciting packages from Disney Cruise Line about our trip next month. Last week we got our Ship and Shore Vacation Guides with all the information about setting sail on the Magic. Today we received our Travel Booklet with our stateroom assignment, along with some other travel documents.

Since we didn't spend much time in our stateroom on our first cruise, we booked a standard inside stateroom, but according to our Travel Booklet, we've been bumped up to the highest level of stateroom in our category--a deluxe oceanview stateroom! It doesn't have the biggest porthole (who cares?) but it is smack dab in the center of the ship (indicated by a grey flag in the graphic below), which is supposedly the most convenient location for those prone to motion sickness. We feel like VIPs!

Also, we got a letter stating that Disney Cruise Line will be celebrating Halloween onboard its ships for the entire month of October! There's already a pirate night so we've got plans for pirate-y duds, so now we'll find costumes to bring along, too!

We're Going Cruising!

We've decided to continue this year with the tradition we began last year by taking a cruise during my birthday. This time around, we're taking advantage of our connections to the world's most powerful rodent and vacationing with Disney Cruise Line aboard the Disney Magic!

We leave from Port Canaveral on Saturday, October 10, for our 7-night Eastern Caribbean Cruise to St. Croix, St. Thomas and St. John, and Castaway Cay, Disney Cruise Line's private Bahamian island. So on the day of my birth, Thursday the 15th, we'll be spending a peaceful (or hectic, who knows?) day at sea preparing for the next day's adventure on Castaway Cay. We couldn't be more excited: Eric about the endless dining options and I about the exotic locales and remote, relaxing atmosphere. Here's hoping the many activities live up to our expectations--and that those vicious and strangely-named hurricanes, tropical storms, tropical depressions, and the like remain far, far away!

Yearbook Yourself

I came across a very fascinating website recently, Yearbook Yourself. It allows you to upload a photo of yourself and insert your face on to yearbook photos of people in two-year increments from 1950 to 2000. It's actually a very sophisticated website. It just pastes your face on at first, but then you can adjust the tint of the skintone, rotate and flip the photo, and move it up, down, left, and right. The results of my tweaking aren't perfect but they are definitely interesting! I hope you enjoy this look through our time-traveling yearbooks.

Blessings Abound

We had a blessing hosting both of our families last week for our Encore show, but our families seemed to be blessed with even better fortune! On Monday, my mom called and said she had some good news. My sister Annie, who graduated in May and has been searching for a teaching job ever since, got a job as the choral director at Gainesville Middle School in Gainesville, Georgia! It was such a relief to hear that she found a great fitting job even in this dismal economic environment. P.S. She starts this Monday!

We were overcome with excitement, but then my mom said, "Guess what else?" Well, we knew that during the last week of school in the spring, she found out she had been chosen as Teacher of the Year for her school, the first to do so without having a full-time class (she's a Title 1 reading teacher). So she went on to tell us her news--that she had been chosen as the entire school system's Teacher of the Year as well, the first time anyone from her school had been given the honor!

No one deserves these blessings more than those two. We were hoping a stroke of luck might hit us too, that maybe we'd hit the lottery (even though we hadn't bought a ticket), but even though nothing extraordinary happened to us, it was still a blessed day.

Encore 2009

If you're wondering why there hasn't been a new blog post in a little while, it's because we've been incredibly busy in the final rehearsal preparations and in the performances of Encore! I've been involved in Encore! for the past 4 summers and Eric has been for the past 3. Encore! is an organization made up of Disney cast members and their family and friends who perform a large-scale musical production every summer to raise money for charity.

This year our show was entitled, Revolution! A Musical Flashback to the '60s and '70s, and it featured music from the legendary greats (and a few one-hit wonders) of the era. This show was a lot of fun because our audience identified with the music on a higher level. Even the year we did movie songs and themes (Hollywood! A Musical Tribute to the Silver Screen), there were as many obscure tunes as there were familiar classic ones. This time the audience was singing (and dancing!) along to almost every song and really got involved and excited, which we hope will keep them coming back year after year.

Here are some photos from the show, and even more can be found tagged on Facebook.

Below is a list of songs featured or partially featured in the show, just for the heck of it.

Overture from Jesus Christ Superstar
Because by the Beatles
Downtown by Petula Clark
Going to the Chapel by the Dixie Cups
Daydream Believer by the Monkees
Big Girls Don't Cry by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons
These Boots Were Made for Walking by Nancy Sinatra
It's My Party by Lesley Gore
Can't Help Falling in Love by Elvis Presley
California Dreamin' by the Mamas and the Papas
Surfin' USA by the Beach Boys
Surfer Girl by the Beach Boys
Fun, Fun, Fun by the Beach Boys
I Get Around by the Beach Boys
Reach Out, I'll Be There the Four Tops
Please, Mr. Postman by the Marvelettes
Stop in the Name of Love by Diana Ross and the Supremes
My Guy by Mary Wells
My Girl by the Temptations
Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch by the Four Tops
Ain't No Mountain High Enough by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell
Respect by Aretha Franklin
Think by Aretha Franklin
Proud Mary by Ike and Tina Turner
Higher and Higher by Jackie Wilson
The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia by Vicki Lawrence
Crazy by Patsy Cline
Pfft! You Was Gone from Hee Haw
Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver
Stand By Your Man by Tammy Wynette
Tie a Yellow Ribbon by Tony Orlando and Dawn
Jambalaya by Hank Williams, Jo Stafford, and others
All You Need is Love by the Beatles
All My Loving by the Beatles
Yesterday by the Beatles
Eleanor Rigby by the Beatles
Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles
Strawberry Fields Forever by the Beatles
I Wanna Hold Your Hand by the Beatles
Hey Jude by the Beatles
Let It Be by the Beatles
Blowin' in the Wind by Bob Dylan
Scarborough Fair by Simon and Garfunkel
Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel
Puff the Magic Dragon by Peter, Paul, and Mary
I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing by the New Seekers and the Hillside Singers
Make Your Own Kind of Music by the Mamas and the Papas
The Flesh Failures/Let the Sunshine In from Hair
Theme from Star Trek
Theme from The Munsters
Theme from Dallas
Theme from Laverne and Shirley
Theme from The Jeffersons
Theme from The Loveboat
Theme from The Brady Bunch
Theme from The Addams Family
Theme from WKRP in Cincinnati
Theme from Gilligan's Island
Theme from Three's Company
Theme from The Muppet Show
Come Sail Away by Styx
Make Me Smile by Chicago
Carry On My Wayward Son by Kansas
Over at the Frankenstein Place from The Rocky Horror Show
Time Warp from The Rocky Horror Show
Your Song by Elton John
She's Always a Woman by Billy Joel
You've Got a Friend by Carole King and James Taylor
I Write the Songs by Barry Manilow
Don't Cry Out Loud by Melissa Manchester
Through the Eyes of Love by Melissa Manchester
We've Only Just Begun by the Carpenters
You Light Up My Life by Debby Boone
Nobody Does It Better by Carly Simon
All By Myself by Eric Carmen
Last Dance by Donna Summer
Boogie Fever by the Sylvers
I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor
The Winner Takes It All by Abba
Dancing Queen by Abba
How Deep is Your Love by the Bee Gees
Stayin' Alive by the Bee Gees
We Are Family by Sly and the Family Stone
YMCA by the Village People
We Will Rock You by Queen
We Are the Champions by Queen

Cuckoo Orlando News Stories

I hope to one day look back on this post as a time capsule that captures the wackiness of Orlando news happenings.

First of all, the two non-felonious members of the infamous astronaut love triangle announced today that they plan to marry next year. Following a nationwide car trip (and who knows how many adult incontinence products), a creepy encounter between Lisa Nowak and the bride-to-be, Colleen Shipman, took place here in Orlando at the international airport. We don't know for sure what Nowak would've done with the rubber hoses, mallet, BB gun, and garbage bags she packed in her trunk, but we can guess.

Also, soon after the announcement that the H1N1 vaccine will be ready in a few months, a headline popped up on my home page that gave me another reminder that the danger of swine flu hasn't faded away--a busload of tourists checked into Celebration Health today complaining of flu-like symptoms. Yes, that is the hospital where I work, and yes, I did walk by every one of them on their way to the main lobby, and yes, every one of them had a surgical mask on. Did I figure out what was going on?! No, not even after the newspiece yesterday about the vaccine! It was a bunch of kids with chaperones, so I thought they were on some junior surgeon field trip or something. Good thing I wash my hands one time per baby per day, which today was five times in three hours. I hope I got all the flu germs off.

*sanitizes keyboard*

Long Lost Photos

My earlier post about Jeff and Marissa reminded me that I recently came across some long lost photos taken when we went to the Hoop De Doo Revue during their visit in March. Click here to view the pictures on Flickr. Also, true to form, there is a video.

The End of a (Different) Era

I talked about the "end of an era" when our contract at Kimonos was underbid as a result of the economy. Now another one of my performing arts employers has fallen victim to the financial crisis. Four Corners Academy of the Arts, the performing arts studio owned by my friend and bridesmaid Gretchen, has permanently closed its doors.

It is bittersweet to think that if the year-and-a-half during which the studio was open for business had existed in a different time, things probably wouldn't have turned out this way. Gretchen and the rest of the faculty are dealing with this sad turn of events in our own ways but also taking comfort in knowing we enriched the lives of artistic young people, and even some not-so-young. Even though 4CAA has gone out of business, it's hard for me to think of the entire venture as a failure; I know we taught and touched a lot of people within and beyond those walls. Planting or encouraging a seed of creativity, learning, and confidence in another person can only be called a success.

At any rate, now I have openings for private voice and piano students to take lessons here at our house, so if you know anyone who is interested, please pass my information along!

Separated at Birth?

Kevin Jonas's fiancée Danielle Deleasa...and my brother-in-law Jeff's girlfriend Marissa Scotellaro?

Kevin Jonas Gets Engaged!