Cruise Report

This is sort of a belated post about our Caribbean cruise. We got back three weeks ago, but I guess it's just been busy. We had a wonderful week aboard the Carnival Triumph - warm weather, fun ports, gorgeous blue Caribbean seas, relaxing days where our biggest decision was when and what to eat! We visited Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel - all places we had never been. This photo was taken on our shore excursion at Cozumel on a large catamaran that took us snorkeling and to a private beach.

The ship was huge. We explored a lot, but I'm sure we didn't see all of it. 893 feet long, with 3,000 guests from all over the world and an international crew of 1,000. We had great dinners every night. Even I finally maxed out on shrimp! And even after we were stuffed, we had to sample the fancy desserts! Then we went to a show every night - singing, dancing, comedian, illusionist. They were all really fun.

One of our favorite things was having a balcony room. Even though we booked late, our room and the Lesters' were side by side on the back of the ship. We sat on our balcony a lot, enjoying sunrises, sunsets, coffee in the morning, a glass of wine at night, and always the relaxing view of the sea.

We've lost the few pounds we gained, our tans are fading, but the memories will last forever! :)

show choir saturday

Surprise, this blog isn't from one of the Prentices. Joel and I spent all day Saturday at a show choir competition at Belmont University in Nashville. We were getting paid to play in the band for an area high school show choir. The program was classics: Will It Go Round in Circles, September, Dust in the Wind, Best of My Love (girl's song), Takin' Care of Business (guy's song), and a 70s medley to end it. Only two costume changes, nothing super elaborate, just a solid all around act, and they ended up taking 3rd behind two super elaborate and much larger choirs. So they really did well.

Unfortunately, we had to leave at 6:15, and we didn't get back until 4am. We had down time during the day, but I was sick and throwing up, so that wasn't too much fun. It was interesting to get a sense of the show choir world. Lots of super-crazed, high energy kids packed into a hall is insane. That was the main lesson learned. Jeff and Darren, I'm glad you guys aren't totally crazy like that.

Black History Month

As a part of Black History Month, we are had two traditional African American worship services on campus during our regular Wednesday morning chapel. Part of this included a traditional gospel heritage choir that I was a part of. The choir had about 40 students, we practiced a few times and performed twice, directed by Rollo Dilworth. It was incredible to be a part of such a rich tradition of soulful music. I'm in the upper left in green. There is a regular non-audition gospel choir with about 200 students, 95% of which are white. We made about twice as much sound today. It was a blast.

flu and film

Sorry for my long absence. Things are warming up in TN and I'm finally feeling better after fighting the flu this last week.

I hope you've all been able to check out the podcast, which is linked from Joel's post. You may remember a post I had last semester that had photos from a German cyclist film. Well the university had its film festival this weekend, and Heinrich was 1st place out of five different short films critiqued by a panel of three school faculty. The theme of the festival was "courage." It was exciting to play a part in making this movie. Our roommate, Rocco, was director, producer and editor, and his brother back in NJ wrote the script. Once the script was finished, I did a rough translation of it into German and then sent it back to NJ where some native German speakers fine tuned it. Then, just last weekend, I did the narration, and then Rocco was up super late editing it all in and creating subtitles. The finished product was pretty satisfying. You can watch it here.

In other news, we finally got a sweet couch for the apartment.

4 Generations

The time in Indiana was good, my dad turned 85, as you can see he is still a good looking guy! He really enjoyed Keegan, but was ready to have a quiet house back to himself after a couple of days............heah, two year olds are noisy!

A Hive of Badgers.

Dearly Beloved,

We are gathered here on this blog, to speak, show and tell about all things in our life. With things ranging from weather to broken limbs.

So, somewhere in between those two is my next post. But, before I get to that... HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAGGIE!


Item One: I NOW HAVE A BED! What a blessing. Michael found a bed (mattress, frame, and boxspring) on craigslist.chattanooga and it happened to be selling for $40 in Cleveland. So, I emailed saying I was interested. I got a call a few nights later and I went over to the seller's house with Rocco and his truck.

We arrived and opened the door to 2 girls sitting on the couch, a cat to the side and a movie playing in the background. They were both laden with tattoos and smoking most likely their 3rd or 4th pack of cigarettes. In the middle of the room was the mattress and a low-lying frame. The one girl said, "Do you still want it?" I wasn't sure what to say. I asked "Where is the boxspring?" She said, "Oh I thought that was it (pointing to the frame.)" Seeing that I may not buy it, she continued to say "You know, just take it for $10."

So I did.

It smelled of smoke so I left it outside for 24 hours. Then, I completely soaked it with FeBreeze. It smells nice now :)

Notice the bike bottle holder.



PRE-MATTRESS



Item Two: The Badger Hive

Michael, Rocco and I have started a podcast. We hope to record every Sat. morning and then Rocco will have it edited and primed for listening by the end of the weekend. So, if you have some spare time, check it out (and let us know what you think.)

By the way, Laura, we talked about the Super Bowl and how there are a bunch of Poser fans on Super Bowl night only. So, thanks for not being part of that statistic.

The Badger Hive

It is named after the Honey Badger, which happens to be the most ferocious animal on the surface of Earth.

love,
Joel

Super Sunday Super Lame

I am posting about my boring life so that we do not let the blog die! I am not watching the big game because I never care about football during the regular season so why pretend to care today? I will be stopping by a party to get some free pizza during halftime. Otherwise, I will be spending time with my new best friend, my philosophy of art textbook.

We have been hit with a tropical heat wave here in chicago with temperatures rising to nearly 35 degrees. This means that I can wear regular shoes instead of boots for once. I'm taking 10 academic credit hours (as opposed to last semesters' 18) so my life is more manageable this semester. I am working towards my senior show which will hang March 18- 28 with a March 26 reception. Once that is over I will be pretty much done for the rest of the semester!

As many of you know, Anders is in Bethlehem, Israel right now. He's there for 2.5 months (until the beginning of April) volunteering at Bethlehem Bible College for Palestinians. He's living on campus and volunteering teaching English and doing some maintenance on the campus. The West Bank has been safe from the Gaza strip violence so that has been fortunate. He's spent a few weeks adjusting but is finally getting the swing of things, he said it's been weird adjusting to a place with so much hatred and tension as a part of everyday life. The bible college has taken a strong position of non-violence which brings a very powerful and uncommon presence to the West Bank. Yesterday he went to Jericho and saw Zaccheus' Sycamore tree!