Peter and Tayva wedding photos

Introducing....

Peter & Tayva Case
February 19, 2008
Mt. Timpanogas Temple

such a shy boy...

I got old

I'm 27! Whoa. I'm old! I had a fun birthday--but hectic. Wednesday Feb. 13th (my b-day) we spent much of the day cleaning and packing to get ready for our trip to Utah for Pete's wedding. Alex gave me my birthday presents (including some great cd's and a cute bag) in the morning.

I worked a 1/2 day and we went to the local dinner/movie theater (Northern Lights Theater Pub in Salem) that night for a special Valentine's dinner. The evening was a disaster--but we had a good laugh about it!

What we expected:

Enjoying a candlelight 4-course dinner while watching Stardust over a bottle of sparkling apple cider. Dinner: A luxurious fruit/cheese platter, a yummy salad, the main course (me: chicken cordon bleu and garlic mashed potatoes; alex: prime rib and garlic mashed potatoes), finished off with a triple chocolate dessert.

What we got:

We were escorted to our table--on which sat 2 flickering votive candles and a bucket of ice with our bottle of sparkling cider. The excitement in the air was contagious! The entire theater was visibly excited for a fun and unusual night. Our fruit was...well--it was very tasty, but brown (and the cheese was floppy). Perhaps they had set up a little too early? We sat through a few previews, and then a long preview came on for August Rush. It was a really really long preview. They brought our salad (which was yummy) and the preview continued. Then it struck me! This was not a preview!

"Excuse me," I whispered to the waitress, "is this the movie tonight?"

"Oh yes!" She gushed, "isn't it wonderful!"

Hum. She ended up giving us 2 free movie tickets for the confusion (apparently Stardust was only playing at the 2-14 V-Day special, but not at the 2-13 V-Day special. There were many confused and frustrated patrons that night...).

We enjoyed August Rush, really--but we had just seen it and were really looking forward to seeing Stardust (which we had also already seen).

When dinner came...there was more mirth. The potatoes: instant. The meat: dry and grisly. Also, we didn't start on our cider until more than 1/2 way through the movie because we had to ask for a bottle opener. Not the best 50 bucks we ever spent.

I think the best part was after the movie was over and we were all filing out past the main cook and owner of the theater (who had excited smiles on their faces). "How was dinner!?" Mr. Chef inquired.

Believe me buddy, you don't want to know.

New Band Website

Some how Myspace dumped us.

Myspace is oh so trashy.

But if we dump them, we won't be able to easily talk to other bands and venues.

Phooey.

And so we conform.

http://www.myspace.com/Kalaloch

Loopy Loops

I haven't posted for nearly 2 weeks...when we aren't busy working or recording, we've been thinking about / praying for / or visiting our niece Fontainne.

Fontainne is our beautifully brave ballerina. Fourteen and fighting scoliosis, she has complained very little. Even now, after having 2 surgeries in 5 days, she spends her waking time trying to make her doctors and nurses smile. She's great. Her first surgery lasted for 8 hours! Yuk. There were some complications, so Tuesday she had to go back under the knife for about 2 hours. She is recovering and really enjoys the lunch-time visits from her uncle Al who only works a short bus ride away from the Children's hospital.

I don't know where my camera has been lately! I wish I had pictures of us with Fontainne and of our recording sessions!

Last night we had another recording session with Eric Lovre--we are having a grand time recording! I have a little cough that is bugging me and messing up my voice, so Alex did some extra vocal parts for Corridor. He wanted a really saturated distorted sound for his second vocal track, so Eric set him up with a neat-0 vintage microphone from the '30s and ran it through a groovy old tube pre-amp from the '60s. (I wish I had gotten a picture!) We got a great sound with the pre-amp overdriven. We only have my second vocal part to record on Corridor, and we'll be ready to mix it! We have yet to record vocals on either Pacific Shores or Over the Mains, but I think we'll be recording again this weekend.

Oh--the loopy loops. That's where I was going with all of this.

Before we started sub-mixing Over the Mains, Alex had Eric dump the individual tracks onto a CD so that he can play around with a dub remix on the computer. The other day we were hanging out in Fontainne's hospital room while her parents took a breath-air. She had just gone through a really tough ordeal and was tranq-ing out on some drugs. As she slept, we we became increasingly aware of subtle rhythmic sounds originating from Robot Fontainne. On a future visit, Alex brought his laptop and a cheesy karaoke mic to capture the tiny techno beats. He found some killer sounds: Fontainne has these special shoes she wears that are hooked up to some kind of water or air pressure machine to massage her feet (prevents blood-clots?). It sounds really creepy. He also found that her morphine pump produced a great sound that could be looped. Once Alex has massaged the beats into the song, we should have a pretty rad remix.

Remix name ideas:

The Power Tool Mix
Life-Support Loops
The Shriner Mix
Over the Mains / Under the Influence
Over the Mains / Under the Knife
The Drug Dub

whaddya think?

Gangs and Gangs of Fun

Playing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Tutrles game with a 3-year-old ninja.



Seriously.

Best Christmas Gifts of 2007

#1

Mom's Vintage (1926?) Grand Piano

(Yes, this is a picture of Stefanie Cheezing for the camera...but you can see a little of Mom's piano behind her...why did I not get a photo of that? Mom--you'll have to email me the picture you took)

#2

"Party in my Tummy" (from Yo Gabba Gabba) sweatshirt (Sewn by Alex! My husband sewed for the first time ever!)

("do Green Beans want to go to the party in my tummy?!")

#3

Alex's Nintendo Complete with Mario Bros. & Duck Hunt (courtesy of Ryan) and Super Mario Bros. 3 (courtesy of Goodwill).

Christmas Recap

I know, I know....it is already 2008 and Christmas is long gone. But...I never got a chance to post about Christmas. So, with this post and a little packing and cleaning--I think I can finally get beyond the Holidays today and prepare for normality to return next Monday.

Alex and I flew to SLC from Salem for Christmas. Salem began commercial flights in 2007, with the ONLY flight being a Delta flight to and from SLC twice a day! How perfect is that! The airport is tiny and it is ten minutes from home to terminal. That was pretty cool.

The best part of Christmas was, of course, being with family. I got to spend some time with my soon-to-be-sister-in-law Tayva. I really like her. She fits in perfectly with our family...and not just because of her hair color.

The family photo shoot was fun. By the end it deconstructed into silliness...

I also got to hang out more with Stef's beau Darin. It was fun hanging out all together. We played a lot of Guitar Hero and Mario Kart.

Alex celebrated his 29th birthday in Utah with family and our friends Dave & Susan Jacobs (and daughter Hailey who insists she is "twenty-gix years old"). My mommy even made him his favorite cake and saved the frosting bowl for him to clean up (=

Stefanie is the only one actually living at home (Ryan lives with Peter in my Grandparent's basement apartment), but on Christmas Eve we had a big sleepover party. Ryan, Peter, Adam & Candice, and Darin all spent the night. We even did everybody's hair in pigtails!

I love my family! Christmas was a little nontraditional--everyone except Peter and Dad got sick at some point. Alex got sick the first day, spent 2 1/2 days in bed, and then (in the spirit of Christmas) he shared the cold/flu with everyone else! But...despite the phlegm and fevers, we did manage to enjoy our White Christmas!