Mission: Attainable: Goodbye 2015, Hello 2016!

Somebody around here got reeeeaaalllllly busy. :-) It's a good thing.

The rest of October:

Zoe left me a dead wolf spider. I made it into a pet for about 3 weeks and posed for pictures.
I started cooking/baking more and came up with a killer Asian Orange "Chicken"... gluten, dairy, meat, and oil free. Killer, I tell you.
And for Halloween, I made a pumpkin pie from scratch. This was my second attempt and much improved... though it still wasn't quite where I wanted it.

November:

Annual German Choir Concert:

I composed a new piece for my German choir... and of course, finished it the week before the concert. It ended up being a tad more difficult for them, but they managed to pull it off, all things considered. We'll do it again in February.
We invited Stockton again, and they did a fabulous job!
It was a good time, and fun was had by all.

Thanksgiving

One of my favorite dishes for Thanksgiving is my cousin's broccoli cheese casserole... Unfortunately, it's a dish I can no longer eat because of...well...almost everything that's in it. So I made my own version that's, of course, gluten, dairy, meat, and oil free.... though VERY fatty cause the "cheese" sauce is made with cashews. But wowzers. Tasty.
Jess and Leah also made some special foods for the three of us to eat... Corn bread, stuffing, and a "meat" pie. SO incredible.
And to top it off, I made another cherry chocolate cake, and NAILED it.

December:

This was hands down the busiest I've ever been for December... EVER. For three weeks (almost four) straight I had gigs and rehearsals every day, sometimes a rehearsal, gig, and dress rehearsal all at once. I was running! And it was awesome.

BV's Dessert concert was, yet again, a great success. (And ever MORE for me, cause I wasn't throwing up between acts!)
The Christmas Pageant was just as adorable as ever.
Sarah and crew came into town! Of course, I was crazy busy, so I didn't get to see her nearly as much as I wanted... but the time we got to spend together was nice.
I wrote an arrangement of O Holy Night for the Rancho Cordova Civic Light Orchestra and the River City Christian Choir. It was great to get back in the arranging saddle.... especially for a full orchestra. (It had been a looooooooooong time since writing for that many instruments). The piece was well received by all, and it was nice to be on
Did more baking:

Created a killer banana bread muffin.
Baked with yeast for the first time ever and made cinnamon rolls....Kate Style, of course. They need a little tweaking, but are damn good thus far, if I do say so myself.

Had my first New Year's Eve gig... in Grass Valley....with a hilarious drag queen..... and good times were had by all.

This year was almost my first REAL Christmas tree. With solo powered LED lights, and a potted tree (which I plan to plant in the back 40 sometime soon). The only thing missing was my first ornament that Margie gave me....which is now lost in the massive clutter that is Scott's garage (or attic). I'm bummed about that, but I'll just have to get a replacement that represents it...cause there's no way I'm going to find it without massive amounts of looking.... for more than I'm willing to do.