Chillin’ at home, decorating the tree, and singing on TV!

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Like I said in my last post, Miloš and I got home around 2am from Chicago and promptly crashed.  Followed by some hard core sleeping in.  🙂

We had plans that day to meet with my friend Megan and her husband for an early dinner.  She and I decided on the Olive Garden, as we felt both of our picky-eater men would be able to find something they liked there.  😉

For those of you who read my blog regularly or followed some of my past Disney trips, Megan was one of my friends who I went to Disney with two years ago.  She is a fellow Disney fan!   We got to hear about their Disney cruise and being out at sea while Hurricane Sandy worked her destruction all around. They did not have the greatest time.

I wish we had snapped some pics together to share, but we were busy eating and chatting.  Before Megan had her son, we used to get together about once a month, and our dinner get-togethers were literal marathons.  It wouldn’t have been unusual for us to sit at our table for five hours gabbing away.  But they had their adorable little baby with them, so it wasn’t a super long meal.  But I was glad to have Miloš meet one of my best friends, as she had heard all about him for quite some time.

When we got home, my mom had put up the tree – all ready for us to decorate it!  Miloš said that he never really helped much with decorating the Christmas tree at home, so he got to learn some tips from a Christmas tree pro.  (Um… at least I like to think of myself that way!)  😉

I snapped some pics of our progress…..

Decorating the tree...
Decorating the tree…
Decorating the tree...
Decorating the tree…
Fun with ornaments! ;-)
Fun with ornaments! 😉
This is one of my faves. :-)
This is one of my faves. 🙂

Not only did I teach him about good ornament spacing (very important – can’t have your ornaments touching!), but also how to hide the ugly yet sentimental ornaments on the back of the tree so my mom didn’t see that I put some of them up there.  *sneaky laughter*  It was a really nice night!

After we finished with the tree, the rest of the evening was low key and spent in.  🙂

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The next morning, we were up super bright and early – Olde Towne Carolers was performing live on WFMZ Channel 69 as the Music Monday guests.  We had to be there by 7:45am.  (And since you know we are not morning people, you can imagine how difficult it was for us.)  Although, unlike me needing lots of time to do my make-up and make myself look pretty for performing on television, Miloš was able to get up five minutes before we had to go and he was ready.

This was my second time performing with Olde Towne Carolers on the Music Monday segment, and before that, I had been a guest with my accompanist Terry Musselman, when we performed some show tunes on air earlier in 2011.   It was great fun to be back on the program again!

Olde Towne Carolers, after performing on WFMZ Channel 69.
Olde Towne Carolers, after performing on WFMZ Channel 69.

After we were done at the studio, we went out to breakfast with two of my other best friends – Liz and Matt Francisco!  They’ve been singing with me since I started Olde Towne Carolers, and have been amazing friends through all kinds of crappity crap.  Unfortunately, all four of us are not morning people, and we were more like a table of zombies than anything.  But I was still really glad that the four of us could get together.  🙂

After that, I think we just went home and chilled for a little.  I was going to be leaving that afternoon for a gig that I really wanted to do from the moment we booked it.  See, we had “gotten in” at Longwood Gardens last year because we were hired by an event planner to sing for New Year’s Eve there.  They liked us so much that this year we were contacted directly by Longwood Gardens themselves, and hired for two separate dates.  This particular Monday night was one of those dates.

I had warned Miloš in advance that he’d be getting to spend a lovely evening with my parents.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, they get along more than fine, but I can’t imagine spending an evening alone with your girlfriend’s parents is at the top of the to-do list.  But they apparently had a grand ol’ time.  Daddy cooked dinner and they watched some movies.  (Mommy remembers Miloš very well from the cruise ship a year and a half ago when we all first met.  In contrast – when i told Daddy about Miloš after I came back from Europe earlier this year, he had no idea who he was.  Haha!  Go figure!)

One of the reasons I wanted to put myself on this gig was because of our times singing at Longwood back in college with the West Chester University Chamber Choir.  I was really involved with the Renaissance Chamber Choir for a few years back in the day.  (I even have my own Renaissance costume – it’s the red one I wore in the pics for my album “Echoes of Christmas Past.”) We performed there a few times while I was singing with the group.  That was my first opportunity to see Longwood Gardens and its amazing beauty.  It’s such a magnificent place to visit!  We had several sets and performed in a few different places.  Here are some pics from that night:

IMG_2676 IMG_2677 IMG_2673 IMG_2689 IMG_2691 IMG_2692

Those specific shots were taken between sets and at the end of the night.

Here we are getting ready to perform in one of our locations:

Olde Towne Carolers at Longwood Gardens
Olde Towne Carolers at Longwood Gardens

I got home rather late, as the gig was long and over an hour away.  But the gig itself was a huge success!  The clientele there really seem to appreciate what we do – we sort of feel like mini-rockstars!

So what’s up next?  More fun in lovely PA, that’s what!  😀

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Jennifer was initially drawn to Europe for two reasons: music and love.  She lived in Vienna for four years, and now calls Croatia home for much of each year, as she married a native Croatian. Since 2015, Jennifer has worked as a tour director and cruise director on European river cruises for a major American travel company, and has become an expert in all of the cities along her routes on the Danube, Rhine, and Main Rivers. She also has traveled to Disney World almost every year since 1985, and knows Disney World inside and out. As a travel agent, Disney World is her primary specialty, and she has helped many Disney newbies and veterans have amazing trips with her insider information.

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