When It Comes to Fun, We Don't Play Around

After leaving Stuart, FL for the Netherlands, we returned to, oddly enough, Stuart, FL. We've spent the past two weeks performing in and around Orlando and Miami (and Stuart), and adjusting to life-as-usual in the States.

It was nice to get back in high schools for some educational programs, too, since we haven't done those in about two months. Playing for rambunctious teenagers can be so exhilarating! Here I am (incredibly sweaty and disheveled) with my friend Helen after performing for a particularly spirited, young audience in Miami:

Our short time in Florida has also presented two fun opportunities.

During three days off, Kiana and I got a rental car and drove up to Orlando to visit one of her best friends from high school, Kate, who works at Pirates of the Caribbean at Disney World. Not only was it nice to visit the happiest place in the world and get a short break from performing, but it was great getting to spend time with Kate and essentially receive a personalized tour of the Magic Kingdom (complete with rides, parades, and Tinkerbell).

Somehow, the only picture I ended up taking on this trip was of Kiana showing off our majestic Chevy Cobalt. I'll try to get up more pictures later.

As Valentine's Day (which is, coincidentally, Arizona's birthday!) approached, a few of us were eagerly anticipating the V-Day 5K in Miami. Charlie, Kiana, Tim, Kristina, and myself drove down early on Sunday morning to participate in the race, which was run along the beach walkways on Key Biscayne, a small island off Miami's coast.

Not only was it Charlie, Tim, and Kristina's very first 5K (which is a great accomplishment in itself), but Kiana and I also had a great morning, placing 1st and 2nd, respectively, in our age/gender divisions!

With our trophies (metal water bottles that say "Second Place" and "First Place" on them) after the awards ceremony!

Up next: the Houston Rodeo Run 10K with Kiana and Annette in two days!

Tales from Rabbit Hill: A Home Life Retrospective

Now that I'm back in the States, there are still a few more things I want to share from our time at Rabbit Hill outside Apeldoorn, Netherlands.

Firstly, you may be wondering, "Taylor, why would the family resort park be called 'Rabbit Hill'?"

The answer to that lies at the front entrance to the park:

But Rabbit Hill was much more than a small petting zoo; it was also our residence for an entire month.

Whenever people ask me about what I miss most while on the road, the first thing that usually comes to my mind is that we're rarely in a "home." It is so comforting to go home at the end of the day, take off your shoes, and feel carpet under your feet. When you live out of hotels, however, you arrive at your hotel only to take off your shoes, sit on some bed that someone else slept in the night before, and feel concrete through the incredibly thin (and sometimes grimy) hotel carpet.

Living at Rabbit Hill for a month provided this much-craved type of home environment. We had kitchens, refrigerators, living rooms with couches, a dining room table, and giant windows with views of nature. We had fireplaces. We had an entry way with wet, snow-crusted shoes and a coat rack. We had a mini-grocery store just a two minute walk from our door. We put bird feeders outside our windows and were visited by European robins, European blue jays, chickadees, marsh tits, Eurasian nuthatches, blackbirds, and woodpeckers. We were surrounded by young families that pulled their young children down the snow-covered streets on small sleds.

Even though Apeldoorn is 5,430 miles away from Mesa, it was, in many ways, the closest to being home I've ever felt on the road.

This type of environment was also very healthy in that it helped to cultivate our camaraderie because our days weren't filled with the normal tedium. We used our days off to prepare large group dinners and make our houses as homey as possible:

Some roses from a post-show bouquet we received. At one point in time we had received so many bouquets that we were fashioning vases out of cut water bottles and nearly every table surface was fully covered with vases.

Coming back to the States has been quite the shock to the system.

Though we were still "on the road" while in the Netherlands, we're now very much "on the road." We're back in the land of less-than-adequate hotel breakfasts, packed suitcases that never get unpacked, long drives between shows, chain restaurants, and free drink refills...okay, so I guess that last one isn't really a negative thing. It's actually one of the small things that tells me I'm home.

Home, that is, in the States.

You Say Ieper, I Say Ypres

Right after my quick trip to London, we performed in Ieper, Belgium (known as "Ypres" to much of the world). Ypres is particularly significant to the history of Belgium, because most of WWI hinged on battles in Ypres. And, if I remember correctly from the museum tour, it was where the concept of "trench warfare" was first developed. You may also have heard of Ypres through your high school English classes, as the famous poem "In Flanders Field" was written about the fields just outside Ypres.

We stayed in a hotel on the town square, which was directly across from the giant clock tower symbolic of the town, and also of the redevelopment of post-WWI Belgium. Here is a picture of the clock tower pre-WWI bombings:

Here is a picture of the clock tower after the bombings:

And, here is the picture I took from my bedroom window:

After the city was ravaged by bombings, the citizens rebuilt it as it had been. So even though the buildings look like they've been around forever, they've actually only been around since WWI. It's a pretty neat testament to the will power of humanity.

Here are some other pics of the town center:

Kiana & Annette in front of the clock tower.

The giant church nearby.

Inside Cafe Vivaldi, off the main square.

And if being in Ypres couldn't be cooler, it was certainly made cooler when we found out we'd be performing inside the building attached to the clock tower!

The side of the building you see in the pictures is now a museum dedicated to telling the story of the town; the other side of the building has been converted to a concert space:

What I saw.

What they saw.

Cool.