Merry Christmas 2012

This has been a very exciting year for us. We started out the year by moving into an apartment in the Family Student Housing at the University of Utah. We had been living with family while we were in the process of finding a house. Since we had no idea how much longer it would take, after a few months we knew we needed our own place to live. Even though it was tiny and the walls were made of cinder block we fell in love with our new home, neighbors, and ward. After only a month we finally had one of our bids accepted, and we were in our new home by the end of March. We took a couple family trips to California (to Mendocino Folklore Camp & to a wedding in San Diego) over the summer. We added a new (used) mini-van to the family, and a new laptop for Daniel. Oh, and new baby too. We’ve been overly blessed in almost every aspect of our lives, and are grateful every day. We hope you can count your blessings as well, and we wish you a most merry Christmas and an excellent New Year!

Daniel – Finished his first year as a Doctoral Student in Vocal Performance at the University of Utah. He had two leading roles in their productions of Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah. He also sang in the Moab Music Festival in September, and stays busy working at the library, teaching lessons, and singing all over town.

Brandy – Since she spent most of the year pregnant, Brandy really enjoyed taking water aerobics class a couple times a week. She won a online photo contest for a picture she took of Joshua (won tickets to the BYU/Utah game, free paint, and BestBuy giftcards). She went through three weeks of Braxton Hicks contractions before enduring a 56 hour labor while still managing to have a natural unmediated childbirth. She loves having her Three Musketeers (and generally taking care of her 4 little boys).

Johnny – He’s still a crazy little rascal. He finished his first year of pre-school (he’ll have a few more to go). We were able to trade voice lessons for speech therapy, so Johnny had speech therapy continue over the summer. He’s speaking more and more, and he’s found that he love singing (though you often have to listen closely to figure out what song he’s actually singing). His favorites right now are Nephi’s Courage, Two Little Speckled Frogs, and the Bob the Building & VeggieTales theme songs. He loves having a new little baby brother, and is a great big brother for his two little bros.

Joshua – He’s a little cutie that looks more and more like his mama. Josh doesn’t show any of the speech delay signs that John had at his age. He’s talking quite a bit, and is often as stubborn as an ox. He’s currently in a training program (the potty type), and we’re hoping he gets the hang of it soon. He’s still our little white boy who eats like a Polynesian: not ‘til he’s full, but ‘til he’s tired.

James – He was born on Nov 17th 2012, at 8:15pm. He took his sweet time coming out, and after waiting 56 hours, he finally decided to make his appearance once his Daddy was on stage during an Opera Scenes Performance. Brandy had her mother and sisters there to help her through it. Though smaller than either of his big brothers, James Daniel Brandyn Tuutau was 7lbs 7oz and 19inches long. Since then he does a lot of new-born activities: eat, poop, cry, poop, eat, be cute.

Merry Christmas!!! 

And a Happy New Year!!!

We Won!

A couple of weeks ago I got a junk e-mail telling me of all the cool contests that the local Fox 13 news station was putting on. One of them had to do with winning tickets to the BYU-Utah football game. Um...yes please!! (If you remember my dilema from last year.....was my heart still RED or was the BLUE secretly coming out?) The contest was a photo contest. Pretty much you enter a picture supporting either BYU or UTAH and have all your friends and family vote for your picture and whoever has the most votes wins. I hate doing things like this because I hate having to ask people to vote. Luckily it was one vote per e-mail address per day and my husband has quite a few different e-mail addresses and I managed to force my family to sign up then give me their log-in info so I could do all the work and no one felt put out. I think there were like 60 different entries and most of them were really stupid and had nothing to do with the theme (someone put a picture of their dog walking down the street, another was a guy with a black hat and black sunglasses, there was even a picture submitted of chewbaca!) I read through all of the rules and regulations beforehand and found out that the voting would only last 1 week and whoever had the most votes by the end of the week would win 2 tickets to the game, $300 gift cards to Best Buy and $150 gift card to Kwal Paint (since it was Kwal Paint that sponsored the contest). The second place prize was $100 Kwal Paint and $200 gift card to Best Buy. Either way those are pretty good prizes. So I entered this picture...

Cute huh? I kept watch for the moment they allowed voting then Daniel and I kept diligently entering our votes every single day. I don't think anyone really gave this contest much notice because of all the entries only about 11 pictures actually had votes on them after the first few days. They eventually narrowed it down to the top 6 pictures and there was really only 1 other person that was even anywhere close to us. We had such a huge lead that I wasn't too worried about not winning until the last day when 2 of the other pictures all of the sudden started getting A LOT of votes. But even their last push for votes wasn't enough to beat Daniel and I and we ended up with 99 votes and the 2nd place winner had 79 votes (I think the 3rd place guy that was keeping pretty close to the 2nd place picture ended up with 66 votes). I was so excited and then I became even more excited when they actually called me and told me where to go to pick up my prize (sometimes you just don't know if it was all a hoax, but this was legit!)

Here's a picture of us after we picked up our prizes. 

I got to pick what we got with our winnings so before the game Daniel and I went over to Best Buy where we picked out a "Nabi" tablet (super kid-friendly/mommy friendly tablet) and a kinect (for our X-Box 360 that Daniel managed to get for free...that's a whole other story!). 

Being 31 weeks pregnant and having sharp pains when I sit down too long on a chair I decided to stay home and watch the game from the comfort of my own bed while Daniel took Johnny and his buddy Brandon to the game.

It was a great game and had one of the craziest endings I have ever seen. Utah ended up winning 24-21 and the boys LOVED being there all in RED cheering on the winners. (Funny that we cheered on Utah even though we won the contest promoting BYU!)

Europe Trip: Rome

*Yes, yes...I realize it's been a year since we went to Europe but I didn't realize how incredibly far behind I am on recounting our incredible journey there. Shame on me! It's important for me to write these things down because I'm already forgetting details about our trip and I don't want to do that. It was so amazing that I want to make sure I remember as much as I can for as long as I can. So I made a promise to myself that I will be better about writing down the things I really don't want to forget later on in life. This trip is one of those things. So here's a continuation of our amazing adventure and I promise I will work on getting the rest of it finished soon.*

When in Rome...

I actually didn't like Rome as much as I thought I would...but I still enjoyed myself. We camped again that night and it took us a long time to find the campground because our GPS was off and the street it told us to take led us into a field! After driving around for a while we found the campsite and picked our spot. It was already getting late so we found something quick to eat and set up camp. The next morning we bought some sandwich supplies and a few snacks to take with us at the little store at the front of the campsite then waited for the shuttle bus. We rode a shuttle to another smaller bus which took us to the train station which then took us into the city. 

It was a very hot day and the city was very crowded. We walked over to Vatican City and tried to make our way through the sea of tour groups inside. It took a very long time to get in but finally we made it inside and started looking around. It was amazing to see so many cool things in person that I've only ever read about in books or seen in the movies. The only problem was it was very crowded, very hot, and the kids were not handling it all that well. Daniel and I ended up getting annoyed with each other and getting into a small fight which caused us to leave a little earlier than we thought. Once we got outside and found some shade to eat our lunch things started to calm down and we made up with each other and kept going with our day.

St. Peter's Basilica was really cool! I had just finished reading Angels and Demons by Dan Brown not long before our trip and kept thinking about the book as we waited in a VERY long line to actually get inside. I was so happy with myself because even though it was a very hot day I still made sure to put on modest clothing. At the front of the line to get in they had workers there that were inspecting everyone's clothes to make sure no one was admitted that wasn't modestly dressed. I kind of felt bad for the people who were turned away after waiting for at least an hour or two in line but I was impressed with their policy and glad I don't wear sleeveless tops or short shorts anyway.


The inside of the basilica was beautiful. I actually liked looking around here more than the Notre Dame Cathedral. Maybe because it wasn't so gloomy or it seemed like there were more things to look at, I don't know but I loved it. Daniel gave me a lesson on what "Crepuscular Rays" are (you know how you see rays of light shinning down in almost a stream onto something? they're really cool looking and give a "holy" sense when you see them).

We filled up our water bottles at the public fountain which made us feel special like we had holy water in our bottles! Then we made our way over to the Hard Rock Cafe to get our pin. It wasn't too far from The Colluseum which we planned on being our last stop because the city was so crazy and it took us forever to get from once place to another.

We got there a bit late because of stupid traffic and trying to figure out where to go so it was already closed for visitors. We ended up just walking around the whole thing then taking a few pictures in front of it while the sun went down. We could see the inside through the gaps in the arches anyway so it wasn't that big of a loss that we didn't get to go inside. We left and caught a bus that took us back to the train station that took us to another bus that took us to our shuttle to get back to our campsite. There was a darling little girl that sat in front of us on  one of the buses (about 3 or 4 years old) that fell in love with John and Josh. She kept calling them "Picollo" and trying to rub Joshua's head. It made the bus ride so fun. We were sad to see her go when we got to our shuttle. 

The next day was Sunday and it took us a little while to find the church building in Rome so we were a little late then we found out that Sacrament meeting was last so we didn't get to attend any other meetings. Oh well, it was still cool to attend church in Rome. We stopped off at a supermarket and bought more sandwich stuff for lunch then started our journey to Venice....

Johnny's first day of school

Aaaahhhh it feels good to be blogging again! Yes, it has been a while since you've heard from me but the way I see it...it's better late than never.

Today is Johnny's first day of school (starting his 2nd year of preschool). As some of you know Johnny has a developmental disorder called PDD (Pervasive Developmental Disorder) that causes a major delay in speech. We could hardly get him to say anything until he was about 3 years and 3 months (a typical timeline with PDD) then all of the sudden he started to progress. It wasn't an overnight "Wow he can talk now!" but the rate that he has been adding words and phrases over the past 8 months has been huge for us. We were lucky to have a great pediatrician who noticed something wrong early on so we could start him on speech therapy. He had speech therapy at our house once a week until he was 3 then he started preschool and continued working with a speech therapist in school. Over the summer we were extremely blessed to trade speech therapy for voice lessons with Johnny's school speech therapist. Her name is Amy and I'm pretty sure John had a huge crush on her :) There is a different speech therapist this year at school so it was nice to still be able to see Amy every once in a while.

Yesterday I went to fill out all of the registration paperwork and let Johnny show Joshua his classroom. They were both so excited to be there.

Johnny with his teacher Emily

Johnny let Joshua roll his backpack around for a few seconds I guess to help him feel included!

Anxiously waiting for the bus to arrive

Sprinting as fast as he can to get on the bus

Poor Joshua feeling a little left out. 

Joshua is pretty sad right now that Johnny is gone. He spilled milk on his shirt this morning and was in the process of changing clothes when the bus came for Johnny. I ran out to take a few pictures and when I came back Joshua had grabbed his Buzz suitcase and was trying to follow his brother out. How do you explain to a 2 year old that worships the ground his brother walks on that he's too young to follow him to school?! 

Susannah DVDs

So, this post is for my Opera friends at the University of Utah....

I tried to figure out a way to do this without being too bothersome (I know if I tried to put all these links up on Facebook, there'd be a ton of notifications for all those involved) so...

Brandy was awesome enough to film both night's of Susannah. Of course, the guy at the battery store sold us a faulty extra battery, so only part of each night was filmed with our fancy new HD camera, but we also had our older standard def camera (thank goodness). Brandy did a great job filming with two different cameras at the same time. I edited the two in order to give the best view. I also recorded with a separate device and synced it up with the footage to give better audio quality.

Here's a sample of the Friday DVD:

Here's a sample of the Saturday DVD:

So, I'm selling copies of Susannah...
For $10 you get the DVD with the case and the label....

If you're into the cheap student deal, for $5 you get the DVD with sharpie writing on the front...

(get the joke?)

So, let me know if you want one (in person or at SingingDaniel@gmail.com), and I'll get it to you as soon as I can. Thanks!

Mid-Year Update

Hey everyone. Since it's been half a year since our last post, I thought I might add a few updates since Brandy has been so busy being the most awesome mom and wife. Normally, she's been really good at keeping this thing up to date, but when I list what's been going on, you'll understand why she hasn't had time to put much up on here...

Ok, 2012 so far in list format...

In January we moved into the University of Utah's Family Student Housing. We'd been staying with my Dad and step-Mom since August while home hunting. By January, all our prospective bids had fallen through and we decided to get an apartment because who knows how long it would be before the house thing worked out. And of course, as soon as we moved in and enjoyed awesome neighbors, comfy personal space, and a great ward, one of our bids was accepted. (And on a side note, two weeks later a second bid was accepted... when it rains it pours right?) So our stay was a short one, but we really enjoyed out time there and the people we met.

In February I sang the title role the U's semi-staged concert-version of Mozart's Don Giovanni. It was a big success and got good reviews too! Check out the Friday night performance.

We closed on the house on March 15th. It was too bad we couldn't have closed a week earlier, because we closed at the very end of spring break, but we're just so happy we finally had a home. It's what I call a project house. It's a step up from a 'fixer-upper' but still needs a lot of work. We fixed up the bedrooms and bath to move in, but we figured we'd wait until later to work of the other parts of the house. We didn't want to chew off too much more than we could chew. The boys love having a yard to play in, and eventually it'll be nice to have a little workshop set up in our 2-car garage.

The moving process was even more fun (smell the sarcasm) because of the opera production going on at the same time. I sang in the fully-staged production at the University in April. Carlise Floyd's Susannah is an American Opera (don't feel uneducated if you don't know it) and our production got great reviews. 

I finished up the school year in May and we enjoyed a little time to settle into the house. Over the summer I was working more hours at the library, and enjoying a little more time at home. Johnny finished up his first year at pre-school. He's been going to school twice a week for a few hours because of his speech delay. We finally were able to get him tested, and apparently he has what's known as pervasive developmental disorders (PDD). That's an umbrella-term that encompasses lots of specific disorders (like autism, aspergers, or retts). Johnny's is mild, and it should be totally treatable. He'll be behind in school (which would happen anyway because of his Oct birthday), but he should be caught up by the time he is around 8. Brandy was really relieved to know that there was something physically wrong with him, and she wasn't doing anything wrong. He speech and communication has gotten a LOT better. And now that summer is here and school's out, we're still able to get a little speech therapy by trading therapy sessions for voice lessons with one of his teachers. Win-win.

Brandy has been getting bigger and bigger with the new baby. In mid-June we had the ultrasound and found that we were going to have another little boy. Brandy's excited to get her three Musketeers and I'm hoping they'll be the Three Amigos. Unless some major change comes up, we're planning on naming him James Daniel Brandyn Tuutau. (see that? Harry Potter's dad plus both his parents).

End of June we headed off to our annual trek to the Mendocino Folklore Camp. This was the camp's 50th anniversary, my 12th year, Brandy's 3rd, John's 2nd, and Joshua's 1st. We had a great time, and it was great to see everyone again. 

For pioneer day, I sang in the "Days of '47 Parade" in downtown Salt Lake. It was fun. I dressed up like a Matador, and I sang the famous "Toreador" song from Bizet's Carmen. Not only did I get to sing in the parade, I was also on the radio being interviewed about opera & stuff and I was on the front page of the Salt Lake Tribune. Not too shabby.    

And most recently, our little Joshua turned 2 years old on Aug 1st. Brandy celebrated with him by taking him to the dollar store and letting him and Johnny play with the balloons. She then took them to Walmart and they got a candy bar. Pretty fun for a two-year-old. The Monday before we spent the evening BBQ-ing in Orem and had some cake balls. They boys loved their new bubble guns!

So, things are going well here with the Tuutaus. Hopefully we'll get more updates that once every 6 months... but hey, it's better than once a year, right!?