New Baby Time in Boston!

I don't have much time, but just thought I'd put a few pix up here of little Catherine Adelaide Mayo!  We'll be bringing her home tomorrow!

Enjoy!

Travels to Knoxville, Tennessee to meet family!

Although I've mostly stayed home this holiday, I did make a quick trip down to Knoxville last week-end to meet up with my mother and sister from S.C. We had a wonderful 20 hours or so together and exchanged gifts and caught up on family news as well as family history. Unfortunately, a huge winter storm blew up and we both came through quite a bit of snow...luckily it was mostly on the ground.

This picture is of my 84 y.o. mother, Tumpy who is still going strong.  I took 5 or 6 short videos of her telling me some of our family history.  I can never keep all the great-grandparents straight!   Stay tuned for more travels!

Back from Sarasota and Siesta Key!

Wow! I had a great vacation in Florida and got a great time and read an entire huge novel!! I'm so happy and feeling rested and excited about the rest of the year! If you ever want to go to a gorgeous beach that has nearly perfect weather year-round, I highly recommend Siesta Key, Florida and the Siesta Key Suites! Check it out!

Chantdoc cooling off in the mountains

Wow! I thought I had already posted about my trip to Lake Junaluska, but guess I didnt. It's been over three weeks since I met my mother and two oldest daughters at Lake Junaluska, a beautiful United Methodist retreat center in the mountains of Western North Carolina. It's in the Smoky Mountains and is a very popular vacation area of the South.

Anyway, my parents built a summer home there in the summer of 1956 and I've been every summer since then! My three daughters also went there every summer growing up so it's a real family tradition! Here are just a few of our pictures from that week-end!

If you're interested in renting the place in the Fall or Spring, or Summer, let me know! It is very reasonable!

Summer of 1961

I've always loved to go to the beach! Probably because I knew that for sure, my family would be going to the mountains and to me it just wasn't as special, even though we had our own summer home in the mountains of Western North Carolina. I think what sealed the deal for me was when my parents took all five of us kids plus my grandmother to the Bahamas in the summer of 1961. We were there for 3 weeks and I was an early teen, just feeling the surge of teen emotions for boyfriends and getting away from parents.

After that, I always associated the beach, palm trees, sunburn and tropical flowers with fun, love and excitement! Here are a few of the pictures from that summer of 1961! The first picture is our family on the cruise ship "Emerald Sease." We left out of Miami and arrived in Nassau the next morning. I'll never forget the sight of Bahamian boys swimming out to the ship and diving for coins that we would throw out into the ocean!

Chantdoc goes to Washington, D.C.

I'm in the middle of a very exciting adventure in Washington, D.C. The official reason is to do research at the Library of Congress on Wanda Landowska and the Revival of the Harpsichord. Wanda was the topic of my Ph.D. dissertation back in 1990 and at that time I was aware that a lot more material existed on this topic.

In 2004, Landowska's lifelong companion died and finally in 2008, 110 boxes of archival materials about Wanda arrived at the Library of Congress. Today I was there for 8 hours and only got through two of them! Tomorrow I'll go back and hope to get through at least two more. If there is something in particular you'd like for me to take a peek at, please let me know ASAP.

The pictures are from some tourist activites I did yesterday with my daughter and son-in-law. You'll recognize the Lincoln Memorial in the background.

Travel around the world with music, "Stand By Me"

One of the great parts of my job---speading word of the healing power of music--- is that people send me awesome videos all the time! Recently this one was sent to me and I have watched it over and over!

I hope that YOU'LL enjoy it and leave me a comment on it! It brings tears to my eyes every time i watch it!