The Boston Project

Tuesday, April 20th, we flew out our producer from LA (Robb Gilligan) for the recording of Drew's demo cd. Starting Friday night, we were apart of what is called a "lock out", where we put in 14 hours a day for recording. Through Drew's buddy Mitch the drummer, we had a piano (Jeff), electric bass (Marty), and electric guitar (Matt) come in at different times to record their parts. This went really well! Each guy was extremely creative. They fit their part with the others in a way that made every song unique, dynamic, and really just the way we have been imagining. First, were the drums. We could honestly not have been luckier to have Mitch on board-in fact I need to say something specifically about Mitch, without him The Boston Project would have never happened. He started out helping Drew with all of the aranging for his songs, and quickly became a co-writer/co-production manager/best friend. And he rocks at drumming! Second, was the bass. Thanks to Marti, the songs (especially "Into The Snow") were getting a beat we loved. Third, was the piano. With the lights turned down, Jeff's piano was sensational. The feeling we all got as he played away to the music brought a few of us to tears...it was exactly what was needed in the songs. Fourth, we recorded the electric guitar. This took the whole day on Sunday. It was tricky figuring out how dirty or clean it needed to be to fit each song. Matt has an amazing talent that created the rock sound that we wanted. Our last day in the studio was Monday, with acoustic guitar and vocals. Drew has a special talent of playing EXACTLY with the click, which not many can do. And when it came time to sing, he miraculously managed all three songs with out his voice dying! It was strong the entire time. The First few nights we got home sometime between 2 and 3, but the last night it was 4am! We needed to take Robb to the airport at 6 so we ended up just staying up, taking him, then going to sleep at 7am and waking up at 2pm. And yes our bodies were very angry with us, causing stomach and head aches and lack of energy. What role did I play in all this? I picked up/dropped off the instrumentalists that came in for a period of time. This actually turned out great because I got to know each one. My other role was making sure the guys were all fed and happy. So in the morning, before we left, I made breadfast and meals for later and got snacks together. I took lots of video and pictures! And made sure Drew was relaxed when he needed it (pep talks, massages, ect.). This experience has increased my knowledge of the creation process of music drastically! I have found that I hear music differently now too. Picking out each instrument in a song, and hearing how it is mixed (what instruments are in front/back so you notice them more/less). ANYWAY, what now? Well Robb is going to mix the songs. Making them all ready to be put onto a demo so we can shop it around. Until then, we will be gigging with the band around Boston and working on the other ten songs that are in pre-production. Needless to say, this experience was far more incredible and rewarding than we could've imagined! Thanks to everyone that helped make this possible. Keep your ears out for the upcoming demo!

East Coast Extravaganza

Two weeks ago was spring break for Drew and my family back in Arizona(Mom's side). And guess whaaaaaaaat? They came to Boston! Kevin and mom, Parker, and Clark and Kate. They had not yet been out to visit us and see our place. City living is quite different than urban. When it comes to crashing at a friends place, space is an issue. But HEY! We survived and probably ended up closer, right guys? :) They all trickled in different days of the week. First, the parents came. It rained...and rained...and rained...for 2 full days, but after that nothing but pure sunshine! We had SO much fun showing them our life, then being tour guides around Boston. We ate at our favaorite restaurants, the North End("Little Italy"), The Oyster House(the first resaurant in America), and many more. That's what Parker cared about, the FOOD! Haha. In Boston, we saw Berklee, Harvard Square, Newbury Street, The Boston Commons Park, The Warf and Aquarium, Fanuiel Hall, Museum of Fine Arts, shopping and theater district, China Town, and Walden Pond.
My mom is one of the best vacation planners that I know. Without a doubt, she will make sure that we are all having as much fun as we possibly can. Her idea was for one of the days to drive down to Newport, Rhode Island and stay on the beach in a beautiful hotel! We saw one of the many famous mansions there, The Vanderbelt Mansion. It was AMAZING! Giant! It was so interesting to see how that kind of wealth lived. It was a sad day when the parents left us to go back to Arizona. We had such a great time with them and are looking forward to them coming back in the summer! The last part of the week it was just us kids left which was awesome too. We all have so much fun together...MOVE TO BOSTON GUYS! ;)

Back to the Real World

We're back! Not a bad way to spend our first Valentines Day and 6 month anniversary together, to say the least! A very memorable one for sure. I can honestly say that I fell in love all over again during our trip. It's hard to explain, but I just realized how lucky I was to find Drew. He fulfills all of my needs. I won't go into huge detail because I'll start sounding more of a cheese ball than I already am :/...but somewhere between just being a huge help in my work environment, making us all laugh, and the fireworks and dancing, I couldn't have been a happier camper.
Drew had the opportunity to be in "The American Idol Experience" show in the Hollywood Studios park. He auditioned, made it, then sang in two different shows. The first show, he won. The second show, which was the finals, he came so close, but didn't get the golden ticket. I don't know who had more fun, me or him? It was so much fun for me to watch him on stage and cheer him on. And he had the time of his life singing up there! They do it all backstage, hair and make-up, and they even give you a voice coach. It couldn't have been better practice. That was a HUGE highlight to our trip!
And here is the video of Drew singing "Go The Distance" from Hercules...



I thought that Disneyworld was a BLAST! The first half of the trip we saw a lot of the parks, then the second half was more relaxing and did whatever we felt like. Mine and Drew's favorite ride was the "Yeti" ride in Animal Kingdom. It's like Disneyland's "Matterhorn", but pumped with adrenaline. It goes backwards through the dark and has a drop like "Splash Mountain". We are thrilled that we had the opportunity to go and that we took it! We were a big help. It is nice to be home and get back in the swing of things! Going to the gym, work, school, and church too :). Crazy things are happening in both of our families too. My mom and Kevin maybe moving to St. George, my dad and Dawn getting into foster care, and Drew's parents in Israel. Drew's sister Tara had a wonderful weekend while we were gone as well. We lent our place to her boyfriend Zach, who I have yet to know very well, but have heard only the best! Yay Tara! Next, My mom and Kevin are coming out to see us in 3 weeks. Including Clark and Katie, and HOPEFULLY Parker! We definitely are looking forward to that. WAHOOO! Life is so unexpected and exciting! Live up every moment!!!

An Adventure to Remember

In less than a week we will be leaving on our journey to Disneyworld! We are getting super excited. What could be better than working while in Disneyworld? I've always wanted to bring a little kid to Disneyland with me and never got the opportunity because I was always the youngest. I thought I would have to wait for my own kids, but nope! I get the privilage of experiencing Disneyworld with the little girl that I watch every day at work :). Drew will be coming for the first week that we are there. He then has to get back to school and I will be staying another four days! A while ago, me and Drew went to Barnes and Noble and bought these to get us ready...

Soooo...Drew has been taking a peak at the books to get us familiar with some hidden "secrets". Haha COOOOL! I have a vision of going on the Disney Cruise again, that I did once with my family. We WILL go and take our little ones with us! It really was one of the more fun vacations that I have been on! Anyway, we are looking forward to a super fun time in Disneyworld visiting all of the unique parks.


ALSO!~~~~~~HAPPY BIRTHDAY DENNIS!!!!!!~~~~~~
It was Dennis's birthday on Monday. Woo woo! We brought a party over to his house and had some cake and ice cream with him. He already had about ten cakes in his refigerator...he IS loved! That morning he had found out that he will possibly be able to walk again! With several shots of botox in his legs, he has a chance. That made his birthday :).
WE LOVE YOU DENNIS VILLA!!!!!!!!!!

My handsome musician has embarked on another semester, while I continue to cook, clean, run errands, and watch babies for my wonderful nanny family. Drew got the classes that he wanted to with great teachers and is excited about his new semester of school! We are diving deep into Drew's music for the next few months, putting a lot of our extra time into recording for the demo CD. Drew will also be gigging this semester with his buddy Mitch(who is in a picture over there to the right) as well as his brother Denver, who will be moving out here in April. Yay Denver! That will be fun...I can't wait to go to their shows and I better get used to it! It was Tara's birthday this week...(HAPPY BIRTHDAY TARA!). She is now working with me as well! She comes with me on Wednesday's and Friday's. I love the days that she comes! Everything flows better when she is around because we, of course, get more things done. I'm grateful for everything that we have and that we are able to be out here.

It IS cold outside! But we are getting through it :). We had a great week. I worked a lot because my hours increased this week. I am now working an hour earlier at 9 and working a half day on Saturday from 8 to 1. Whewww-eee! That means our gym time is earlier and colder, haha. Something kinda crazy happened at work. I found our that Drew and I are going to Disneyworld in 3 weeks! The family that I nanny for is having us come with them to Disneyworld for 2 weeks to help watch their kids. 2 weeks is a long time in Disneyworld, but it will be great because time at the parks will be more spread out. Therefore, more relaxing time. Drew had a breakthrough with is music this week. With his time off of school he has been able to really practice and continue the progress of working on the songs for his demo cd. He wrote a new song that blew me away. The style of his playing improved a ton. His new finger picking techniques make the song really interesting to listen to. It's not just strumming through it. He is really becoming the type of artist he sees himself being. On Friday for date night we are now switching off picking a place somewhere in the Boston area or a little outside and going there with no real plans. Just picking a restaurant that we see and want to go to then finding something we to do after. It adds some spontinuity to our night and helps us see more of a variety of Boston. This last Friday Drew picked. He chose Coolidge Corner which is like Harvard Square, but more quaint. We ate at this great homemade All-American type restaurant. After, we checked out the movie theater down there that is an old restored playhouse turned into a movie theater. So cool! The main auditorium had a stage, big red curtains and a balcany. We had a wonderful experience on our new and improved date nights. YAY! :). On Saturday night we had some friends over for dinner to play our new favorite game (thanks to Katie and Clark) called Things. It's hilarious! Although, with four people it wasn't as fun because it made it easier. After a few rounds we played Monopoly, which Drew dominated at only because he ALWAYS bribes people for Boardwalk and Park Place and they ALWAYS give in! I try to stop it, but sometimes it doesn't work trying to stop the inevitable. This morning we work up early for our 2nd Sunday of 9am church. A lot better than last week because we weren't scraping 3 inches of snow off our car in our Sunday clothes! We both have had great wards and this one up there in greatness! We feel like it is really connected. New wards are obviously more fun after you get to know everyone and feel more apart of it. We both had great lessons today therefore it was a great morning and now I am about to make us dinner then we are going to visit Dennis our sudo-uncle tonight! Have a great week!

I'm back in business! I havn't blogged for a while, but I'm back in the swing of things. Ok so me and Drew had a great trip to Arizona. Seeing our friends and family(some of which we hadn't since our wedding) was more than enough to make our trip wonderful. Plus the movies, gift giving, Christmas spirits, parties, and just feeling the joyfulness of Christs birth. Also, I am so glad Drew got to go golfing...and with brand new clubs! Thanks Steve Wayne(both, one for the clubs and one for going golfing)! We cannot express how thankful we are to have such wonderful families. Plus, I want to congratulate my brother, Parker, on his amazing accomplishment of graduating from ASU! In the Walter Cronkite School and Journalism. Good job Parker! And with a job with the Arizona Republic already. Drew's sister, Catie, got a puppy for Christmas. Her name is Tilly and she is so CUTE! It was so fun playing with her over the break. And speaking of playing, we played plenty of the new Mario Bros game for Wii. We got it and the Wii from my parents, Kevin and Catherine. While we were home, we saw the movie Avatar. If you havn't seen it yet, SEE IT! Also Sherlock Holmes was fabulous. Drew saw four movies while we were home(Couldn't resist the great prices! Half of what we usually pay).
Now to our current status...we are back to our lovely home in Boston. It actually felt really good to get home. Our trip was great, so relaxing and chill. But it is always nice to get back into our normal life here. We spent New Years Eve going out to dinner, taking the train to Faneuil Hall to see a giant Christmas tree and pretty lights, then to Boston Commons Park for lit up ice sculptures, a band, a frozen pond for freely ice skating, and fireworks. It was a great way to kick off the new year! I am back working, only this time with one more baby! It was awesome meeting him. He is very peaceful! Drew doesn't start school for another two weeks so he is enjoying his break by mainly working on his songs and getting ready to start recording more songs this semester. Exciting! I am looking forward to some more nights and weekends in the studio :). One more thing we are looking forward to is a great trip to New York to see a Broadway play, from Steve and Liz. We haven't decided the dates yet, but it is in our future. Well, it snowed all last night and day today! We ventured in it to do some errands this morning and go to breakfast at our favorite place, Trident Cafe. We discovered that Drew needs snow boots and I can't wear my uggs in the snow. Ironic, don't you think? I thought they were snow boots, but apparently they are just for appearance.

Winter! Wow it sure is winter here now. I know this isn't such a great picture of snow, but it was the first snow on Saturday night and we ran out to see/play in it for a bit. Me and Drew woke up this morning to snow/rain that was coming down hard. I had my first experience of driving in the snow on my way to work! Since I work outside the city, there is a lot more snow. I must say, it was a bit of an adrenaline rush. It was so dang pretty though. The trees were covered in white and everything was bright and Christmasy! I decorated our fireplace mantel last night with lights and hung our stockings so now we have a little Christmas spirit in our apartment as well :). It's fun living off of the whole cities Christmas spirit too, it really gets decorated with wreaths and lights everywhere! This week Drew has finished a few of his classes. WOO WOO! Go Drew! Good job! He's done with most of his voice performance ones and now he just has to finish up lyric writing, harmony, and his one other voice class. He's been working hard at night so we've pretty much stayed in this week with a few breaks of "The Office" :). Work is going really well for me. I really enjoy my job and feel privilaged to get so lucky!
We are getting really excited to come home for Christmas. Being at home is so relaxing and so much fun just hanging out with people that we love, going to movies, and playing games! I will be coming home the 18th for my brother Parker's graduation from college! What an accomplishment, huh? All the years of studying journelism and now he just gets to write, write, write working for the Arizona Republic. Drew is coming on 19th with his sister Tara that is flying in from Germany. He is excited to fly home with his sister and get a little bonding time in. We'll then fly back home to Boston on the 30th to get me back to work and have our big New Years Celebration here.
Merry Christmas!!!