Engaged now!

It was romantic.
It was so unexpected.
It was perfect.
And it really started off our vacation in such a special way.

We then decided to hold a party before the summer was over - to invite our good friends and co-workers over to mingle, celebrate and enjoy some of Ray's great BBQ cooking.

Funny thing was, we ended up inviting WAY more people than our place can actually hold. We started to think of friends, old and new, who we would really like to re-connect with in this celebratory way and pretty soon we had an Evite list of over 50 some people.

When Evite suggested that we send a "reminder email" just a week before our party, I opted to skip it...and was just praying we could handle having as many people over as had rsvp'd.

Turned out really super.

Here are some pictures... and ALL of these pictures were taken by the next door Ukranian girl and who is six-year-old and has designated me as her "new best friend" - Sofiya - Hence many of the angles are coming from a little twerp about 3' 5" tall and from her own eyes of the party. LOL



Ray kept his station by the grill for most of the night.












Me blowing up balloons and putting last minute touches to our "party" balcony.












My singer and great friend Linda, and Ray's mother Pam. Pam brought with her a terrific fruit display, a lovely spicy pepper tray, and some pickled cucumbers that were a big hit.










Chit-chatting with my old roommate and some other Improv Friends.












Ray's good friend Nate, with his new little one Chloe. Sofiya became very enthralled with having the little baby around.











Myself with Linda and Chris, two previous students of mine. Linda is the singer galore and we'll be launching her website and booking her gigs this fall!














Some of Ray's co-workers. Sofiya learned how to Zoom in the focus during this party, and it starts to show. Very funny.












Me with Andre Washington - my last and best roommate from the Lake Shore Drive apartment. He was also the first one to ever hear about this "Ray" guy that I started to date.









And this is Ray with his oldest and absolute Best Friend, Jim. Jim also has a wonderful and charismatic wife Roseanne, along with two sons, but the following day was the first day of school - so they weren't able to make it. Jim and Roseanne have been a terrific couple to get to know and we've started the tradition of seeing the Opening Nights of the plays at Court with them together.





Annie and Kate - two lovely ladies who were once students of mine at SC, but now just really cool chics to hang with.













One of my new girlfriends and also alumni student. She's a powerhouse improviser on stage and just an all around positive and sweet girl to know, Heather Markey.










Me with Rochelle Winters - the producer from Wavelength and also very wonderful lady to get to know.











This is Jim Winters, Rochelle's husband and co-producer of Wavelength. I like this picture also because it demonstrates Sofiya's perspective being around all these adults.










And this is Me with Sofiya.

Her entire family next door speaks not a word of English, but it seems that over the last several months Sofiya's grasp of the language has blossomed and she wants to speak it all the time. She speaks it so well that she loses her Ukranian accent when she does use English. She's a cute one, of course. Very independent and self-sufficient this one!




And here she has Ray being silly too.















The party lasted for several hours and near the end, of course, we all ended up in the Kitchen carrying on dozens of different conversations. That's always a fun energy to have in your house.

So this was our very first time holding such an open-house type party for our friends. Kudos goes to Ray for getting so much of the place ready and clean while I had spent the last 7 days on the road with Wavelength doing shows.

This party also marked the end of the real summer for us given that directly following this party Ray has had to put in some very long hours installing the huge set for Court Theater's
opening production of "Caroline, or Change".

Meanwhile, I continue with my work teaching at Second City. I am going to be creating the music for Jason Chin's Halloween Musical this year - which is something I haven't had a chance to do in a long while, create original music for a musical. And, of course, the launching of Linda K and her amazing jazz voice. Linda and I have been rehearsing once a week for 3 to 4 hours for several months now and have a set-list of 40 of our favorite jazz songs. Infact, TODAY is her photo-shoot with a terrific professional photographer friend of mine Rance, so that we can get updated pro photos of her to include in her CD's and website listing. She already has a gig to perform some original political satire songs at Lake Shore Theater in October, which I know is freaking her out right now...so I'm not reminding her yet. One step at a time. She has a voice you can quickly become addicted to and I can't wait to get her up on stage, up on that mic, and give the world of people around her the honor to listen to it and fall in love!

So the Fall has lots of promise. And with all the work Ray is doing right now, I'm sneaking a chance at the calendar for one last few days of Fishing that we might be able to squeeze in. We'll see.

love to you!
Stephanie