We’re nearly at the end of another interesting year, so it’s time for a look back at 2015. We always remember how slowly the time seemed to pass when we were separated by thousands of miles and waiting to see each other. Things are very different now we’re together in the same place, and the months seem to fly by! Here’s a look back at some of the moments that made us smile this year.

Supporting the Alzheimer’s Association

In 2015 we continued in our efforts to support the Alzheimer’s Association. A concert in Menlo Park at the beginning of the year also featured music from talented organist Angela Kraft Cross. We joined with Bay Area musicians T. Paul Rosas, Dylan Damonte and Brian Holmes for another concert in October. There, we had our first-ever opportunity to hear Alphorn music! We also participated in a Walk to End Alzheimer’s in San Francisco in September. That was a first for us, but something we’ll hope to do again!

We enjoyed a fun trip down to Riverside, California in March. Larry was invited to be the guest clinician at the Southeastern California Conference Advanced Handbell Festival. He spent the day helping high school students prepare for an evening concert. We also played our eight-bell arrangement of Great Is Thy Faithfulness.  You can find a video of the SECC Advanced Festival rehearsal and concert excerpts on YouTube.

We also had the opportunity for a quick tour of Riverside, and a very nice lunch, before flying back to the San Francisco Bay Area.

A trip to the Siskiyou Summit Handbell Festival

At the beginning of May, we took a long road-trip to Ashland, Oregon, for the Siskiyou Summit Handbell Festival. Larry was the clinician for the event, and Carla taught a class on British-style four-in-hand ringing. We had a fun weekend, making some great music with other handbell musicians from Oregon and California, and performing in a well-attended public concert.

Our first visit to Philadelphia

The end of May brought us a really exciting opportunity to travel to Philadelphia for the first time ever. We performed in a shared concert with Philadelphia Bronze, an advanced auditioned handbell ensemble.

We had so much fun in Philadelphia! Our trip started with a guided tour of the city from one of the Philadelphia Bronze members, and a visit to the Liberty Bell.

It was exciting to visit Malmark Bellcraftsmen, the manufacturers of the handbells we use to play our duets. The factory tour was absolutely fascinating – and if you’re a fan of shiny bronze stuff, you should definitely put it on your “things to do/places to go” list!

Another member of Philadelphia Bronze took us to Valley Forge Park – the site of the third winter encampment of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. It’s a very scenic and peaceful place. We drove through and stopped at various historical buildings and monuments along the way.

Special thanks go to all at Philadelphia Bronze for making us so welcome – especially to Sarah, Martha and Rise for being great tour guides!  You can read more about our trip in an earlier website post, and see a video from the concert on YouTube.

Carla received her 10-year Green Card

An important milestone happened for us in July this year. Carla received her 10-year Green Card, and became a permanent resident of the USA. It marks a welcome end to our immigration process, and means that we no longer have to be obsessive about keeping evidence of our relationship, to be able to prove to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services that our marriage is genuine. It is, of course, but still, it’s nice not to hear ourselves saying, “Oh! We’d better keep that for the immigration people” while we go about our daily lives.

Back to the Bay View Week of Handbells!

August is always a highlight of our year – because it’s when we go to Michigan to take part in the Bay View Week of Handbells. We’ve been to this annual event together since 2010. It’s the place where we first spent time together in real life! It’s also the place where we celebrated our engagement in 2011, and where we closed the distance in 2012. This event is always such a special week of music and friendship, and this year was no exception.

One disappointment for us this year was that we didn’t manage to make our planned trip back to England to visit family and friends there. Travelling overseas is always expensive, and our handbell trips seemed to use up all our budget and vacation time. But all is not lost, because we’re hoping to make the trip in 2016. Instead, a couple of our English friends and family visited us this year. We had the chance to do “tourist things” around San Francisco and take that long-awaited trip to Alcatraz Island in October!

(Don’t worry; they did let him out eventually!)

A busy holiday season

The 2015 holiday season was our busiest yet. It’s always a crazy time of year for handbell musicians. People think of Christmas, and they think of bells! We enjoyed sharing our holiday music with enthusiastic audiences at events across the Bay Area. Two beautiful candlelight services of remembrance – one for Kara in Palo Alto and one at the Chapel of the Chimes, Oakland – gave people from the local community an opportunity to honor and remember loved ones who have died.

We played duets at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts before the Pacific Ballet Academy Nutcracker performances. The German Holiday Market in Mountain View was another fun event! We also enjoyed the Sundar Shadi Holiday Display in El Cerrito.

One of the highlights of our holiday season was our shared concert with VoiceWorks in Redwood City. We played duets, and also arranged 8-bell accompaniments to the pieces being sung by the choir. We’re grateful to all who braved the rain to come and enjoy the music! We ended our holiday season by welcoming in Christmas Day at the candlelight services at Los Altos United Methodist Church.

Photos from all our events can be found on our Facebook page.

Thank you so much to everyone who’s helped to make this year special for us. We’re grateful to family and friends, and anyone who came to one of our handbell performances or played our music. We hope 2015 was a good year for you too, and wish you all much love and happiness for 2016.