Joyeux anniversaire

One year ago on Thanksgiving day, my family so kindly helped Rebecca and me cram our things into the van and our car, and endure a long drive from Charlotte to Chicago to move us into Chateau Byron!

2010

2011

Haha--not that much has changed in our living room..but it's still fun to look back at old photos.


It's shocking to think that it's December already. It's also shocking that it's December and we've only gotten a couple days of snow and it didn't even stick. I was bracing myself for blizzards every single day when November hit. That's what happens in Chicago, right? On our first day of the snow that didn't stick, I squealed like a 5 year old and threw on my coat to take a walk through the beautiful flakes, when the Midwesterners around me grumbled.

\A highlight of the past few weeks was my Thanksgiving break back home with my family. Due to the airline prices, I almost took a solo 15 hour road trip to NC, but thankfully I was able to get cheap flight on Priceline the day before I was supposed to leave. Everything worked out perfectly--from my friend Jill covering for me as a nanny for a couple of days, to pickup arrangements. Some things accomplished were lots of turkey and stuffing consumption, viewing the new Muppets movie the day it came out (Thanksgiving), hitting my favorite restaurants of my southern life (such as El Valle, Cracker Barrel, Bojangles...don't laugh...), trying a couple of new places, 1/2 off day at my favorite thrift store, and just all around family time including re-bonding time with the family pets.

The weekend before Thanksgiving, I held an Improv class party, which turned out to be so much fun. It was a potluck, and I made a huge crockpot full of Chili, and a crockpot with hot apple cider. Everyone brought delicious food and games for us all to play, and in one particular game which was basically "20 Questions", we all learned so much info on each other that I never would have imagined we would find out. That definitely makes for some great jokes and scenes in the future, haha.

We only have one week left of level B! Yesterday we did serious scenes during the first half of class, which turned out to all be amazing scenes, but so intense. As I was watching my classmates' scenes as well as improvising in my own scene, I was tapping into a couple of different personal emotional wounds, and it was extremely hard to switch out of that mindset when we began the non-serious funny scenes. That has always been the case when I've acted, but I didn't normally have to instantly switch characters like that. It's definitely something I need to ponder on more and work on.
In January we begin Level C, and from that level on we start class performances! So exciting!

Towards the beginning of November, I auditioned for Disney once again but this time it was a Princess look-a-like audition. This audition was another example of how much taking ballet has helped me in dance calls. I still need to gain a lot of dance experience, but routines are coming much more easily to me now. In this audition I got the farthest along in the process than I've ever been in a Disney audition. I made the cut from about 80 girls down to about 12 after we all learned a dance routine that resembled what you would see in a parade. After that, they went down the line asking each of us a few questions then giving us a good look over. I didn't make the cut past that, and I have a feeling it's due to my height, since most of their female characters average at 5'4"-5'6", but I'm definitely going to keep on trying.

I have a new roommate! Since my sister, Rebecca, hasn't returned to Chicago yet, her room became available after Jacquie moved to NYC. My lovely friend Jill moved in, and it's about time that she did since she has basically already been my roommate! One of the fun things has been our piano playing/singing together times. We keep on joking that we're going to have a Jill and Rachelyn concert at Chateau Byron and invite all of our friends to hear us.

This past weekend I was ecstatic to be able to see the actual Jerry Lee Lewis in concert at the beautiful Congress Theatre here in Chicago. I didn't know much about him until my friend was cast as an understudy for the role of Jerry Lee in the national tour of Million Dollar Quartet. The entire time I could not believe I was watching this man...this legend. His fingers could still fly, and he was adorable. He was also such a divo, but he has every right to be one. After the first band played, we waited over an hour after he was supposed to enter for him to begin his set. One man towards the front got so mad at the wait, he stood up angrily, chucked his chair onto the stage, and stormed off. The most embarrassing part for him in the scene he made was the fact that Jerry Lee's band came out 2 seconds after he turned around to storm off.

Lastly, I'm excited to be working with the Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company as a chorus member in The Gondoliers. Rehearsals start in January, just like the past two shows I've done with them. Auditions were way earlier this year than the past years, but it was so good to see dear faces again, as always!