Another NJSO Concert

Yesterday was the final concert in NJSO's Winter Festival featuring Pinchas Zukerman.  We drove to NJPAC in Newark for the concert.

• Bach Violin Concerto No 2 with Zukerman as soloist and conductor
• Schoenberg Verklarte Nacht
• Beethoven Symphony No 3

Quilt #50

This is the summer quilt for our bed.

NJ Symphony

We attended another NJSO concert last evening, this one in Richardson Auditorium in Princeton.  Our seats are in the front orchestra, so we were sitting well below the players, which gave us a good view of their shoes but not much else.  But the acoustics were fine and we really enjoyed the concert.

• Barber - School for Scandal Overture
• Beethoven - Violin Concerto with Pinchas Zukerman as soloist
• Saint-Saens - Symphony #3.

Another Day in Princeton

There was another 55PLUS talk in Princeton today.  This one described how a drug is developed, focusing mostly on the trials necessary to prove its efficacy and safety.

Then this evening we went to another of the Takacs Quartet concerts of Beethoven string quartets.  These were numbers 3, 8, and 12.

New Jersey Symphony

We went to a wonderful concert this afternoon at the State Theater in New Brunswick.  We hadn't been there for a while and were impressed by the acoustics.  Pinchas Zukerman is playing in the NJSO Winter Festival.  We will be attending several of those concerts.  Today he soloed and conducted the following pieces.

• Tchaikovsky - "Melodie" from Souvenir d'un Lieu Cher
• Tchaikovsky - Serenade Mélancolique
• Tchaikovsky - Serenade for Strings in C Major
• Mendelssohn - Symphony No. 4

After the concert we went to Brother Jimmy's BBQ for their "Humongous Nachos."

Raiders of the Lost Ark in Concert

We had a great time last night listening to the NJ Symphony play John Williams' music while watching the movie.

At Camp

We just got back from several days at camp.  We drove up December 28th and came home today.  We had hoped to stay until tomorrow, but freezing rain was forecast so we changed our plans.  It was great to see everyone at the New Years Eve party.  There was a fair amount of snow while we were there, snowing about 3 inches several times.  The rain forecast for today will spoil most of it.

Quilt 49

I made this one for my daughter.

Sanibel

The following is a hint of where we have been for the last few days.

We returned last evening from a trip to Sanibel Island, Florida.  We flew down on the 8th and back on the 13th, which is the time we usually go.  We were very surprised that we saw so few birds on the shore.  We are used to seeing lots of terns, but the only ones we saw this time were a few perched on pilings in Tarpon Bay during our sunset cruise.  The only birds on the shore were the usual sanderlings and some other shorebirds that I think were snowy plover, ruddy turnstone, black-bellied plover, and willet, but I could be wrong about all of those.  I have trouble with shorebirds at the best of times and winter plumage doesn't help.
But we did see a snowy egret in the surf.

We did the usual Ding-Darling drive and had great sightings there.
There were the usual white pelicans.

We saw about two dozen spoonbills, which was a real treat.

On a walk through the mangroves we saw lots of mangrove crabs, which probably were always there, we just had never had them pointed out to us.

We walked in the Bailey Tract and it was so nice we rented bikes on our last morning and rode through there as well.

There was a lot of wind the first few days we were there but on Monday we rented kayaks and did the Commodore Creek paddle, which was great as usual.



We didn't see much on the sunset cruise but it was still enjoyable.  As usual, there were birds on every piling.

It was a nice trip and we were sad to leave.

Westminster Bell Choir Concert

I went to the holiday concert of the Westminster Bell Choir this afternoon.  It was great, as always.  And I found a large parking lot behind the college, so I needn't have arrived so early in order to find parking.  I'll try to remember for next time.  Leaving home at 2:45 for a 4:00 concert is plenty of time to get a good seat.