What an incredible year it has been! But let's start where we left off last year…

Rich was able to sneak away from Radio City to join us in Utah for Christmas, after which we left the dogs in the capable hands of our neighbors so I could join him back in New York for a week. While we were there, we got together with friends and went to the Holiday Train Show at the The New York Botanical Garden. A little later in January we drove back out to New York, and I flew back to Utah on my own just in time to play for some rehearsals of Puccini's Madame Butterfly for the Utah Lyric Opera in early February.

Back in Wallsburg, things were pretty much typical: cows wandering up the street, Lady's friend Sparky coming along on our walks, etc.

After Rich drove back to Utah, we spent most of the next few months together there. We celebrated Valentine's Day with a sleigh ride and dinner at the Homestead Resort in Midway, we took Lady to a Utah Grizzlies ice hockey Game for "Pooch on the Pond" night (yes, that IS Lady in the picture on the Fox 13 website!), and transported a toothless dachshund named "Slinky" from a shelter to a foster home.

We celebrated Sadie's ninth birthday in March, and thought she might enjoy fostering a puppy for a night. We brought little eight-week-old Bogart home from Furburbia for a night. As it turns out, Sadie wasn't very interested in hanging out with the puppy, but he had a great time playing with Lady and the feeling was mutual. He didn't get adopted the next day, so we brought him home again. And again. And again. We finally decided that Bogart was meant to be part of our family, so we officially adopted him on March 26.

Before that, though, we went on a quick getaway to Las Vegas for my birthday. We stopped at Zion National Park on the way down, and while in Vegas we stayed at Sam's Town, saw Penn & Teller, visited the Pinball Hall of Fame, and had dinner at the Stratosphere.
 

In April I played the organ and piano for a couple of Easter concerts given by the High Valley Singers. At the end of the month Rich flew back to New York to work on the NFL Draft and Cirque du Soleil's "Zarkana" at Radio City, and I joined him in early May. A couple weeks later Rich flew back to Utah so he could drive back to New York with Lady and Bogart. While he was gone I hopped on the train a couple of times to visit my Radio City duet partner, Bob Maidhof, at his beautiful house in Pennsylvania, and to visit my sister, Tracy, up in Boston. By mid-June we were all on the road again, driving back to Utah where Sadie and Gibbs were eagerly awaiting our arrival.

Our lives had changed on March 10 when we found out we would be having a baby in November. In July we celebrated by taking a babymoon in southern California. We went to the "51 in Quarters" event celebrating the recently refurbished Squad 51 from the 1970s television show, "Emergency!" and did some other sightseeing in the Los Angeles area before heading down to San Diego. In San Diego we stayed at the beautiful Hotel Del Coronado and visited the San Diego Zoo, USS Midway, and other area attractions before heading back up to Los Angeles to see "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson".

Shortly after we returned from California, Rich had to fly back to New York, Lady and I celebrated her third birthday, and my mother spent a week with me and the pups. I took her to see the Sundance Summer Theatre's production of "The Sound of Music" and the Wasatch County Fair Demolition Derby. We also took some sightseeing excursions to Cascade Springs, Snowbird, and Park City. Rich got back from New York just in time to join us for a drive down to Bridal Veil Falls and to grill us some burgers in the backyard before mom flew back to New Jersey.

At the end of August, the ladies in Wallsburg threw me a lovely bridal shower, and the following weekend we attended the infamous "Midway Swiss Days". By the end of September we had all piled into our new used motorhome and driven east in time for Rich to work on the "Zarkana" load-out and the "Christmas Spectacular" load-in, and to get the Radio City organ in shape for the Christmas run. As Rich's work schedule got crazier and crazier, I kept myself occupied with going to doctor appointments, doing pre-natal gyrotonic workouts, walking dogs, shopping for baby, and going to another baby shower thrown by some friends in New York. As my due date got closer, I got more and more exhausted and uncomfortable, so we were grateful when our friend Lisa offered to help out with the dog walking. She has been crashing on our sofa and has become an indispenible part of our lives.

The baby's due date was November 14, but I still hadn't gone into labor by the time I went to my doctor appointment on November 15. We decided to go to the hospital the next evening to start the process of inducing labor, and with very few complications, Sophia Rose Bishop was born on November 17 at 6:58pm at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital. She weighed 7 pounds, 12 ounces, and was 20 inches long. We spent two nights in the hospital and went home on the 19th. Since then we have enjoyed many "firsts" including first car ride, first doctor visit, first holiday (Thanksgiving), first bath, and first trip to the laundromat. Sophia can even hold up her head now. Sadie and Gibbs are her constant proctectors, and Lady and Bogart think she's pretty neat, too. Click HERE to see more pictures of our little angel.

Wishing you all the best in 2012!

Love,

Ronnie, Rich, Sophia, Lady, Sadie, Gibbs & Bogart