Julia

The impetus for our trip to Bloomington was to go to our friend Julia's final IU recital.





























Julia has also offered us a place to sleep when we were in need. We had nowhere to sleep on our last night in Bloomington, August 2009, since our bed was in the moving truck.





















Julia sang really well that night. Her performance had so much musicality and nuance.
After her wonderful recital, she had a reception at the Irish Lion Glen in Bloomington, complete with Blarney Puffballs (a staple Irish Lion food).

Julia's good friend Elyse made a wonderful book of pictures, stories, and messages from her Bloomington friends and presented Julia with it at the party.










The book was entitled "Bloomington: A Lahve Story."

































Julia tried not to read it right away because she was afraid of crying during the party.





























She stole a few glances anyways.























Here's Julia with her brother, Dan. He plays guitar at IU and accompanied her on "Skylark," by Bloomington-ite Hoagy Carmichael as the closing piece of the recital.





















At some point during the evening, Mark and John "borrowed" a couple of scarves from the girls at the table and began a series of poses. Our friend Carl commented that they looked like a "pair of old queens," celebrating the Prop 8 overturn.




















We were able to see a lot of my old Bloomington friends at Julia's party, like Amanda, the curly-haired girl in black.



















Also, Molly, who stole my camera at one point and made everyone show her their worst face and then pose for a portrait.

































I wish I had more pictures of the party and then the after-party-party at Mark's apartment. It was wonderful to see so many Bloomington friends, since many of them won't be there if I try to visit next summer. It was also a little hard to be back there, since I have so many memories tied to the place and I miss it so much.