Hone A & Clara-bellum post wedding update!

Written by Hone A.

Caught up in our dreams and our lives, these past four months have been full! There really is nothing like Summer in Detroit. Life's been fair to awesome, if we were religious folks, like so many people we know here in the city, they'd probably say we were blessed and we understand that feeling. Turns out we're somewhere along the spectrum of radical pragmatists and idealists, which could mean we've been working and playing hard!

The wedding money went quick (for the most part) but it was well spent; thank you all so much for your generosity and support. It took a couple of days to come down from flying up there in the whirlwind and get things sorted out and cleaned up, but as soon as possible we set off to celebrate our love and togetherness (without hundreds of people around us) with a drive to Dear Creek bed and breakfast outside of Cleveland. We lived it up and the next morning set off to Spring-time at the Cleveland Botanical Garden, which was super cool and overall fun to explore Cleveland, ending up in Little Italy for dinner, wow, so good! We left feeling incredible, but Clara had to throw herself into “FiddleFest” (her students had a special performance) plus girls group (held at the soup kitchen) which needed to plan their trip to the 15^th annual Allied Media Conference, and I began slating an old house near the Trumbullplex with a very unique roof structure.

The Mission, San Francisco

We left for our honeymoon the day after Fiddle Fest and rented a hybrid Prius for our adventure into Northern California, which we had dreamed of for years. All the way into Southern Oregon we made it to the Giant “Old Growth” ancient Redwood Forests with hawks overhead and rivers winding through all the way to my old stoping grounds, Arcata California (where I lived for 2 years in later 1990's). It was fun going to an historic theatre and their crazy co-op to buy more seeds and fancy micro beers/meads.

Marble Mountains, Lovers Camp trail

That's where some of the shopping began and finally ended in the Mission in San Francisco, which was great to have the money for Clara to actually buy a new dress. On our way down we had stopped for a night at Aunt Ellen and Dennis' beautiful place in Sonoma and had a great dinner and got to stay in the yurt, which is very special, (no scorpions this time though, the first time I almost stepped on a little black one).

Berkley Rose Gardens with Matt

In the Bay we saw different friends, had lunch at Dolores Park (full of chihuahuas!), drank fancy cocktails with Clara's old friend, Lydia, hiked around in Berkley hills, got our burritos from a truck, amazing coffee from the latest greatest and had a totally delicious if kinda bizarre dinner of small plates with an old friend of mine in Oakland.

 Good times! Our honeymoon was perfect.

Oakland, CA

The new car! And kayaks!

Upon arriving home the day before Memorial Day, we figured out the car we wanted to get and moved forward with the loan, of course we found a used, nearly exact same Prius we had rented. Only slightly used and an all around excellent fit for us, we went for it. Clara's very tired and costly 1997 Camry was unsafe and we just couldnt put any more money into it; we eventually sold it for $700. The Prius is awesome and with the rack Clara found on Craigs list and I rigged to fit, we are now carrying our new kayaks on it! The second kayak trip should be happening by the time you get this.

Getting back to when we got home from the West Coast we found that we had quite the collection of fancy treats and got deeper into the better things in life after a days hard work:

RX Missionary Chocolates, OMG (sustainable, vegan, handcrafted, Portland Oregon made totally addictive truffles), we even made a video with the dogs in it when we first started eating them.

But that's just some of the sweets, there was all the booze, new towels and sheets, art, music... we were feeling pretty lucky right about then as we got back to our awesome life, even if feeling a little behind. As Clara took on her Detroiter status with a new vigor, hustling hardcore, the new students began to rack up. “Detroit Hustles Hardest” is a double meaning slogan you see around because we all have to work and “hustle” our work to survive here and the Detroit dance scene, young and old loves to get people to do the hustle. Meanwhile, even if a little late, we got the gardens in, was there for Kam's final days of 4^th grade and all the fun stuff , the band finished it's recording and rode into the Allied Media Conference with Kam and the Girls Group, one of our favorite events of the year, feeling great.

RX Missionary Chocolates and some mead in our new wine glasses

But that's just some of the sweets, there was all the booze, new towels and sheets, art, music... we were feeling pretty lucky right about then as we got back to our awesome life, even if feeling a little behind.

As Clara took on her Detroiter status with a new vigor, hustling hardcore, the new students began to rack up. “Detroit Hustles Hardest” is a double meaning slogan you see around because we all have to work and “hustle” our work to survive here and the Detroit dance scene, young and old loves to get people to do the hustle. Meanwhile, even if a little late, we got the gardens in, and chaperoned Kam's final day of 4th grade--a field trip to the movie theaters/bowling alley!

first round of hand-made CD covers for Jhon's band, Collapse

Kam started doing a lot of day camps, which allowed us to have a little more time and even though the heat by the beginning of July meant a lot less sleep (90's for weeks, even in the evenings) I felt amidst the tossing and turning my band's short East Coast Tour in the middle of the month was going to work out, which it did. Six shows in 7 days and one long drive home.

Clara at Living Arts waiting for the babies & parents

Back to Clara's hustle, she's now teaching “Music Together” and is a music teacher at the new Boggs School along with her 20 private students! She is the founder of both Detroit Music Teacher'sCollective (with Jennie Knaggs) and Detroit Youth Volume.

No signs of slowing down with the updates, so here might be a good place to take a break if you need and if you are reading this on paper...well, you should consider reading our blog for Part II !!