School, Party, Wedding, Fair

Both Nathan and I started new semesters of school.  I'm in my last semester of coursework ever, and Nathan is loving nursing school at AmeriTech.  This is him going out the door on his first day. 

BFF Ashley and all of her favorite gal pals partied Bachelorette style at Classic Skating.  I hadn't been there since I was probably 14.  But it was a blast.  We skated, sang karaoke, watched Ashley open cute presents, and ate delicious food.  

And then she got married, so we (Lynsie, Katie, Trevor, Nathan and I) piled into Lynsie's mini van and  drove to beautiful Oakland California for the big day.

We drove all Thursday night, slept in the parking lot of the hotel until the security guard said we could check in, slept some more, and then drove across the bay to San Fransisco! 

We ate clam chowder from sour dough bread bowls, walked up and down the pier, watched the darling sea lions, and walked on the sand.

Later that day, we went to Ghirardelli Square for some delicious chocolate.  We sampled the new pumpkin carmel chocolate, then the boys ordered hot chocolate and the girls ate ice cream.  We tried to find Lombard street but the GPS failed us.  Then we tried to find China Town and the GPS failed us.  But we DID find the Golden Gate Bridge.  And we walked and ran and danced all over it.  Someone took good pictures.  Not me.  

The day of the wedding was absolutely gorgeous! They had a ring ceremony on the beach where their parents paid tribute to them, they said their vows, and exchanged rings.  I should have brought tissues!  I love this couple.  

Ash, I hope you don't care that I 100% stole these pictures from your Facebook page.  But they are so pretty!  I loved your hair and your dress and your head wreath.  And Ray looked dashing, as always.  

After the ring ceremony, there was a delicious brunch on the beach.  And then we headed to the Oakland Temple for the really good part! 

Their temple ceremony was so special.  And the Oakland Temple is so beautiful.  The time spent at the temple reminded me how much I am grateful for my own temple marriage, how much I love my husband and my family, and how much I look forward to being a parent with Nathan someday.  The temple is good stuff, folks! 

After the temple, we went back to the beach to party it up.  They had a delicious dinner catered in from a local Mexican place, we drew crappy portraits instead of signing a wedding book, and we decorated flags to wave to send off the bride and groom.  Then we danced!!  It was a fantastic night! 

The next morning, we woke up, partook of the hotel's buffet breakfast, and drove 12 hours straight home.  It always seems like the drive home is much longer, doesn't it?  And yes, Nathan is eating an entire bowl full of sausage links.  :) 

The next day, for a fun date night after a long day of school, Nathan and I went to the State Fair!  It was Dairy Farmer Association Day, so they had a tent set up for all-you-can-eat ice cream!  It was delicious!! We also loved petting the sheep- they are so sweet and loving, who would have thought?  The sun set was beautiful.  And we ran into an old family friend that my parents met in Special Mutual YEARS ago.  Sweet Lynn still remembered my name AND our home phone number.  It's always nice running into him. 

Picture update

I always think blog posts with pictures are more exciting.  Here are some pictures to represent some of the fun things we're been up to lately.  Katie said something in her blog about wanting to post more pictures, because this is a time of life that should be remembered.  And I agree.  I want to post more pictures, and I should probably post more POSTS, so that I can remember our fun little early married life adventures.  

 These tasty little campfire desserts are called banana boats, and for an FHE adventure, we went with Ashley and Ray up Big Cottonwood Canyon, made a fire, roasted our 'boats and some coconut marshmallows... and somehow ended up reading make-out tips from the internet.  Ha.  Our banana boats didn't end up looking like the picture.  I think we left them in too long, cause they were a gooey melty delicious mess.

 Also lately, we have been watching the ever-fascinating Twilight series, with accompanying RiffTrax soundtrack with our good friends JJ and Kaitlyn.  We are two down, and two to go.  Riftrax makes Twilight worth watching.  :)

The last time we got together with JJ and Kaitlyn, we also made puhzukkis.  (no clue how to spell that- correctly).  Eating the wonderfully warm cookie covered in melting ice cream and toppings reminded me of many a night in Logan at the Firehouse pizza place, surrounded by friends like Bekah and Ann Phillips, Lauren and Nyle.  Good times, good memories.  Good Puhzukkis.  

 My Dad and Nathan and I, as Pass of All Passes Holders, got our Red-neck on and spent a night at the Rocky Mountain Raceway!  It was my first time ever watching anything like this, and I gotta admit, I was skeptical.  But it was a BLAST!  Okay, it was kind of loud and kind of smelly, but those things didn't outweigh the awesomeness of the 8track trains.  Three cars hooked together in a chain, going super fast around and 8track- constantly threatening to slam into each other?  I didn't know it, but this is my kind of fun!

 Also in the Red-neck category, Nathan convinced me to watch the Wrestle Mania match up between The Rock and John Cena.  Because I have known Nathan for a long time, I know that rooted deep in his heart is a love for WWE wrestling.  He knows the moves.  He knows the tag lines. He knows the back stories and the rivalries.  He was really excited about this fight.  :)  So I watched it with him.  And it was funny.  Definitely entertaining.

 Also entertaining was another night spent with Ashley and Ray, watching The Silence of the Lambs.  Up in the canyon, on the night of Banana Boats, before looking up make out tips, we were talking about our favorite scary movies, and how we hadn't seen a good scary movie in a long time.  Ray brought up Silence of the Lambs, and since neither Nathan or I had ever seen it before, we made plans to make that happen ASAP.  It was creepy!  And the fact that the wind kept rustling the front door of their (darling) apartment made it all the more fun.  Anthony Hopkins- WELL DONE!

 And I bought myself a pair of pink pants from Forever 21 for $16.  It's the first article of clothing that I have bought for myself in a LONG time.  Having new clothes, especially when you're poor and don't buy clothes very often, is so much fun.  Funny how one pair of pink pants has made me excited to pick out outfits in the morning again.  I wish I could wear them every day!

The last thing I'll post about is an epic game of Risk that Nathan and I recently played.  My family owns the game of Risk, but in my memory, we have never played it together.  I have heard the stories about the last time we played, and my Dad got so frustrated that he threw the board across the room- a story that he now denies.  My childhood bestie, Merrick, and I used to play Risk, but as I was reading the rules a few days ago, I realized that we had sort of made up our own version.  Nathan loves Risk and has been excited to play with me for a while now.  So one night, when Nathan had a nasty cold and didn't feel like doing anything for our regular date night, I pulled out Risk, read the rules, and we started to play.  The game was vicious and went on well into the night.  After midnight, we decided it would be a good idea to pause the game so that we didn't kill each other for real.  The next day, the game continued for at least another few hours before Nathan and I together annihilated the Allied Forces, and then Nathan, with an army of about 37 troops, completely swept my guys off the map.  I kind of want to play again.  But only kind of.

And those are the little things that make life pretty good these days.  I'll do better at posting more of them.

Academic Freedom!!

School started again!  And 21st grade is looking like it's going to be a tricky one!

Since I have been at the University of Utah, I have been in the wonderful Graduate String Quartet, which has been such a blessing, because it has paid for half of my tuition, and the other half of tuition, I have gotten as a stipend every two weeks.  I made some of my best friends and networking contacts through the quartet, and have gotten the opportunity to play music in some seriously cool places- Eutin, Germany, anyone?  But this spring, a sad thing happened.  Three of the four of us, me excluded, graduated- leaving me as the sole remaining member of the quartet to pass the torch.

Here are the drawbacks of being in the graduate string quartet.  As a scholarship recipient in the school of music, it is required to be in orchestra, chamber music, and private lessons.  But to graduate with a DMA in performance, it is only required to do those three classes for 2 of your 3 years in school.  So the last year of a DMA doesn't need to be filled with orchestra and chamber music, which each require at least 12 extra hours of class time a week, not to mention practice time to be prepared for class and performances.

And those extra unneeded classes would take me three more semesters to finish school, instead of just two.

And I didn't want to start over with a brand new group of quartet members for only one year- the first year is always so stressful.

And I am super sick of orchestra at the U.  It's super lame.

And I want to focus my practicing on playing solo cello stuff.  For once in my life.

And I wanted more free time to teach and pick up new students.

And I am sick of being in school.  Seriously, I'm ready to be done.

So I made a hard decision and declined my scholarship.  I doubled the amount of students I am teaching this year, and I plan to finish my coursework this semester...

Take my qualifying exams in December...

Write my dissertation in the spring...

Give my lecture recital and dissertation defense at the end of spring semester...

And GRADUATE in May!!

So for the first time since 7th grade, I am not in an orchestra.  And for the first time since my Freshman year at USU, I am not in a chamber music group.  And as strange as it feels, I'm actually kind of loving it!  I get more excited to listen to symphonies when they come up on the radio.  I get more excited for String Quartet gigs that come my way.  I am actually more excited to practice the cello.  Which is a wonderful thing.

The decision was hard, I made several people mad by doing it, and I have to be honest, I miss the SOCIAL aspect of quartet and orchestra.  But I am happy with the decision I made, and I am happy with the way this semester is going.  I am excited to learn about the Philosophy of Music Education, the Pedagogy behind Music Theory, and the basics of Musical Learning and Cognition.  I am excited to give a recital soon to make up for the one I should have given last spring.  And I am excited that so so soon, I will finally be done done done with school!!

Samson Year One

You've probably all seen most of these sweet pictures of Samson's first year alive.  But we made this movie to send to his breeder family, so I thought I would share it with the blogging world too.  This little guy warms my heart.  

Samson's First Hike

Today is Samson's first birthday!  That officially makes him a grown up pup.  

To celebrate his mature age, and since we both had the 24th of July off of work and school, Nathan and I decided to take Samson on his first hike.  We searched the web to find a good hike for dogs and settled on beautiful Adams Canyon. 

This hike definitely wasn't easy-  Maybe because Nathan and I hadn't been hiking all summer, or maybe because we were basically mountain climbing for the last mile or so.  But little Samson was a champ.  He loved playing in the cool stream water.  And he would often run ahead of us on the trail, then look back at us like "Come on, guys!  Hurry up!" He out-hiked us for almost all 4 hours of the journey. But then he slept like a baby the whole drive home.  

This hike is fun and beautiful and I recommend it!  I'm glad that Nathan and I finally got our butts in gear and had some summer fun outside! And I'm glad that our little stubby-legged Samson is a first-rate mountain climber and loved the whole thing.  

Happy Birthday, lil Sam! We love hanging out with you.

b o r i n g

My blog is boring lately.

It's because my life is kind of boring lately.

This is why I am kind of terrified to graduate from school someday soon.  School is what keeps my life structured.  Before I don't have school to do any more, I need to learn enough self discipline to structure my own life.  You know, come up with enough interesting things to do all day so that I don't lose my mind with boredom.

I could practice my cello- I do have a recital coming up
But first I should probably schedule it so that I have a deadline motivating me
Which means that I should learn to like the Barber sonata
Because it is paralyzing me from practicing.
I hate scheduling recitals

I could play with my puppy
or go weed the garden
or clean out the fridge
or study for my dissertation
or finish reading To Kill A Mocking Bird
or go to the gym

I could find a new cool hobby
or start a new project
or finish the quilt that I started back in 2005
if I remembered how to thread the sewing machine.

I don't want to spend another hour mindlessly browsing Facebook
Or Pintrest
Or Blogger
Or watching ridiculous TV shows
like Toddlers and Tiaras
Say Yes To The Dress
and What Not To Wear

This is what I have been up to.
Absolutely nothing.
With a few hours of teaching sprinkled in.
And I'm losing my mind.

Do you want to hang out?
Do you have ideas of things I can do?
Do you want to ridicule me for being so lame and uncreative?

Leave a comment and let me know!

Lately

It's the end of June and I've already finished 6 credits worth of summer classes.  Summer school is totally the way to go.  Three weeks of class, no huge papers, no huge tests, low stress, and I'm completely done already!  Although my degree is in cello performance, music education is my related field. And since I am starting my last year of school, I thought I better get started with some related field classes.  :)

The first class I took was called Educating The Imagination.  For our textbook, we used Jonah Lehrer's new book called Imagine: How Creativity Works.  Let me tell you, this book is AWESOME!  I recommend it to anyone for an interesting read.  It takes a look at extremely creative people and companies, and then breaks creativity down case by case to see what each of them did to become so creatively successful: people like Yo Yo Ma, the creators of scotch tape and clear plastic wrap, Pixar, William Shakespeare, etc.  The class was hard for me to take seriously at first, cause we would do stuff like go for a walk for 30 minutes and pick up 3 things from nature.  Then we used our 3 things to create a collage.  Then we wrote hiku poems about our collages.  Then we wrote and acted out monologues based on our poems.  Then we danced and improvised music and played african drums.  It was lovely, but so much unlike any doctoral class I've ever taken.  We ended the week-long class with a creativity conference for Utah Educators.  And we submitted a weeks worth of lesson plans incorporating some aspect of creativity.  Easy Peasy.  But awesome.

The second class I took was a workshop in academic writing.  The goal of the class was to be able to successfully write academic articles and know how to submit them for publication.  We studied academic and more casual trade journals.  We discussed formal writing.  We talked a lot about grammar.  We spent hours editing each other's articles.  And then we submitted them to actual journals. So, if the stars align, I might be published someday soon!  Crazy?  Yes.  This class was so helpful.

And this past week I spent "coaching" young chamber music groups at the University of Utah's 3rd annual Chamber Music Festival.  Coaching chamber music really is the best.  If I could do that for the rest of my life and make a good living doing it, I totally would.  Anyone want to hire me?

Besides that, we have been to five wedding receptions in the past two weeks.  The Palmers, The Mathewses, The Dutsons, The Otts, and The Campbells.  I love weddings.  It has been so fun to see so many friends fall in love and get married recently.  And it significantly increases our number of married friends.  :)  We're so happy for you all!  Can't wait for the Archulettas in September and the Leonards in October!

Now that school and weddings and stuff are over, here comes the wonderfully unscheduled part of the summer.  I can't wait to organize the pantry, go running some more, play with my puppy, go camping, use our pass of all passes, and relax!