Winter Wonderland!

We FINALLY got some great snow in Utah. I don't remember having this much fresh snow in a couple years. This is how I remember winter as a child. The trees lined with snow, laden down. piles of snow on the sides of the street. YAY!

Pile from the plow and the bulldozer

I convinced Lin to come out and play in the snow with me. Yes we are adults, no we don't have kids, yes we were playing in the snow :) First we made a snowman due to the lack of coal we used rotten apples from our apple tree (gross I know but we didn't have anything else) Presenting. . . . Arnold

Yes those are abs if you are wondering. Lin had a great time carving them.

Because the snow was so incredibly deep in our backyard I decided to attempt to make a snow angel. It was awesome. It kinda looks misshapen because the snow was so thick and heavy.

Lin's hands were getting cold so we decided to shovel the walk then call it a day. Do to the perfect packing ability of the snow we shoveled the walk and then got in a snowball fight. Well I was throwing snow balls; Lin was using the shovel. . . Unfair. Then we each built snow forts in the front yard (thankfully the people that cleared our road put a pile in our yard) and had a real snowball fight.

Lin's wall

Behind the wall

Yes this was staged, hence I am not actually throwing the snowball anywhere :)

I claim the victory because I hit Lin more than he hit me and I got him in the face (while his eye was open, sorry honey!) I think all of our neighbors were jealous because they looked out their windows and another one waved as he drove past (I think he wanted to come play too). They all seemed to be enjoying the fact that we were acting like we were kids :)

After our snow day we went inside and watched a movie. We were both exhausted. Ha Ha I forgot how tiring it is to play in the snow.

Christmas Around the World --Celebrate!

I had the opportunity to be in Christmas Around the World again this year. It is such an amazing show. The dance my class was doing was Hungarian. The women were doing a botolo (bottle dance) and the men were doing a stick dance. The girls got to dance with bottles on our head, no gimicks, just balance. :) My teacher had us pull out the bottles at the beginning of October so that we could get used to balancing them before we actually had to dance with them. The bottles are big, thick, class bottles, with water in them. The first day we had them on it felt like there was no way were would ever be able to perform with them on. Eventually we got a little more used to them and by the time of the concert were were all really comfortable with them on. Our costumes were so beautiful. Mine was brand new. We were wearing accordion skirts which are really awesome when you spin but that meant we couldn't really sit-down while wearing them. This made rehearsals extra long.


One of the most amazing parts of the show for me, is the fact that on the first night (tues) of rehearsals in the Marriot Center the show is very rough, the rehearsal is incredibly long, and it seems like there is no way the show will be ready by Friday. The next-day we have tech rehearsals with costumes and lights; the show still seems very rough. Thursday night is dress rehearsal. Really it is a show because they film it so there are no re-dos. The dress rehearsal went well until the finale. . . .basically the finale (excuse my ranting) is ALWAYS utter chaos. For some reason they feel it is an awesome effect to have the whole cast run on (as fast as possible) into perfectly straight lines in one giant block on the stage.

yes it looks cool but it is horrible to get to as a cast member

 This is so incredible hectic especially if you have to get to the middle. All of the cast thought it was ridiculous (and yes we did something similar last year) Lucky me got to be in the middle near the front both times :p Anyway on the night of the dress rehearsal everyone ran in 8 counts too late. This confused everybody. The last 8 counts were this jazz-square step with arms in the air; when we got to that part the music stopped and so everybody slowly put their arms to the last pose. It was super funny and very awkward. So that was how we headed into our Friday matinée. Thank goodness we didn't do the finale because that show is shortened. It went really well and it is always fun to talk to the kids before hand.
Finally the Friday night performance! It is so exhilarating to perform. The anticipation, the adrenaline, the spirit of performing is just amazing. And magically, Voila! the performance works out on Friday night. I don't really know how it goes from the rough Tuesday to a full show on Friday, but it does, there really is some magic involved.

Opener Irish Party

Here are some pictures one of my friends on another team took during the dress rehearsal for me.

My team (2RB) we had a little confusion as to if it was a funny picture or not. . .. .

The boys pants looked liked skirts so they decided to be like the girls and hold them out ha ha ha

My director Jeanette Geslison (a long-time family friend)

Transyberian Orchestra

On Nov 18th Lin and I went to the Transyberian Orchestra concert at the Energy Solutions Arena. The tickets were my birthday present. To start off the night we were going to go to our favorite restaurant Texas Roadhouse. They had just opened a new chain at the University Mall. We were so excited. To avoid the crowds we did the call ahead seating (they don't do reservations). We get there and the lady marks our name on the list and gives us another number (which was weird). due to the crowds inside we decided to wait outside despite it being cold. We waited, and waited, and waited. The numbers they were calling were not even near ours. Finally we went back inside because we didn't have enough time to wait until we were seated, order, eat, and get to Salt Lake. Lin did get a little frustrated telling the host why we were leaving. So we then drove to Salt Lake hungry and trying to figure out what to eat. Unfortunately after expected delicious steak and potatoes nothing quick and available sounded good at all. Finally we got to down town and had to figure out something. Not wanting actual "fast food" we went to Village Inn. Still kinda a downer but at least it was real food. . .
Thankfully that didn't food mishap didn't ruin the night. We were able to get to the concert right before it started. Overall the concert was good. I definitely like their Christmas songs better than their songs. It was also a little long, but fun and a good cultural experience to add to our lives. (we like to experience things that we haven't before even if we will never do it again)

I took a lot of pictures because the lights and pyro-technics were awesome! Some of them were blurry I will just put up the best ones.

Roller Derby Championship

Lin and I had the unique opportunity of going to the SLC Womens' Roller Derby Championship on Saturday Oct 16th; The Death Dealers vs Leave it To Cleavers. It was interesting, and although we probably won't go again, it was something worth experiencing. We are both believers in trying new things. We took a lot of pictures and yes the women have extremely short shorts (just warning you now)

 Like I said, it was interesting. We were actually sitting on the floor just outside the line. We had trouble following the score but it was still fun. The Death Dealers won, by a lot. Sorry that some of the pictures are blurry, my camera isn't the best and the players were moving fast.
I am including this next picture for Lin. There was a cameraman (filming for what?) who honestly had a mullet and a toupe. yeah. . . . .

Halloween

So it has been awhile since my last post. It seems that time is flying by and while I have things to post it is never at the top of my priority list. I decided I would at least get our Halloween pictures up before it was Thanksgiving or Christmas :)

We went to Lin's family's for a Halloween party. It was hilarious to see everyone's crazy costumes. Lin and I had been planning on being Jafar and Maleficent, but we never had time to make our costumes. So Saturday we dug around our house for costume ideas. I decided to be a pirate (that is always kind of a back-up I can come up with on short notice) Lin decided to be brave/crazy/weird and wear my purple unitard. Yep you heard me, the purple unitard. I don't know how he feels about me putting these pictures up here(hee hee), but I think you will all laugh. He decided he was a trapeze artist.

In order to get my teeth disgusting like that I colored them with crayon. It really looked gross. My in-laws are so crazy, I love that you can do pretty well anything and they will be okay with it and think it is funny. The girls thought it was funny that we were all in unrevealing, baggy clothes while the boys were all in girly, somewhat scandalous clothes; nonetheless it made for a good laugh. Here is the traditional picture of all the kids in their costumes

Well now you have met my crazy in-laws! Ha ha, I love them!

Oh I almost forgot, while we were driving we saw the brightest rainbow. This picture doesn't do it justice at all.