It's the End of 2011??

 This mostly sums up the day I spent at my parents' house again on my way to see Husband Man's sister. We goofed around, were loud and noisy, and broke a few pieces of furniture in the process! I miss my sisters.

 Breakfast at Husband Man's sister's house! My nephew Austen sat in my lap and ate my french toast.

 Husband Man has already read one of the books he got for Christmas.

 Husband Man missed his older sister!

 And then Husband Man and his sister's husband man took apart their computer. I never knew it had so many pieces...

 Husband Man's Gramma D! She has so many fun stories to tell.

A game before bedtime.


We're traveling back home tomorrow after Sacrament Meeting. I'm grateful to have a few days before the semester starts, but at the same time I have that feeling of "If I go back, then I have to be responsible and go to school. I don't wanna."


We're having bubbly for New Years! Husband Man and I might be the only ones staying up until midnight, but that's ok! It's the last day of 2011, and it's been such a long and wonderful year. May the next year be just as wonderful and filled with learning. May I survive three more semesters of school, and may Husband Man get the internship he wants. May we continue to be blessed with the many things we have, and may we continue to grow closer to our Heavenly Parents.


And may YOU have a wonderful new year! Drink lots of bubbly and GO CRAZY!
Happy New Year! Bring it on, 2012!!

Christmas (Part Two)!

Once you get married you usually sort of get two families. That means that Christmas can come in parts. For example, on our way to visit Husband Man's older sister, we stopped to stay the night at my parents' house again. They had Christmas gifts for us too! (Besides the cross stitch!)


I'm so grateful for everything we have received this year! I know we will put it all to good use. I was spoiled!


And Husband Man feels spoiled too. My dad helped him sight in his scope today so he could shoot his new gun!

(He let me shoot it too! And I got to shoot my dad's 10/22 as well!)

Christmas!

(Warning! This post contains lots of pictures! It is Christmas after all!)

On Christmas Eve Husband Man, his dad, and I all started a game of Age of Empires. (We played the three of us against five opponents. That's always a little crazy.) When that stopped working (the connection got messed up) we lost the game, so we went and read the Christmas story. Then we played an entire game of AoE. (Those take a couple of hours...) Then we went to sleep. (At about 2 in the morning...)


On Christmas Day Husband Man was a teensy bit excited and was awake at 6:30. At 7 he ran upstairs, and a little later he dragged me out of bed. We sat at the table, ate waffles, and then Husband wanted to look at his stocking. So we went and sat on the couch, and his parents decided that since church wasn't until 10 and it was only 8:30, we could start opening presents and see how long it took.

Obviously one of the best parts of Christmas is giving gifts to other people. We just happened to find a painting that Husband Man's dad has wanted for a while, so we talked with Dan's sisters, split the cost...

...and had a very surprised father for Christmas this year!

I also had a few tricks up my sleeve...

What is Husband Man opening? Is that a box of ammunition??

Hooray! Husband Man got a gun!
I had been skulking around talking with my dad about getting him this for a few months. Husband Man is smart, so he kind of sort of figured out that that was what I was getting him for Christmas. I was bound to confuse him, though! He told me later that he was pretty sure he was getting a gun, and he was so very very very very very very very very very very very very(etc) excited!!! And then I told him that I put all the presents under the tree at his parents' house, and he looked and looked and there was no gun box... and then he was sad. He was so very sad. And then on Christmas Day he was handed a gift and it was very very heavy and it felt and sounded like ammo, and when he opened it it really was ammo, and then he was very very very confused because now he had ammo but no gun... and then I got up and left and he thought 'Maybe she's getting the gun?' and he looked under the couches but there was still no gun box, and then I came up the stairs with a gun-box-shaped present and he was so very very very very very very very very very very very very(etc) excited again!!! And so he had a very good Christmas, and I had a very good time hiding everything from him!

Husband Man's parents splurged to give us a big gift (since it's easier for them to get one big one rather than a bunch of little ones)-

I'm not sure if that will fit in our entertainment center or not!
Don't worry, I was spoiled as well! I was given many, many wonderful things by my husband!

I got a lot of fun things. And my mom made us this beautiful cross-stitch about love and our wedding day! With all of our wedding colors!!

I'm not sure if you can see it in the picture very well or not, but it's very pretty!
Overall our Christmas was fun! We've played Age of Empires every day, and eaten a TON of brownies and cookies and candy. Tomorrow we're going back to my parents' house to visit for half a day again, and then we're on to see Husband Man's older sister before going home! It was my first Christmas away from home so I missed the traditions that I'm used to, but experiencing new traditions is a lot of fun too!

(P.S.- Opening presents took about 45 minutes. That is nowhere close to the time it takes my family to open presents!)

Christmas Eve

The Christmas tree at the lodging place of my Native People:

And the tree at Husband Man's family's house:

 

(It's a very dark- I'll replace the picture when I get a better one. The camera is too cold to consider turning on...)

 I'm very grateful for the birth and mission of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I know He is my brother and my friend. He is an example of how I should live my life. He has shown mercy unto all.

"And his name shall be called: Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace."

(I love this picture!)

MERRY CHRISTMAS! May you have love and joy this season!

My Native People

 

This is me (blue shirt) and my sister (yellow shirt).

My sister got a pair of shorts from a friend, and was joking about how they could totally hold more than one person.

So we decided to test that theory.

My baby brother fit in there too.


Those really are some big shorts. 


I love being home for the holidays.

P.S. You can also check out a new post at this blog, too.

Liberation!

 Husband had a nap and was very cold after he woke up. He's my goober!

I am pleased to say that I am DONE WITH THIS SEMESTER!! I survived! Additionally, I managed A's and B's in all my classes!

For only having 15 credits, this semester was surprisingly harder than last semester, in which I took 17 or 18 credits. Strange? I think yes.

One thing I never did was talk to my trumpet professor. I'm hoping that we can chat at the beginning of next semester... and that things can be mended, or at least an understanding of what happened at auditions can be reached. I know, I should have done it earlier...

Since we have a graduation date of April 2013, I am looking at the classes I have left to take, and it seems like I might actually make it to graduation without going crazy like I did this semester.  I can take no more than 15 credits and be completely fine, and I don't think I'll have an overload of ridiculous, time-consuming classes like I did this time. (Knock on wood and all that superstitious stuff.) It even looks like I can go part-time for a semester and take some fun classes, like archery or something! Woohoo!


I believe I'm going to celebrate the end of the semester by gorging myself at Pizza Pie Cafe's "happy hour" where the buffet is $5. And then I believe I'm going to sit on the couch and turn into a couch potato. Or do something that I want to do.


It's a good day.

A Different Kind of Christmas Song

I have always thought that this song was so beautiful. And it brings to light a different aspect of the nativity story that we usually don't think of, and that's the hardships that Mary and Joseph had to go through to bring the Savior into the world. For example, back then, they would have gotten in trouble because Mary was pregnant and they weren't married yet. That's not acceptable like it is today. And while they were traveling to Bethlehem, its very plausible that Mary was already in labor during the journey, and to be unable to find a place to go so she could safely have the baby was a huge heartache for Joseph.


Just a few things to think about while you're celebrating Christmas this year.


Glad! "One Quiet Moment"


(Sorry you have to go to the link to hear it- it's on YouTube. I just haven't figured out the putting movies in the blog post thing yet. I did it once, but that was with Husband Man's help... When I go home this afternoon I'll ask him to teach me again, and edit the post so that you can watch it here.)

Finals Week

The best: I don't have juries! Woohoo!


The good: I only have three days left of the semester!


The neutral: I still have three days left of the semester...


The bad: I haven't even thought of studying for some of my finals yet... still have too much homework...


The ugly: My finals consist of roughly seven tests, a presentation, and two projects. That's only for fifteen credits.


The greatest: IT'S CHRISTMAS! And I get to see family again soon!!

Guess Who Played a Natural Trumpet from the Baroque Era Today?

Can you guess?? Me!!

(I think I've decided to start carrying the camera around with me, because I always miss fantastic photo opportunities like this one.)
(And in case you were wondering, I did hit myself in the face with that thing once. But only once! It's a lot longer than a cornet, which is what I've played most of this semester, and it's longer than a modern trumpet... so my muscle memory did fail me at one point, and I bashed myself in the tooth. Don't laugh. Those things are painful.)
(Hey, and in case you were wondering, the guy you can see past me is the one who has played Baroque trumpet for 40 years!!) 

The trumpet itself didn't actually come from the Baroque era, they didn't dig it up and clean it out or anything goofy like that. Its based off of the ones that existed at that time in history. (The Baroque Era was roughly 1600-1750.) The trumpet was still progressing in design at this point, and it doesn't have any valves, and finger holes and slides may or may not have been common- we're not quite sure.


So how did you play a trumpet with no valves?? That thing is so crazy looking!

I know! If you were to straighten out the Baroque trumpet and a modern trombone, the pipes would be the same length! Isn't that the coolest??

If they're the same length, how come the trumpet sounds like a trumpet and not a trombone??

The pipe for the trombone is bigger than the one for the trumpet. That's why it sounds lower. 


What about playing the trumpet with no valves...?

Oh yeah! So what happens is that there are things called partials. On a modern trumpet, it's the notes you can play without pressing any valves. The lower you play, the farther apart these "natural" notes are. The higher you play, the more partials you can play. The one I saw today essentially could play middleC-E-G-C, the arpeggio, and from there went E-F-G-A-Bb-B-C.


I have no clue if that makes sense to you, but if you want to know more, let me know in the comment box and I'll try my darndest to explain it better...?


The coolest part is that he let us get our own mouthpieces and play them! I thought it would be difficult because the proper tone for a natural trumpet isn't as bright and trumpet-y like what you might hear today if you went to a Mahler symphony or something. But it wasn't that hard! (For me anyways...)


And at the end of the forum they did to talk to us about it, they played a Baroque trumpet duet with organ accompaniment. I think the organ was supposed to be similar to a Baroque-style organ. It sounded beautiful. I loved every minute of it. (It combines two of my favorite instruments after all!)


And as an added bonus, my classes tomorrow, all of them, are cancelled! Guess who gets to sleep in too??? ME!!!  BEST DAY EVER!! (Especially compared to this semester in general!)

The Undercover Novelists

Most people know me as a music nerd (see previous post), and I count myself as one. What a lot of people don't know is that I'm a creative writer as well. I love writing. And yes, I'm a fantasy writer. I have a huge, sometimes over-active imagination (which can sometimes cause problems when watching certain movies in the theater).

Husband Man is a writer too. He's more of the science-fiction than I am, though, but we still like to read each other's works and critique them. There's something about sharing our stories with each other that makes us enjoy writing even more, even though revision is a hard thing to deal with. So even though Husband Man can't sing a note to save his life, I'm grateful that I got someone who can understand the mechanics of writing a story.


This semester I took a creative writing class that talked about the basic functions of stories and that was a lot of fun. We talked about things like putting images together to make a scene and dialogue and tension and Campbell's Monomyth, and knowing all of those things has given me new insight into my story and my writing in general. Husband Man is going to take that class next semester and I can't wait!


There's something about creating things that really appeals to me. Writing music, playing music, writing stories, taking pictures... I really like the artistic side of life. I think that's why I like random shows like Project Runway and, yes, America's Next Top Model. I like seeing the clothes they come up with, the pictures that they take, what they can do with their talent. I really only tolerate all the stupid drama just so I can see that stuff. 

I know it sounds weird, but that's how I am. But it goes the same for writing. I like seeing what I can come up with out of my imagination. My characters are real to me. I don't dictate what they do, they do it on their own and I just record it as best I can. And I love every minute of it. I'm a nerd and I don't care!


There's only one problem: When you're a writer and a full-time college student there isn't a lot of time for writing... and then you go crazy.

Who Let The Music Nerd Out?

I would write you a blog post about something interesting, but I'm busy working on a paper about the uses of parody technique between Tomas Luis de Victoria and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina in the "Kyrie" of their respective masses. Victoria used his motet "O Magnum Mysterium" and Palestrina his motet "Tu Es Petrus". 

So while you're waiting in high anticipation for the next exciting installment of the ongoing saga that is the life of two Yockeyites, you could always YouTube those two motets. They are BEAUTIFUL. (Think of a motet as an unaccompanied choral piece. Don't like choral pieces? Listen to these anyways. They're great for doing homework or relaxing. Actually... maybe I should try listening to one of those the next time I have a bubble bath. A bubble bath, a bowl of ice cream, and soft motets playing in the background... Yes, that sounds about right.)


If you want something a little fuller, or if you're a goober and entirely against choral pieces, you could listen to Ralph Vaun Williams' "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis". That is one of my most FAVORITE pieces ever, next to Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings". Those are a few instrumental songs that are rich in texture, and fantastic to listen to when you're relaxing and staring at Christmas lights.


Wait... Christmas lights... Now that I think about it, you probably could care less about classical music, unless it's classical Christmas tunes. Well, fine. At least bookmark the songs I mentioned and listen to them after the holidays. I promise, they're worth your while! If you want a really good Christmas song, I love the "Carol of the Bells" that the Cincinnati Pops does on the album "Christmas with the Pops". Something about the chord qualities and the juxtaposition of minor and major... and the super awesome horn lines and bass lines. I love hearing that song every time!


Uh oh- Husband Man is coming back and is going to chide me for continuing to procrastinate my music paper. Look up those songs! All of them!

Hooray Christmas!

Thanksgiving was fun. I forgot to take pictures the whole time. Mostly because the camera was usually at my parents' house and most of the action was at my grandparents' house. But here is a picture of my family's dog. He was wandering around and I told him to lay down and stop being a nuisance.

He got halfway there.
Since my people live out in the hills, we cut down the dead trees and use them as firewood to keep the house warm. (My parents don't have central heating and cooling, they didn't want that when they built the house. We use wall heaters in each room, and the fireplace in the middle of the house to keep things warm in the winter. It's pretty cool, actually.)
Anyways, while the menfolk were out cutting wood, my foster brother came in with a huge scratch on the side of his head. He'd gotten smacked with a piece of wood on accident.

He's clearly rather unhappy about it. It did hurt a lot though- I was the one who doctored the wound and it didn't look very happy.
But now it's time for CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS!!

(In case you were wondering, tape doesn't hold lights AT ALL.)

Honestly, I'm not a fanatic about them. I don't have very many, and I don't buy any frivolously because ever since I got married, I have a little Husband Man voice in the back of my head, and every time I think I want to buy something or make something crafty I hear that little voice ask me things like "Where will you put that?" and "What will you do with it once you've finished it?"

But there's something about Christmas lights that make me happy. I love having them up. Its the soft glow in a darkened room that makes everything feel like it's all wonderful.

We have two nativity sets, one on top of the entertainment center and the little teeny one in the above picture that you didn't notice because you were probably staring at the surfer nutcracker instead. That's Husband Man's nutcracker- I guess his family collects one for him every year, and this one was last year's. It's the only one we have, though, because let's face it- we're still college students living in a college apartment. You tell me where you're going to put 20-odd nutcrackers the height of your forearm, and we'll start talking.
If he really wanted, I suppose we could talk about putting them on the entertainment center... but that makes me nervous, because it's actually not pushed up against the wall. The tv sticks out the back of it.

So our house isn't covered with lights on the outside, and it hasn't been transformed into a hoard of Christmas paraphernalia inside, but it does have that touch of Christmas that makes me happy every time I look at it!

There's just one thing I can't decide on- is it irreverent to hang the Jesus stocking from the ceiling...?