final stretch!

Well folks, I'm in the last week and a half of my college career! Hard to believe . . . and yet graduation still seems far away.

Here are a few highlights/milestones of the past week.

My last BYU choir concert

My five years with BYU choirs have been wonderful, busy years! I am excited to get to watch Celebration of Christmas from the audience this year . . . but I am sure I will miss these years terribly. What a blessing to have made such good music with such good people.

Passover feast with Bible as Literature class

Part of the tradition of the Seder feast involves a broken piece of Matzah (flatbread) that gets passed around under the table - "button button, whose got the button?" style. At the end of the feast, the leader has to bargain with whomever has the bread to get it back. Once successful, dessert is eaten and the feast ends. The results of the bargain? No final paper, and no final exam! I love Passover!

Happy General Conference and Easter weekend!

don't want to go to school

I'm sitting here on my couch. In my PJ's. I don't want to go to school today!! But the good news is there are only 13 class days left. I guess I can make it.

The other night I went to one of the coolest concerts of my life! It was called "Calo Flamenco". A group of 5 flamenco dancers and about 6 live musicians put on a spectacular show that I wish I could have taken everyone to! Wow!! The guitarist had lightning fingers and the head honcho, Martin Gaxiola had even faster feet! It was so entertaining. Here's a YouTube video of one of the numbers he did for your viewing pleasure.

Click Here

ward munch-n-mingle

On Saturday night we attended "March munch-n-mingle" in our new ward. We were excited to meet some new neighbors and eat some food! Everyone was asked to bring either a dessert or an appetizer to share. Well, I wasn't feeling very creative and we had two full bags of tortilla chips, so I took the easy way out, heated up some refried beans, threw in some cheese and crushed red peppers, grabbed a bottle of salsa and we headed out the door.

Who doesn't love chips and dip, anyway? Feeling confident, we walked into the church and scanned around the room for our table of choice. As our eyes passed over each table we noticed one unifying theme . . . chips. Loads and loads of chips. And salsa.

Table after table contained one appetizer - courtesy of the Activities Committee - chips and salsa. Well, we felt sheepish about our meager contribution, but at least we brought beans in a fancy metal bowl!

The night turned out to be really fun and we ate far too much junk. The perfect way to spend a Saturday evening

sunny weekend

Oh how we love weekends! Yesterday we enjoyed an enormous Costco pizza and Caesar salad for dinner. We made a small dent in the pizza and if anyone is in the mood for a combo slice, you know where to find one.

After our feast we went to the Timpanogos temple and I ran into a high school friend who was there with his new wife. Fun to see old friends at the temple!

Once home we ate chocolate pudding and watched The Office. Then we fell asleep on the couches til 6 am, when we stumbled up to our bed for a few more hours!

Saturday morning = pancakes, blogging, a bit of cleaning, and lounging. Happy spring weekend!

homework mania

A strange thing happened this week.

I did my homework. Early.

I tried my hand at speed-reading and finished a book for a book report in a couple hours. Then, I did the report - 3 weeks early! After five years I guess I'm finally getting the hang of homework.

Just a few more weeks of this and I'll be home free!

worms and words

I'm sitting in Biology right now - a somewhat rare occurrence. We're learning about worms: flatworms, tapeworms, earth worms. It's gross. I kinda want to throw up.

On a more appetizing note, last night in my Bible as Literature class we learned how to speed read. By the end of class we had read three times as many words as when we started the exercise. My teacher reads an average of a book a day, because he learned to speed read. It's incredible! So I'm going to give it a shot. He recommended 10 minutes a day of practice for a month. The hopeful results will be a four-fold increase in average reading speed! I think I'll start practicing on the New York Times.

I started at 250 words per minute. Here's to a thousand!

McKay is funny

Last weekend we lived it up by lying around on the couches all night. We were too lazy to leave the house and too bored with all our movies. After taking naps til 9 pm we woke up and decided to make up a game.

This is the game: on the count of three each person says a name: either "McKay" "Stephanie" or "Joker". If it is your turn, and you say the same name as the other person, you get points.

Joker = 2 points

Your name = 3 points

the other person's name = 2 points.

This game is a riot. Try it! It starts to mess with your mind!! We had a great time. After a few rounds and a couple Office episodes we went to bed.

- - - - - - - - - - -

This morning McKay said to me:

"I'd like for you to sing to me in French."

coming right up! Any ideas?

kids

Had some funny experiences with kids this past week.

I went to the home of two adorable piano students on Thursday. The younger of the two, Ella, is six years old. We were talking about how March is almost over and how excited I am to be out of school in a few weeks.

"You're still in school?!" she asked, incredulously.

"Yeah, tell me about it!" I responded.

"And you even have a husband?!?"
"I even have a husband. But I'm graduating in a few weeks."

"Fin-a-lly!"

That's how I feel!

Then at the next house I was teaching a 7-year-old twin. She's really into art and drama and music. All of a sudden, she exclaims "Sometimes art is more frightening than music!"

Where do these kids get it?

Last night McKay and I had five of our nieces and nephews sleepover. They made forts and took turns in the jetted tub. They had their beds set up in two of our spare bedrooms before settling on "the blue room" for the night. Mark decided to sleep in the closet. The kids were quick to place dibs on the closet for ensuing sleepovers. What fun.

I think all kids have a natural instinct to build forts

Life on Chestnut Street

We bought a house!

McKay and I moved into our new home in north Lehi two weeks ago and we're in love with it! We are so grateful the timing worked our for us to be able to take advantage of this great buyer's market. With the exception of a handful of boxes relegated to the basement, we're all unpacked and settled into our home.

We love the sunlight - a welcome change from our basement apartment! We love our garage - no more snow scraping or spot-hunting late at night. We love the windows and the beautiful view from our bedroom. We LOVE our dishwasher - a luxury we missed in Provo. We love our closet - finally enough room for our clothes and shoes! We're getting to know and love our ward - though we miss our friends from our married student ward! Most of all, we love having guests. We had a fabulous housewarming party with our parents and siblings (from both sides) this past weekend and enjoyed a variety of soups, hot rolls, and a fancy dessert (thanks mom!).

Come play with us!

I made that floral arrangement in my floral design class!