Dead Pocket

Quote from this week is from Jim Gaffigan's comedy skit on Hot Pocket's seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9c9lAfXQHs lolol

So this week was really boring. Except NOT. Holy cow was this week busy. This week in brass workshop we finished up on trombone, and began on a tuba/euphonium portion. Those of us who play brass started on the tuba, and non-brass started on euphonium and baritone. As one of our first lessons we learned the difference between the two. If anyone cares, the trombone, baritone and euphonium are actually part of the same family, and are comparable to the trumpet family. The trombone=trumpet, baritone=cornet, and euphonium=flugelhorn. It all has to do with tubing sizes, and other such things. Anyways, so I got my tuba, and it's HUGE. I'm not talking compared to horn. Even compared to trombone it's big. It will be an interesting rest of the semester.

It was homecoming week this week. As such, the marching band played at the BYU devotional on Tuesday. I must say, we did awesomely. Our director said that even President Samuelson was up and rooting after we were playing (at least he was on the inside). There were lots of festivities going on throughout the week. We weren't able to go to any o

f the dances, though, because Brittany got called into work. It was unfortunate, but we had fun at home by renting Ghost of Girlfriends Past and watchin

g it together. It was a classic Matthew McConaughey romantic comedy.

We got a package from Mama M this week. We absolutely loved it! We got Halloween decorations to put up, and some candy! I'm very proud of myself, personally, because under normal circumstances the candy would have been gone in the first day or two, but a majority of it is actually still around! Thanks mom! Here are some pictures of our lovely home with the decorations:

Yesterday (Saturday) the band had TONS to do. We had a call time of 7:00 am so we could play for ESPN's College Game Day show that was held live in Provo this week. That was quite a waste of time for us, as we only ended up playing about 5-10 minutes of the hour and a half that we stood out there. The positive thing, in our (the band's) opinion was that in one of there coming-back-from-commercial intros they had a picture of the Provo Temple. We were impressed that they were willing to put that up there. '

After we left from the ESPN thing, we performed in the annual homecoming parade and pancake breakfast. That went well, and the band got 1st place in performance. Woohoo, we beat the only other band that was in the parade (which was a high school band). I wouldn't have volunteered to do it, but I guess tradition is tradition.

We then had about a three hour break for lunch. Then we had our call time for the homecoming game against TCU. We started out our pre-game practice in a medium-hard freezing cold rain, which continued into our ritual parade to the stadium. Luckily it stopped for the actual game. The rain must have been an omen for BYU, though. In the words of one of the sports announcers on the College Game Day show, BYU got "put over the leg of TCU, and spanked." It was a trouncing. Although, I have to admit that that was as much as the referee's fault as BYU's playing ability. There were lots of terrible calls that was just overall really frustrating. No use in complaining though. *SIGH* I just kinda wish my Saturday was spent in a better way.

On a happier note, about a month ago Brittany and I got an ad for a really cheap student discount deal on a Windows 7 upgrade. We decided to go for it because Brittany's laptop was running exceedingly slow, and we had heard that Windows 7 took up less RAM to run than Vista. We got that this week, and I spent an evening upgrading Brittany's computer. So far everything seems to be running a lot faster, and we are very pleased. We're not sure if we can use the upgrade on two computers, but once we get some more room on my hard drive we'll try upgrading mine.

Well it's very late, and I have to get up early so that I can practice for master class tomorrow. Apparently we're having a guest teacher - some crazy good horn player or something. The recipe this week was inspired by Leslie's giant zucchinis. It is Carrot Zucchini Casserole. It was surprisingly delicious, and didn't need any extra salt or anything in our opinion.

Love you all. Hope you have a good week.

Christian and Brittany.

1/2 lb ground beef

1 medium onion, chopped

5 medium zucchini

5 medium carrots

1 can cream of mushroom

grated cheese (we used about 1 or 2 cups of cheddar)

Brown the ground beef and onion together and set aside. Steam the zucchini and carrots until tender. Mix it all together in a 9x13 with the cream of mushroom. Sprinkle the cheese on top. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Fast and easy and really delicious! (Cheap and healthy too)