"It's okay, I just sneezed my soul out." - Brittany

Sorry, everyone!!! We didn't get our blog done last week because we were just so darn busy. But this blog will cover 2 weeks, so you won't miss out on anything.

First order of business:

HOORAY, TODAY IS OUR HALF ANNIVERSARY!!!! We've been married for 6 months! And it's gone amazingly well so far. We've gotten frustrated at each other and definitely had disagreements, but we haven't ever raised our voices at each other; we're trying to establish good habits and learn how to solve disagreements effectively. It's working really well. :) We owe it all to the book "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" by John Gray (which we read together and discussed while we were dating). Seriously, it's helped us understand so much more about each other- why on earth would she ever do this, what in the world possessed him to do that.... it's great. I highly recommend it.

Now Christian will write about last week, and then I will write about this week.

Ok Ok. I know I fail. Torch and pitchforks; shame shame on me. I'm SORRY! Excuse me for practicing so much to get an A on my juries!

Hanyway, on the 2nd I had my final concert of the semester. It went really well, even though most of the winds didn't even play for half the concert. We had some guest artists on piano, and so we played Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saens. If you don't know the song, you probably do. :p Click HERE for a link to the finale. It's pretty awesome, but it was basically for strings and piano with a little flute, clarinet and percussion thrown in every now and then. It was fun anyway.

On Saturday the 5th I performed in TubaChristmas as part of my brass workshop class. This is an international even held every year in different areas. People come from all over to perform Christmas songs in a tuba/euphonium ensemble. It sounded great for only doing a 2 hour rehearsal that morning and then a performance at noon. I had to leave from the concert early because the Cougars had a basketball game against San Francisco State up in Salt Lake City. Why we played there, I don't even know. Anyway, it was awesome. We beat 'em to bring our record to 8-1 (we lost to USU a couple days earlier; and it is now 10-1). I play at one more game on Thursday, and then I'm done with that for the semester, but the team plays a couple games during the Holidays.

We had our first snow last Sunday! It was lots of fun to see 4 inches of snow on the ground! It was interesting driving around for the first time in it too. I may or may not have had a few times where I turned the steering wheel, and the car didn't follow it. No accidents though. Here's some pictures of our first snow, and the Christmas decorations Mama M sent us in a Christmas package!!! :) :)

This is a house that Brittany thought looked adorable. I think

her exact words were "AWWWWWWW!"

This is our street.

Our mailbox

Brittany in front of Aspenwood

Me in front of Aspenwood

:)

Me after walking home from the bus stop.

Don't you like the hair?

The Christmas Corner

We love our tiny tree :)

The window above our Christmas corner.

Over the past few weeks I've had a hard time trying to put together a piece for the ward Christmas program. I've sort of doubted my abilities and all that in leading a group. I'm not used to having all the responsibility be on me. I've also come to realize what a struggle to find times for rehearsals that work, and get people to come. We have such a musically talented ward (even though most of them are closet musicians), and it was hard to see only 5-8 people show up each week.

Last week at choir, though, it looked like a normal rehearsal with only a few people, but as a little time went by people started trickling in and we ended up having about 15 people at rehearsal! It was such a pleasant surprise, and it made conducting a lot easier. To help us out, the bishop authorized a "music appreciation class" during Sunday School this week. Basically it was a way to do choir rehearsal during church since 1) we have church at 8am and 2) there are, I think, 8-10 wards that meet in our building so finding rehearsal space and time is crazy hard. But there, we had probably 25ish people. Then at the performance during sacrament meeting, as will commonly happen, a few people jumped up and sang even though they hadn't rehearsed. But it was so much fun to be there and see a group perform from a conductor's standpoint.

Anyway, here's Brittany now for this week.

Last Monday late morning I was walking on the packed-down slippery melting snow. My feet slipped out from under me and I fell hard, flat on my butt on the sidewalk in the middle of BYU campus. I guess I bruised my tailbone. Since then, it's hurt to run, bend down normally, and sit up straight from a lying-down position. You don't realize what parts of your body you use all the time until you hurt them. I've learned how to be creative with my bending down and sitting up so it doesn't have to hurt. I look kind of stupid when I do it, but as long as it doesn't hurt it's fine with me. It's been getting better, though. The only times I've noticed it at all are when I'm sitting up from lying down on the bed, and when I'm shoveling snow. And even then it doesn't hurt half as bad as it did on Monday.

We ordered our Christmas presents for each other early this year, because we wanted/really needed them before Christmas. My laptop was running really slow, so we got some RAM for it. And Christian wanted some more room on his hard drive so he could play more games on it. So we got each other computer memory! Awwwww, how romantic! We knew it wasn't really a necessity, so we couldn't justifiably buy it and factor it into our budget, but we figured it was a great idea for Christmas presents.

A while ago Christian registered in the "lottery" drawing for tickets to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert. We were lucky enough to get four tickets! So this last Friday night we planned on going on a double date with Christian's friend Chris Williams and a girl named Sabrina, to the Motab Christmas concert. We left Provo around 6:15 and we were supposed to be in our seats (in the Conference Center in Salt Lake) by 7 or else they'd give our seats away. We figured if we drove fast we could get there on time. But we didn't count on the entirety of the state of Utah also going to Salt Lake that night. Traffic was horrible. So we didn't end up getting there until about 8. Obviously, we couldn't go to the concert. So we walked around looking at the lights and cute little multicultural nativities on Temple Square. Then we got really cold so we went into the Vistors' Center to look at the Christus. It was beautiful. After that we went to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and watched the film showing at 9:00 (the last one of the day- we got lucky!), which was "Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration". We all really enjoyed it, and there were a few tears. It was really powerful and the Spirit was really strong. The movie did a fantastic job of portraying the life of Joseph Smith and the truth of the Gospel. We had a really great time even though we never got to go to the concert.

Yesterday I worked with Devyn (the 7-year-old autistic boy I do ABA therapy with). Randomly while he was taking one of his breaks from therapy and I was taking notes, he wrote a note for me on a little orange sticky note and came and delivered it to me. Here's a picture of it. How cute!!!

Recipe for this week, courtesy of the Youtube series "Depression Cooking With Clara". Clara is a 94-year-old woman who grew up during the Depression and has a "show" where she teaches you how to cook all the dirt cheap but yummy meals her dad made during the Depression and she tells funny stories from the Depression while she cooks, it's way cute.

Poor Man’s Meal
3 small-to-medium potatoes peeled & cubed
1 onion, chopped
oil
hot dogs, cut up
couple tablespoons salsa or spaghetti sauce (we used salsa)
some water

Mix potatoes and onion, fry in oil until potatoes are brown. Put in cut up hot dogs and heat up. Add a tiny bit of water to soften potatoes and make a little sauce. Add spaghetti sauce or salsa and cook just until heated. Season to taste.

We thought it was very good considering the price. Overall to make it, it cost us about 86 cents. That's 43 cents a person if they eat like us. We ate it all and it filled both of us up perfectly. But we can usually eat about 2 "servings" each. Even if you have to buy everything in the recipe in its original package, and don't have any of these ingredients (except oil and water; everyone has oil and water), it will cost you about $4 if you get the really cheap brands like we do. And we're not dead yet. :)