Tea Party: Provo Version

There were a lot of fun tea parties in Edmonton over the summer.  Beej threw one with some YSA people, and Mom threw one in honor of Ruby with the female family members.  I had such a good time at both that I have been scheming since then to throw a tea party of my own in Provo.  Last Sunday afternoon it happened!  I recruited Andrew and my roommates Emily and Amberly to help me.  Since Emily is from England, it definitely lent some authenticity to the whole affair :)

We had a lovely time with our other three roommates and a few friends from our ward.  We had egg salad sandwiches, cucumber sandwiches, orange-cranberry scones, raspberry squares, English muffins, jam and clotted cream, assorted tea, and lemonade.  Turned out wonderfully!  Thanks Beej and Mom for the inspiration :)

I forgot to ask how to say 'amazing' in Thai

                                       

I have to share how cool its been to be at Karyn and Jim's these past few days and see all the things they're doing to get ready for their time in Thailand - especially seeing what Karyn is doing to learn Thai. When she picked me up at the bus depot there were a bunch of sticky notes on the steering wheel with Thai words on them so she can practice out loud while she drives.  She blesses the food and practices giving her testimony - all in Thai.  She's getting so good at the language that she even corrected Jim once while he was speaking it.  They have regular language training skype sessions with a recently returned missionary who served in Thailand.

They're doing all they can to prepare for their 12 month stint.  It's pretty obvious they're going to be off the charts amazing.  I've been totally inspired by all they're doing. They leave for Provo on Halloween day and they say they'll dress up as LDS missionaries for the occasion :)

Mars Curiosity

So this year has been fun in science. I enjoy teaching all the grade levels as the Lower School (Rooms 1-5) Assistant Science Teacher. Mom and Dad even got me a cool shirt! (Pic to come.) One thing I've learned a lot about and helped the students learn is the Mars Rover: CURIOSITY. One reason we know so much about Mars is because of the rovers that have been sent there. Check out the video from when it landed. So many cool parts come into play- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqqBy7C8gyU Past rovers have landed in air bags or other means, Curiosity landed like Iron Man.

Curiosity is the largest rover yet. Here's a quick size comparison with some of the past rovers- Sojourner and one of the twins Spirit and Opportunity. Also, the others have been solar powered, but Curiosity's power system is fueled by plutonium. Like in Back to the Future.

A Near-Death Experience

Well Beej, it looks like you may not be the only one to have experienced a near-death experience while hiking in the past couple months! (Although yours was probably more dangerous than mine was.)  A couple weekends ago, on the night of the blue moon, Andrew and I decided that we wanted to hike Timp, since it was a goal of ours and neither of us have done it yet.  We gathered three friends to come along with us and determined to depart from the trailhead around 1 am in order to experience the sunrise from the summit. 

The night was a little bit cloudy, but no cause for particular concern.  We were a little disappointed not to have much moonlight to guide us, but otherwise we happily and speedily hiked up the trail.  We got to the saddle, which is a flat plain stretch about a quarter mile below the actual summit, in good time, at around 4:45 am.  We started up the steep incline.  That's when we started to notice quite a few lightning flashes off in the distance.  We began to be a bit concerned, but since we were so close to the top, and the lightning was still so far away, we continued.  Unfortunately, the rain started soon after.  A light sprinkling, but still unpleasant.  The lightning became closer and more ominous. We had a quick huddle and decided that it was not worth it to keep trekking up the increasingly more treacherous muddy incline.  So we turned back.
Almost immediately, it started to POUR.  I haven't been in rain like that for a looooong time!  The hill got really slippery.  Still, the lightning came closer and with increasing frequency.  We settled into a light jog, trying to avoid slipping in the sticky mud.

We got down to the saddle unscathed, which at least provided respite from the danger of falling and breaking an ankle.  But not so lucky for us was the fact that the saddle had absolutely no trees for in the half square mile area.  We were the tallest things on the plain, and the lightning was only getting worse.  We counted the seconds between the the flashes and the rumbling thunder, alarmed to count fewer and fewer seconds in between.  We picked up our pace, heading for a grove of trees not too far away.  All of a sudden, POW!  There was a flash that lit up the sky brighter than Arizona at noon.  I saw the lightning strike about 500 feet away, an instantaneous flash and deafening roar of thunder.  We all yelled in fear and broke into a sprint, finally reaching the safety of tree cover.  The rain was relentless, and despite our coverings we were all completely soaked. 

We waited a bit before heading down.  The rain eventually stopped.  But if you think the way down was completely uneventful... that was not the case!  We almost ran headlong into two huge male moose!  They were happily munching away at trees on the trail, completely blocking our way.  It was cool to see them up close, but moose can be pretty dangerous if provoked, so we had to slowly maneuver our way past them by cutting through a switchback.  Luckily, we made it safe and sound to the bottom of the trail!  The picture shows us happy to be alive at the bottom, in beautiful morning sunshine.  It was quite the adventure! Not one I'm going to forget anytime soon :)  Hopefully I'll have a chance to actually reach the summit someday.  Let me know if you want to visit and try it with me!

Barbie Doll

I was perusing the library the other day when I came across the most fabulous book EVER! It was delightful and cute and so fun to look through 'Barbie Loves L.A' in the L.A books section, with some of it's history and sights books. This charming gem of a book depicts Barbie at various sights in L.A. It combines some of my favorite things... toys/dolls, vintage-y photography, and travel. I cant rave enough. Barbie is shown with Ken at the Beach, at The Capital Records Building, and even at the Walt Disney COncert Hall. It's like she know the key places- as Spence and I knew in our courtship and where he sent me on my treasure hunt when we got engaged. Spence and I had been brainstorming restaurants to go to for our 'Blogger's Dinner' Award, and when I saw the pic of Barbie at the 'Apple Pan,' I remembered it's delicious burgers and that's where we ended up redeeming our Blog Dinner. I think Mom might be reading the book even right now. There are little diary entries Barbie puts in, like 'Guess who's Boyfriend is the new Assistant District Attorney?' 'Guess who was called to be a See's Candy Model?' Then she later becomes an astronaut. Sooooooo cute!

She sure has style! 'Barbie Loves L.A.'

Summer Roommates

The drive to work has been a solitary experience for my whole career.  This summer was different.  I had the great pleasure of riding to work with Rach, the hospital serve aide, who worked at the same place I do.  With a little lively conversation, the traffic didn't seem nearly as bad.  Thanks, Rach!  I'll miss you now that you're back in school.  

It was also great to have the younger three Schneids home for the summer.  We had a lot of fun doing stuff together and reminiscing about the old days.  I hope it wasn't too much nostalgia for everyone.  

John Williams, Round 2

So last year Lindsay and I went to see John Williams perform with the L.A. Philharmonic Orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl. It was a great concert! He conducted several of his classic movie pieces including the Superman theme, the Star Wars theme and Raiders of the Lost Ark. It was great. So when a couple we know out here invited us to go with them this year (his mom plays viola in the orchestra) of course we were in!

This year the concert was even better than last year! They had a guest violinist who was AMAZING (probably could play "Flight of the Bumblebee" without breaking a sweat) during the first act and the second act was great as well. The encores were the Star Wars and Imperial March themes again, plus he had the orchestra do the last part of E.T. with the digitally remastered version of the movie playing on the screen.

However, my absolute favorite part happened about halfway through the second act. During intermission, I noticed that there were empty choir seats behind the orchestra. My favorite Star Wars song of all time is from The Phantom Menace, called "Duel of the Fates" but it requires a choir to perform. I like that song so much, Lindsay got me the sheet music for it for Christmas last year.

Those choir seats weren't there at last year's performance, so I started to get my hopes up. There were two songs performed with the choir, then this one (which I filmed):

Made my day.