Anniversary and Other Firsts

Anniversary
A special treat for you all, here is the short little video that Jacob & I made on our first anniversary. It's pretty self explanatory.


Here is the picture by the heart tree that I spoke of:The heart was carved into this tree about two years ago by some friends of ours, Danny and Anna. I hope that by mentioning them I don't set the tree-carving-police on them or anything.

Other activities that we did to celebrate our anniversary included going to dinner, watching Shall We Dance (the Astaire/Rogers version --very fun!), reading love poems, drinking Sparkling Cider, putting together a puzzle and doing other fun, nostalgic, and romantic things.
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Day of School
Today was our first day of school, and as of now things are going well. Neither of us is behind on reading or homework or sleep -- yet. Our books cost too much, as usual, but there's not much to be done about that. We only have two semesters left -- in April Jacob will graduate in Chemistry (he'll go on to get his PhD in it) and I'll graduate in Elementary Education.
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Play Reading
For FHE last night Jacob and I read the comedy "Lady Windermere's Fan" by Oscar Wilde. He read all of the male parts and I read all the females. It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience and only took us a hour and a bit. According to our research there is a movie version of the play, so we're planning on watching that sometime. From this play come the famous Wilde quotes about how we are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars, and a cynic is a person who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Good stuff.

Book Review: Al Capone Does My Shirts; & General Update.

Al Capone Does My Shirts
by Gennifer Choldenko, c2004, 228 pages.

When Moose's dad gets a job as a security guard on Alcatraz, he brings his family -- including his autistic daughter with him. The kids are on the island (in the 1930's) with such villains as Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly. Even though there are strict rules on the rock, someone is determined to break them.

Another Newberry winner, another good book. Good enough that I'll use it for my upcoming school project I think (yes, one of my professors has given us assignments already. School starts on Sept 4.). The characters are compelling -- there are no filler people in this book. Everyone has a personality and the writing conveys that. The book deals well with having an autistic character. Descriptions were realistic, feelings of surrounding characters were portrayed well. At one point the author was heavy handed for a chapter or so, I was thinking, "Hey, I thought this book wasn't all about autism!" But pretty quick the story moves back from being an autism story to being a great story with an autistic character.

It's a quick read, recommended for grades 6+ by Scholastic's standards. The chapters are dated and told in first person, but it's not a diary. Somehow, that works well for the book. I'm a fan, so try it out!

General Update
The General is doing well. Oh, you wanted to hear about me and Jacob? haha, of course! We're doing well too. He took the GRE yesterday -- since it was a computerized exam Jacob got his verbal and quantitative (but not writing) scores back immediately. Suffice it to say that he got 800/800 points on the quantitative portion and was in the 97th percentile on the verbal. He basically rocks. He'll take the GRE Chemistry Subject Test in November-ish. He's gearing up to get into some good grad schools -- he sent his scores to (in order of preference) University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, and MIT.

Yesterday I went and bought a pretty dress (thanks to mom for the gift card) and light fixture for the entryway, so that our door won't continue to smash into it. That's right, I'm becoming a jack-of-all-trades. Fashion mogul, electrician, student, wife, actress. Speaking of acting, we got some fun Decameron pictures: (click to enlarge)

Stacy curling my hair

Me, locked up in the "house"

Cast photo -- check out my sleeves!

So now that the play is over, and our summer vacations are over (camping with my fam was great by the way, love those crazy cats!) we're just enjoying the calm before the storm that will be Fall semester. Wish us luck with the upcoming craziness!

So long, San Francisco

Let me just start off by saying that life is good.

The play went really well. Good, you might say, if you were being grammatically incorrect. It was really fun to work with everyone in the cast, there were no bad eggs or black spots (sorry, plague joke!) We had much better attendance than I expected, having a full house on opening night, having to turn a few people away on our second night and having to add a significant number of chairs on our closing night (it was a 3 night run). People that I knew came all three nights and that made it a lot of fun -- especially since the theater was so small and you were so close to the audience and so able to see their reactions. Those who attended get a shout out: Grandma Mary, Cora, Josh, Anna, Joe, Chris Mathews, Derrick Gibelyou, Hilary, Liberty, Eric & Erin, from work: Penina, Danielle, Caitlyn, Shane, Justin and Wife, Dale and wife and baby, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some people. If you didn't get to see it, I'll be getting it on DVD sometime soon, so give me a holler. And, yes, Jacob presenting me with flowers is going to be on the DVD. Score! It was so cute! We're having the "talk back session" right after the play, and Jacob raises his hand to make a comment. Then he says, "before I make a comment, I'd like to give these flowers to my wife..." He then proceeds to bring me flowers to a chorus of "awww" and smooch me in front of everyone. Just a little smooch. Perfect for the situation. And then Jacob made his comment. Like I said, life is good.

Eclipse was fantastic. Good, you might say, if you were making an understatement. In keeping with tradition, I don't think I'll do a full review for it here (I didn't do one for Twilight or New Moon). But I do want to share a few thoughts: This book series is, like, perfect for me. And after much thought, I've decided that Eclipse is my favorite in the series so far. In order to come to that decision, I had to stop worrying about what other people would think of it. You see, at first I was like, "Maybe someone wouldn't like this book..." and then I was like "Well, heck, I can only speak for myself, and I loved it!" So there you have it, folks. I hope you like it too, but if you don't (and don't worry, you will) I'll still be your friend. I'm still Jacob's friend and he hasn't read any of them yet! Though it is worth mentioning that I have decided to discontinue spoiling him with many spoilers and he's planning on reading them for himself (once Aunt Helen gives my copy of Twilight back). He wants to read them all from the beginning if he's going to read any of them.

Work is going very well. Good, you might say, if I had only had one raise recently, but I've had two. So I'm basically making bank now. (Even though Jacob still makes more than me at both of his jobs.) And I'm enjoying it -- really getting in to a groove.

As for upcoming plans, Jacob will be taking the GRE (Graduate Record Exam -- or something like that -- the SAT for Grad school, basically) on Saturday the 18th. He's not stressing about it, but when has he ever stressed about a test? And when has the lack of stress ever caused him to do poorly? Never. So, I'm not stressing about it either. The following Saturday, Aug 25, is our first anniversary. I'm sure I'll post about that. There is one more week after that, and then school starts up again for the fall. Hopefully I'll be ready by then!

And, no, San Francisco has nothing to do with anything. That title just popped into my head.

Just a few things: for those interested, The Decameron has a spot on BYU's Experimental Theater Club's website. Just go to www.byu-etc.com

Also, I'm very excited as this will be my last blog post before ECLIPSE comes out. Oh yes, I'll be at a midnight release party tonight. My rehearsal lasts until 11 anyway. For those of you who have not read Twilight and its sequel, New Moon, yet, I recommend that you do so. They're a lot of fun.

In the way of movie reviews, I've just finished watching The Devil Wears Prada. I was pleasantly surprised. Whereas I couldn't make it 10 pages into the (bestselling) book by the same name, the movie wasn't bad. In fact it was kind of fun. The opening credits were a bit racy -- showing women dressing for the day -- the rest of the movie was a scathing commentary on peoples' priorities. If you want to watch it, do. If you don't, don't worry about it.

Now, I'm off to make Jacob's belated birthday cake. Happy 23rd to him yesterday! Thanks to everyone for your well wishes.

DECAMERON INFO

As many of you already know, I am in a BYU production this semester. Ransom, my brother, is also in it.

The Decameron
Free
7:30 p.m. Aug 9, 10, 11
Margetts Theater, HFAC, BYU.

www.byu-etc.com
Everyone should come -- it's going to be really good.

Audition Results

Yesterday Ransom and I auditioned for a play that will be performed Aug. 9, 10, & 11. It is called The Decameron because it is being adapted from the text of the same name. The person who is adapting said text is Russell, a coworker of mine. That is how I came to know about the auditions.

So, yesterday Ransom and I went over to the Wilkinson Center and basically had a grand old time doing make-believe. :) The auditions were a hoot -- we were all having a lot of fun and the director of the show (who Russell was glad to have directing it) was very fun.

And the cast list was emailed out today -- We both made it! So we'll be rehearsing and such (in my case I'll be rehearsing in between vacations) and doing the whole fun play thing! I am so thrilled. So so so so thrilled. I love being in plays! Well, when they're good -- and this one looks very promising.

As details come out I'll keep you posted. Speaking of which I seem to recall promising to make a post about my grade for this last term: All A's. Not even any A-'s. Amazing, no?

In other random news I got my free t-shirt from the library (hooray for summer reading programs!) and we picked up Clare at the airport last night so she is back! She showered us with gifts. Well, actually, she just showered me with gifts because she had packed Jacob's in her other luggage which was separated from her. All the same. Also James (Jacob's youngest brother) went in to the MTC on Wednesday -- there wasn't a wet eye among our party -- it was kind of funny. Being one of the youngest, James was ready to be outta there and the whole family knows he'll be back in two short years.