It's been a busy, busy summer!
First things first: THESIS = DONE! I finally defended it on June 11th and passed with a few revisions, which I completed and submitted not long afterward. Exciting! I celebrated with friends and family at the local Olive Garden and Coldstone. =) Now I'm done with my Master's Degree. :-o But I'm still trying to figure out what to do next (recall my previous blogpost)...any suggestions?
This last weekend my sister K, her daughter M, and I went down to my friend D's wedding and my cousin W's wedding receptions in southern California. We drove down Thursday and came back on Tuesday. I was a little apprehensive about the drive with my 15-month-old niece, but she was very good! Our sister C lent us her portable DVD player, which helped immensely. The wedding and wedding dinner/reception (delicious salmon!) for D were beautiful. I decided to give her a long-requested gift (D, if you haven't opened it yet you'll find out soon enough anyway) of a CD of myself playing the piano. 9 years ago for her high school graduation, she requested that I record myself playing Jon Schmidt's "Waterfall" on the piano for her, but I never did it...at first it was that I didn't really have a way to record it, then I hadn't played it for a few years and wasn't as good at it anymore, and then it was just left alone. But when her wedding date started to draw nearer I remembered how I had never done that and decided that I wanted to make it happen for her wedding. I recorded a whole CD for her, with "Waterfall" and 9 other tracks of me playing the piano (other pieces I like to play, one I wrote, and a few Disney kicks since she loves Disney so much). It certainly isn't perfect; I used my laptop's built-in microphone and the wonderful program Audacity to edit it, but I believe the final product would suit her original request. For my cousin W, I played their wedding song on the piano (Yurima's "River Flows In You") for their first dance. It was great to see lots of family there that I haven't seen in a while. She had an awesome set of songs for the dance party segment of the reception, including Michael Jackson, a bunch of swing stuff, "Zoot Suit Riot", and of course, it began with LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem". When "Party Rock Anthem" came on, I really wanted to dance to it, so my aunt's 60-something-year-old fiancé whom I'd just met told me to "go dance!" I said I didn't have anyone to dance with, so he immediately jumped up and went and danced with me for that song and a couple more fun ones. It was awesome. The rest of the trip was nice to just spend playing with Mom and Dad, seeing my brother D and his family, and a few friends, going swimming in my parents' pool, enjoying the beautiful California summer, and of course eating at some of our favorite restaurants from home that we miss.
Then, of course, yesterday was the Fourth of July. Happy Independence Day, everyone! My roommate T and I went to hang out with my sisters' families and our friend C, which involved the traditional games, barbecue, and fireworks. The latter may or may not have involved the purchasing of many, many fireworks ("emits showers of sparks!") with your standard sparklers, ground blooms, smoke balls, black cats (ouch, those hurt your ears!), and other more intense fountains and aerials with names such as "Spirit of Missouri" (C is from Missouri), "Magic Cube Fountain", "Blazing Rebel", "Devil's Delight", etc., and ending with "Full Metal Jacket 2". It was quite the display. My poor 4-year-old nephew had a great time but was completely exhausted when he finally went to bed 2 hours later than normal. Then we had to brave the horrendous post Stadium of Fire traffic to get back down to Provo. But it was worth it for a good holiday celebration with great people. God bless America!
In a few weeks we will have our first Burr family reunion with all the descendants of my parents! That means 2 parents, 5 kids, 4 spouses, and 8 grandchildren for a total of 19 people. It will be a lot of fun. Yay, family!
And it's raining today! I love the rain.
Life is good, if you couldn't tell from what I post here. I just need to figure out where to go next. I still feel like I should leave this general area, though I will definitely miss my sisters and their families. Utah Valley has been pretty good to me, but I don't feel that it holds anything for me as far as my future goes. So I am looking elsewhere. If you have any suggestions, again, I welcome them. Thanks for reading!
This last weekend my sister K, her daughter M, and I went down to my friend D's wedding and my cousin W's wedding receptions in southern California. We drove down Thursday and came back on Tuesday. I was a little apprehensive about the drive with my 15-month-old niece, but she was very good! Our sister C lent us her portable DVD player, which helped immensely. The wedding and wedding dinner/reception (delicious salmon!) for D were beautiful. I decided to give her a long-requested gift (D, if you haven't opened it yet you'll find out soon enough anyway) of a CD of myself playing the piano. 9 years ago for her high school graduation, she requested that I record myself playing Jon Schmidt's "Waterfall" on the piano for her, but I never did it...at first it was that I didn't really have a way to record it, then I hadn't played it for a few years and wasn't as good at it anymore, and then it was just left alone. But when her wedding date started to draw nearer I remembered how I had never done that and decided that I wanted to make it happen for her wedding. I recorded a whole CD for her, with "Waterfall" and 9 other tracks of me playing the piano (other pieces I like to play, one I wrote, and a few Disney kicks since she loves Disney so much). It certainly isn't perfect; I used my laptop's built-in microphone and the wonderful program Audacity to edit it, but I believe the final product would suit her original request. For my cousin W, I played their wedding song on the piano (Yurima's "River Flows In You") for their first dance. It was great to see lots of family there that I haven't seen in a while. She had an awesome set of songs for the dance party segment of the reception, including Michael Jackson, a bunch of swing stuff, "Zoot Suit Riot", and of course, it began with LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem". When "Party Rock Anthem" came on, I really wanted to dance to it, so my aunt's 60-something-year-old fiancé whom I'd just met told me to "go dance!" I said I didn't have anyone to dance with, so he immediately jumped up and went and danced with me for that song and a couple more fun ones. It was awesome. The rest of the trip was nice to just spend playing with Mom and Dad, seeing my brother D and his family, and a few friends, going swimming in my parents' pool, enjoying the beautiful California summer, and of course eating at some of our favorite restaurants from home that we miss.
Then, of course, yesterday was the Fourth of July. Happy Independence Day, everyone! My roommate T and I went to hang out with my sisters' families and our friend C, which involved the traditional games, barbecue, and fireworks. The latter may or may not have involved the purchasing of many, many fireworks ("emits showers of sparks!") with your standard sparklers, ground blooms, smoke balls, black cats (ouch, those hurt your ears!), and other more intense fountains and aerials with names such as "Spirit of Missouri" (C is from Missouri), "Magic Cube Fountain", "Blazing Rebel", "Devil's Delight", etc., and ending with "Full Metal Jacket 2". It was quite the display. My poor 4-year-old nephew had a great time but was completely exhausted when he finally went to bed 2 hours later than normal. Then we had to brave the horrendous post Stadium of Fire traffic to get back down to Provo. But it was worth it for a good holiday celebration with great people. God bless America!
In a few weeks we will have our first Burr family reunion with all the descendants of my parents! That means 2 parents, 5 kids, 4 spouses, and 8 grandchildren for a total of 19 people. It will be a lot of fun. Yay, family!
And it's raining today! I love the rain.
Life is good, if you couldn't tell from what I post here. I just need to figure out where to go next. I still feel like I should leave this general area, though I will definitely miss my sisters and their families. Utah Valley has been pretty good to me, but I don't feel that it holds anything for me as far as my future goes. So I am looking elsewhere. If you have any suggestions, again, I welcome them. Thanks for reading!
