Paris, Je T'aime...

I have an intense desire to go back soon.

Why don't my pictures stay centered when I publish them? I format them centered, I promise! Anyone who can fix my problem will get a prize. It will most likely be candy or ice cream (if you are in Utah).

A Literary Halloween

It is late, Sean is in Florida, I am cold, I have a stats test to study for all day tomorrow, so what do I decide to do? Blog. It has never been in my nature to do a sensible thing like go to bed when I should. On a side note, for those who knew me before I got married when I seldom went to bed before 1 AM, I am usually in bed by 11 now, although I try to go to bed by 10. It helps to have a baby and an 8 AM ballet class. Right now, at this very moment and for the subsequent moments that will occur as I type, I am going to write about Halloween! This actually won't be very word-heavy, because really what is there to say? We dressed up and went trick-or-treating. Sean came up with the genius theme for our costumes.

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GET IT?

Sean's costume was the hardest for people to get. Some kids asked if he was a cake. Most people thought we had something to do with the Wizard of Oz and that Sean was some bizarre wizard. They would say, "Let's see...a lion...a witch....OH OH THE WIZARD OF OZ!!" There were a few people who figured it out and everyone thought it was very clever when we told them. By the way, yes, Sean is a wardrobe. In fact, he is a rather girly wardrobe. He borrowed the costume from the Hale, and it is the costume worn by Madame de la Grande Bouche in Beauty and the Beast. Trick-or-treating was a ton of fun. We went around Sean's parents' cul-de-sac in Orem, which took us about an hour. It was hard for Sean to move around, plus Matilda was a little slow, both at walking and at grabbing a piece of candy and putting it in her bucket. In the end, we ended up with peanut M&Ms and Snickers galore! And then we went home and watched half of The Shining before deciding we were too fatigued to finish it. Here are some more pictures from the day:

 

 

 

Graduation Agitation.

It has been close to two weeks since my last post, which is much longer than I was hoping to go. The problem is I keep getting ideas of subjects I would like to write about and then I get overwhelmed by so much writing, similar to how I react to cleaning my entire house. The solution to this predicament is the same as for cleaning: just take care of one thing at a time and eventually I will be caught up.

Last Winter Semester, the College of Health and Human Performance announced that it no longer exists, meaning Dance was now a part of the College of Fine Arts and Communication. Instead of receiving a Bachelor of Science from the CHHP when I graduate, my degree in dance will now be a Bachelor of Arts. It is a change that should have happened a long time ago, but I did enjoy my time in the College of Health and Human Performance. Sean always thought it was quite a conundrum that I would graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Dance, while he received a Bachelor of Arts for Political Science. Anyway, all of this information is just to setup the story of my application for graduation. Because of the change of my college and the fact that CHHP are still offering some services right now, I was not sure where I needed to go to apply. Here is my annoyingly long adventure of graduation application (warning: this is a bit of a rant):

Me (in the dance department office): Where do I need to go to apply for graduation?
Student Worker: Vacant stare. Slow blink.
Me: Do I need to go to the HFAC (building on campus which houses the college of fine arts)?
Student Worker: Um, yeah....
Me: Do you know the room number of the advisement center?
Student Worker: It is D.......4........4........4.
Me: Ok thanks.

So I went up to the HFAC where I encountered two more student secretaries.

Me: I need to apply for graduation.
Student Worker #1: Smiles. Ok, what is your major?
Me: Dance.
Student Worker #1: Smile fades. Um, ok. (obviously doesn't know what to do.) Are you sure this is where you are supposed to go?
Me: The secretary in the dance office told me to come here.
Student Worker #1: Ok. To Student Worker #2: Do you know who is meeting with the dance majors?
Student Worker #2: Heather. (I don't remember the exact name, but #2 definitely said it with confidence)
Student Worker #1: Ok, I can make an appointment for you for Monday at 9:15.

I proceeded to give her my name and phone number and she gave me a little reminder card, like what the dentist gives you, only without the cartoon teeth wearing bow ties. I went on with my day, only to have Student Worker #1 call a few hours later to tell me that I actually needed to go to the advisement center for CHHP in the RB (building in which I spend all of my time. It is my home). Now, anyone who knows the campus layout of BYU knows that the RB is located at the bottom of a hill, down below most of campus, including the HFAC. The parking lots that I use are also at the bottom of the hill, which means I am able spend all of my time in the same general area with out climbing the 6-8 flights of stairs that lead to campus. I actually get a little annoyed when I have to go up to campus, where there are so many people and they all wear real, matching clothes rather than a hodgepodge of whatever clothes are most comfortable to dance in. In the end, I went to the advisement center in the RB and finished my application in about 5 minutes. The adviser I was working with told me it was the easiest application he had done all year.

This story ended up longer than I was expecting, kind of like the process to apply for graduation! I was really just agitated that I wasted about 45 minutes doing what I was told to do (making Sean about 30 minutes late for work), when what I actually needed to do added about 5 extra minutes to the walk to my car after ballet. Would it really have been so hard for the girl in the dance office to say, "I'm not sure, let me ask someone who knows"? In the end, it doesn't matter because I have officially applied to graduate in April 2010. Go me.

Trivia: Did you know the HFAC was designed by the same architect who designed the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco?

The Re"may"nder of May. Ha.

You would think that the rest of May would have been boring compared to our trip to New York, but it is truly the most spectacular of months with bountiful occasions for celebration. The day after we got home from NY was Mother's Day, and Matilda (and Sean) surprised me with a bracelet I admired from the window of a jewelers in Huntington. They got me something extra special because it was my first Mother's Day.

May 25 is Sean's birthday and mine follows soon after on May 30 (my dad's birthday is May 9 and Sean's mom's birthday is May 21. There are a lot of May birthdays in our family). I got Sean a raclette grill and some artisan cheeses, and then made him a delicious dinner using these things before he had to go to Singin' in the Rain rehearsal.

 

I decided to just make one cake for both of our birthday's because I knew we couldn't eat two cakes in one week. The candles say "273" because Sean turned 27 and I turned 23. I have a lot to learn about baking. This cake is ugly. Although I consider myself to be a pretty good cook, I am not delusional enough to think I am much of a baker. 

 My birthday fell on a Saturday this year, so Sean took me to breakfast at Guru's (one of my favorite Provo restaurants), after which we saw Up at the theater. The movie was wonderful and made me glad to have someone like Sean in my life to have adventures with when we grow old. That night was Sean's opening night in Singin' in the Rain, so we had an early dinner and went to the theater. Sean's main gift to me was the entire series of Seinfeld on DVD. We love it!

My favorite Matilda picture from May:

New York State of Mind

At the beginning of January, Sean's older sister, Erinn, moved to Huntington, New York, located on Long Island. She works for Ikea and hardly ever has time off to come home to Utah, so we went out there to visit.

Trip Highlights:

• Spending time with Erinn. She introduced us to her new town and was able to spend a lot of time being a wonderful aunt to Matilda.
• Sean and I spent three days in Manhattan, twice with Tilly and once without. We love New York. We went there on our honeymoon in January 2007. Who chooses New York for their honeymoon in the middle of winter? We do. 
• Broadway. We got some discounted tickets at the TKTS booth for 9 to 5 and Exit the King. 9 to 5 was ok, not great. It did have some amazing choreography, though, and Allison Janney was hilarious. We were really hoping to get tickets for In the Heights, but there weren't any discount tickets available for that. Exit the King, starring Geoffrey Rush and Susan Sarandon, was truly amazing. I was a bit nervous at first about going to a play because I have so much more experience with musicals (after seeing 10 musicals on Broadway, this is my first play), but the extraordinary talents of Geoffrey Rush, who won a Tony Award for the role, made it incredible. Our seats were in the second row on an aisle, which gave us the perfect vantage point when King Berenger (Rush) hopped down from the stage to deliver a soliloquy while meandering through the theater. For at least a minute, he stood within inches of Sean's seat and made eye contact with us. He was spitting so much while he talked that some of it fell on Sean. That is right, Sean has been spat upon by an Oscar winner. Anyway, it was a beautiful, poignant, absurd play that revealed the emotions of learning how to die when one does not feel ready to do so. Also in the cast was Andrea Martin (who played the crazy aunt in My Big Fat Greek Wedding). I love her. 
• Sean and I love museums, so we went to two. We went to the American Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They were both excellent. At the Museum of Natural History, there was a special butterfly exhibit that was pretty cool. My favorite exhibit at the Met was the modern art.
  
• After trying to decide if we wanted to take a day trip to Philadelphia or Boston, we chose to go to Philadelphia to visit Sean's great-aunt, Rosemary. She is the last living Murphy of her generation and Matilda is the first Murphy in her generation, so it was great to have them together. Rosemary lives in an apartment on the edge of Washington Square, with the Liberty Bell just a short walk away. Unfortunately it was raining so we didn't do a lot of sightseeing, but it was wonderful to be able to visit with Rosemary. Matilda actually crawled for the first time in her apartment!
  
• In Huntington, there is an old bookstore called Book Revue that regularly hosts book signings by many significant authors (Julie Andrews was there a few weeks ago). One evening while the three of us were walking around looking for a place to eat, we noticed that retired NBA All-Star Bill Russell was at Book Revue signing copies of his new book, Red and Me, which is about his relationship with his coach and life-long friend, Red Auerbach. My dad is a huge basketball fan and actually played in college. Bill Russell is one of his heroes, and with my dad's birthday just 4 days away, we decided to get a signed copy of the book for him. We waited in the long line for a long time, but luckily Tilly was sleeping in her stroller. She woke up by the time we got to the table, and we discovered that Bill Russell is a very nice man with large hands and feet and a great laugh.

These are just a few highlights of the many wonderful adventures we were able to share as a family. We were so grateful to be able to spend time with Erinn, and we absolutely fell in love with Long Island. So now for some pictures:

Matilda loved her newly discovered trick of standing up in her carseat:

Matilda and her Aunt Erinn:

American Museum of Natural History:

Getting ready to eat at the first pizzeria in America, located in Little Italy:

Meeting Bill Russell:

In Philadelphia with Aunt Rosemary:

Metropolitan Museum of Art:

Miscellaneous New York pictures: