The last hurrah

Well we're down to our last finals -- I only have my smooth final and Andrew has a religion final tomorrow, but we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I actually feel like I did pretty well this semester, especially considering how busy dance has been.. Final week has actually been my most relaxed week since the beginning of the semester!

Naturally, we've begun christmas preparations :)

Yes, that is mistletoe at the center of the arch :)

We were watching a not-so-fascinating war movie the other day, and quite honestly it was getting long so I picked up my crochet hook and tried to imitate those headbands I've been seeing in stores everywhere; I think it turned out quite nicely!

Those things are sold for nearly twenty dollars; I'm thinking this might be a good business opportunity... anybody interested?

On another note, we had the (good) surprise visit of my uncle and aunt (Olivier is my dad's brother) over thanksgiving break. They were staying at a friend of Lolan's house and we got to have a little evening of music with them; Olivier and Lolan sang and Andrew played with two of the family's sons (two violins and a viola).

And this is what I've been up to on team.... we have some pretty outrageous props in our Lindy hop routine!

And this was at the team Christmas social. Andrew had learned his lesson from last year and went through the first time with two plates piled high... of course :) I have to admit the food was quite good though, and so was the company and the entertainment! Andrew played the violin and 1 o'clock did an outrageous mariachi number... it was absolutely hilarious! And of course Andrew practiced all of his good manners learned in his etiquette class-- despite me blowing him off when he tried to hold my chair... oops! we're just not used to gentlemen anymore!

And after tomorrow, we will be FREEEEE to do whatever we please! well not really, but you get the idea...

The next day we went up to Draper to do a family dinner with Andrew's mom's family-- on the road we saw some interesting sights...

Notice what is behind the man on the motorcycle... yes, that would be a dog!

Andrew discovered a new hobby during the break... :)

On our way back we got a new armoire to lighten the load of our ridiculously small closet... Ikea stuff is so much fun to put together.

And here is the finished product... Andrew is ecstatic, and so am I. It doesn't take much to make us happy!

Thanksgiving again :)

And now for a picture of the fabulous cranberry sauce!

While we waited for the Turkey to finish cooking, we went for a walk in the Provo Cemetery (Some of Andew's ancestors currently reside there) Did you know that Casper was from Utah?

Provo Cemetery is really a beautiful place. If you ever get a chance to visit, you'd be surprised a what you'll find. We saw several masonic tombstones, some of men who died in France during World War I, some with a birth and death date in the same year... There are so many stories to be told just from the tombstones.

Andrew was sick all weekend so he got to rest while we ladies did the cooking :)

And voila! a Thanksgiving dinner (without a dinner table...)

And the thankful turkey! We wrote things we were grateful for on it... duh

And the best part is that we have plenty of funeral potatoes left over!!

Halloween

I know this is delayed, and out of chronological order, but I never did get around to uploading pictures from my camera. So here!

We had a thanksgiving get together with Haleigh and Gavin and Meghan and Collin to watch "I am Legend" and decorate holiday cookies.

One of the cats lost its leg, so someone added stitches...

Haleigh and Gavin came as inmates... wearing XXXXL pajamas! :)

Thanksgiving

and we are already on thanksgiving eve! (if you can say that :)
So despite waking up to no hot water this morning and going to work essentially all day for the two of us, we have a lot to be grateful for this year...
Tomorrow we will have our first Thanksgiving together with Andrew's parents-- I even have fresh cranberries to make (hopefully-knock on wood) the best cranberry sauce ever! Not to mention I've been craving pumpkin pie since the leaves started to change.

Thanksgiving also means something very special: it means that the day after I can FINALLY listen to Christmas music out loud! (yes, I've been listening to it on the ipod or at work for weeks already, but not out in the open... we have Mr Scrooge at home...) So the day after will be as much a celebration as the day of!

I'm half tempted to try out "black friday" simply because I've never done it-- but it sounds like a lot of fun/misery. In my mind I see images from "Jingle all the way" (yes, this hidden pearl of Schwarzenegger's (WOW I almost spelled that right the first time -- and the spell checker apparently has it in its dictionary...) was a family tradition and we watched it every day of December) We'll see.

Speaking of Schwarzenegger: he was an interesting presence in our family culture. My mom always had a crush on him--she was an aerobics instructor during her young adult years, so I imagine she felt a special kinship with Mr Universe because of their shared passion for... cultivation of the body?
In any case, he was her hero, so whenever I felt discouraged she would always quote him: "you know what Arnold Schwarzenegger would say? 'Set your mind on a goal and stick to it until you've reached it'" (or something to that effect...) Needless to say she was thrilled when he became the governator of California! And so, although I never saw any of the terminator movies (growing up in an all girl family...) I have probably seen all of his comedies and can quote lines such as "Dere IS NO BATHROOM!!!" (congrats if you can tell me what movie that comes from...)

Schwarzenegger has become an inevitable part of my holidays.

Dancesport!

Well, it has finally come and gone, the moment we've been working towards, and we can't really complain too much!

Here are some of the pictures of Andrew's practices for cabaret :)

And then the real thing! All the rest of these photos were taken by other people: I shamelessly stole them off of Facebook :)

The loot we brought home was:

Andrew: 3rd place in pre-champ smooth

3rd place in the cabaret championship!

Lydia: 4th place in pre-champ smooth

6th place in novice standard

6th place in gold bar standard (class event)

Overall, we had tons of fun and danced our hearts out. and now we can rest a little!

Update

- midterms! which have gone well for the both of us overall. If I can keep up this pace I just might get an A in my biology class!
- I FINALLY got my admission/rejection letter from the broadcast journalism department: (Andrew was kind enough to go pick it up for me since I was at work so I wouldn't have to wait another day... :) and guess what: I'm in!! So now I just have two years (less if I go spring/summer but we'll see about that..) including an internship. I have an orientation meeting on Thursday so that they can tell me how the major will take over my life, and my schedule for next semester... (and I do realize that that sentence didn't make much grammatical sense). Hopefully it won't interfere too much with work!
- TRANSLATION -- as you likely already know (considering I've been battling with it for almost a month) I took on an extra translation project: translating the Qualtrics website into French. However it took much longer than anticipated (about 50 hours in the end) and a few mishaps along the road (such as deleting 3/4 of the text before even translating it) made it quite the ordeal. But it is FINISHED! And luckily, Andrew again came to the rescue by feeding me and even taking all household responsibilities (all the laundry, the food shopping for the week, cleaning up the entire home, and the list goes on) one weekend so I could just sit at the computer and type away... But in the end I'm sure the extra money will be worth it. And I'm just glad to be done.
- dance-- what else! we have the homecoming parade this weekend (for which we will lindy-hop our way down the street for an hour) and after that we are all (meaning, andrew, his partner, me and my partner) hopping over to a local high school competition.
Crazy but what can I say we chose to do it :)
- We've managed to find some time on weekends though-- and we even went up the mountain (with my found again camera-- thank goodness!) and took some pictures of the almost-gone leaves now.

And that's all for now, pictures to come

temple events

We had the opportunity recently to help out a couple that converted to the gospel in france (he was my father's voice student). They came here in Utah to go through the temple for the first time in the Bountiful Temple and then be sealed (they have been married for a while already). I got to be her escort the night before and acted in general as a translator (my father had stayed after our wedding in order to be there for their sealing). The number of people in attendance was small but there was a wonderful spirit in the sealing room. The sealer has a long history of involvement with my family: he was my aunt's mission president in belgium brussels mission, my mom's stake president when she first converted, and temple president when my parents were temple workers in DC--he also served his mission in France and speaks quite good French. He performed the ceremony in french and gave a wonderful talk before. It was a good day :)

Our little home

We've finally settled into our apartment and organized most of everything! Now the winter can hit as hard as it wants to :)

Andrew put this together as a surprise--I came home and voila! a kitchen table! :)

Thank you BYU OIT... did you know you can rent computers from BYU? quite the profitable plan :)

I have overcome

After much sweat and finger cramps from gripping the mouse for too long, I have come to terms with my project. It is better now, although still not as good quality as I wish, but it would seem that the computer gods have sworn my death.

In any case, it is done: the final video is now posted, and that will have to do!

Hurrah!

http://bit.ly/Fw7AA

oops

Well, it turns out that fixing the sound issue on my project was not so simple.

And then, something else came up: I receive an email from the secretary of the Comms department announcing that, by the way, the requirements for application had changed. (this was tuesday, keep in mind the application deadline is tomorrow....)
Students applying for the Broadcast journalism major now have to submit TWO videos with their applications, and no more statement of intent (nevermind that mine was already almost done)... Now we need to answer to 5 essay questions. Since they're 150 words each, that wasn't too much of a problem, but another video?? out of thin air maybe?!

After much panicking, phone-calling, and emailing, I finally got a response from the director of admissions who said that one video would be fine. PHEW. It turns out that I was not the only one with this problem.

So back to fixing my video; there were some issues with the sound levels, etc. that I still need to fix, but everytime I try to re export it from the editing program (which only exists in one room on campus, which, of course, is not an open-access lab) the video quality is terrible (which it wasn't the first time around!) We need to upload them onto youtube, but of course it will only accept the worse quality video there is...

So tomorrow morning I will make my last attempt to salvage my project, and if that fails, then the admissions committee will just have to deal with a poor quality video... and most likely reject me.

For those of you who want to see said video, try not to get a headache.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcZZcMZndrY

On a lighter note, we do have many things to be grateful for : we now have a desk for the computer/office stuff, so our little home is properly organized and most of everything now has its spot! And we had root beer floats last night...

Photos will be posted soon.... AFTER the admission deadline! :)

Back to school

Now that school has started and the craziness is past, it feels like we have so much time! (ironically enough) so here's an update on recent events.

The wedding, of course. (more photos on Lydia's facebook profile!)

The honeymoon was tons of fun (and food--literally!). We came back without swine flu or sunburn, so all is well :)

When we went down to Las Vegas last week for the Nevada star ball, my partner and I made second place in our category for both standard and smooth!! That was quite the exciting event...

Back to school season has brought some good and not so good changes:

Andrew and I both got into all the dance classes we wanted! ( Gold II Standard and latin for me, Gold Bar Standard for Andrew-- and we're both taking a smooth class with our respective partners.

AND...

I MADE BACKUP TEAM!!!! So now Andrew and I are waking up mon/wed/fri together and going to team at 7 am... It's hard to believe that I've gotten this far... I feel like now I need to work extra hard and prove that I deserve the spot I've received. It's pretty overwhelming to all of a sudden be put into classes and team where essentially everyone is better than me, but at the same time it's really invigorating: I like a good challenge :)

The bad part of back to schoool is that we don't get home till late... but hey, we have each other forever so who am I to complain!

So far we're both on schedule in school.. I'm actually already ahead in my reading! Wednesday I will be finishing up my project for my application to the communications program... a really nice girl in the comms department agreed to let me into the lab that morning so I can fix the sound errors... and then I'll be submitting my folder and putting my destiny in the hands of the admissions committee.... I honestly have no idea what to do if I don't make it! Wish me luck...

Andrew has decided to retake Econ 110 (enough said--he is a courageous man indeed).

And finallly, our apartment is becoming a home. I love cooking in our own kitchen and waking up in the morning and coming home to our own home.

One month ago...

Hard to believe it's been a full month already that we've been married!!
Wedding pictures will be up soon, but in the meantime, I found the promotional video that they used some of our reception for! It looks so great... I can't wait to see more! Thank you so much to all of you who made the day so perfect :)

http://eltonfilmandimages.blogspot.com/2009/08/sleepy-ridge-promo-video.html

Since France

Well, we've been back to real life here in Provo for almost a month now, and still as busy as ever!

Andrew got the second job he wanted teaching violin at a music school/academy, and I didn't end up getting a second job because the place where I work offered me one! so I'm working almost full time at MulitLing, doing the same work as before (translating and reviewing french) but now I'm also helping set up a new process in our company (too long and complicated to explain), But it sure keeps me busy!

Apart from that, dancing continues--Andrew left Monday on tour to the midwest-- the Backup team is performing in Nauvoo and they will also tour around the area-- one of their performances will be for the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's election! And I'm staying here practicing every night with my partner--hopefully all the hard work will pay off come fall!

Also, I found the ipod! That's certainly a weight off, because we were supposed to put all the wedding music into it and I was worried I had lost it for good! It was in the pocket of a hoodie--it's unbelievable that it never slipped out during the back and forth of moving...

This means that the plans can start moving forward a little faster-- the invitation proofs will be in sometime this week, my dress should come in next week, and I can start creating a playlist for the wedding reception!

And that's about all the exciting news... this is the first time Andrew and I have been separated more than 24 hours since we've been engaged!

part 2-- Bordeaux and Paris!

And more of the continuing adventures :)
Andrew did a musical number for my ward in sacrament with my parents and Marina-- it was very nice! I still can't believe how well marina plays now!


I tried on my mom's wedding dress

We went to the beach-- it wasn't very sunny, but we sure had fun anyway!


I made a castle (actually it's more like a shapeless mound with a seashell on top... but hey, it withstood the elements!) as Andrew bravely fought off the waves with a fort around it. Sadly the waves won in the end...


Of course during our stay, we went to church at my home ward (Eysines). We even got to go to the baptism of a young adult--Andrew conducted the music while I played the piano. I don't know how long it's been since I've been to a baptism. It was wonderful to serve in some small part together and there was a wonderful spirit there. You forget how apart from the world BYU is--I love the spirit here and the opportunity to see and hear the Lord's prophets often,but I miss being part of a ward where everyone has know each other for generations and where everyone is building Zion together! Sometimes I feel like it's too easy to just sit back and relax at BYU... of course it's also true that there is much work to be done even in Provo! There's something to ponder...


This is us in front of the Talence church building (which is also where Eysines meets)-- that's where my dad went to church most of his life and growing up. This is where my parents first met, incidentally :)


We also visited my former ward Lormont which is the ward I spent most of my seminary years in. This is my favorite ever young women's president! It was great to see her again (I hadn't been back to Lormont since I left France to come to BYU) and I could tell she was very excited to see one of her young women come back with her (fantastic--and LDS) fiance... :)


Andrew in the tramway while we were church-hopping... we took the tramway right after sacrament in Eysines to make it in time to get to Lormont--sadly there aren't very many trams on Sundays so we barely made it as sacrament was ending. Then we ate dinner at my best friend's home--only she is England studying this year, so it was without her.


The mayor of Bordeaux has done some fantastic work on the city of Bordeaux, and it was more beautiful than ever! One of the best things so far is the "miroirs d'eau" (water mirrors) -- the whole riverside was renovated for a stretch with gardens, nice smooth sidewalks to skate on, benches, etc. and the miroirs d'eau, which is a very very shallow wading pool that reflects the city, and every half hour or so it drains and shoots out mist. It's a perfect way to stay cool on a summer day!

Andrew got himself some new french clothes :) modeling his look in front of the family bikes

Marina and Andrew and I went out for lunch one day on her noon break and she ate a whole sandwich and a HUGE cream puff all to herself



On May 8 we all went to St Emilion, a nearby castle and fort city complete with a watch tour and, of course vineyards for miles around--that's where they produce the world famous St Emilion wine. We asked, but to our dismay they didn't sell any fancy grape juice
This is inside the monastery/chapel courtyard


And Andrew shooting out the tower window :)


on top of the tour du roy (king's tower)

This is a medieval toilet flushing system... you can still see traces of royal waste... charming eh?


walking in the streets of St Emilion

And finally it was time to leave for Paris-- Marina was very brave...

My aunts Adeline and Veronique also came to see us off

When we got to Paris, my aunt Hanna Maija came to pick us up with my cousins. and Andrew, wanting the full childhood experience rode in the back.. and had to climb through to get in and out!

looking at photos...


The next day we visited Paris. We just went all over, wherever we wanted to go! It was my best trip to Paris--most definitely. My personal highlight and culmination of my existence--ok maybe not that good, but quite close--was our visit to the Salon Laduree, a confiserie--a place where fantastic concoctions and sweets beyond your imagination are made. I love macaroons, and this place is where they were first invented! My selection: rose-flavored ice cream with orange flower, violet, raspberry and rose macaroons--complete with a orange flower infusion served a little silver tea kettle. Andrew had grape juice--but not just any grape juice! This was the real thing, made with the finest grapes France has to offer, and the difference was remarkable.


yes, pure bliss. And of course, the great Eiffel Tower itself. We climbed up the stairs about halfway, after that you had to take an elevator crammed with crazy tourists, so we just went back down. But let it be said that we climbed the Eiffel Tower!

And then it was time to leave for good. This was us waiting in Charles de Gaulle (I think--it was such a long tripI sort of can't remember what happened where..)


And by the end Andrew fell asleep on the floor in Dallas (and I on the couch, curled up under an arm rest--those seats are anti-sleep!)


Overall, a wonderful trip!