Thursday, October 27, 2011

Kind of morbid but it's October...

First up, a picture of the cutest girl in the world in her dress.  It fit!  The picture is a little blurry but you get the idea.
 During fall break we went exploring around Cache valley.  We drove to Millville and visited the park.  At first I wasn't as thrilled about playing but it was really fun.

  James loves his domes...
We drove down through the other towns until the road stopped being paved.  We figured that if we kept driving we could have wound up in Morgan. (Actually we would have wound up in Huntsville.  Tomato, tomato.)
We stopped by the cemetary in Millville on our way home.  My great-great-grandparents:
And my great-grandparents.  They were some of my favorite people.  I wish James could have met them.

 On Sunday we continued on with the creepy cemetery tours and drove out to Newton.  My great-grandma Keller (Grandma great) grew up there.  This is her parent's headstone:

It was fun to explore the valley and the leaves were so pretty.  But apparently not pretty enough to deserve a picture or two.

We're doing well, more of the same.  On of my friends is pregnant...with TWINS.  It's intense.  I'm not sure if I could handle something like that. (Knock on wood.)

Friday, October 21, 2011

Fall Break!

Today is Fall Break, it's only one day but I am very glad to have it.  While my parents and youngest sister are in Vegas, we are at home, wishing we could be there.  I wish I could be there to see our niece's face when she opens her birthday present:
 
 It was my conference craft.  It might be here Halloween costume as well, she has said she wants to be Cinderella.  I'm excited for the time when I won't be in school and I will be able to make stuff like this for more little girls.  Seven more weeks of fun and then finals week.  I don't anticipate that I will have anything much to do except clean out my grad lab cubicle and my costume shop drawer.  It seems like I just moved in.  Weird.

Next up, an old post of a DELICIOUS dinner.  Sourdough bruscetta with fresh tomatoes and mozzarella:
We had purchased a bunch of sourdough loaves with one of our Bountiful Baskets and figured we shouldn't let it go bad.  It was so good!  I diced the tomatoes and then mixed in some basil and garlic.  While that was marinating I pre-toasted the bread sliced in a frying pan.  After that I layered some cheese and piled the tomatoes high!  It was SO GOOD!  I think we should have a tomato plant or two in our next place.

In terms of our lives, James is working on his thesis project in the water lab.  He's collecting data from his soil waste-water columns and this is what they look like:
It's pretty cool.

Here is my current layout for my Plan B Report.
  I still need to include bibliographies, tables of contents, acknowledgements...that sort of thing.  It doesn't look as impressive on the screen but once you hold 85 printed pages in your hands, it does.  I defend it in 3 1/2 weeks.  Wish me luck!

Monday, October 17, 2011

Proof Production Photos!

Here are the production photos for Proof.  They are in show order so if you look at the pictures, you've seen the show.  It was a great last production to design and I'm very proud of my work.  If you would like to see the renderings as well, click on my portfolio button or just click here.

Set design: Milinda Weeks
Lighting Design: Bruce Duerden
Costume Design: Lindsay Beardall
Directed by Adrianne Moore

Cast: Felicia Stehmeier as Catherine, Kent Hadfield as Robert, Nikki Baum as Claire and Adam Earl as Hal.















 We enjoyed a wonderful dinner tonight with James' friends, the Eraslans.  They are a Swiss family from Winterthur he met on his mission.  We're lucky they have been coming to visit every year.  Some time soon we hope to return the favor.


Sunday, October 16, 2011

Weddings, Rainbows and Weird Sculptures


So far the weekends in October have been intense in a good way.  Lots of stuff to do and people to see.  This Saturday we went to Salt Lake for my friend Kim's wedding.  I met Kim in Buffalo when she was investigating the church.  I was in the right place at the right time, I guess.
The happy couple leaving the temple
I don't know what was happening with my camera phone.  Oh wait, it's a camera phone...


 It's starting to cool down in Logan.  It's been rainy and overcast.  This past week we had not one but TWO rainbows by the canyon.
I joked with James that we should go to the water lab to pick up the pot of gold.  He didn't laugh.  The water lab is where James does his research and it's located near the mouth of the canyon.

The actual sign for the Chuck-A-Rama on 4th South.  Awesome.
 As we were walking in to Chuck-A-Rama I noticed a gigantic bird house but I didn't think much of it (probably because I was hungry.)  Afterwards I saw a sign on the fence in the parking lot that almost made me gasp.  GILGAL GARDEN.  It's one of those local placed I've wanted to visit but never got around to it.  Lucky for me, James is really obliging so we drove around the corner (we didn't realize it was so close) and spent a few minutes in the garden.
James and the Joseph Smith Sphinx.  I don't think James was excited.
Me and the statue of Child
 It was a weird place but sort of cool.  I'm glad I was able to finally visit it.  Thanks James!




One more thing: I handed in my final draft of my Plan B Report (thesis) on Friday.  It was 85 pages long!  Granted, there are a lot of pictures.



Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Warning! Scandalous Pictures!

One thing that I love about our place is our backdoor neighbors:


Or maybe I should say, "neighhh-bors."

Not funny?  I thought so.
As of the beginning of this blog post (Wednesday night) this is how my Plan B Report looks:


It's not done yet but it's pretty close.  I have some more to write for the last two chapters but I can do it.  My draft is due on Friday.  THIS Friday.  Awesome.

In other adventures, I turned in my designs for Gypsy in Design Studies.  I was really excited to do this paper project because it was a really fun design.  I broke up my research into six musical numbers from the show and figured I could finish them all.  Well, I stayed up until 3:00 last night and woke up at 7:30 this morning and...
I still didn't finish.  It was okay because I finished 17 out of the 22 figures I had designed on 5 of the 6 pages.  It was a lot of work and I am VERY tired.
Baby June and Her Newsboys
Madame Rose's Toreadorables


 After this point in the musical, the theatres are replaced by burlesque houses.

Gotta Have  A Gimmick
Louise's First Strip
Gypsy Rose Lee


Rose's Turn (Everything's Coming Up Rose)

 And, finally, the centerpiece for my friend Kim's bachelorette party:

Our friend Nat made it.  I thought it was really funny.  Did you know that Ken's plastic underwear has his name on it?  It's weird.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

A warm up


I'm supposed to work on my Plan B report tonight but I don't really want to do it.  I figure I can write on my blog as a warm up to working on the awfulness.  It makes sense, right?  

Conference was this past weekend and it was great.  James and I drove down Saturday morning and spent the weekend in Kaysville.  In years past we have split time between the parents but we decided to mix it up this time around.  I decided to snap some pictures as James drove (one perk of being a passenger.)
A few changing leaves in Sardine Canyon

Even more fall colors
James and his typical picture face while driving
Further evidence can be found here
The Brigham City Temple


I forgot I had this in my bag, when I pulled it out, there was a safety pin attached.  It made me smile.


Back to homework and being "responsible."