One Year

"To love another person is to see the face of God"

While everyone was off having picnics and barbecues and going swimming, Doug and I were celebrating our first anniversary. It was a wonderful weekend, and I really needed the break from Provo and school. It was hard to come back to classes today. Especially after the VIP treatment we got at the hotel we stayed at. They gave us "welcome cookies". Yep, you read that correctly. Freshly-baked welcome cookies!

Park City is a beautiful place to get away to during May. Rolling green hills, temperatures in the high 60s/low 70s, and the cutest Main Street you could imagine.

And I basically died when I saw this painted piano mural. It just sits outside with a sign on it that says "Play me". I love these piano mural projects. I've only ever seen them in pictures, so I was excited when Doug pointed this one out.

We went over to the Olympic Park where they did the ski jump competitions during the Olympics in 2002. We got to ride the chair lifts up to the top and then take a huge zipline down to the bottom.

For the Extreme Zipline, you start at the very top of the K120 jump and go all the way down to the parking lot at the bottom. It's one of the steepest ziplines in the world, and you can reach up to 50 mph. (Want to know a secret? It's not as adrenaline-pumping as I thought it would be. My stomach didn't even drop at all! What's the point of going on an extreme zipline if you don't get those adrenaline rushes?!)

Well, I can check that off my bucket list.

Park City was beautiful. Our anniversary was wonderful and relaxing. Now I'm back in the real world, and there's only 3 weeks until the last day of spring term. Opening night for A Wrinkle in Time is on Tuesday.

I can do it!

Douglas, I love you so much! This first year has been awesome, and I look forward to the years to come. How did I ever get so lucky? Marrying you was the best decision ever. Thanks for loving and supporting me!

12 hours

I spent most of my waking hours in the Fine Arts Center here at my college yesterday.

12 hours, to be precise.

Yes, on a Saturday.

But it's worth it when I see the progress that "A Wrinkle in Time" is making, and see the awesome choreography they're learning in "Seussical the Musical".

This is a small "experimental theatre" that we do student-directed projects in.

And the picture's a bit blurry, but the guy in the center is lifting a girl over his head and spinning.

Oh, so exciting.

They're all having so much fun, and half of them are just as tired, if not more tired than me.

Theatre does that to ya.

A Wrinkle in Time opens in less than two weeks! We start tech rehearsals in the De Jong Concert Hall on Tuesday. It will be over before I know it, I'm sure.

Happy Sunday to everyone!

Baby Dutch Babies

Behold... the result of my latest mini kitchen experiment.

The "full-sized" version of these bites are known by many names: puffed pancakes, dutch babies, dutch oven pancakes, German pancakes... the list goes on. I grew up calling them German pancakes, but I've really grown to like the sound of "Dutch Babies".

So, I suppose that you could call these Baby Dutch Babies. They're teeny-tiny! And they still taste pretty similar to their full-sized counterparts.

I saw the recipe in a book and thought it would make a fun Monday evening project. They were very fast to make, although I did panic a little bit when I was only able to fill up 12 muffin tins instead of 24. I suppose my mini-muffin tin is not the smallest you can get. This recipe calls for tiny muffin tins, folks. That way, these Baby Dutch Babies will literally be bite-sized. Mine are twice as big as they should be (apparantly) but they still taste pretty good.

Note to self: I need to get a powdered sugar shaker. It will make life easier, food prettier, and my kitchen less messy.

For those of you who are curious and want to try this recipe yourselves, here ya go!

Baby Dutch Babies (Makes either 12 or 24, depending on the size of the mini-muffin tin you use)

1/2 cup flour

3/4 cup milk

2 large eggs

1/8 tsp salt

Place your muffin tin in the oven and preheat to 400 degrees. While the oven is heating, mix the four ingredients in a blender until smooth. When the oven is done heating, take the muffin tin out (careful, it's hot!) and quickly spray it with cooking spray. Fill the tins 3/4 full with batter and then stick it in the oven for 10-12 minutes or until the baby dutch babies look puffy and slightly golden.

Melt 2 tbsp butter, and when you take the bites out of the pan, drizzle the butter over them. Then you can either dip the baby dutch babies in syrup or do what I did: take some strawberries (5-6, frozen or fresh) and blend them up. Pour them over the dutch babies and sprinkle some powdered sugar. I think these also taste good with yogurt, and I daresay that Nutella would taste pretty awesome on them as well. Dang it, I should have tried that... I have a big, fat container of Nutella sitting in my cupboard...

Enjoy!

To dance... to express... to live.

Every time I go to a dance concert, I remember.
I remember how beautiful the human body looks when it twists, turns, leaps, and reaches. I remember how it touches my soul. And I remember how badly I wish I could dance like those people.

I dance 18 hours a week, but that's so small compared to the years that people spend on their technique, form, flexibility, and expression. And it shows. Every movement has meaning - a meaning that touches me and moves me. I went to a ballroom concert last night, and they performed a waltz number dedicated to men who are in service; I was in tears. They did a Disney medley and I felt like a little girl again. The flowing dresses, the graceful lifts and twirls - it is all so beautiful.

A picture from the BYU Ballroom Company's European Pre-Tour Showcase that I saw last night (source)

Expression. Emotion. That is what I love about lyrical dances and contemporary numbers. I went to a Contemporary Dance Theatre concert a couple months ago, and they showed this animated video part-way through the concert. I've always really liked this video, and it's a great example of the passion and emotion that goes into dancing.

Human movement is a beautiful thing. I'm obsessed with it.

The good thing about going to dance concerts = they inspire me to keep trying and to work harder. Someday, I'll feel ready to truly call myself a dancer.

On a different note... for those of you who might not come here often enough to notice... I have a new blog design! I got on a random "re-design" kick yesterday, and I even (finally) made a facebook page for my blog and changed my twitter handle so it's less random and actually relates to this blog!

I finally feel excited about blogging again!

The food, the weddings, the dancing... and stuff

Wonderful weather
Picnics with perfect-looking "traditional" sandwiches
Birthday crepe dates with my favorite blonde roommate
Weddings for another roommate and a Theatre buddy of mine
Finding out my winter semester grades (10 A's and 1 A minus. Take that, 11 classes!!!!)
Starting a new term
18 hours of dance per week (and that's not counting practicing outside of class)
Daily 3-hour Seussical rehearsals
5 hour Wrinkle In Time rehearsals every other day
Stocking up on Nutella
Eating WAY too much ice cream
My brother coming to stay with us for a night
(And then getting his mission call... West Virginia, baby!)
My father-in-law coming to visit
And treating us to a Japanese Grill and Tucanos
And taking us to see Jurassic Park in 3D (which was awesome)

Between all of those things (and more)
It's been a crazy few weeks.
No wonder I have not been giving my blog any attention.

Not to mention I watched the first 2 seasons of Downton Abbey during my less-than-one-week break between winter semester and spring term, and I'm very annoyed with Amazon for buying the rights to the show so I can't watch season 3 on Netflix or Hulu Plus. (I may or may not have stayed up until 2 in the morning watching episodes back-to-back. No, I do not have a problem.)

It's been a good couple weeks, though, even though they've been crazy busy.

BBQ Chicken and French Kiss Gourmet Crepes 

Right in my backyard.

Sunday naps? Wonderful.

Outdoor Sunday naps right after a picnic? Even better.

The thing about weddings is... I only take a couple pictures. And then I come home wishing I had taken more. Doesn't Emilee look gorgeous? Her whole reception was just so... Emilee. Wonderful.

And I didn't get one picture of Beth's dress on my camera (or any pictures with her, frankly... but the photographers got plenty, so I'm satisfied.) Gah, I can't wait for their pictures to be put up on FB so I can "borrow" one and show you guys. I wanted to steal that dress right off her body, it was so cute!

Oh... and my body may or may not be very angry with me after this week. 18 hours of dance? After going for a couple weeks with no dancing or stretching whatsoever? Yeah. My muscles don't like me. But dancing is just so awesome!

Not to mention I took half of my toenail off on my left big toe. But that's another story.

Alright. Ashley out.