I WILL write a post about our wonderful first Christmas together. But for now, I just have a quick advertising plug -
Chris and I are going to sing together at Temple Lights tomorrow night! The concert night we were assigned happens to fall on our one year anniversary from the day we started dating. Awwww. :)
But it's tomorrow night, 7:00 to 7:30, at the Mesa Temple Visitor Center. If it rains, it will be indoors, and if not, it will be on the back of the Visitor Center, facing the temple. We'll be singing solos, duets, playing violin, and do a number with my brother's band, Saltwater Radio. We hope to see many of you there!
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Marley Was Dead, To Begin With.
This week has been the Nightmare before Christmas. But we've survived the storm! We had the CRAZIEST day yesterday.
Some quick background information first - 2 1/2 weeks ago, one of the male leads dropped out of CGCC's production of "A Christmas Carol". Chris's dad is one of the directors. So guess who he asked to jump in and learn the whole show in less than 3 weeks, with time in his schedule to go to about half of the rehearsals? Yup. :) My Chris will be playing the role of the ghost Jacob Marley in CGCC's "A Christmas Carol", which has had its dress rehearsals all week and will be opening tonight at 7:30. So, with that busy schedule in mind, keep reading.
So, Dec. 1st was the due date for audition recordings for acceptance into the ASU's Herberger School of Music. So I'd recorded mine (with severe bronchitis, but you do what you gotta do), but Chris LOST his voice, and was just starting to get it back (fabulous timing for a musical, an audition, a Messiah performance as the tenor soloist, and a week-ful of voice lessons - poor Chris :( ). So we were waiting to record his until the last possible minute.
We discovered on MONDAY night that not only were our recordings due online, but that in fact our entire application (essay, repertoire sheets, artistic resumes, 3 recommendation letters) which I'd thought was due by Dec 31st . . . was actually due by Dec 1st. By 5:00.
We also discovered that the camera that I had recorded my audition with was missing a crucial cord, that it required certain expensive software that limited us to using my parents' computer, that my file size was too big to be uploaded (I sang a 16 page French opera aria) and needed to downgrade its quality or cut the recording, and that the adobe flashplayer 10.1 needed to submit the file online had crashed and refused to work on my parents' computer.
And just as we finally started figuring out how to make it work, the camera battery died. The charging cord was in the car, with Chris, in Gilbert. Who was not able to bring it to me.
So, to make a long story short, the world saved our lives yesterday, and we were able to turn in our applications - thanks to my incredible brother Nate, who tracked down the cords I needed, spent hours helping me make it work on his laptop even though he had mountains of homework and tests to deal with; thanks to the fabulous Laura McQuaig, who was helping Chris do the exact same thing on the other side of town at CGCC; thanks to the other students in the green room helping Chris and Laura figure out the school camera, the website and how the heck to make everything compatible; thanks to my mom, who made sure I had the chance to eat and take medicine since I was still really sick; thanks to John for helping Chris record his audition with a video camera other than mine; thanks to Adam Hildebrandt, our store manager, who helped me shrink the movie file size while I had to go and teach lessons; thanks to Marc, who drove down to ASU and hand-delivered our applications; thanks to the teachers who were willing to write us recommendation letters on such short notice; and THANKS THANKS THANKS to my mother-in-law Denna, who drove me around all day from work to paying the rent to my parents' house to her house to picking up cords to CGCC and back, and everything in between!!!
Most of all, thank you to our Heavenly Father for blessing us with strength in spite of sickness, with the ability keep all our school/work/rehearsal commitments and yet finish the essays and repertoire sheets quickly, and with friends and family in our path to help us accomplish all that we needed to.
Mm. Life is good. :)
Well, A Christmas Carol is opening tonight, so here's my shameless advertising plug! It's at 7:30 at the Arnette-Scott Ward Performing Arts Center on the CGCC Pecos and Gilbert campus. It's going to be a great show! Tickets are $5-10 bucks.
My husband plays a dead ghost, and let me tell you, he is completely terrifying!! He's covered in zombie makeup, shrieking and wailing and contorting and scaring the living daylights out of me (It's quite a scary scene, maybe I'll be able to post a clip of it on here soon), and yet somehow managing to do it "tastefully" instead of making it tacky. It's lucky that he's got such a mild-mannered personality. . . I had no idea he could shout like that! My nieces and nephews will also be in the show as well.
If anyone wants to come, the show is going to be fabulous. And who doesn't like Dicken's "A Christmas Carol"? I've already started my annual Christmas rereading of the book. This show, by the way, is different from the version they do at the Hale Center Theatre. Alan Menken wrote the music to this one. Therefore it's awesome. The one at Hale Center is made up of actual Christmas carols put to the story, whereas this is a musical theatre production with some incredible original music. So, come see the show! :)
Some quick background information first - 2 1/2 weeks ago, one of the male leads dropped out of CGCC's production of "A Christmas Carol". Chris's dad is one of the directors. So guess who he asked to jump in and learn the whole show in less than 3 weeks, with time in his schedule to go to about half of the rehearsals? Yup. :) My Chris will be playing the role of the ghost Jacob Marley in CGCC's "A Christmas Carol", which has had its dress rehearsals all week and will be opening tonight at 7:30. So, with that busy schedule in mind, keep reading.
So, Dec. 1st was the due date for audition recordings for acceptance into the ASU's Herberger School of Music. So I'd recorded mine (with severe bronchitis, but you do what you gotta do), but Chris LOST his voice, and was just starting to get it back (fabulous timing for a musical, an audition, a Messiah performance as the tenor soloist, and a week-ful of voice lessons - poor Chris :( ). So we were waiting to record his until the last possible minute.
We discovered on MONDAY night that not only were our recordings due online, but that in fact our entire application (essay, repertoire sheets, artistic resumes, 3 recommendation letters) which I'd thought was due by Dec 31st . . . was actually due by Dec 1st. By 5:00.
We also discovered that the camera that I had recorded my audition with was missing a crucial cord, that it required certain expensive software that limited us to using my parents' computer, that my file size was too big to be uploaded (I sang a 16 page French opera aria) and needed to downgrade its quality or cut the recording, and that the adobe flashplayer 10.1 needed to submit the file online had crashed and refused to work on my parents' computer.
And just as we finally started figuring out how to make it work, the camera battery died. The charging cord was in the car, with Chris, in Gilbert. Who was not able to bring it to me.
So, to make a long story short, the world saved our lives yesterday, and we were able to turn in our applications - thanks to my incredible brother Nate, who tracked down the cords I needed, spent hours helping me make it work on his laptop even though he had mountains of homework and tests to deal with; thanks to the fabulous Laura McQuaig, who was helping Chris do the exact same thing on the other side of town at CGCC; thanks to the other students in the green room helping Chris and Laura figure out the school camera, the website and how the heck to make everything compatible; thanks to my mom, who made sure I had the chance to eat and take medicine since I was still really sick; thanks to John for helping Chris record his audition with a video camera other than mine; thanks to Adam Hildebrandt, our store manager, who helped me shrink the movie file size while I had to go and teach lessons; thanks to Marc, who drove down to ASU and hand-delivered our applications; thanks to the teachers who were willing to write us recommendation letters on such short notice; and THANKS THANKS THANKS to my mother-in-law Denna, who drove me around all day from work to paying the rent to my parents' house to her house to picking up cords to CGCC and back, and everything in between!!!
Most of all, thank you to our Heavenly Father for blessing us with strength in spite of sickness, with the ability keep all our school/work/rehearsal commitments and yet finish the essays and repertoire sheets quickly, and with friends and family in our path to help us accomplish all that we needed to.
Mm. Life is good. :)
Well, A Christmas Carol is opening tonight, so here's my shameless advertising plug! It's at 7:30 at the Arnette-Scott Ward Performing Arts Center on the CGCC Pecos and Gilbert campus. It's going to be a great show! Tickets are $5-10 bucks.
My husband plays a dead ghost, and let me tell you, he is completely terrifying!! He's covered in zombie makeup, shrieking and wailing and contorting and scaring the living daylights out of me (It's quite a scary scene, maybe I'll be able to post a clip of it on here soon), and yet somehow managing to do it "tastefully" instead of making it tacky. It's lucky that he's got such a mild-mannered personality. . . I had no idea he could shout like that! My nieces and nephews will also be in the show as well.
If anyone wants to come, the show is going to be fabulous. And who doesn't like Dicken's "A Christmas Carol"? I've already started my annual Christmas rereading of the book. This show, by the way, is different from the version they do at the Hale Center Theatre. Alan Menken wrote the music to this one. Therefore it's awesome. The one at Hale Center is made up of actual Christmas carols put to the story, whereas this is a musical theatre production with some incredible original music. So, come see the show! :)
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