Graduation annoucements

Since I am graduating in a short two weeks I realized that I still need to send out graduation announcements to my family and close friends. Trying to be . . well. . cheap. . I thought it would be a good and fun idea to just make them myself. So this weekend David and I went to a local park and took some pictures to use. Because I am super indecisive it became really hard for me to decide which one to use. . . but after a whole day of deliberation I came to a decision. I still want to share my runner up photos with you guys though! Hopefully I can get the real announcements sent out at the end of this week. . so keep your eyes open!

Recital!!

The Recital turned out very well! I am so happy to say that it is over! I put a lot of work and time into it and it all paid off! My family was able to make it down to share this special moment with me too!

For my encore I had three of my dear friends play a piece with me that we all worked on while in Heidelberg, Germany. The piece meant a lot to us because it reminds us of those amazing four months that we spent there. I was so happy to share this piece - its so beautiful! I think it worked perfectly as the end to my recital!

Finally but defiantly not least. . here are pictures of the beautiful flowers that I received!!

eek!

This Saturday is my Senior Recital! I am a little bit nervous. . but mostly really anxious and excited to share what I have been working but butt off on for the past year. The concert is an hour long and I am playing 3 pieces. My family is coming down and I am really excited to see them probably more then having to play this recital.


I am hoping it all goes well!! I will update with pictures from the recital next week!!

:)

This week of school

This week of school was so so crazy!! I had the rough copy of my senior sem. paper due. No big deal because it was just a rough draft - but it was crazy to put all of my work together and end up with a 23 page paper! I have never written a paper that long before! So it was exciting! My topic is "Why the Art's matter: In a child's development". Its exciting because it is a topic that I am really passionate about (obviously since I am a musician for a living). I was also surprised how many resources I could find on the topic. Besides that one large paper, I have had several others due in my other courses. This semester has been the most challenging one academically in all my four years, but I have been working hard and keeping up in all of my classes so that is good.

Last night I played in a chamber group concert. It was a mix between faculty and students so it was so much fun to be playing in such a talented group. It was a lot of fun and a surprisingly good end to a very busy week. Coming up to the concert I was not looking forward to it - but it turned out to be a really great experience for me. I had a really great time playing on stage. It was a great night!

Now I am excited that the weekend is here! It is going to be filled with hours of practicing and doing homework for this coming week!

Only a few more weeks then I am done with school!!

I want to be done with school!!

I know that I only have a few more months left. . but right now I feel so overwhelmed with work and it is getting hard to see the end! School is filled with so much busy work that some days does not make any sense. School is kind of a strange inner conflict because I love learning but only from really great teachers like ones whom I have been lucky to study from in the past. This semester is just a lot of classes that take up a lot of time. . .
But on top of that I am in three different music ensembles at school and I need to be practicing at least 3 hours every day to keep growing musically and prepare for my recital on April 18th.

. . . Yet more important then all of my complaining with moaning and groaning. . . I know how lucky I am. I am grateful that I do not have to work full time in addition to being a full time student to support me financially. I know I am blessed to even be getting a degree and finishing it in four years. I just finished studying abroad in Germany. . .

Some days it is hard for me to stop complaining, it is hard for me to get my head out of the mess with everything that is "not right" in my life. When I really should focus more on the good in my life, and all of the things I can reflect on that will encourage me to constantly be doing better. With that said, I probably should get back to studying for my three wonderful test!!

I got bored. .

A few weekends ago I got bored and decided to try a little arts and crafts project to add a little something more to my bed room. I got the directions from here . . . It only took a few hours and I think that it turned out pretty good!

I probably could have just bought a bulletin board already made. . but I liked the idea of getting to use the fabric and ribbon colors that I wanted. And it gave me something to do that wasn't just sitting infront of the television!

Valenitne's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day
even though a day too late!

The day started off with flowers which such a lovely treat!

The jazz band at my school does a dinner dance thing every year, and since David had to play in it I went! Although I did not do much dancing (because David was playing the whole time) I still had a fabulous time listening and watching everyone else dance. During the day as David was off setting up I decided to try out some valentine's recipes I saw in a magazine. They look pretty good if you ask me. It was a lot of fun trying to make everything from scratch. And it was my first time baking all by myself!

Super cute brownie heart cupcakes! . . home made butter cream frosting also YUM!

A surprisingly delicious and easy to make Pear-Raspberry Heart Pie. It is kind of hard to see but the top crust is little heart shaped pieces.

Now we are back. .

I know that I never got around to putting up any pictures from Italy. . but time is quick to run away from me. We have been back now for about 2 months and that in itself is crazy to believe! Germany feels like a life time ago, we both miss it so much. Now we are back at school and we are back to working. . working very hard! We both have full academic loads about 18 units each and working outside of school too. It has been hard to try to get back into the old routine of things - but we are taking it a day at a time. Most days are filled with "remember in Heidelberg when. . ". It is nice to have that amazing part of our life to look back on. Who knows maybe one day we will be back :).

One thing that has been great is now having the time to spend with our family and friends. Both of us were so anxious to come back to see our family - and it has been wonderful to see them all. Our family was anxious to hear about our trips and see more pictures - and we were excited to share them as well! And there are a lot of stories to still be told!

One great thing about being back is that it really made us fall in love with LA again. There is no place in the world like LA - there is so much to do here, and so many people each person completely different! I was excited to just be able to drive some where at 11:00 at night for an "adventure" as we like to call it!

All in all it is great to be back!
-Jess

Italy

We just thought that we would let everyone know that we are doing great out here!

We are enjoying our last week out in Europe and we are excited to be coming home soon!

Italy!

We leave for Italy in just a few hours. We have a very early train and we cannot wait much longer! David is planning the last few details of all of the things that we are going to be doing in Florence and in Rome.
It is going to be a great final week in Europe!!
We cannot wait till we get to share pictures with you!
Love you all!
Counting down the days until we get to see you all
-David and Jessica

Finally finished with Finals!

Well! We made it through all of our finals and our final concert! All that we have left now is just to plan our final trip to Italy, pack, and then go to Italy!
We felt a bit distracted at the beginning of the week. It seemed like there was so much going on and so much to get through till we would be done and in Italy. Now we have gotten through most of it and all that we have left to do with the group is just all of our final dinners.

The head to this semester had us over last Saturday to babysit his two kids. His daughter Vivian is 5 and their son Adam is 2. They are both super cute - and pretty much love hanging out with really cool David and Jessica! The game we are most known for with the two of them is Dinosaur and Lions. David is the bad Dinosaur and the rest of us are lions. It is pretty hilarious to watch but for us I think its just a lot of fun. Tomorrow their family is having the whole group over to their house for dinner which will be fun! So that is one thing we have to look forward too, is a free meal and getting to hang out with their kids again :)

Then on Saturday night is our official final dinner for the group. They are taking us to the Hotel Ritter's restaurant. The hotel Ritter is not only the nicest but one of the most well known establishments in town, and their restaurant is very very nice. There the group is having the traditional German Christmas mean of Goose (And Jessica will get Pasta yum!). It will be a great meal and a good time for us to all get together for the final time.

Soon will follow Sunday morning! We will be very early boarding on to a train and heading out to Florence. We will get to Florence late, but we will have the 8th and the 9th all day to see the different museums. Then early morning on the 10th we head to Rome and right away we head to the Vatican to take part in a Mass lead by the Pope. Then we have that day as well as the 11th and 12th to see everything the city has to offer!
On the 13th we head by to Heidelberg. It will be a very very very long train ride that will last basically all day. But that is okay because I get to sit next to this Handsome fella the whole time!!



The following morning on the 14th we leave on an airplane out of Frankfurt International Airport to LAX!! And we will be home sweet home :)

Finals Week!

We can barely believe it!! This is our last week living in Heidelberg. This week is our week of finals but we are not worried about any of them really. So what we are really focusing on this week is planning for our trip to Rome next week!!! We are planning on spending 2 days in Florence and 3 days in Rome! There is so much to see in these cities. We are looking forward to seeing all of the Roman ruins, art work, and experience the History there. David faxed in a request to get tickets for an audience with the Pope! We are both looking forward to seeing him.

More about this week. They now have this huge Christmas Market all around Heidelberg! This afternoon we are planning on walking around and taking pictures of the town decorated for Christmas. So look forward to seeing those soon!

Last night our group had our final concert! Everyone played a short piece that they have been working on this semester. Jessica played a part of a song she plans to do in her Recital. David played the last 2 movements of one of the several pieces he has learned this semester. Also he played a piece that he wrote this semester in his composition lessons. He has been learning about 21st century music and the piece is written off the 12 tone system and different techniques used in the 20th century. Everyone really enjoyed hearing his piece and if you ask me, it was amazing! I always love watching him playing something that he wrote.
It was really great to get to hear every one in the group play. All of our teachers were there also, so it was great to have their support. It is sad to think that this semseter is coming to an end and we will not be able to continue studying here. But more then that we are so anxious to be back home with our families.
1 Week and 6 Days left!

Cologne

This is us walking to the Chocolate Museum. In the background is one of the several great churches in the town.



The main treasure to the Cologne Cathedral is this Golden Shrine to the three Magi. It was made around 1200, and it is absolutely breath taking as you can see here!



Inside of the Chocolate Museum was this chocolate fountain of a golden coco tree. They would dip in vanilla wafers into the chocolate of this fountain and give them out as samples. It was so so so good!



A part of the museum had several workers demonstrating different parts of the production of Chocolate. It was neat to watch each one do their individual jobs. There was one lady who was hand wrapping this huge hallow chocolate Santa in his aluminum wrapper.



Our delicious treat in the cafe of the Museum. Jessica could barely finish either one of her items because it was all so much! But it was really good! This museum was a lot of fun, maybe the highlight of the day!

Pictures from David's Birthday!

We had a great 2 days celebrating David's Birthday! We really love going to museums and experiencing new places together - which is why I felt this town was a perfect place for us to go! Right when you walk out of the main station you see the Cologne Dom. Then right behind that Church are 2 museums, and just a short walk father down the river is the Chocolate museum! It was a lot of fun! And since everything was so close, it worked out better then we could have imagined!

This is during David's birthday dinner. We went to a more traditional German restaurant that is just right down the main street from us. It was really delicious, and a great time!



This is beautiful Cologne! This shot is from across the river showing the Dom at night time.



Up close to the Dom. This church was HUGE, it seemed even bigger than the Notre Dame.



We climbed over 500 steps to the top of the front towers of the Dom! And here is a great shot showing the museums right under the church and the city.



This is where we decided to have our Thanksgiving dinner! There were some groups with actual full Turkeys there. But a Cheese burger and Veggie burger were the perfect alternative for us!