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