Jon Schmidt - Michael Meets Mozart - 1 Piano, 2 Guys, 100 Cello Tracks- ...

More John Schmidt & Steven Sharp Nelson. So awesome!

Steven Sharp Nelson - The Cello Song - Bach is back (with 7 more cellos)...

Last night John Schmidt and Steven Sharp Nelson performed at the Washington DC temple visitors center. So a group of about 20 of us from the branch drove up and saw it. It was INCREDIBLE. This was probably my favorite - so, so, sooo good! Wow! Definitely one of the coolest performances I've ever been to. It was awesome :)

Crave

I'm addicted (:

and this is my work.

No good.

I will have to work really, reeeaally hard to not gain like, 50 pounds

if I come back to Utah and I look like an oompa loompa, you'll know why!

Who knew frozen yogurt could be so delicious

and so addicting?

It's supposedly healthier.. I'm not sure how much I buy into that... but I'll try and stick to the fruit toppings haha (:

Yum (:

This Week:

-carving pumpkins for FHE

-making a photo collage, combining 2 locations together with 50 photos. fun (:

-Institute

-Work

-Halloween Party

-Jon Schmidt concert
-lots and lots and lots of homework
(mostly reading...)

Woohoo (:

I had the greatest day today.

I conducted my first stake activities meeting. I was so nervous. Wow. But it went great, of course. The branch here is wonderful. I love the people in it so , so much. Their the greatest examples to me, and strengthen and build me up in so many ways. I’m  sure they don’t know how much. I’m so grateful for them, and for the gospel. As Matt Howard says, as soon as you get baptized, you’ve added 14 million or so people to your family. It’s so true. The church is so wonderful in the support system it has, so everyone has a friend and has the help they need. I am so, so grateful for it.

There’s a lot of super fun activities coming up (:

Parties, Dances, The Nutcracker in Richmond… aw. I love Christmastime <3

 What a lovely, beautiful day. I felt so happy and peaceful all day. The beautiful sunset, the breathtaking fall colors, the wonderful people in my life… their all such great blessings that my Father in Heaven has blessed me with. How can I be so loved as to receive all those blessings? I am so grateful, for my Heavenly Father and my Saviour, Jesus Christ. My family is awesome, and having the missionaries over is so fun. I love missionaries. Can I say that enough? They have the best spirit. And one day I’m going to marry one of those elders (: And, if it’s right, I will be one of those sisters! I would be so happy to dedicate 2 years (or a year and a half) to serve the Lord who has given me so much. I have dedicated my life to following Him.

My heart is filled with gratitude today. What a wonderful gift life is (:

envy

envy, a photo by burstingwithcolors on Flickr.

Today

[eighty-eight.threehundredsixtyfive] Hope is a waking dream. Capture it., a photo by the air we breathe. on Flickr.

is a lovely day.

I love fall

and being at school

especially after a midterm that went particularly well

and after talking to a teacher, who turns out to be LDS, who grew up in Orem Utah

which reminded me of my lovely family

and taking pictures

walking across stunning campus in the cool, crisp air

being able to breathe after being sick (and having my ribs kill!) for so long

definitely a peacefuly, heart happy day (:

photo above off flickr.com, by theairwebreathe

love today (:

Mineral

Mineral, a photo by burstingwithcolors on Flickr.

part of the photography project

David Lanz - Cristofori's Dream

One of my most favorite piano solos, ever.
Beautiful.
Music is a universal language..
I love it (:

Photography Project

I'm not quite done yet - hopefully I'll be finishing it today. It's due Thursday, but it's fall break, and would be nice to get out of the way.
But here's the first few I've done.


Creation. Like I'm creating a painting. The first thought was religious references, but I wasn't quite sure how to portray that in a photograph.. haha.
I took this one a few years ago, but my teacher said we could use one previous picture. So yeah!



Gluttony. Isaac ate like 7 cookies for this photoshoot (:

animal

fear
sorry, it's a little hard to see small. to see it larger here's a link. not my greatest picture, but yeah.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/serendipity_photography/6260186141/sizes/l/in/photostream/

greed

joy

light

sloth

vegetable

wrath

Pride. I promise I'm not this vain. But.. yeah.

I'll put more up as I finish my project.

If you would like to see more of my photos, I have a lot on flickr.com - the website is http://www.flickr.com/photos/serendipity_photography/

Enjoy (:

Is it bad

to say your boss reminds you of Willy Wonka? In a wonderful, ice cream and chocolate, not mean way at all? It's great! That's how awesome my job is!

Anyways, do you know what is beautiful in fall? Virginia. Wow. My drive to church down twisting, skinny country roads with light splattering through the trees and leaves whirling everywhere - now that is beautiful. There's all these Baptist and Episcopal? churches everywhere, with these gorgeous old graveyards that are just so fun to walk around in during this time of year. It is stunning (:

My life:
-so glad Midterms are over
-having interesting dreams. i.e. myself going back in time, and following my childhood me - looking at me as a child, and me as a child recognizing it's me... weird.
-date to see art galleries in downtown Fredericksburg, way fun!
-new photography project - take 30 something pictures of traits such as greed, pride, gluttony, joy, ect
-helping put up lights at the Washington DC temple = SO fun! Soo beautiful, and just awesome! What on earth is better then Christmas lights at the temple? And helping to put them up? That is just fantastic.
-Happy Birthday Dexter! seeing him go to a high school dance (: odd experience, but so cute. He's so handsome!
-got visiting teaching assignments! I'm such a nerd, but I'm actually super excited - a really good friend is my companion, and I'm way excited to make friends with all the ladies I'll be visiting!

and... that's the major highlights for now, I suppose. That's this weekend. We'll see what this week brings.

graveyard, at a Baptist church, on the way to church. I want to go back when it's closer to evening for the lighting. It's beautiful!

some cute squash in the garden!

Peter and Adam are.. adorable

A freaky snake I ran into while exploring the graveyard



The Baptist church I explored had a prayer walk that led through the forest behind, and these were at the end. As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints we don't use crosses as a symbol of our religion, but these were so beautiful in the fall leaves, and do symbolize Christ's sacrifice to many people. The picture doesn't do it justice. The scene was gorgeous (:



Some gravestones, lots of them dated to the 1800's - kind of cool!

Isaac's a stud

Pretty much my life for a while. Sketching, painting, being outside.. yep (:

A bench at UMW. We have the most gorgeous campus! I feel like I've walked back into the Civil War era

Peter is.. soo... cute..

the end, for now!

You would not believe

The night I had last night

Stuck at Wawa for an hour, from one to two in the morning

after work

with four hours of sleep the previous night

in the cold

with your keys locked in your car,

your cell phone locked in your car,

next to the pump

at the gas station

with no memorized phone number for anyone

and the cops trying to get a hold of your family

It's a scary, interesting experience.

My advice? Bring a blanket and hot cocoa. It helps, a lot!

I'm so grateful for kind police officers and my dad.

and to Heavenly Father, for keeping me safe.
and for spare keys

State Fair & Wild Weekend

Wow. This week has been intense. This weekend has been intense. Where do I even start? Let's see... Thursday I was way sick, so I bummed out of work, had someone cover for me, and totally crashed. I got to paint when I wasn't asleep though, so that was wonderful (: My hands are always multicolored afterwards. Also had a major test in History of Western Art. I think I did okay. It's so much memorization - and I didn't finish my flashcards, so it was.. meh. Not terrible. But definitely not my best. I'll definitely study harder next time.  It's FASCINATING though, we're learning about classical Greece right now - before that Aegean, Minoan, Mycenean, and ancient Egyptian art was so fasinating! It's interesting that only the royals or elites could afford art then, so it was mostly used as a status symbol, a political statement, or a key to the afterlife- sometimes all 3. Fascinating stuff. Anyways. Then Friday was super, duper, dee duper fun! I had class, went home and painted - were doing abstract paintings, and I did one to Fix You by Coldplay (one of my all time favorite bands. Wow. Love them.) I'll put some pics of it up later... someday later.. but yeah. Then that night I went to the State Fair!! Woohoo! It was interesting - it was me and 4 guys. Phillip, Steven, Stephen, John, and I. Yeah... had some kind of awkward moments.. I really wish Kelly or another girl friend had gone... but overall, it was so fun! Okay, most of it was pretty much basically awesome! (: I do have to admit, the guys are hilarious. I saw racing pigs, including pigs who were so fat their bellies dragged on the ground (Tyrone the Terrible), rode a ferris wheel (love, love, love!), rode some freaky roller coasters (SCARY- nothing to the California Screamer though), ate a hot dog with onions (yummy but soo greasy), spent a ridiculous amount of money on entrance fee and rides (ouch :( my poor wallet..) ... basically the overall state fair experience. It was SO fun. I love the lights and the smells and the people, and getting that crazy thrill on rides. It's kind of a sensory overload, I prefer hiking or going to the beach most days. But it's definitely super fun every once in a while!

Then earlier today I competed in a chili cookoff! Our team was called WHAM - (Whitney, Hannah, Amber, Matt). It was AWESOME. We made 10 gallons of chili for a car show carnival thing, that was super spicy and delish! Yes, that's right, 10 gallons! Our theme was "Get Whammed!" and we decorated with handlebar mustaches, including wearing a lovely black fuzzy caterpillar like one on our lips (: We looked adorably manly! It was awesome! Pretty much everyone loved us, because of our mustaches.. and our bubble machine.. and our chili, of course (: We didn't win anything, but it was our first year, and definitely worth the experience! I wasn't so keen on doing it at first - so much homework, it ended up costing a lot of money (my poor wallet is suffering recently - poor thing. I'll nourish it back to health and will not wring it out again),  and alot of time, but it was definitely so, so fun. I'm so glad I went. Thank you, Matt, for setting it up! Way fun (:

Our pictures were su-weet. I'll put some up later, along with this lovely one by kevin dooley on flickr.com (:

So.. yeah.. last night I got about 4 hours of sleep. So I'm off to nap in the UMW library - lovely (:

Later!

Steven and Stephen... their hilarious!

me!



John's a goofball! I put up the wrong one.. he wasn't ready on this one so he looks all serious haha. but my computer takes wayy too long to put up the funny one. so imagine him doing a really crazy face. haha.



the guys. haha

ferris wheel (:

Ansel Adams on color, a photo by kevin dooley on Flickr.

Coldplay - Fix You

I love this song. Just so you know. It's melancholy, and beautiful.
Coldplay is one of my all time favorite bands (:
Yeah.

I love

I love to paint.

With a beautiful, wonderful passion.

Being immersed in art really changes your view of the world,

you see it in a totally different way.

There is wonder and beauty in everything

and I love it (:



painting by Monet, one of my favorite painters



painting by Van Gogh, another one of my favorites



painting from google - not sure the artist. someday hopefully I'll paint this well (:



some lovely paints off google images (: I love oils, but for art currently were painting in acrylics