2nd Place?........ Feels Like 1st!

This last weekend I went to Spokane with my fellow AJoy'ers to compete in our region. There were chorus's from all over Washington, Alaska, as well as northern Idaho. It was an absolute blast & I gained a lot of valuble knowledge as well.


This is the mass sing we did before the Quartet Competitions on Friday night.
Competition isn't easy for me though, cause I get very intimidated when I know people are judging me.

These were all of the new members competing this year, including ME!

So I was a bunch of nerves despite the calming herbs I took, the days previous.

Here's us about to take the stage

At the end of our performance I set myself up for severe disappointment on how we did. Not only did I feel I let my chorus down, with my personal performance, but I also felt a complete let down, cause I KNOW we've sounded better in past performances.

As I sat down in the audience after we got off stage, I had a discussion with a fellow AJoy'er and she and I both felt the same. So when it came time to announce the awards, believe me I was surprised when they announced the winner of the most improved (since last year) chorus, was none other than, US!



Woo hoo! I was more than overjoyed! I was so proud of us. We improved by 44 points from last year, which is a huge jump. Last year the chorus got most improved as well and it's seriously unheard of in Sweet Adelines for a chorus to improve as quickly as we have. So that was a HUGE accomplishment.

Then in our division (Division AA or mid-sized chorus) we took 2nd place! (last year they were 1st in Division A or small chorus) And then as a final medal we took 2nd place overall (last year they took 4th place overall). Can we say AWESOME!!!



I was jumping for joy! I tell ya, that even though we took 2nd, it totally feels like 1st to me!

Here's us wearing our medals and preparing to sing at the Show Of Champions, Saturday night.

Congratulations to my fellow chorus members. Thank you so much for treating me like your own from day one and for allowing me to have an absolute blast everytime we get together. I'm so happy I found a group of ladies I'm proud to call my sisters. I love you all!!!

AJoy Friends & Family

Before we head off to Spokane for our regional competition, we hold a sorta "dress rehearsal" show, for our friends and our family. Last night our friends and family got a look at our contest package as well as the quartets that are representing our chorus (Champagne, Frenzy & Sunbreak).

Thanks to the Thurgood's & the Thatcher's for coming to support me!

Here's video from last night's performance. (I'm the 2nd one on the left in the front row)

30 Day Blog Challenge

Since I pretty much suck at blogging, I thought I might steal this idea from Jacki. Even though I'm not looking forward to it.


Day 1 a photo of yourself and a description of how your day was
Day 2 a photo of something you ate today
Day 3 your idea of the perfect first date
Day 4 your favorite photograph of your best friend
Day 5 a photo of yourself two years ago
Day 6 a photo of an animal you'd love to keep as a pet
Day 7 your dream wedding
Day 8 a song to match your mood
Day 9 a photo of something you last purchased
Day 10 a photo of your favorite place to eat
Day 11 what's in your makeup bag?
Day 12 a photograph of the town you live in
Day 13 your favorite musician and why?
Day 14 a TV show you're currently addicted to
Day 15 something you don't leave the house without
Day 16 you celebrity crush
Day 17 a photo of you and your family
Day 18 something you crave a lot
Day 19 another picture of yourself
Day 20 the meaning behind your blog name
Day 21 a phot of something that makes you happy
Day 22 a letter to someone who has hurt you recently
Day 23 15 facts about you
Day 24 a photo of something that means a lot to you
Day 25 what's in your purse?
Day 26 a photo of somewhere you've been too
Day 27 a picture of you last year and now and how have you changed since then?
Day 28 your favorite music
Day 29 something that you could never get tired of doing
Day 30 a photograph of yourself today + three good things that have happened in the past

Halloween~2010 Style!

Hope yours was frightfully fun!

The Circle Of A Woman's Reach

Okay since my friend Cheri posted this on her blog, I figured I might as well post it on mine.

We had a Visiting Teaching Appreciation night, last week and I got the wonderful opportunity to sing. Cheri's son Brady played the guitar. He's so darn cute I just wanna smoosh him to death! I openly wish him to marry any of my daughters one day. He's such a great kid and his momma raised him well.

Anyways this video for some reason is off from the sound a bit, but enjoy it anyways.

I've Fallen In Love

I'm in love with Dan.....everyone knows that, however I have a new love in my life. The name is Shaun Barrowes.

No I'm not in love with another man.....poligamy is not on the program here folks......but I am in love with the music of Shaun Barrowes.

I'm sure most of you have never heard of Shaun Barrowes before; I hadn't when I first heard his name, but thanks to his "self marketing" on LDS Linkup.com, where I met him, I now know the music and it is WONDERFUL!

If you like Billy Joel, George Gershwin, Harry Connnick Jr., Michael Buble, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, or any of the classic songs of all time played in a jazzy style, you will LOVE Shaun Barrowes too.

So Friday night he played a show in Seattle and I took my friend April to it. It was one of the best live music experiences of my life (besides OZO...don't freak out Ana). He is just so super talented, a great performer, and he's really good with his audience. And man can those fingers play the piano! I couldn't keep my eyes off his fingers cause they just moved so fast. His voice is so smooth and he can sing in a very wide range. The songs that he revamped to his style were meant to be played the way he sung them. He re-did the song "Wonderwall" by Oasis and you'd think if you'd never heard it before that it was meant to be played as a jazz song. It was my favorite although the close second was his song called "Fade". That's another thing; he may play a lot of cover songs, but he's an awesome song writer himself and he's actually written a lot of songs for people. He spent years writing in LA for different R&B groups and also singing back up, but then decided he wanted to persue his own career as a performer. He's an independent artist with no agent, manager, record label and that's his curve. He does it all himself and I can see it working better for him in the end. He's touring the States & Canada right now and he'll be back in town here in a few months time.

Check him out on My Space. My favorite song on there is one he wrote himself called, "When I Take Your Hand". His recordings don't give you the true sound of his music though, cause he's a live performer and he really does sound SO MUCH BETTER LIVE! Anyways enough of the "Shaun Barrowes plug". I don't get anything outta promoting him, I really am a big fan of his and I'm doing my new friend a favor by telling the world about his awesomeness. I've posted a video that I took at the show, on YouTube. You can find it here.


Okay enough about him. It's not my true love. But speaking of my true love.....Dan was in Edmonton the latter half of the week and was supposed to be coming home tonight, but last night as I was in the middle of eating dinner with Sarah and her family, I got a call from Dan saying he was at our apartment looking for me! He surprised by coming home a day early. It was a great surprise. That meant I only spent one night alone, since the day after he left, April came into town. She was pretty much coming down for the Shaun Barrowes show, but she happend to catch a ride down with her family since they were coming down to go to the temple. It was so nice being with the Mangham's, since they've always been another family to me. Laurel came down too with her two kids (since her husband Devon was in Edmonton too....how ironic!) and I haven't hung out with her in the longest time. It was really nice to laugh and be with them again. Especially Laurel. I've been closer with April over the years and Laurel and I sorta lost contact since she got married, so I feel badly that I haven't spent much time with her over the years, but when you have friends that are like sisters to you and are your "kindred spirits", like April and Laurel are to me, then even though you don't talk or hang out for years, you pick up where you left off, like no time has passed.



Anyways enough of the sappy stuff. I really will try to keep up with this blog thingy in the future. I just sometimes am not in the mood to write, but then again, I know if I just sit down and type whatever's on my mind, that pretty much is all this blogging thingy.

Anyways make sure you check out Shaun Barrowes on his My Space. He's a really great guy and such a talented person and I know that he'll be really popular someday soon and it's up to me and you to spread his music around. By the way for those of you who care, he is LDS and he also has a CD out that is Christian Hymns jazzed up a bit. They're beautifully done and although they're "jazzed up", they're still reverent songs that are in harmony with the Spirit of Christ. You can buy his CD's here http://cdbaby.com/cd/barrowes or his mainstream, non-religous, debut CD here http://cdbaby.com/cd/barrowes2

Have a great week everyone!

Babies! Babies! Everywhere Babies!

Congratulations to:


Jacki & Terence Keenan

Lee & Amanda Staats

Both of them with new baby boys within one week.

Connor Keenan was born on October 29th

and

Clark Staats was born on November 2nd



So many babies being born! It’s crazy! But I’m so happy for all of them.

Actually the story of the Keenan’s goes like this. We went over on Saturday the 28th to hang out with them and took pictures of Jacki and how pregnant she was and she was up doing all of this stuff for us, cause she wanted to go into labor. We even told her when we left that we would pray that she would have this baby the next day …… and we did that night ……… then we got the phone call Sunday saying she had Connor. How cool is that? I tell ya, if you want a prayer answered, just ask us!

Young Single Adult Weekend

So in case you didn’t read my blogs earlier. This weekend was our Seattle area’s YSA (Young Single Adult) weekend Conference. My bestest friend April and my friends Andrew, Ben and Dave came down to stay at my house for it, but Ben and Andrew both had to work late on Friday night, so by the time they left to come down to my house it was already past midnight. I’m a bit of a night owl, but not lately till 3 or 4 in the morning and that’s about the time that they showed up. So it was about 3 hours past my normal bedtime and I was pretty tired. We all got up around 9:30 the next morning and had breakfast together and then they went to their conference.

As tired as I was I didn’t nap at all, but I spent pretty much all afternoon talking to Dan on the phone and then he decided that I should go shopping. What a sweet husband I have, to say, “I think you should just go spend some money today.”

Don’t hate! As rare as they are, husband’s like Dan do exist. There are men out there in the world who realize that most women just love to shop and it’s something that they need to do every so often without any purpose. Maybe it’s because he trusts me not to buy anything that is stOOpid or useless. But to all you single ladies out there looking for the right man, make sure you find one like Dan, who will encourage you to shop. It does what every healthy marriage should do……….make the wife HAPPY!!!

So that afternoon I went to Bed Bath and Beyond and bought a picture to fill the empty wall above our couch, that’s been bare since we moved in. It’s Van Gough’s “Starry Night” and Dan and I both love that painting and saw it at BB & B a while ago and said that we have to get that someday, but hadn’t for so long and so I decided that Saturday was the day it was going to belong to us. Anyways that made my day better. I also bought this cool strainer thingy that is made of silicone and it lies flat, but it expands into a strainer. It’s a real space saver and it’s really cool. I’ve been looking for a new strainer and it was exactly what I needed, so I just had to have it.

Anyways enough of my shopping excursion (it wasn’t really, I just went to one store). So that night I went over to Jim & Sarah’s cause they were having a “Prom Party” for their daughter Amanda, but it wasn’t’ till 1am, so Sarah and I had our own Pre-Party Party and we played some Hand and Foot and then danced like we did in the old days. Ahh good times……acting silly just like at dances. Meanwhile the YSA friends that were down here were at the dance and we met up afterwards at around midnight and had a party of our own. They ended up bringing along some of my other friends, Darren and Aaron and some other girls that I didn’t know. I haven’t seen Aaron since before his mission (4 years ago) so it was really good to see him. Anyways we went swimming and hot tubbing till about 2:30am. It totally felt like the good old days when I was single and the parties were always at my house…..well the good ones anyways. So that night we were up till 3:30 again and I had to get up at 7:30am to fight for the bathroom between 4 other people, in order to get to church at my ward for 9am. Well when the alarm rang it felt like I had just gone to sleep and I was still SO tired, so there was NO WAY I was getting up and going to my ward. I ended up going to the YSA ward at 1pm with my friends and I felt a bit outta place. But I didn’t care. I needed to go to church that day and I didn’t care where. But I didn’t stay for all of it, cause that woulda just been weeod.

Anyways I came home and started preparing dinner for the crew (+ Monica, cause she came for dinner too) and I made my yummy Fajita’s and even yummier Gak-A-Molee. They came back, ate, had a great old time, were out the door by 6-ish and I was absolutely POOPED!



I talked to Dan for an hour and I was so exhausted I couldn’t even concentrate enough to talk to him. I decided that the best thing for me to do was to sit on the couch and watch a movie. Well that lasted about 15 min. Dan called me at about 8:15pm, (which woke me up) to say he was going to bed and I said to him, “I think I’m going to bed too”. I was SOOOOOO tired! I couldn’t believe it myself. It was still light outside, but I didn’t care! I passed out about 8:30pm and I woke up (just like I thought I would) and thought it was morning and time to get up, but it was only 2:30am, so I went back to sleep and woke up again at 8:30am. I slept for 12 hours! But I felt good and refreshed this morning and so I think I needed it.

Anyways it was a fun weekend and it felt good to hang out with my YSA friends again. Hopefully they’ll come and visit more often. HINT HINT!!!!

Tomorrow I’m so excited cause I’m going shopping again. This time it’s to Costco Home to buy a coffee table (another thing we need). But this one is awesome, cause I saw it about a month ago and it totally matches our dining table.



So I told Dan about it and he told me to go buy it. Oh he is just SO awesome. I love you DAN!!! I also get to go to IKEA on Wednesday with Sarah. I love shopping with her. It’s so much fun. But then it’s always fun when I get to go out with my Twinner.

This One's For Dan!

I really don't have much to say today except I told my husband that I'd write something new on here and since nothing exciting really has happend in the last few days I can't really say much.

Okay wait a sec.............I'm going to be pounced on if I don't say what a great weekend I had. LeManda came down for the weekend and we partied! I reserved the theater on Saturday so what we did was we all went swimming in the afternoon and layed in the sun for a bit to burn to a crisp. Well LeManda was looking pretty dark already so I'm sure they didn't burn. I however NEEDED sunscreen, since I haven't pre-tanned in the tanning beds to build up a base tan (like I have for the last 3 years) so that I don't burn during the summertime. So I asked my husband to slather on the stuff on my back so that I don't get burned. Well, let's just say I know exactly just how much sunscreen works now! My poor husband missed a few spots on my back and now I have a few red welts on my back of where he missed! (poor guy! -He felt SO bad!)

H'Anyways after baking in the sun by the pool we went and watched a movie in the theater. I haven't seen WILLOW since I was a kid and I'd only seen it once. I'd forgotten what a good movie that was! Anyways after that our good friends Jacki and Terence (TAki) came over and joined us for a barbeque. I did it.....and it worked! I mixed friends from other sides and it worked! We all had such a good time and TAki really liked LeManda. After the barbeque we jumped in the pool again and had "Husband/Wife" races. Then after we watched another movie in the theater. This time we watched JAWS. Lee & I had never seen it before. I tell ya for being a movie made "pre-CGI" it looked pretty darn real! It was freakin' me out! I'll never swim in an ocean again! I even had nightmares that night.

Anyways after that we all came back to our place and played a DVD game called Shout Out. For you Canadians it's not pronounced "SHOTE OTE" but pronounced the way it looks, "SHAOUT AOUT". Anyways now that we've had our American pronounciation lesson for the day we shall move on. So h'anyways, this game was awesome! We played girls vs. guys and the women kicked butt! The guys didn't even have a chance. Poor little buggahs. They lost the first game and wanted a rematch but in the end we both wagered all our points and noboday won the 2nd game. but the girls still had "Victory" in our minds, which made the boys cry like little babies and then they all ran away. THE END

Anyways we had a lot of fun and I'm really glad that we all had fun together with our good friends from here and our good friends from there.

The next time we see LeManda on the 17th, they'll be sealed together for all time and eternity in the Seattte WA temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Personally I'm just looking forward to going to Claim Jumper afterwards. I LOVE that place!

Plug to Dan: Okay so now that this blog has ended, I would like to dedicate it to my wonderful husband Daniel Price. Words cannot express just how lucky I feel to have found him. He is my best friend that will be with me forever. I love him too much that I just wish there were words to describe it. Maybe i'll just have to make up words like Doug Heffernan. For example: Daniel to me your a "BILGISTIC pile of love meat". (now I will make up my own word) Dan, I love you a GATILLIONIZERAMMA times more than you can possibly imagine.........and that says a lot! You are more caring and considerate than I could've ever dreamed you would be. I always say to him how I'm amazed at how much he puts up with, being me, but he does and he loves me to no end. How grateful I am that he holds the Priesthood of God that he can heal the pains of my heart in times when I need it most; to hear that Heavenly Father loves me and is aware of my anguish. Dan, I know those horrible nightmares of mine would never come true and I'm so thankful for your patience and understanding as I go through with the ups and downs and the emotional rollercoaster of trying to have a baby the pharmacutical way. Thank you for being more than the husband of my wildest dreams. I love you LOVE!



Now it's really THE END..................but just for today.

The Dog Park

So we were pretty suprised today when our friends Terrance & Jacki wanted to hang out with us tonight. I mean, ya they are pretty much our only friends here in Redmond, but we just hung out with them on Monday night, so it shocked us a little, but we LOVE hanging out with them so we said OKAY!

They have a really sweet dog; a Beagle named Alpine and they've been telling us about the Off-leash Dog Park at Marymoor Park, that they take her to all the time. (BTW: MArymoor park is this HUGE park that we live about a 5 minute walk from and it's beautiful) So they suggested that we all go there tonight for a walk and to play with Alpine and see other dogs at the park. For those of you that don't know, Dan and I REALLY want a puppy and we're planning on getting one in September when Dan gets a raise and a bonus, so T & J suggested that we go shopping for a kind of breed at the park and to just have fun.

Anyways we had an awesome time at the park. It was a beautiful warm summer evening and the park was FULL of dogs. I've never seen so many dogs in one place! This dog park was AWESOME! It's 80 acres of doggy paradise. The highlight of the everning was trying to chase after Alpine so that Terrance could throw her in the pond. She's too chicken to get wet I guess. I felt sorry for Alpine but at the same time it was pretty hilarious, but whatever!

Anyways we're just so fortunate and we feel truly blessed to have Jacki and Terrance as friends. I felt a bond with Jacki from the moment I saw her in church and I knew right away that we would be friends. It's one of those......"We probably knew each other in the Pre-Earth life". What I didn't realize was how much we had in common and how much we need each other as friends, not only in the social sense but emotionally as well.

Thanks for being our friends Keenan's!

(B the way, these are just pictures I found on the net of the park. They're not actual photos we took)