Monday, July 29, 2013

Christina Crochets

My sister was recently asked to be featured on BYU Magazine's instagram.  Want to see the creation that caught their attention?

Follow christinacrochets on instagram!

I'm an embarrassingly proud older sister...she is creating her own designs and can make just about anything.

All of a sudden this weird business woman in me has come out that I didn't know existed.  My dad would be proud. I've sent my sister like 700 texts this morning with all my advice about how she can promote her biz.  As though I know ANYTHING about that. Seriously.  I was getting so obnoxious that I started to bother myself. Big time.  But, I figure the more followers she can get on instagram, the more random people will be interested in following and the more exposure her work will get.  Right? That can't hurt.

So follow! Follow, follow, follow, follow, foooolloooow....(anyone who can name that song and where it comes from gets a million pretend dollars. I know at least 2 of you who should get it without blinking an eye!).

Monday, July 22, 2013

Road Trip!

Michelle, Jessame, Julyn and I took a delightful trip down south, first to the Tuacahn theater in St. George, then to the Grand Canyon in Arizona, then back up to Cedar City for a show at the Shakespeare festival.  We saw Mulan (a little silly), Thoroughly Modern Millie (my favorite! Stupendous!) and Peter and the Star Catcher (I was a little more partial to the NY performance, but it was still great).  We had some fabulous food, a lot of memorable quotes, and many good talks. It was such a fun summer trip!
We had to pause in an auto shop when my car started over-heating and my check engine light came on.  They charged me $52 to tell me everything was fine.

Nowhere quite like Cafe Rio!
My brother in law affectionately calls this "crack queso" because it's so addicting! He got me hooked on it.

Nitro Freeze

Michelle got the guts to tell the main guy (to the left of Mulan) that we wished he had worn his "other" costume for the picture (the one where he took off his shirt for "I'll Make a Man Out of You" and showed off his rockin' 6 pack!).



Jess and I took a quick dip in the hotel pool before the evening show!
Love Brick Oven.



I wanted a picture of the restaurant lodge at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and our host wanted to be in the picture too.  How could we argue with that?
Summer toes!
Our waiter was a total nut.  He had us laughing so hard.  He TOTALLY flirted for tips and didn't mention his wife until we had already filled out our comment cards. I HATE it when waiters do that! So dishonest.  And I fall for it every time! He was wearing what must have been his wedding ring on the wrong hand, on purpose I'm sure.
When we asked to take a picture with him, he said, "Here, my wife can do it! Let's make her jealous." She was also a waiter.  We were pretty shocked.

And this is only a small fraction of it!





Beautiful colors.



Back in St. George, I took an early morning walk (it was still like 7,000 degrees but better than the middle of the day) and was able to see some beautiful things! Like this gorgeous view...

...and this one.


Brigham Young's winter home (love the wrap around porch and balcony!)...


...and the historic Chamber of Commerce building
We did a session in the beautiful St. George temple!

Michelle's toes matched her shirt!


On to Cedar City! Michelle went to SUU, so this was particularly fun for her!
We saw Peter and the Star Catcher in this theater!







We all had a crush on the same guy...
...until Tyson from the gift shop came along.
He proposed in his knickers and I said, "William who?"

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

New York City, Take Three!

After my NY trip in February for my reunion with some of my college besties, I got a $300 voucher from Jet Blue because my return flight home had so many problems.  When Anna wanted to go to NY for her senior graduation trip, I decided to take advantage of my voucher and tag along!
Day 1:
I coincidentally ran in to our new theater teacher, Chad, on my flight from SLC! We were able to make our way to Queens together, after which I went to Grand Central station to meet my parents and little sister. 
The beautiful Grand Central Station! It immediately reminded me of Step Up 3.


We then set out via subway to get acquainted with the city. Our dad did an amazing job learning all the subways.  We can always count on his brilliant sense of direction (which, sadly, not a one of us inherited). Everyone was so incredibly nice in the city.  We had countless people come up to us and ask if we needed help finding something.  It almost seemed scripted because it happened so often! We must have looked really lost.  Needless to say, we were overwhelmed by the kindness and so grateful.


On instagram, I quoted Miley Cyrus beneath this picture (with some liberties): "Who are those kids that are rockin' kicks? They've gotta be from out of town!"
A visit to this restaurant was the most breathtaking moments of the trip for me.
Welcome to Keste's pizza!

My darling mother researched GF pizza for me and found this jewel. This has to be the cutest eating picture ever...how does she do it?
Their gluten free pizza can only be described as a dream come true. 

We thought these painted construction barriers were funny!
We grabbed a taxi to get back to the hotel so we could get ready for our musical!




My favorite street in the US of A!
Does this or does this not look like a balloon animal? Anna also thought it resembled a heart.
Notice the  NY buildings in the reflection! (Photo by ALH)
We got gussied up for the show. Phaidra bought me the same necklace she let me borrow on my last NY trip for purposes just like this!


Our hotel lobby was just beautiful.  We lucked out with some stored up vacation points and got an incredible deal.
Love my mama!
There is water falling in front of this picture...an amazing artistic concept.  It makes it look like a rainy day in the city.
For dinner before the show, we did the touristy thing and visited Ellen's Stardust Cafe where  the waiters perform live! They are all actors trying to break in to the business. We heard some incredible voices!

I thought this girl was the best.  She performed, "The Wizard and I" from Wicked.
We were up on the balcony and this was our view looking down.  These two were performing, "Suddenly Seymour." 
This waiter performed, "Forget You"

This was our waitress!
Then it was off to a fairytale!
Before the show started, I decided to get in the fairytale mood by acting out one of the most famous scenes from Cinderella.  That scene in the Broadway revival turned out much different than I expected! A fun twist.  A lady I work with in the temple was literally sitting directly in front of my Mom.  What a small world!
The show was absolutely delightful.  The costume transformations were astounding.  The choreography was very ballet based, which I really loved, probably because I grew up watching my sisters do it.  The songs are so familiar to me, which made it really fun.  There were REALLY strong singers in this cast, especially the Fairy Godmother.  The prince was really funny.  The girl who played Cinderella won a tony for the role, and it was plain to see why.  She truly was a triple threat.  It was also a REALLY funny show with very loveable characters. We all just had such an enjoyable night at the theater together!
Photo by DSH

DAY 2:

Our little graduate!
This was a family favorite.  What a fantastic show! Out of the four of us, two of us ranked it as their number one favorite of the trip, one of us ranked it second (just slightly inched out by Cinderella) and one of us couldn't decide between it and Cinderella!  It was so awesome.  It is based on a book and tells the story of how Peter Pan came to be.  It was extremely funny and it actually wasn't a musical like we expected.  They sang about 3 songs all together but the show was not about the singing.  It's hard to describe how genius it was.  The characters were busy the entire show creating the set through their staging.  It was high energy and well cast.
After the show, we ate cheesecake at the famous Juniors.  Wow.  That's all I can say.

It being Saturday, they had a farmer's market of sorts set up, but they were selling food, drinks, desserts, scarves, sunglasses, jewelry, purses, shirts, you name it.  I wish we could have spent a lot more time there but it closed shortly after we arrived.


Photo by DSH
Photo by DSH


That evening, we saw the Fantasticks.  It really paled in comparison to the other two shows, with the exception of the female lead.  Her voice was literally too big for that little theater where they performed.  Her singing was effortless.  I was not surprised to see on her mini bio that she played Cosette in the Broadway revival of Les Mis and also played Maria both nationally and internationally. She's only 23! It was worth it to hear her sing. 



DAY 3:

Here is the beautiful temple/chapel where we attended church on Sunday!  It felt just like home inside. 


After church we walked in Central Park.  In this picture, Anna and I are rehearsing for our 20 second video reenacting a scene from Enchanted that takes place in Central Park.


LOVE this picture.

After heading to the hotel for a little nap, we headed back out to explore. 

I am showing off my new bracelet and sunglasses from the market the day before.
So this art in Madison Square Park is all made out of rope...there are red, blue, and yellow rope sculptures throughout the park!


For dinner, we waited in an enormous line for Shake Shack, a well loved burger joint




Anna took a lot of photography in high school and has a good eye for cool shots.  Ignore my complexion as you gaze at the NY buildings in the reflection of my sunglasses!
This sculpture...

...is an artistic rendering of this building!  I love this picture of my dad taking pictures.
 
Photo by DSH
Seriously, how cool is this building?

There is just so much to see in NY. It blows my mind.


Photo by DSH
The empire state building (photo by DSH)

DAY 4:






We read about this GF bakery and tried their mini cupcakes and coffee cake.  SO DELICIOUS! Just like the real deal.

My dad loved the name of this frozen yogurt shop.  It took me a second to get it.  It's one of those places where you serve yourself your own yogurt and add the toppings.


One of my favorite parts of this day was seeing where the skating rink and Christmas tree go during the holidays in Rockefeller Plaza.  During the summer, it's an open air cafe.

We visited the big Lego store, where you can buy Legos of every size and color and all the displays are made out of Legos!

 


Those are all little Lego men.

This...
...is this!
We walked by the Saks store on 5th Avenue!  Anna was on her way to drop in and take a dance class at the Broadway Dance Studio.  You can just do that! The dance world is pretty cool.

We also visited the American girl doll store for old time's sake.  The dolls are getting all trendy though (notice the purple streak).  All the dolls from my childhood have been "retired."

I kind of loved this little grand piano set, complete with beginning piano books.


This is me...being a real girl.

I about died when I saw this.  Apparently these aren't as uncommon as I realized because Crocs are dangerous on escalators. Who knew?
You know how sometimes you don't realize just how passionate you are about something until you walk onto a street full of stores of just that thing and you feel like a child in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory? 

That's how I feel about jewelry.  The real kind.  Like diamonds and sapphires and stuff.  While everything here was completely out of my price range, I was inspired to look for a 30th birthday ring for myself in the next couple months. I even know what I want it to look like. Every girl needs an excuse to go ring shopping!