best weekend in the bay area

last weekend i went to the bay area and saw some friends that i haven't seen since the vienna airport or outside of the jerusalem center where we were sobbing at two in the morning and we drove away in our buses into the abyss of the night.

and then we met up in the sunny sunny land of the bay area where street photography is fun again:

also, i knew i was obsessed with mary, but i didn't know she was in like every picture i took of our friends:



eating our weight in chocolate at victoria's dad's chocolate factory:



fascinating conversation at the beach in carmel:




mmm. great weekend. thanks friends!

i couldn't be more proud if i were my mother

i fulfilled a life goal. i have a piece of art that i've done hanging in the hfac right now! our stained glass class has a show there right now and everyone was required to have a piece in the show. kamryn and i joked about the way we talked about getting our pieces finished to people who aren't in our class. "oh i have to finish this because it's going in a show tonight..." as snobbishly as possible. haha! little did they know...

Here was the inspiration for my piece:

which is from here:



which is on this:



it didn't quite turn out the same. so it's "loosely based" on the original design. ha. i realized that some things work better as tile than stained glass and i had to make a lot of adjustments. plus it was my first window...anyway. here it is:



i'm famous:

roxanne's wedding!

yay!

i just wanted to show you how some of the flowers i did for her turned out! one of my favorite if not my favorite wedding i've ever been to! roxanne and sam were so cute i couldn't get over it, and i had fun helping set up and be a part of the wedding. i love that girl so so much.

here's her bouquet and his boutonniere:

yay!


other beautiful things from the wedding:





love love love

all images are from fabulous alpha smoot photography
where you can see the rest of the wedding

also, i wrote this the night i got home from roxanne's wedding, and well, i'll just post it here if anyone is interested. i read an essay my professor wrote the other day, and he formatted it kind of like this and it made reading it so fast. so. we'll try that:

Roxanne got married today.
I thought about the first time we walked around a small town together in the Lake District
and one of the last days in London when we went to the Victoria and Albert Museum
and we looked at the jewelry exhibit and discussed each ring excitedly,
deciding if we would ever wear it for our wedding ring.
I remembered visiting together a dozen antique stores and rummaging carefully through the stalls on Portabello Road looking for just the right gifts.

I thought about this while we drove to the Manti temple
and I watched the rolling brown and green hills
and I sat next to cupcakes with melting blackberry frosting in the cold, spring sun for the reception later that night.
I wore a yellow bridesmaid’s dress and a white fabric flower in my hair.
So did the two girls in the front seats.

I actually felt kind of awkward today because I liked just watching Roxanne.
Of course everyone was watching her because she was the bride.
But it was the type of watching that you do when you’re watching TV.
Not usually when you’re watching real life and it’s odd to stare.
I guess it’s less weird to know that she’s a dancer.

When she’s smiling you can feel the smile all the way through her clapping hands,
and when she laughs her whole body laughs with her,
and when she’s excited you can see it down to her feet jumping up and down.

While I watched her dance with her new husband for the first time and then with her dad,
I remembered the way she danced as we walked through fields of yellow flowers
and long grass in Dorset,
both our hands skimming over the top of the grass in the bright, spring air.
We were both without any attachments, really.
Free to talk about our weddings in abstract, non-committal ways.
Free to do whatever we liked, to travel the world,
to assert all of the independence we could ever want,
to work and to live and adventure with each other and with ourselves.

But tonight was the first time she wouldn’t say goodbye to Sam,
and I swallowed a bunch of times—tried to swallow that lump. I watched her from my table as I swallowed a piece of wedding cake instead.

It still looked as though she were laughing
though her face was only smiling
her hips swaying to the music as she gently helped her partner around the dance floor.
She was twirling gracefully,
her gown that reached right below her knees wrapping around her legs,
and her gray, antique wedding shoes helping her glide along the floor.

brilliant ideas:

I just had one.

I want to go here

and have some butterbeer for my 21st birthday.

anyone want to come?

Why I love being back in English classes:

-original thought is appreciated

-original writing is too

-teachers want to hear what I think. not just repeat what they think

-there is no one snapping in my face telling me that i should know the seven straights in the middle east.

-jokes that are dorky outside of english classes are not dorky inside of them.

-often, treat sign-ups are passed around to keep everyone alive

-there's always a break in a two and a half hour class

-i get good grades.

what i forgot about english classes:

-there's always that one girl who always happens to have a really annoying voice that sits in the front row about three desks from the right and makes five comments every class. i think she actually isn't aware anyone is sitting behind her.

-i get really nervous making comments and somehow i forget how to breathe and swallow while i'm talking. yikes.

-the five token boys in the class who make sure they talk in their deepest, most masculine voice when they give comments, and make sure everyone knows that they are speaking for their entire sex...

-english majors.

best english class ever.
(on the banks of Loch Lomond)

we're studying king saul right now

and this is all i can think of:

they're a british group acting out the death of saul in a roman town in the galilee area. please notice the umbrellas used as swords

I can only say these things for a little bit longer before they are obsolete. I have gotten back to the US recent enough that the places I've gone this year are still relevant...

so. bragging rights end now.

transatlantic flights taken this year: 6

borders I've crossed: 11

months I've spent in the US: 2

types of money that have been in my wallet: 7

flights I've taken in the past year (about): 35

that is a lot of hours of being in the airport and in planes...

everything I can possibly think of saying sounds trite and stupid. so.

YES.