It's a beautiful day for the Neighbor Hoods

Saturday was a perfect day here in Norman, OK. Since that can only be said about twice a year, I figured it merited some blog-space. Actually, were it not for such beautiful weather, I might not have made a surprising discovery that afternoon.

Discovery?

Norman is cultured.

Allow me to explain.

So, I had been cooped up inside on a beautful spring afternoon in an orchestra rehearsal (my last one - yay!) and the thought of staying inside the rest of the afternoon to study and practice sounded like a good waste of gorgeous weather. So I decided it was a good excuse to go to the library and return some books before their due date. Now, I am notorious for accumulating overdue fines, but I genuinely feel that it is by my generous "donations" that I singlehandedly fund the Pioneer Library System . Anyway, I asked my good friend Linden if she wanted to go with me. At first she resisted, but a bubblegum flavored Dum-Dum (yes -you guessed it - leftover booty from last week's parade) was all that was needed to coax her into the stroller. A half hour later, we were on our way. A half hour, 3 bathroom trips, and one tantrum later, we were ready to head home.

But we got a little sidetracked when we saw this:

I couldn't believe my eyes and ears. Several blocks of Main Street were completely blocked off and with throngs of people gathered to participate in Norman's First Annual Music Festival. As I tried to take in all of my surroundings (including massive amounts of second-hand smoke) I realized that I was witnessing the slow transformation of Norman from Lamest Hometown Ever to Actually a Pretty Cool Place to Live. If you still aren't convinced, I will let the pictures do the talking (once again, I found myself armed only with my phone camera, so picture quality isn't that great).

Dude on a Skateboard

A common method of transportation (along with Harleys) of festival-goers.

The Bushman

One of many people that were not concerned about appearances,though his friend appears to be suggesting some fashion tips - perhaps a new beard style?

This one is for you, Steph - eat your heart out:

The Traveling Henna duo

With parasol in one hand, and booze in the other, this couple proved that football season is not the only excuse to get drunk and sunburned in Norman. Their method of advertising their Henna body art booth? Baring more than is socially acceptable. Effective? You decide.

With all the quirkiness of the Medeival Fair, minus all the creeps, I enjoyed myself quite a bit. What can I say? I have a soft spot for artists. Unfortunately my photos of Wannabe Willie Nelson and Mohawk Kid did not turn out (Mohawk Kid's dad got in the way). I even stalked a guy with Totally Hair Barbie length dreds. But he was quite elusive and I did not get the shot. I did however catch a series of photos that I will entitle No, you may not take the Tootsie Roll, Linden Refuses to Relenquish Tootsie Roll, and Victory: Linden Opens Tootsie Roll. Can you tell which one is which?

Notice the crumbs on her face from a recently consumed double chocolate cookie. However, Linden's overindulgence did catch up to her - she had an accident in the stroller on the way home. But I think we all had a good time. You guys should all come next year. Maybe we can all get matching Henna tatoos.

Kick the Indians Out Day

Spring is upon us here in Oklahoma, which means it's time to celebrate that special holiday unknown to those who dwell outside the Sooner state (and many who live there, too, for that matter). Yes, I'm talking about 89er Day - the day we commemorate "kicking" the Indians off of their land (as our friend Mike so delicately describes it) and claiming it as our own.

April 22 this year marks 119 years since the Oklahoma land run. For the first time since elementary school, I went to the annual 89er Day parade on Main Street here in Norman with Maren and Travis and their kids. We had fun celebrating our inner Okie.

This creation was the mastermind of some Cub Scout troop. They had a float with a "tornado" spinning around. It was surrounded by people carrying cow balloons (you can only see one in the picture) and they had a fake tornado siren going that sounded like a slightly quieter version of the real thing. Genious. In fact, I wouldn't have taken any pictures if I hadn't seen this float - these are all from the camera on my phone. Not the greatest quality, but the best I had at the time.

And whoever said that My Little Ponies were make-believe? I saw a whole herd of them yesterday. Here's the last one that went trotting through. If the picture had been a little closer, you would have seen that it did, in fact, have some sort of design on its rump (just like the toy My Little Ponies). I bet if you had lifted up its hoof and looked on the bottom it would have said "Made in Hong Kong".

Here's little Calvin - sooner born and sooner bred. It never really occured to me that I really am an Okie until I had a conversation last week with a friend from Arizona about tornado season. I realized that I could rattle off tornado procedures and termonolgies as if I were telling her the names of my siblings - it's just become that ingrained in me, I suppose. That same friend asked me yesterday what "sooners" were. After explaining, I was reminded, once again, that our heritage stems from a bunch of dishonest frontiersmen that "kicked the Indians out" over a century ago. Yep. Oklahoma is "O.K."

Even as a child I was always confused why we were so proud of our mediocrity.

Hmmm...

I was told I had to write periodically on the blog which is understandable. I guess I started it and left it in a pathetic state until Kendall figured out how blog and now it is always changing.
So, what am I doing tonight? The same thing I do every night. What's that you say? I'm trying to take over the world and this is how I'm going to do it.
First, I'm learning all I can to get rid of fake storms on weather radar images. It will be at least another year before I'm finished with that. Then my next task is to learn to control the weather. I have some friends who are trying to figure that out as well so they can do all the work right now and then tell me how to do it. Right now, all they can do is really forecast it so it's still a ways away but they're working on it. Soon, the elements will be at my command. MWA HA HA HA!!! That's step one in my plan to take over the world.
Next, I'm in the process of learning how to access all of my information from anywhere in the world. I almost have all the data I need in one spot so this can be possible. That way, wherever I am in my conquest to take over the world, I'll be able to get to all my family pictures and good music to relax me before I take over this little planet. My first trip will be to Boulder. That will be the test bed to see how well this part of the plan is working. Then I might try and more remote location such as Nauvoo or Warrensburg. Step two.
Third, some silly thing called graduation has to happen before the world is in my control. I thought I had gone through it all last year but for some reason, there's another one in four weeks and then another one in a year or so. I guess it's one of those barriers to taking over the world. Don't know why I have to go through it. I guess it's kind of like getting that piece of paper so you can find a good job.
Lastly, I need to finish the rest of my plan to take over the world. Something always happened to Pinky and the Brain to foil their plans to take over the world so I'm going to make sure it doesn't happen to me. You'll have to keep coming back for more information so stay tuned...

Sleepover Hangover

That's right. I attended my first slumber party in approxomately 10 years. And if I am lucky, I will not have to repeat the process for another 10 years. The experience has left me depleted of energy, reason, and sanity and has me agreeing with Garth that I am "much too young to feel this #@%! old".



I know, I know. I am only 24 (25 in June). So I am not that old. But what was I doing at a slumber party? And where was Kenta during all of this?



I was called as a YW counselor in our ward about 4 months ago. The girls have been begging for a slumber party ever since. We, the presidency, acquiesced and scheduled the "perfect" (i.e. one where we could all physically be there) weekend to do it. That was over two months ago. In the meantime, our president found out she was pregnant, the other counselor had to undergo some major medical procedure and passed like 12 kidney stones, the secretary was suffering from horrible migraines, and I was stuck in a neverending stream of rehearsals and performances. But we did it, anyway.

Friday night as I was packing my bag, I realized that Kenta and I do not own sleepover friendly bedding (sleeping bags, extra blankets, etc). We didn't even have a spare tube of toothpaste for me to take. I said good-bye to Kenta andwe went our separate ways. He went off to celebrate his night alone by grabbing Harv's BBQ and racing his RC car with a friend. I went off to my slumber party.

It really was fun. We watched some home movies that the girls and our president had made. We stayed up and talked for awhile. Some people zonked out early, but I got to the "past tired" point. At 2:00 a.m., I found myself grabbing a slice of supreme pizza and engaged in deep conversation. Finally around 3:00, I settled down on the floor underneath the pool table. at home, I had grabbed my pillow and some random blanket that Grandma Madsen made for me when I was four.

It was too short.

My toes got cold.

To compensate for the cold toes, I curled up into a tiny ball on my side so I could fit under it. That meant that my shoulder was smashed against the ground. That lasted until about 4:30 a.m., when I woke up needing to go to the bathroom and needing a larger blanket. I stumbled downstairs and found some comforter that I had seen in a closet earlier that evening. I layed down next to the piano. The sun (and someone in the Tucker family using the blender) woke me up at 7:00 a.m. I was up for the day. There was no turning back.

I had to come home then and get ready to go to a rehearsal. I left a house full of exhausted, sleeping girls. I was envying Kenta for having had a good night's rest in our bed at home. When I came home and asked him how he slept, his answer surprised me.

"Terrible. I missed you."

Awwwww.......

This blog is alive...with the sound of music...ahhhhhh

Okay. So I had some more "free" time today between General Conference and an orchestra concert. In my latest attempt to de-lame this blog, I have given it some background music. It's pretty obvious who picked the songs out - I picked some of the tamer songs from a few of my favorite artists (although it does happen to be my favorite Zeppelin tune). There is some kind of "love" theme to it, I guess, which make sense since this is a blog for some newlyishweds. Anyway, I hope you enjoy them. I will probably change them every now and then. Feel free to skip the ones you don't care for. Or turn it off if you don't like any of them. I don't mind.

The calm before...and after...the storm

I know I promised to update the blog after my recital. Yeah, I finished that over three weeks ago. Immediately after that we left on a Hood family Spring Break road trip to Utah. Then we came back and- surprise! - I had more harp stuff to do. Don't get me wrong - I love the harp and performing with different ensembles and such. It's just nice to have a break from it now and then. That's why I am trying to take advantage of the time that I have this evening when my butt isnot connected to a harp bench to write this. Funny thing is, I was actually scheduled to be in a rehearsal right now. I am playing second harp with the OKC Philharmonic on Saturday and last night in rehearsal Maestro Levine announced that we would not be rehearsing the pieces that I play on tonight. That means that I have time to chillax and get stuff done around the house. It's kind of scary that it's gotten to the point that I look forward to having time to clean the bathtub. That's what I plan to do when I get this done.

So...what is Kenta up to these days? Right now he is doing some homework on his new fancy schmancy Macbook. When he's not doing that, he is usually tinkering (he told me that was the correct verb to use) with his radio control stuff. He has been anxiously waiting for three days for a part for his RC car to arrive from the FedEx man. It finally came today and he promptly installed it in his car. I'm not one to brag, so I'll let Kenta do it:

Kenta commenting on his RC car after he has installed the new part and is racing it through our tiny living room:

"Now my car runs awesomely fast!"

And then he almost crashed it into my leg and we decided that we had to make a rule about no race car driving inside.

Life remains rather busy for us here, with seemingly never-ending homework assignments, rehearsals, etc. I probably should have waited for something more exciting to happen before I blogged. But then, the fact that I have "free" time is exciting to me. Things are about to pick up again as finals approach. I'll leave you with some pictures of Kenta and I doing what we like to do when we are not doing school. I believe these activities are referred to as "hobbies". Enjoy!

This is Kenta with his first RC plane (now it belongs to Willy)
Okay, I guess I'm pretty much consumed by one activity.