So what's all happened in these past two months? Most notably, school has begun for the both of us - for me, my junior year of mechanical engineering; for Hannah, her sophomore year of kinesiology. Neither one of us has a particularly light load this semester. I have 19 credit hours and I think she has 17 or 18, plus we're both Community Assistants in our respective residence halls, and we're each involved in two or more clubs/organizations on campus. Good thing not all of those 19 credit hours are purely academic!
This fall we enrolled in Latin/Salsa I - a dance class. Had you told me two years ago that I'd be taking a dance class at ASU, I'd have called the police to drag you downtown to the mental health hospital. But the opportunity arose for me to fit it in my schedule this semester, and on a whim, I went for it. Once I told Hannah, she enrolled in it too, and now we're about four weeks into the class! It's actually quite a lot of fun. We don't get to dance with each other more than once or twice a class, but it's still fun to be learning salsa dancing together. I thought I'd be terrible at it since I lack a good deal of physical coordination, but the class is very structured and slow-paced, so I'm picking things up alright. I just have to learn to let loose a bit so my style comes through more. And Hannah, of course, is stellar! She has both a natural and situational advantage: she's very coordinated, and she's also already taken a dance class at ASU. So with that in mind, I'd say I'm a decent beginner.
Something neat I got to last month was perform the National Anthem at Chase Field! I'm part of the Desert Bones Trombone Choir at ASU, and we were fortunate to be invited to perform the National Anthem before a Sunday afternoon Dbacks game! It was a really neat experience, being down on the professional baseball field playing my trombone. Baseball was the love of my life until I was about 13 years old, at which time trombone took over as my new love. To be able to combine the two in such a unique way was truly an incredible experience. I even got a chance to get a few signatures from some of the Dbacks' starting pitching rotation! Collmenter and Cahill aren't my favorites - I was hoping for Goldschmidt to come out to the field - but it was neat all the same.
Class was canceled a couple weeks ago, though, due to - and I mean this literally - the storm of the century. In fact, it may have been the storm of all time, because the entire Phoenix Valley received more rainfall in a single day than we've ever gotten on any day since that type of thing began being tracked back in the late 1800s. Parts of the valley received more than five inches of rain in just twelve hours, which is more rain than we got in all of 2010. It was pretty epic, though for many, it was disastrous. Thankfully no one I know had significant damage done to their cars or houses, but I saw all sorts of pictures of highways that had turned into rivers strewn with partially submerged cars. Oh and the roof of a Fry's down in Gilbert collapsed due to the weight of the water. Worst that happened to me was having to deal with leaks in some of my residents' rooms!
In other news, my dad and brother and I went to Disneyland over Labor Day weekend. Yes, I did just get back from a seven-month internship in Disney World. No, my Disney itch was not satisfied. And no, I'm not a spoiled Disney brat. Just blessed by a family with the same enthusiasm for Disney! We stayed in a hotel just right across the street from the parks with only two full-size beds. I took the third, which was about the size of a coffin made for a leprechaun, but comfortable nevertheless. We ate at our favorite places, rode all our favorite rides, and continued to build our record scores on Toy Story Midway Mania. If you read my last blog, you'll know I vowed to reach 300,000 points, and I'm proud to say I'm now about 40,000 points closer from when I left Florida. I think Nathan (my brother) and I could both break 300,000 when we go back in October!
Yes, we're going back in October. Don't scoff.
Another fun thing we both did with my family was go to the opening night of the Phoenix Symphony's 2014-2015 season. They opened with Firebird Suite, and the feature was Carmina Burana. Both were spectacular. Hannah and I are definitely going to have to renew our college club cards so we can go to all the other Classics concerts! Only $30 for like ten or twelve beautiful performances of classic orchestral music. Such a sweet deal.
With Hannah's family, we had a fun pool party last weekend that also sort of served as a going-away celebration for our friend Sarah, whom Hannah's known since she was in elementary school. Sarah is leaving soon (in fact, I think she already left) for England for a semester of studying abroad! It should be a lot of fun for her. It certainly has Hannah and I drooling, as we're planning our own European adventure right now! We recently made a tentative itinerary that includes stops in Berlin, Germany; Zermatt, Switzerland; Salzburg, Austria; Paris, France; Bruges, Belgium; Amsterdam, Netherlands; and London, England - all spread over three to four weeks and hopefully less than $3000 a person. We'll probably leave shortly after Nathan's high school graduation in May and get back in mid to late June.
Planning exactly where we intend to visit is making it even more real, and I have to say, I'm getting pretty stoked!! Hopefully within the next month we'll finalize our itinerary and book our plane flights. Woo!
Well, I think that's a pretty good summary of the significant happenings over the past couple months. I anticipate that we'll be a bit more consistent in our biweekly postings from now on, but of course, no guarantees!
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