when he's crying...

sometimes, we'll sing this song to dane:

and he'll sing this back to us:

where does he come up with this stuff? crazy kid.

you're the voice

once upon a time, i watched hot rod at my friend rhett's house.

it was okay.

but there was that one scene where they're walking down the street, heading over for the big jump, and people start following them and this song starts playing, people are singing and bonding, and then the big riot starts up and people start smashing windows and cars.

that one scene made the whole movie worth it. i laughed so hard. and i LOVED that song.

and i just found it and have been listening to it on repeat (on youtube) all day long. it's such an awesome power ballad. so here, let me share it with you:

(note that the video is just dumb pictures of flowers--but it's the music you should be focusing on anyways. ENJOY.)

what doesn't kill you makes you stronger

oh, kelly, thank you for these words of wisdom. way to take a cliche and make it . . . still a cliche. you always know how to speak to my heart. (remember "since u been gone"?)

but she'd better be right--i'm going to be so strong soon!

but seriously, how much do you love that she included clips from her fans dancing in her music video? she apparently had sent out a call for flash mobs with a video teaching them the dance, and included the responses she got in her music video.

which KILLS ME THAT I ONLY JUST NOW FOUND OUT ABOUT IT. WE COULD HAVE DONE THAT!!!!

leap day

in honor of leap day, i'd like to share a really touching song that i heard on the radio for the first time in ages yesterday.

(ignore the spanish translations; not sure why they're there, haha.)

merry leap day! and happy spring break (in 2 days)!

a sunday song

during the music minor i did at byu, i had to do university chorale four times. i did university chorale because it was the un-auditioned choir, and i didn't want to have to try out or commit myself to everyday practice like the women's chorus had.

i didn't love university chorale. too many obnoxious choir people, and i was burned out on that (hence not trying out for women's chorus).

but i did love some of the songs we sang, including this one.

enjoy the rest of your sunday.

eric whitacre concert at duke

during my choir geek days in high school, i fell in love with eric whitacre's music. not to mention the man himself. we sang his song "sleep" on our choir tour to new york and it was one of the most spiritual experiences i had in high school, to be honest. i remember we all walked off the stage after singing that song and crying and hugging and doing all those other things that choir nerds do after performing. here, let me show you how great the song is.

turns out tommy sang some eric whitacre songs when he was in high school too, and that was one of the first things we bonded over when we started dating. in fact, the first time he ever said the "girlfriend" word was connected with an eric whitacre song--i sent him one of my favorite e.w. songs, and he was playing it in his office. someone asked where he had gotten it and he said it was from his GIRLFRIEND. and then he told me about it later. oh, swoon.

you can see why eric whitacre is so important to us. he was so totally fundamental in our relationship.

all joking aside, when we heard that he was coming to do a concert at duke, we jumped at the chance. and the concert was awesome! a few lovely things about e.w.:

check out these songs:

seal lullaby

a boy and a girl

and his virtual choir--people from all around the world sent in their videos and sang and he put them all together to make a choir. so cool!

and it was even better when it turned out that it was the same night that my dad was in town to visit us--he had some business meetings in atlanta and so he took the hour-long flight up to spend the evening with us. so we went and ate pupusas at our local salvadorean restaurant, went to the concert, and got cook-out shakes.

daddy-o, always wearing appropriate university wear. he wore his duke shirt to duke campus that night, and his nc state shirt to class with me the next morning. classy. he was a good sport in the concert--even though he hasn't loved eric whitacre for years and he was really tired from a busy few days, he only fell asleep once or twice.

but anyways, thanks for coming, dad! it was awesome!

hairspray

all i have to say is--if you don't love this movie we shouldn't be friends. i just re-watched it and remembered all over again how absolutely amazing it all is. and this is the most absolutely amazing part of it all:

YOU CAN'T STOP THE BEAT.

song of the week

i forgot about this song till austin reminded me of it yesterday and i've been listening to it ever since. thanks bro.

musical thursdays

hello, john mayer. i remembered that sometimes i do like you.

hope you're all going to see harry potter 7 part 2 tonight! because WE sure will be--see you there!

summer. (summer. summer. summer.)

i know it's summer because i haven't blogged in weeks. or even thought about blogging. and i have loads of unread emails in my ncsu inbox (whoops) and several un-listened-to voicemails on my phone. and i feel great about it. and we leave for iceland in three weeks.

speaking of summer, let's talk about high school musical. i like the high school musical series as much as the next non-musically-elitist person (okay, maybe more) but i have a serious problem with the last song of the last movie. these are some of the lyrics:

"high school musical, who says we have to let it go? it's the best part we've ever known... why can't the rest of my life be like a high school musical?"

i strongly disagree with those sentiments . . . they make me want to laugh and cry. but i can't help singing along anyways.

and on that note, watch this video making fun of high school musical: it is a crack-up.

what a lady, what a night

we had a great few days in utah, and we're still having a great few days in CA.

the big news is, i chopped my hair off. yes! i'll post a picture soon. for now, just enjoy the music and go on with your lives.

flashback to tenth-grade espanol

we used to beg our spanish teacher to let us watch this movie--it was the greatest reward we could imagine. even eight years later, i still have the song on my ipod, the movie still makes me laugh, and i still know all the words.

ave maria, cuando seras mia?

i really think the best parts (other than his ridiculously buttoned shirt and how hot he thinks he is) are the dolphin dive and the ballerina twirl. keep watching--don't miss them.

song of the week

because ace of base NEVER goes out of style.

okay, maybe they do. but this song has been stuck in our heads ALL WEEK. and we've been playing it over and over again as a result. thank you, pandora, for re-introducing us to this gem.

and how classy is the video?

p.s. it's raining HARD outside--and thundering and lighting-ing--and i feel nice and cozy sitting here on my couch working for the next few hours. what a lovely day.

p.p.s. SO GLAD MARCH IS ALMOST OVER. now, as long as we can get through april, i will be carefree for three whole months!

ok go

so i know that ok go and their music videos are probably familiar to everyone by now. but a few days ago, tommy sat me down to show me this video his mom had told him about (she's pretty trendy to know about these things) . . .



and about halfway through i realized it was OK GO!

and i realized why the video was so cool.

and it threw me back to my summer in ithaca in 2005 when i discovered ok go the first time. i spent almost a month there doing this cornell-summer-high school thing and staying with annie and wes. (it was the best, by the way, annie, if you're reading this.) coincidentally enough, alec was there that summer too, and he introduced me to this music video (he was always the one to give me music ideas throughout high school). i spent pretty much the whole four weeks watching this video over and over again and listening to brand new's the quiet things that no one ever knows. and when i keep saying "this" video i do mean THIS video:



i mean, seriously? how cool is the slow-motion fight moment? and how many takes do you think it took to do that all in one shot with no mistakes?

i really thought a lot about that when i was seventeen and loving this video. i loved it so much i bought two of ok go's cds and then i realized i only liked their videos, and not really their music. but i can still watch that dance video over and over again and still walk away impressed.

anyways, just thought i'd lighten up your first day of march for ya.

new year's resolution: FAIL

well, it's been five weeks since the start of the new year (give or take) and i've already failed dramatically at my traditional eat-healthy-this-year resolution.

i resolved to (try to) eat only one dessert a week. (stupid idea, i know.)

it's impossible. really.

the first few weeks i tried to get by by just eating multiple packs of fruit snacks a day. those don't count as sweets, not in my book, but they kind of helped keep the edge off. that worked pretty well for a limited amount of time.

but i've baked three batches of cookies in the last three weeks. no matter what my high and mighty goals are, requests for desserts just come flowing in from all sides (i swear, it's because we're mormon) and tommy and i are left with the remnants of eighty delicious chocolate-chocolate chip cookies to work our way through.

and man, they are good.

(i don't even REALLY regret it.)

oh, well. it's a good thing it's a weekly goal--we can always try again next week. at least i'm keeping up on my goal of exercising every day to counteract it.

let me leave you with this lovely: a song tommy and i bought on itunes yesterday and that i've been singing in my head and ballerina-ing to all day. seriously. listen to it. seriously.

if you want to sing out, sing out

the LION KING

we went and saw the lion king at the dpac (durham performing arts center) last night. goodness, it was fun. the play is so colorful and . . . big. i want to be IN it.

this was my favorite new song from the play. apparently it's in the lion king 2, but i don't remember that movie at all. but it's so good!

(and my glory, how can i have missed the HUGE gospel applications in this story? jeez. the whole rafiki/reflection thing? this "he lives in me" song? i can't wait to hear a sacrament meeting talk incorporating this someday.)

song of the week

blinded by the light by mannfred mann's earth band.



(don't worry, for those of you who don't know the lyrics, it says "revved up like a deuce," not what you think it says.)

there is a long kind of random section but that just makes you appreciate the really good parts, right?

we're just a little bit obsessed over here.


blinded by the light!

#11 about tommy

11. he downloaded "my only wish" by jessica simpson from itunes yesterday and we've already listened to it 3 times.

(don't judge us too harshly. it was free. and we don't have that much christmas music.)

FAME

i am lucky to have a mom who is the best piano player in the world. it's true, really; just ask the primary presidency and every member of our ward who wants to do a musical number. she can sight-read everything and play anything. some of the best memories from when i was a kid involve us sitting around her, belting out a song while she played it on the piano.

one of these beloved songs was FAME from FAME the musical (it must be written in all caps, come on). do you not know it? here's a clip. the original 80s version is way cooler, but there isn't a very good youtube clip with it.

isn't it great? it makes me just want to shout "FAME!" at random intervals throughout my conversations all day.

so when we saw that hillside high school was doing FAME for their musical on friday, we had to go. because of how much i love this song. we didn't know anything about the rest of the songs, the plot line, or hillside high school. (although tommy did look at the school's website and see that their theater program is "recognized both nationally and internationally.")

it was a disappointment. the sound was bad, the singing was bad, the acting was bad. so we left halfway through (they didn't even have an intermission so we had to sneak out in the dark after one of the [failed] songs.) and went to go get cold stone to make up for the $20 (!!) we spent on a fruitless evening. but it was a good adventure. we are planning to get the movie from the library to make up for missing the rest of it.

for future reference, though: don't count on a high school musical for friday night entertainment. especially not when you're biased by having been at byu, with its awesome mdt program, for the past four years.