2.14.2012
❤ V-day ❤
There are various theories on the origin of Valentine's Day, but the most popular dates back to the time of the Roman Empire during the reign of Claudius II, 270 AD. Claudius didn't want men to marry during wartime because he believed single men made better soldiers. Bishop Valentine went against his wishes and performed secret wedding ceremonies. For this, Valentine was jailed and then executed by order of the Emperor on February 14. While in jail, he wrote a love note to the jailor's daughter signing it, "From your Valentine." Sound familiar?
Some other fun Valentines Day facts...
Some other fun Valentines Day facts...
❤ Many believe the 'X' symbol became synonymous with the kiss in medieval times. People who couldn't write their names signed in front of a witness with an 'X.' The 'X' was then kissed to show their sincerity.
❤ In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who would be their Valentine. They would wear this name pinned onto their sleeves for one week for everyone to see. This was the origin of the expression "to wear your heart on your sleeve."
❤ Over $1 billion worth of chocolate is purchased for Valentine's Day in the U.S.
❤ 189 million stems of roses are sold in the U.S. on Valentine's Day.
❤ Every Valentine's Day, the Italian city of Verona, where Shakespeare's lovers Romeo and Juliet lived, receives about 1,000 letters addressed to Juliet.
Last fact: I am totally and completely in love with Broc Hafen ❤
Today marks the 6th anniversary of our first date.
Happy Valentines day!
Happy Valentines day!
2.08.2012
stay humble
Monday afternoon I got a text
This is what it said..
"Mandatory meeting tonight at 9 pm at the Vault! Clear up your schedules tomorrow, school, work, EVERYTHING. You won't regret it. Don't ask questions because I can't talk. See you there. Oh, bring dance clothes."
So naturally I was on pins and needles.
Aren't you?
9:00 came.
we said a prayer.
then we listened to Tia tell us the amazing news.
A talent scout from Americas Got Talent saw some of our youtube videos and called because she wanted us to come down to a VIP invitation audition for the show.
She she was impressed with our talent and possibly more impressed that we use it purely for service.
The room was silent as tears filled eyes and loud girls became speechless.
The fact that they found us is amazing in and of itself. But the real celebration was the vision of spreading our cause and what we do to more than just our small community.
After hearing that they wanted us in Las Vegas the following morning with a bomb routine to perform for the producers, we had A LOT of 'wurk' to do.
And we got right down to it.
Shredding out a routine until 2:30 a.m.
(and I say 'shred' because that is literally how my muscles felt afterwards)
The next morning we piled into the 15 passenger van and headed for Vegas.
Tia is the only one with real professional audition experience, so she was giving us the 411 on what to expect and what they are looking for.
But the best advice she's ever given,
'stay humble'.
The audition went great! We were on a tiny stage in a comedy club of the casino and did the best we could with what they gave us. One of the producers gave us great compliments and feedback, however, she wanted to see if we had more versatility and more importantly, 'tricks'.
Uhhhh... we are dancers, not acrobats.
But tricks win shows like Americas Got Talent.
So tricks it is.
They asked us to submit a video of something different to go along with the audition we gave them. They wanted the video by friday. So again we went back to work.
Wednesday morning 5 a.m.
We decided to do a really awesome, hard hitting,
"what you think when you think hip hop" kind of routine.
We spent 2 hours making it pretty darn cool and were feeling good about it.
Wednesday night
Tia had a gut feeling that we shouldn't do that routine.
And we rolled with it. We changed about 180 degrees and whipped out our circus number from the concert in December. And we started adding 'tricks'.
Tricks that we had never attempted before.
It was quite terrifying.
Thursday morning 4:30 a.m.
We mastered the "roller coaster trick" as we called it.
And more importantly, Sami was fearless in our Kalamity version of a back tuck.
Thursday night
Cleaned, cleaned, cleaned the routine.
As we said our prayer to start practice, we were all pretty amazed and impressed that we pulled it together in just 2 days. There was definitely some divine help. And we never fail to recognize that.
Friday morning 4:00 a.m.
Ran the routine facing the opposite way so we got use to doing the tricks without mirrors.
Got decked out in our sweet costumes and headed to Snow Canyon High School to meet Jeff to film. The techies were so helpful!
(which issometimes almost always hard to come across,
especially when we had them come meet us at 6 a.m.)
Well, the video is submitted and the waiting game begins.
To tell you the truth, I would love it if we had a chance to be on TV and show what we are about.
What we stand for and what we believe in.
But I am totally satisfied with the accomplishment of this week.
I know it's hard for others who aren't involved to understand, but when you put your whole heart and soul into something, when you literally leave blood, sweat and tears on the floor at 4 a.m.
and most importantly when you feel like Heavenly Father is on your right hand helping you accomplish something bigger and greater than yourself,
well there's no greater feeling.
I loved what Tia said this morning during practice
"Well Heavenly Father is going to do what he wants with Kalamity. We just have to prove to him that we will work for whatever it is he needs us for".
"Mandatory meeting tonight at 9 pm at the Vault! Clear up your schedules tomorrow, school, work, EVERYTHING. You won't regret it. Don't ask questions because I can't talk. See you there. Oh, bring dance clothes."
So naturally I was on pins and needles.
Aren't you?
9:00 came.
we said a prayer.
then we listened to Tia tell us the amazing news.
A talent scout from Americas Got Talent saw some of our youtube videos and called because she wanted us to come down to a VIP invitation audition for the show.
She she was impressed with our talent and possibly more impressed that we use it purely for service.
The room was silent as tears filled eyes and loud girls became speechless.
The fact that they found us is amazing in and of itself. But the real celebration was the vision of spreading our cause and what we do to more than just our small community.
After hearing that they wanted us in Las Vegas the following morning with a bomb routine to perform for the producers, we had A LOT of 'wurk' to do.
And we got right down to it.
Shredding out a routine until 2:30 a.m.
(and I say 'shred' because that is literally how my muscles felt afterwards)
The next morning we piled into the 15 passenger van and headed for Vegas.
Tia is the only one with real professional audition experience, so she was giving us the 411 on what to expect and what they are looking for.
But the best advice she's ever given,
'stay humble'.
The audition went great! We were on a tiny stage in a comedy club of the casino and did the best we could with what they gave us. One of the producers gave us great compliments and feedback, however, she wanted to see if we had more versatility and more importantly, 'tricks'.
Uhhhh... we are dancers, not acrobats.
But tricks win shows like Americas Got Talent.
So tricks it is.
They asked us to submit a video of something different to go along with the audition we gave them. They wanted the video by friday. So again we went back to work.
Wednesday morning 5 a.m.
We decided to do a really awesome, hard hitting,
"what you think when you think hip hop" kind of routine.
We spent 2 hours making it pretty darn cool and were feeling good about it.
Wednesday night
Tia had a gut feeling that we shouldn't do that routine.
And we rolled with it. We changed about 180 degrees and whipped out our circus number from the concert in December. And we started adding 'tricks'.
Tricks that we had never attempted before.
It was quite terrifying.
Thursday morning 4:30 a.m.
We mastered the "roller coaster trick" as we called it.
And more importantly, Sami was fearless in our Kalamity version of a back tuck.
Thursday night
Cleaned, cleaned, cleaned the routine.
As we said our prayer to start practice, we were all pretty amazed and impressed that we pulled it together in just 2 days. There was definitely some divine help. And we never fail to recognize that.
Friday morning 4:00 a.m.
Ran the routine facing the opposite way so we got use to doing the tricks without mirrors.
Got decked out in our sweet costumes and headed to Snow Canyon High School to meet Jeff to film. The techies were so helpful!
(which is
especially when we had them come meet us at 6 a.m.)
Well, the video is submitted and the waiting game begins.
To tell you the truth, I would love it if we had a chance to be on TV and show what we are about.
What we stand for and what we believe in.
But I am totally satisfied with the accomplishment of this week.
I know it's hard for others who aren't involved to understand, but when you put your whole heart and soul into something, when you literally leave blood, sweat and tears on the floor at 4 a.m.
and most importantly when you feel like Heavenly Father is on your right hand helping you accomplish something bigger and greater than yourself,
well there's no greater feeling.
I loved what Tia said this morning during practice
"Well Heavenly Father is going to do what he wants with Kalamity. We just have to prove to him that we will work for whatever it is he needs us for".
2.01.2012
high hopes
We made a big step as a married couple/adults this week.
We put an offer on a house.
A white sided, black roofed, red doored, picket fenced home.
It was perfect.
Yes it was built in the 1930's and the whole interior would have to be re-done, but that is what excited me the most about it. Remodeling.
I could finally put all of my pinterest ideas to good use.
I have been dying in my white walled apartment
and have longed for a place to make "ours" since we got married.
I had the whole house mapped out.
What colors each wall would be.
What light fixture I would hang above the kitchen sink.
What I would have put on the beautiful brick mantle
that I had already planned on painting white.
I even planned out the garden we would start in the spring.
All along our realtor kept saying things like "don't get your heart set on anything until the papers are signed" and "it usually takes a few offers on a few different houses before you get the fish to bite". I heard everything he said but it went right out the other ear as I dreamed of the coral paint I would use if our first baby was a girl.
We fasted and prayed about what to offer and came up with a price that we thought could win it and more importantly what we could afford.
But they didn't take it.
Out of 20+ bids, ours was just another one thrown under the table.
I know it's silly but my heart sort of hurt when we got the news.
I had already pictured my kids sitting on the bench I was going to build in the kitchen corner telling me about their day at school.
Oh well.
Prayers are answered in silly ways sometimes.
I know we'll get a home that will be ours sooner or later.
And it will be perfect.
Meanwhile, I will just continue preparing for that day like I did this weekend.
Getting in touch with my creative and perfectionist side.
A rug.
Voila
the inspiration...
A white sided, black roofed, red doored, picket fenced home.
It was perfect.
Yes it was built in the 1930's and the whole interior would have to be re-done, but that is what excited me the most about it. Remodeling.
I could finally put all of my pinterest ideas to good use.
I have been dying in my white walled apartment
and have longed for a place to make "ours" since we got married.
I had the whole house mapped out.
What colors each wall would be.
What light fixture I would hang above the kitchen sink.
What I would have put on the beautiful brick mantle
that I had already planned on painting white.
I even planned out the garden we would start in the spring.
All along our realtor kept saying things like "don't get your heart set on anything until the papers are signed" and "it usually takes a few offers on a few different houses before you get the fish to bite". I heard everything he said but it went right out the other ear as I dreamed of the coral paint I would use if our first baby was a girl.
We fasted and prayed about what to offer and came up with a price that we thought could win it and more importantly what we could afford.
But they didn't take it.
Out of 20+ bids, ours was just another one thrown under the table.
I know it's silly but my heart sort of hurt when we got the news.
I had already pictured my kids sitting on the bench I was going to build in the kitchen corner telling me about their day at school.
Oh well.
Prayers are answered in silly ways sometimes.
I know we'll get a home that will be ours sooner or later.
And it will be perfect.
Meanwhile, I will just continue preparing for that day like I did this weekend.
Getting in touch with my creative and perfectionist side.
A rug.
Voila
the inspiration...
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