Go Kart World

The day after Chirstmas we took a drive up towards Los Angeles to go to Go Kart World. It was pretty fun. They had three different tracks you could ride on. The first couple pictures are on the slippery track. The last few are on the Super Track. Uncle Steve took the rest of the pictures so I will try to get them from him soon.

Disneyland- Day 1 in CA

This Christmas my cousins from Seattle are spending the holidays with us. It's kind of nice since I'm the only one home this year. Our other uncle, Bryan who works for Nestle gets free tickets to Disneyland every year so we decided day 1 should be spent in "the place where dreams come true". It was pretty fun and the great part about free tickets is that you don't feel forced to stay all day and ride every ride because you're not wasting money. We rode what we wanted to and then got out of there before the big crowds left. The crowds actually were not too bad considering it was a Saturday and during the holidays. The longest we waited was an hour and that was for Space Mountain. Totally worth it! All-in-all it was a good day!

Me with my cousins Stephanie, Alicia and her husband Luke

On the tea cups

Buzz Lightyear ride

Castle at night

Days 6 & 7 in NYC

Well...I'm back in Phoenix but here is a quick recap of the last two days. Thursday I slept in and then decided to go crash the NJ Opera Theater auditions. Crashing means that either you are on the waiting list because there were so many applicants or you never applied and you just show up and see if they have any cancellations. I called the studio in the morning to see if they had any warm-up rooms and they did so I booked one for noon. When I left Staph's it had started to snow a little and it eventually turned to sleet. Yea! Just what you need when you're trying to look your best and walk around in heels. ANYWAY...I arrived at the studio and warmed up and then went and told the monitor that I was on the waiting list and wanted to know if they could slip me in if there were cancellations. He had me fill out a new application and give him a new head shot and resume and surprisingly enough they fit me right in! I guess the weather was working in my favor. I sang my first aria and then they asked to hear the beginning of another. The great thing is that they let me finish it! My friend told me she only got to sing one so I figured the fact they let me sing two was a good sign. I'm glad I decided to do it. I almost didn't. After the audition the weather was still so bad that I decided just to go back to Stephanie's and hang out. I watched a movie and worked on translating the opera for next semester. It was nice to just relax. That night I met Stephanie down at Penn Station and we went shopping at K-mart to find Christmas tree decorations and then we went to Macy's to look at all the fun windows. Afterwards we went back to her place, made homemade pizza and decorated the tree. It was fun just to hang out.

Friday I slept in since we stayed up late chatting. I packed up my stuff, ate lunch, watched a movie, read a little and then the shuttle picked me up to take me to the airport. Pretty uneventful day but again it was nice to relax after such a busy semester. I arrived back in Phoenix last night about 10:30 pm and it's great to be home. Today I slept in, did laundry and rehearsed with the ward choir for the program tomorrow. Now I'm off to a Christmas party at my friend's house. I'll try to post the rest of my NYC pictures when I get them.

Day 5 in NYC

Today I met up with my friend Colte from ASU and his friend Ben (amazing how many people from AZ I've hung out with since being in NYC. 5 I think!) and we put our names in the lottery to go see the show "The Drowsy Chaperone" staring Bob Saget. As luck would have it only about 12 people entered the lottery since it was a Wednesday afternoon and so we all won front row seats to the matinee! What a deal, only $25! It was a HILARIOUS show and I highly recommend it. Colte being the go-getter that he is even took us to find the stage door afterwards and we met Bob Saget when he was coming out. He signed our programs and we even took a picture! Full House in the flesh. Kind of weird but cool. Colte has the picture on his camera so I'll have to get it later. After the show they took off and I decided at this point that I had had it with the freezing wind and so I got some more hot chocolate at Starbucks ((I'm starting to understand the coffee fetish people have) and headed back to Stephanie's. She is hanging out with an old friend who is town tonight on business so I'm just catching up on email and laying low. It's nice to be inside where it's warm. Who knows what tomorrow brings...I'm thinking of maybe seeing "Marry Poppins" or "Little Mermaid". Until tomorrow!

Day 4 in NYC

Common Cents- A project by NYC elementary kids to collect pennies in order to help families. Also the big Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center

Me in the front row of the Gershwin theater about to see "Wicked"!

Brian and I in the theater

What a GREAT show!

Tree in Rockefeller at night

Yesterday was a really fun day. I slept in and then went downtown to meet Stephanie at her office for lunch. She works right in the heart of NYC on Madison Ave. I took the Subway to 50th Street and Broadway and then I walked down past Radio City Music Hall, Rockefeller Center and Sax 5th Avenue until I arrived at her 11 story office building. I had to walk past security cameras and check in with a receptionist before I could even see her. Very swanky! I feel lucky to know such a corporate lady! For lunch we walked to Grand Central Station and grabbed a pita at a Greek place. The food was good and the price wasn't too bad...well until Stephanie looked at my receipt and realized that the lady had charged me $79.80 instead of $7.98! I'm sure glad she looked! Needless to say I got them to void the purchase and they even gave me my drink for free. After lunch I headed back uptown to check on lottery tickets for the evening performance of "Wicked". My friend Brian was in town from AZ on business in NJ and was planning on coming into the city and wanted to see the show. The lottery didn't start until 4:30 pm and since I had time to kill I got some hot chocolate at Starbucks and walked back down to Rockefeller center to look at the lights, check out the common cents penny display and going shopping as Sax. Of course I couldn't buy a thing there since a hat and a scarf cost $99! It was fun to look at the 8 floors of designer clothes though.

At 4:00 pm I headed back to the theater and put my name in the lottery and waited around for them to announce. You can only imagine my surprise when my name was the third one called. They give away about 26 front row seats for every show and they only cost $26.25 a piece. What a steal for a student. I waited around for my friend, we grabbed a slice of pizza and then went and saw an INCREDIBLE show. Being up close is DEFINITELY not overrated. It was AWESOME! It's a must see show. After the show we went to the Stardust 50s dinner to share some food and dessert then walked back down to Rockefeller since Brian wanted to see the tree. It was a good day! I walked a lot and it was really cold but I had fun.

A moment of reflection

Taking a short break from the NYC trip to post some pictures from back when I went to Utah to do an audition with Utah Opera. I sure had a fun time playing with the girls. They are too funny in the tunnels.

The girls in their tunnels

Eating lunch at the counter..."We're big!". Little did I know they had never sat at the counter and after that they wanted to all the time. Sorry guys! ;o)

C'mon Jocey...smile!

What is with these girls?

Now we're talking!!

Love my girls!!! Now I just need some with my Jeffery!

Days 2 & 3 in NYC

Lets see...Sunday Stephanie, Alicia and I went to Stephanie's ward which meets in the same building as the temple in Manhattan. As you can imagine there are a lot of talented people in the ward with all the prestigious music school, Broadway and the met here in NYC. At the end of sacrament meeting a girl sang a version of The First Noel accompanied by a pianist and two violins. It was really good. Steph told me that she is in the cast of the Broadway show Jersey Boys. Wow! I also saw my friends Melissa and Karen from my ward. Melissa has been out here doing auditions like me and Karen has been on vacation. Sunday night we hung out and made chicken fajitas and we invited my friend Ryan who was also in town for auditions to join us. After dinner Ryan and I went and walked around in times square. It was pretty rainy but it was fun to look at all the lights and Broadway signs.

Yesterday I slept in and then got ready for my audition with VA Opera. The audition was at Chelsea Studios at 3:28 pm. I left Stephanie's place around 1:30 pm so that I would have time to take the subway and have time to warm up. Well when I got to the studio it was CRAWLING with people. The studio was on the 6th floor of this tall, old building and there were about 7 rehearsal spaces that were all jammed full of people. Just my luck...there were no practice rooms like they said there would be so I had to warm up in a "secret" bathroom that someone told me about on the 7th floor. Not ideal but better than nothing I guess. Every room had a different company auditioning. Most of them were Broadway way shows. There was a holding room for the Broadway shows and they would take people twenty at a time to line up in the hallway and go one after another and sing sixteen bars of a song for the panel. I think that they were hearing about 40 people an hour. How do you choose from 500 people you hear in one day! I'm glad I was on the opera side of the hallway. There were about five of us lined up at any given time. It wasn't very organized but at least they had a list of audition times posted on the door. We all just asked around to figure out who went when and after waiting for about an hour it was my turn. I sang the German piece I usually start with and then they picked my hard Italian piece. It went pretty well I guess. It wasn't as good as my SLC audition but the circumstances were a LOT different. One funny thing that happened is that there was a group of little girls auditioning for a show and one of them accidentally took my coat (which I borrowed form my friend Jamilyn) thinking her friend dropped it. So after I auditioned I had to go hunt it down and it happened to be in a room with one of the biggest Broadway show writers Jason Robert Brown. CRAZY! At least I got it back. ;o)

After the audition I went back to Stephanie's to change and then I met up with my friend Melissa and we went and hung out in China town and Soho to do some shopping and then had a great Italian dinner in Little Italy. It was pretty cold outside but we had fun. We took a few pictures but they are on Melissa's camera so I'll post them later.