Retreat

Kirsten! And Laura looking crazy!

Choir retreat is basically a "fun" excuse to force choirs to practice more. I really shouldn't say "fun" because it is fun, but it pretty much is slave singing. For 7 hours. But really it was great and everyone had a lot of fun with all our crazy shenanigans.

Spencer!

This is how I spent the three hour drive. I'm almost done now!!

P-town

We went to a Swedish Lodge thing up in Washington State. It was absolutely beautiful! I can officially say I have been to Washington. I was way more excited about this than I should have been. I kept making really great Twin Peaks references all weekend, but no one else has seen the show and so I had to laugh at my own jokes, which is pretty common anyways.

Okay. I am actually totally mortified by this costume. Let me remind you how pretty I looked last year....

Jade as Angela Carlson! And Stu as The Doctor!

Laura and I! Yes, these were the only axes we could find on short notice!

Laura, Kirsten, and I

Spencer was an Ice Road Trucker.... Someone pointed out how we were both in drag when this was being taken.

Flaming Pumpkin!

Our first night there we had our Hallowe'en Party. Everyone was divided into teams for pumpkin carving. Our team did Comedy and Tragedy masks, which came out pretty cute I think. And everyone was dressed up! My friend Laura, who is from New Mexico, and I went as lumberjacks. The reason is that one our first conversations was me telling her how my mother kept insisting that I was going to move to Oregon and marry a lumberjack. Laura looked very shocked and confused when I told her this. Turns out her mom told her the exact same thing. So we both went as lumberjacks. I got a little carried away in making my beard. One guy in choir told me that he thought some random mountain man had joined in and it took him about twenty minutes to figure out it was me. It really freaked some people out to try and figure out who I was and then hear me talk. Kinda funny. My friend Jade went as our Theory professor who is amazing and has a bowl cut, so I cut her wig, and she paraded around the room with an annoyed scowl on her face. My friend Spencer did her makeup (he's amazingly good at stage makeup!), and Jade even wore her costume on Monday to class where our professor was tickled pink!

The aforementioned flaming pumpkin.

Pretty much sums up the day.

Do no let college guys be in charge of the fog machine. Otherwise four people will have an asthma attack. (I'm exaggerating)

The next day we rehearsed for most of the day and in the evening had our candle ceremony, which is not as cult-like as it sounds! Before we left everyone drew a name and had to get a candle for that person. You also had to get to know as much about that person as you could. Then we all gathered together in a dark room and each person got up and told everyone about their person and then gave their candle away. It was a really fun way of getting to know everyone a little better. Jade got me, which was awesome because she and I have gotten crazy close, and she was bawling when she made her little speech and then I started bawling and then had to give mine, it was really, really sweet! (Love you Jade!)

Choir guys are weird. Actually college guys are weird.

Piano mimeing! 

Spencer gave our director a black eye.

Ashlee hoolahooped while making an origami crane.

I looked awful. It is a talent.

After the Candle Ceremony we had a talent show, which was awesome! There were some hilarious acts, and also some really cool acts (like one of the guys did a presentation on rock climbing and went out to a tree to show us how to use a certain type of rope-thing in rescue situations.). After the talent show I got to chat with Bri on Skype for a bit, we played card games, drank coffee and cocoa, and got all packed up to leave.

Sunday we drove back to Corvallis. Spencer was driving our bus and let me torture everyone with my brand new She & Him Christmas CD, which is awesome (and it's never too soon!!!). Drive back discussions included: our tour to Canada this year, Twilight, Harry Potter, me correcting everyone about Disneyland (which happens a lot actually), and my hilarious Steven Spielberg story. When we got back Laura drove a friend of ours and myself back to our respective homes. On the way back to my room we found a park and had to stop and take pictures! So pretty!

And then I arrived home, tired and wet, and wishing for another day in the weekend. It was a pretty awesome weekend!!