Who wore it best?

Today's post is a contest for Bradley and I, reminiscent of People magazine's "Who wore it best?" 

McKenzie took a fashion risk by sitting on her longboard, but must have preferred  her lower center of gravity. She completed her ensemble with large shoe laces and a big grin.

Brad preferred the classic look of hoody, shorts, and boat shoes. What do you think, boring or cool?

McKenzie matched red oven mits with her polka-dotted apron and purple dress. This adventurous color combination did not help her remember to put chicken in the chicken dumpling soup.

Brad looked particularly lovely preparing Sunday  Morning Pancakes in his polka-dotted, flowery apron. His fashion sense was an asset in creating the fluffiest pancakes you ever did see.

Brad clearly enjoyed his red number from the Aggie Blue Bike  collection.

We like how McKenzie contrasted her masculine bike with a feminine blue-ish-green-ish feminine shirt. Way to go Kenzie!

Please let us know, who wore it best?

My Episcopalian, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Mormon Easter

On Good Friday I had an incredible opportunity to perform Bach's Johannespassion (St. John Passion) with the American Festival Chorus. The performance was part of the Good Friday service at St. John's Episcopal Church in Logan, UT. That was the Episcopalian part of my Easter. Bach was Lutheran, Reverend Paul Heins from the 1st Presbyterian Church said the prayer, and it was a Mormon Easter because I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, so that is where I attended my Easter Sunday Service. It was pretty great to go to church on Easter Sunday with my new in-laws.

Besides just the jaw-dropping beauty of Bach choral works, this Easter weekend experience reminded me of a few things I hold dear and also taught me some new things.

1. I am a musician in order to better express my love, praise, and gratitude to my Father in Heaven and my Savior. I lose track of that sometimes. It's similar to when I'm learning a really difficult piece and I get so caught up in learning the tricky notes and chords that I forget to keep track of the phrase and overall structure of the entire work. As I go throughout my life, practicing, trying to earn any money, cleaning my apartment, going to class, studying, rehearsing, applying for jobs, I lose track of the reason behind what I'm doing. I just keep going and going. My practice time will be more effective if when I'm going through my scale routine for the third time that day, I remember that I love to play music for my Savior. A simple truth, but it helps me.

2. Sometimes it is better to stop talking about every point of doctrine that separates churches and remember what we have in common. It is beautiful to me when a hall is packed with people of various backgrounds, lives, professions, goals, and churches who all want to praise Christ for his incredible love for us. Yes, there were many people there just to hear Bach because he's amazing. But I know I wasn't the only one pondering on the incredible sacrifice that Christ made for me.

3. The music also taught me to like Pontius Pilate a little bit more, oddly enough. When I was little we had a cartoon that told the story of Easter. Pilate was portrayed as fat, sloppy, and kind of gross. He sat there and ate grapes as Christ stood before him. As a result, that's always how I've pictured him. But as I listened to the singer that sang his lines, I thought, would I be any better? Now I picture Pilate more like Agrippa, who was almost persuaded to be a Christian, but he feared men too much. I now see Pilate sitting before the Christ with respect. He had heard the stories. He may not have been a Jew waiting for the Messiah, but the power of the miracles that had been performed was still there. Over and over he says to the Jews, "I find no fault in him at all." Not until after they remind him that he cannot admit any man is a king but Caesar, does he give up. Caesar controls his power and he wants to keep it.

How common is that problem? We feel respect and awe and joy as we sit in church, but then we go out into the world, and we're reminded that having faith is not popular. In popular culture those with faith are often portrayed as less intelligent. Sometimes I wonder if I have enough courage to say what I believe when others are judging me for it.When I'm struggling with the question of if I have enough courage, I ask myself, Pilate or Peter? Peter also ended up denying he knew Christ that day, but he repented. He spent the rest of his life proclaiming that Jesus was, is, and always will be the Christ, our Savior, Redeemer, and Friend. I hope I can do the same.

Fave!

This week's failure needs a little, or a lottle of a background story. Once upon a time, Brad and I fell in love, but we hadn't told each other yet. I was very adamant that I would not be the first one to say it; I wanted Brad to say it first. But Brad just couldn't get up the courage. Day after day, I took Brad home, came in and whined to my roommate, "Why won't he tell me he loves me?" Every time we talked on the phone I had to stop myself from saying, "Love you, bye." It was only a matter of time before I slipped, and that would not be as cute of a story to tell later.

Brad had several false starts. We'd be studying together, he'd stop me and say, "McKenzie?"
"Yes?"
"I...I..."
"Yes!"
"I care about you."
"Oh...I care about you, too."
Later, we'd be walking around campus, he'd stop, and say, "McKenzie?"
"Yes?"
"I...I..."
"Yes!"
"I...I really like you."
"Yeah, yeah, me too."
My personal favorite was a door step scene when I drove Brad to his apartment one night.
"McKenzie?"
"Yeah?"
"You're my favorite." This attempt at telling me he loved me didn't work very well.
"Your favorite what?" I exclaimed, "Favorite is an adjective. You can't just stop the sentence there! You have to tell me what favorite I am! Am I your favorite chauffeur? Your favorite violinist? Your favorite kisser? What?"
"Well," Brad said shyly, "You're my favorite girl."
"Your favorite girl? What about your mom?"
"Oh, well. I think it's a tie."
"Oh, okay. I'm glad you like your mom." My head was saying, He loves his mom! And I'm tied with his mom! That means he loves me! Woot! Woot! Woot!
A few days later, I fell asleep while we were watching a movie. Brad sat there for a long time after the movie ended, working up the courage to say those three important words. Taking a deep breath, he shook me awake, "Kenzie?"
"What, Brad?" I said sleepily.
"I...I...I love you."
"Love you, too." I said. And fell back asleep. I didn't realize what had happened until the next morning.
As Brad and I got used to saying "I love you," to each other we also started telling each other, "You're my favorite!" as an inside joke. Which concludes the background story.

Tuesday marked a whole month of marriage, so to celebrate, I made Brad a chocolate cake. A two-layer chocolate cake shaped in a heart. Oh...precious. I wanted to use the fancy new cake decorating stuff that we got for our wedding. I may need more practice.

I wanted to write "You're my favorite." So I started with the Y (notice the adjusted first letter) and realized I wasn't adept enough to write small. So I decided to write just, favorite. I ran out of room.

Here are more Monthiversary pictures. We had a fancy pants dinner at Chic-fil-a. More to come about our Chic-fil-a obsession soon.

Crispy Mashed Potatoes, Combined Laundry, and a Self-Haircut

Before we delve into my most recent embarrassing moments, you have to understand something about me. My mind has always been somewhere else. When I was in elementary school my mom started calling me "Anne." My name is not Anne, it is McKenzie. She was referring to my similarity to the main character from one of our favorite books, Anne of Green Gables. For those of you not familiar with Anne Shirley, you should know that she is constantly getting into "scrapes" (Oh, Canada, you have such a way of phrasing things) because her imagination is continually running wild. As a child, I liked to do my chores while either a) reading a book, or b) thinking about a book. This habit of mine was the number one culprit behind such grand mistakes as:

• Putting the ice cream in the fridge.
• Skipping a step and falling down the stairs. On more than once occasion. Probably on more than fifteen occasions. 
• Spraining my ankle because I tried to clean the bath tub with rags tied to my feet.
• A scar from tripping on the treadmill because I was reading at the same time.
• Having my skirt fall off during church because I was playing with the drawstring and forgot I had undone it.
• Losing homework and library books over, and over, and over.
• Coating the kitchen in a thin layer of marshmallow slime because I got distracted while making Rice Krispy treats.

(This is by no means a comprehensive list.) Now, I am married and my mistakes are doubly as bad because there are two people that get to deal with the messes I make. Brad and I haven't been married for even a month yet and already the adventures abound.

For example, we had only been living in our apartment for a few days when Brad and I got home from school/work at nine thirty. Brad, being the man he is, was starving. I, being the wonderful wife I am, quickly ran to the cupboards to remedy his state of starvation. Boldly going where no college student has gone before, I reached for the instant mashed potatoes. Within five minutes I had a lovely pot of instant mashed potatoes steaming hot, and perfectly stirred--no lumps for me! But, Brad wanted some meat with his meal, as any man is wont to do. The only meat we possessed was canned chicken. And there we had a problem, for we were still in the process of moving and the can opener was nowhere to be found. Fortunately, I married a thinker, an innovator if you will. He grabbed the handy dandy tool kit he got for our wedding, pulled out his hammer and attacked the can with all the fury a hungry man possesses.

Half an hour later, we had a shredded can, cold slimy chicken, and luke-warm mashed potatoes. I threw the chicken into the pot of potatoes, and wanting the chicken to warm up as fast as possible, threw the heat up to the highest setting. A moment or two later, Brad went to stir our potatoes/chicken, but he couldn't. It was a solid mass. One brown solid mass of instant mashed potatoes and canned chicken. It was only choked down through a healthy dosing of instant gravy.

My next mistake was of a much grander scale. This past Sunday Brad and I and my sister, Brecklyn and her husband, Bruce, were visiting the family to watch General Conference together. We're all poor, starving, newly wed college students and were taking advantage of my parents' washer and dryer. Brecklyn came in, put down her basket of whites, and told me that I could finish my laundry first, but to remember her whites were in the white laundry basket. I muttered to myself, "Brecklyn whites, white laundry basket. My whites, black laundry basket. Brecklyn, white. Kenzie, black. Brecklyn, white. Kenzie, black. Okay, I got it."

I didn't got it.

About an hour later, I put Brad and my clean whites in the bottom of the blue laundry basket with the colored clothes, so I'd only have to remember one basket. In the whirlwind of packing the car, I remembered I had brought one basket of coloreds, one basket of whites, so that's what I grabbed. Brad and I got home late, unloaded the car quickly, and went to bed. The next morning, when I got out of the shower, I nearly screamed. There was a white laundry basket. All of a sudden, I remembered my mutterings of the day before, "Brecklyn, white. Kenzie, black." There was no black laundry basket. Brad tried to comfort me as I shook his shoulders, exclaiming over the tragedy I had created in Brecklyn and Bruce's lives. "It's not like I grabbed any kind of laundry, Brad. I took their whites! The whites! I took the whites!!" The white load of laundry is without a doubt the most essential laundry load. Why? Because you need it every single day. You cannot survive one day without clean whites. Brad didn't even believe that it wasn't our laundry for awhile because it turns out that we wear similar sizes and styles of whites that Brecklyn and Bruce do.

It wasn't much longer before I got a panicked call from Brecklyn demanding what was to be done. I was about to go into class, and I would be in class or rehearsal straight until six o'clock that night and had no answers. Luckily, just like when I was little and made my mistakes, my mom was able to bail me out of trouble. She ran to the store and got Bruce a new white scrub top so he could go to school (Bruce is working on his nursing degree, so someday he can save the world as a nurse anesthetist.), and drove up to Logan that night to retrieve Brecklyn's laundry. Problem solved.

Or so I thought. Several hours later, Brad got home from work and I told him that he could stop worrying. My mom had come to get Brecklyn and Bruce's laundry and everything was okay now.
"You did take out our laundry that I put in there, right?" I sunk to the floor and put my head in my hands. Brad reminded me that he had told me that he had combined our clean white clothes with what he thought was the rest of our clean white clothes. But, because I was crying over my fate, believing I would be executed for the gravity of my white collar crime, I didn't actually hear or pay attention to my husband. Consequently, some (but thankfully not all!) of our white clothes were in the hated white basket that was now back in Farmington.   Brecklyn, Bruce, and my mom spent their Tuesday night carefully sorting through that basket, deciding what was ours and what was theirs. They sniffed the armpits of under shirts trying to match deodorant smells, they peered at faded labels trying to read sizes, and they conquered. Finally the battle of the mixed up laundry is won. I hope. Gulp.

The last and final disaster of the week doesn't need much explanation and it surely doesn't need any pictures. It can be told in one sentence.

I tried to trim my own bangs with blunt kitchen scissors.

Here's my wish: that hair grows fast and you got a good laugh.

McKenzie Clawson