Thursday, November 21, 2013

Well folks, its been a while. Due time for an update I'd say!

-If you didn't somehow already know... Parker is home and we are happily dating :) I am so in love its ridiculous. Don't be surprised if with every little update I mention him somehow haha cuz its bound to happen. He's a very big part of my life and I wouldn't have it any other way.
-I performed with a Tap group for BYU's biggest production, Homecoming Spectacular. That was such a blast and my parents drove down from Canada to watch. This was the first time my dad has seen me dance at BYU so that was so fun. Parker also came to watch and this was the first time he has EVER seen me dance so that was also really special.

-I auditioned for BYU's dancEnsemble contemporary group and made it this semester! We had our concert, "YOU" last weekend and it was so rewarding to perform the dances that we had worked on as a company all semester. I got the opportunity to choreograph a solo on one of the dancers with Michelle Zemp and that turned out so well. Our dancer, Naomi, was a champ and made the movement look so darn cool. Michelle and I also got to perform a duet called Cartoon Duet. We had a 'sisterly' relationship where we love each other but we fight the entire time. Our dance was choreographed by a girl named Elise Beers and she was awesome to work with too. Michelle and I ended up yelling at each other in gibberish on stage. This dance was so fun! I was really worried about the acting aspects of this piece because acting is definitely not my specialty. Rehearsals were such a struggle because I had a hard time keeping a straight face whenever I would see Michelle acting angry. I would often burst out into giggles but as soon as I got in front of an audience I had my game face on and was somehow able to get through the dance without even so much as cracking a smile! Keeping a straight face was especially difficult when we added the gibberish part into the equation. I didn't think that I would actually be able to do it and secretly prayed that the director would hate the gibberish buuuuuuut he loved it. Which I was expecting. So he had us add even more gibberish and noises and continued to push me out of my comfort zone to the point where I didn't even really think about what I was doing... it became normal for me somehow and I was able to perform it pretty well I thought. Parker also came to see this concert not once, not twice, but three times! We had performances both Friday and Saturday nights as well as a matinee on Saturday and he came to all three shows. The poor boy. I bet he was so bored after the first concert but he insisted that I get him tickets to all three performances. I loved knowing that he was in the audience. He is such a good supportive boyfriend :)
-I am taking the max amount of credits (18) this semester and I have hardly any homework. I don't know how that happened... but Parker has soooooooo much homework all the time that he is super busy. I make him lots of sandwiches :O it must be love right? He makes me domestic. He likes studying though... so thats good. If only I had something to occupy my free time so that I wasn't so darn bored all the dang time!
-I get to go home for American Thanksgiving break on Saturday!!!!! I could not be more excited to see my family! I can't wait to decorate the Christmas tree, eat some good food, go to Alumni and relax with the people I love most! Parker is coming with me which I am really, really, really happy about. I never thought I would say this but Christmas break this year is gonna be so hard cuz I'll be away from him for two weeks! I hate long distance! I don't ever wanna do it again! Butttttt on the same note. I am so excited for Christmas! It truly is the best, most wonderful time of the year. It just makes me giddy thinking about it :)
-I got great news today! The new director of DancEnsemble, Graham Brown, is a brand new faculty member here at BYU. He got my name right from day one so I automatically liked him. I could tell that has also liked me from day one so that's been really helpful this semester. He is the teacher of my composition class, my technique class, as well as the director of DancEnsemble so I have been working with him a lot this semester. Not very many of the other students have enjoyed learning from him as much as I have for some reason but I think that has to do with the fact that I have been around him so much so I have come to understand how is brain works a lot better than they have. He is the most interesting person. So strange but in a good way. He really knows a lot about improvisation and choreography so it has been really beneficial learning about those things this semester along with many other aspects of the dance world. Today I met with him for customary interviews after the dancEnsemble concert and he informed me that he got asked to redo his concert with a professional company as well as a few of the dE dancers. He is inviting certain students to be assistant choreographers for this revamped edition of the concert that will be performed in Salt Lake either next December or the following spring. He asked me to be his assistant choreographer for the beginning large group number which is just so beyond exciting! This dance was one of my favourites to perform so I am honored to have been asked to help with the choreography for it. This will be a really good experience for me as well for my future career. The dance has a lot to do with rhythms and quirky movement so I am excited to figure out how I can help take it even further than what it was for our concert.

 -Michelle and I had to hug for literally five minutes on stage at the end of the concert. It was a really sweaty hug.


That's all I can think of for now. I'm gonna start writing a paper that is due next week... that's how bored I am. Over and out.

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

happy feet

Saturday was national tap dance day which brings me to this post about my latest tap dream come true. A few weeks ago was Jodi's Dance Academy dance recital themed Dancing Down Memory Lane. This theme was in honor of the studio's ten year anniversary. The entire show was awesome! I was fortunate enough to have danced not once but twice in the show. One dance was an alumni version of Apologize, a dance I did in high school. It was so fun to be able to relearn the choreography and to perform on stage with my friends and Miss Jodi. The other dance I did was actually a surprise to everyone except the dancers who did it with me :) Ever since I was a little girl, I have always loved dancing with my mom. Having her as my dance teacher has been really special for us. I have especially loved following in her footsteps of being a good tap dancer. Since she has taught me tap my entire life, its just extra fun for me to be able to come home and dance with her in general but I especially love tapping with her.

Nowww, I will tell this story as if I were the lady sitting behind my Nana (my mom's mom). 

We were just enjoying the show and the program said nothing about what was going to happen next. On comes an upbeat song and out comes Chelan McMurray tapping her life away on the stage. Her grandmother, sitting in front of us, starts excitedly hitting Chelan's father, grabbing his attention and showing her surprise. Chelan starts to tap over to one side of the stage and then reaches into the wings and out comes the next McMurray sister, Matlin, joining right in and never missing a beat. At this point, the grandmother starts looking at the seat next to her where Matlin had been sitting just minutes before wondering how this could be happening. These two girls tap on over to the other side of the stage and pull their little sister, Camrie, out of the wings to join them. By now the grandmother is grinning ear to ear, just so pleased with this surprise number. The three girls continue to tap (advanced level steps might I add. I add this because Matlin wasn't even in dance this last year but had no problems learning the steps quickly, and Camrie, who is only 13 picked up the steps like a champ. They are so darn talented!) and right when the music gets climactic, their mother sneaks on stage behind them and the crowd goes crazy. Cheryl's mother is pretty much hysterical while her husband, Ron, is searching for the tissues. They continue to dance and their tap teacher/mom joins in perfectly 'in the pocket' while the Nana is smiling proudly through her tears. 

Me again. We each had a small solo part to show our skills and Matlin's was by far the crowd favourite. She did her classic freestyle Matlin dancing and everyone went wild. Many people came up to us after the show to tell us how much they loved this number and it was so thoughtful of them. While I was on stage with my mom and sisters I almost started crying because it was such a special moment for me to be dancing with the girls I love and look up to so much. I am so happy to be able to share something so unique with my family. 


Wednesday, May 22, 2013

22 things for the 22nd of may

+parker has two months left. can you believe that? where the heck did the time go?!
+i have begun another summer working at the tourist information center
+i miss ari
+i love being home with my family
+i've read two books already and the center hasn't even been open for a week
+vampire diaries. i'm on disc 5 of season 3 and plan to finish it today. team damon
+my brother is getting married to the beautiful bailey powelson and i couldn't be happier for them :)
+i went to dance competition and it was a blast
+the girl i work with watches serial killer documentaries on youtube and i think she is secretly getting ideas.. i'm convinced i will be her first victim
+i want to play softball this summer
+i am SO excited to be teaching at dance camp again this summer. if i haven't done a post on that already that will be my next post
+the dance recital was a smashing success and it was so fun to dance in it again
+i have lost 5 pounds and my butt is smaller #winning
+i'm wearing a hat and red lipstick today
+my grandparents {nanizzle and pumpa} are moving to cardston and i am excited that they will be just a short walk away from us
+so you think you can dance dance dance
+i play just dance 4 by myself because no on else will play it with me and i still kick butt
+i have started craving spinach smoothies
+i want to have some fun with sparklers
+my boss wouldn't let me take another week off of work this summer to go see parker
+i get a sort of thrill when i see that people have retweeted or favourited my tweets {insert sheepish look here}
+i'm going to watch the rest of tvd, downton abbey, friday night lights, and pretty little liars this summer. as well as start revenge and 90210, just fyi

xoxo

Thursday, April 11, 2013

one of those days..

Its just one of those days where the weather reflects your mood. I woke up and it was raining again this morning. Too much gloom for my liking.. So this post is more for me than anything. I need to turn my day around and sometimes the best way to do that is to think of some good things about my life at the moment. Here goes nothin!
1. I get to tap today
2. I have an awesome roommate
3. Tessa has slept over 3 nights in a row because her roomies are ill and I have loved having her here!
4. My good friend Michelle got a call-back for CDT! Woot woot, get it girl!
5. There is only 4 days left of classes
6. I'm wearing really cute pants
7. My feet are more tan than my tan/nude colored shoes
8. I have really cute new running shoes that I will be using in conditioning today
9. I get to see my family in a week and a half. Home for the summer? Yes please! Its time
10. I got a better grade than I was expecting on my 20 hour project for my Kinesiology class

I hope your day started better than mine did! Happy thursday!


Thursday, March 21, 2013

drum roll please


Soooooooo you are probably sick of hearing about BYU basketball games but I don't care.. I'm in control here so this is another post about it.

We played the #2 team, Gonzaga a couple weeks ago. Our group set up the tent Sunday night and camped all throughout the week. We were the first tent in line (out of what turned out to be a whopping 70 tents!!) and I spent 11+ hours at the tent that week for the game. When game day arrived I couldn't focus on anything. I hadn't been that excited for a game since high school I think. I was just so antsy and could not sit still for the life of me. My classes dragged on and on and the day just crept by. After tap was over, I ran up to the Marriott Center and I was in the greatest mood! I was so happy to be there with these awesome people! They were giving out pizza and a drink called Randalls? I had one once this season and it was very good. I think another reason that I was so happy was because this was the first day in over a week that my head wasn't pounding.. I felt good! Finally we got into the Marriott Center after waiting a while and I was on the second row. We were let in 2 hours before game time so that time was spent socializing, watching a dunking contest (below), taking pictures, and talking to athletes.
Arielle and I got Cody Hoffman to take a picture with us and sign our hats which was really fun. Our roommate Ingunn thinkings he's the hottest thing to grace planet Earth so we took the picture with her in mind.

The game was pretty close the entire time. It was SO loud that night. I don't think there wasn't a person that wasn't yelling! That was definitely the loudest it had ever been when I've been in attendance. I was loving it. About halfway through the game my mom texted me and said, "You know that Gonzaga's #13, (their best player) Olynyk is Canadian. And that his dad was your dad's coach in university?" I had no idea! So after this I was like, well his parents are probably here so I should see if I can by some miracle find them. After that I paid close attention to the small section of Gonzaga fans that were near to us (mostly the parents. They had a student section wayyyy at the top.) I found this couple sitting on the front row that looked like they were cheering this Olynyk player on a lot so I thought maybe this was my dad's coach and his wife.. I was trying to plot my way over to them but couldn't think of how I would get there. When the game was tied at 60 people were saying, "storm the court if we win." I thought to myself, ohhhh I can just jump onto the court and walk over there if we win! That'll be perfect. Wellllllll, as you probably know, we didn't win. I did, however, sneak onto the court after the game and went over to these people. Our conversation went as follows. 
Me: "Hi, are you Olynyk's parents?"
Lady: "No, we aren't."
Me: "Dangit! I was hoping you were because Olynyk's dad coached my dad in university so I just wanted to come over and meet him." 
Lady: "Oh that's so cool! Lets find out if they came!" She then called over this guy who apparently keeps tabs on the player's parents. Unfortunately they weren't at the game that night.. 
Lady: "You should definitely talk to Kelly (Olynyk) though. He should be coming back out onto the floor pretty soon. Just stick around. I'm sure he'd love to talk to you!"
Me: "That'd be awesome. Thanks so much for your help!"

So I went back to my friends and waited for this Kelly Olynyk fellow to come out of the locker room. After what seemed like FOREVER, he finally emerged from the tunnel and I scurried over to his 7 foot self and lightly tapped on his arm and said, "Hey can I talk to you for a second? It will only take a minute." 
Kelly: "Uhhh I have radio right now so only if its fast."
Me: "Ya I'll be quick. Your dad coached my dad in university basketball so my dad wanted me to come  say hi and to tell you to tell your dad that my dad says hi."
Kelly: "Oh really? That's awesome! Where did your dad play?"
Me: "University of Lethbridge." 
Kelly: "So is that where you are from?"
Me: "I'm from Cardston. Its like 45 minutes south of Lethbridge." 
Kelly: "And you go here?"
Me: "Ya I do!"
Kelly: "Awesome. What's your dad's name?"
Me: "Ken McMurray. Be sure to tell your dad that he says hi. He would love that!"
Kelly: "I will! What's your name?"
Me: "Chelan McMurray." As he shakes my hand.
Kelly: "Cool. It was nice to meet you. I'll tell my dad for ya."
Me: "Thank you so much! It was good to meet you too. Great game tonight."


After this conversation, I went back to my friends and told them about our conversation. They then proceeded to tell me that Kelly Olynyk is one of the best players in college basketball right now.. Had I known he was THAT good I probably wouldn't have had the courage to talk to him. Anyway, that was a really cool part of my night. (Also, I called my Nana recently just to talk and I told her this story about my conversation with this ball player and the day after my chat with her, he was featured in the Lethbridge Herald for being a candidate for the national player of the year in the NCAA! Holy Smokes!)

And then this happened too.. 

I also got Superbowl winner and former BYU football player, Dennis Pitta to sign my hat. Cool right? It was just a great night even though we lost. The atmosphere was great and I was surrounded by such great people. 


Ok switching gears now.. Speaking of those great people I was surrounded by I just wanna say a huge thank you. Specifically to a few people. 

Trent Boulter. Thank you so so so much for letting me be in your group this season. I am so glad to have met you and gotten to know you this season. Thanks for always being so understanding and working with schedules to help everyone get to the games and have good seats. Thank you for being so organized and getting all the tent stuff situated. Its because of you that I have all of these awesome stories and memories that I will cherish forever! You are such an awesome person and I am so lucky to have met you! I'm sad that your reign as king of the roc has come to an end :( But I am so happy that I got to be a small part of it for a season! I really can't thank you enough! 
There he is photo bombing like the pro he is :)

Rosie and Josh Skinner. I love you both so much. I am just so happy that Arielle and I were at that first game on the second row and that you guys didn't mind our craziness! I'm so glad that we got to hold Harry Potter and that because Ari started casting spells, you decided that was when you wanted to ask Trent if we could be in the group haha Thank you for being so happy all the time! You guys are rays of sunshine and it just makes me happy to be around you! I'm so glad to call you two my friends and hope that our friendship will continue even though this basketball season has come to an end! I love you guys :)
Josh, Rosie, President Samuelson, and me :)

And last but not least. Trevor, Jakie, and sometimes Todd. You three. What a hoot! I am so glad we have become such good friends this season. Getting to know you boys has been so fun. I'm glad that we were friends outside of basketball too :) It has been fun hanging out with you guys a lot and getting to know you all. I am a better person as a result of knowing you guys. Thanks for putting up with our craziness and being so fun so be around! I am so glad I know y'all. Thanks for the memories boys! 
There are many other people that I got to know while sitting in the tent but I fear this post is too long already so I won't mention them. Just know that even if I didn't write a specific note to you or mention your name, you are still important to me and hold a special place in my heart. I really can't believe that this basketball season is coming to a close. It has been so darn fun and I am just so blessed to have been able to spend it on the front row, but more importantly, surrounded by such amazing people. I will never forget the basketball season that I sat on the front row. #frontrowcrazies #forevs hahahaha

Pictures. Its a must. 

Saturday, February 23, 2013

For the loooooove

Well its a glooooooomy saturday morning. I'm sitting in the kitchen with the lights off. Its blizzarding outside. Really quite dark.. ominousishhh. But regardless of the current weather situation and lack of light, I've had a great morning. You know when you are doing something that you love and you just have one of those moments where its like, "I love this so much!" I had one of those moments already today and its only 10:30 am. About a year and a half ago I wrote a post about a disco tap dance that I was doing and how fun it was. This year for our concert in March, we are redoing that tap dance. Relearning it has been super fun. I'm surprised at how quickly my body remembers the steps! Muscle memory is such an incredible thing! I went from not remembering one step in this 4 minute long dance to rehearsing it for an hour and knowing the entire thing just like that because once we start going my feet just keep tapping even though my brain isn't really telling them to do it.. and then just like that, boom, the dance is remembered. We've had two rehearsals for this number and each time we get to a certain part in the dance I have the same experience. We are all standing at the back of the room and one really really really incredible tapper is improvising a solo. Two at a time the rest of us turn around and start doing something called a 'time step'. I get to turn around first to start doing this step and when we are all doing it together I can't help but think, "I love this! I love this! I love this!" I am just filled with this overwhelming joy. Its hard for me to explain but it really is such a great feeling, to be so in love with what you are doing that it makes you so so happy. The first time this happened it brought me to tears a little bit. I love these kinds of experiences because they remind me why I am where I am and make me feel so grateful to have the opportunities that I do. I am so glad that my parents put me in dance when I was a lil youngin'. I can't imagine my life with out dance in it.. literally. My earliest memory is at age four and I've been dancing since age three. I am so glad that I have the opportunity to share dance with my mom and my sisters. It is such a blessing to be dancing here at BYU and learning so much and having experiences like these ^^^ I'm just really grateful. I guess what I'm getting at is that I love to dance, especially tap.

Now. Here is a video of this here disco tap dance that I love so much. This was when we did it at World of Dance in 2011 and it was a much larger group than it is now. We also had some cloggers that come in near the end and they do some BYU flag thing? There was a big football game that night so that was in support of the team or something along those lines. I am wearing the same thing as everyone else and my hair is the same so you most likely won't be able to see me butttttttt in case you want to try, I am the last one to come out of the back left wing when looking at the stage. I do some arm swinging thing when I come on. Enjoy!

Click HERE to watch!

Sunday, February 10, 2013

procrastination at its finest

I am putting off studying. I just really really do not want to do it right now. No thank you. So instead of studying, here is what I have been doing.
Check Facebook.
Check Instagram.
Check Twitter.
Check Blogger.
Eat.
Repeat.
Its getting old.. I'm getting too fast and nothing is new anymore. Not enough people on my sites tonight to keep me entertained.
I should probs go study now. But I'd rather not. So I'll tell ya'll a story I guess.
Its goes like this.

I went to the Marriott Center yesterday at 4 pm to wait for the game between BYU and San Francisco that started at 7 pm. It was snowing quite a bit and made everything so wet. Luckily, when I got there, my friends had weaseled their way into the Marriott Center early to help the marketing team blow up balloons for the student section so I got to go in early too. After a little while, they kicked us out again because they have to or something stupid. Eventually they began letting students in and yes, we got front row seats yet again.
So the game goes not so good.... as in we lost. Final score: BYU 87 to San Fran 99. Boo.
Usually I get very, very, very wound up about losing. I just do not handle it well. But somehow I manage to have so much fun at the basketball games here that no matter the outcome, I still come away from the games happy. Winning just makes me all the more happy when it does happen.
Are you wondering why I was happy after we lost last night?
Let me just tell you.
I was in a face-making mood all night for some reason. So much face-making energy. I got on the jumbo tron a couple times and crossed my eyes. Had people around me laughin a lil bit. I had been making faces at the opposing team's bench (which is very close to where we were sitting) but they would never look at me. Never any eye contact. Eventually I got the attention of one of the coaches that was sitting near us (he was great) and also the attention of a couple of the players on the team. Near the end of the game I had a number of the team as well as a couple of the coaches laughing at my ugly faces.
Once the game had officially ended, one of the BYU photographers ran over with his camera to get a shot of my face... I smiled. He said, "No. No. No. You've gotta do what you've been doing the entire game." I pulled a mighty fine face, if I do say so myself. I still have yet to see this picture but I hope one day I can get a copy of it somehow. After it was taken I said to myself, my mother is going to die if that gets put anywhere public.
Mother, I apologize sincerely if it does go public someday.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Things

 Another update post because that's all I can seem to find time for these days.
*Note: Most of these pictures don't really correspond with the parts of the post they are by.. some do. Some don't. I just got too lazy to organize everything nicely.
-Christmas was FABULOUS. 3 weeks at home? I'd take that any day. It was just what I needed. I loved the time I got to spend with my family and have I mentioned that I got to spend some time with Parker's family too? Well now you know. I actually got to talk to the boy on Christmas day which was so very unexpected yet so very fun! It was good to see his smiling, happy face no matter how awkward we were.
Meet Parker's sisters. We get along GREAT!
Top left corner beside the score board. Spirit fingers. Yellow sweatshirt.
This is one of my favorite pictures of my BYU experience thus far. 

-A little more Christmas action for ya. I learned to knit :) My scarf is coming along nicely. I got knitting supplies from my parents and my Nana so very kindly taught me how to do it! I did a puzzle with my sisters. I am craving another one already. I just really love puzzles a lot. I went to some good old Cardston Basketball. I got some nice red boots and an Ipod 5 from Santa Claus. What a nice man! And now I be instagrammin like crazy. Follow me (chelan22). My favorite part of Christmas by far was hanging out with my family all day every day for three weeks. I won't go into how much I love them because I won't ever stop.
-I am now back in Provo... School is a couple weeks in. Its a good semester of classes. I am finished school at 3 pm every day. I like it like that.
-My broski gots a girlfwiend :) 
-Parker has 6 months left people. How insane is that? I don't think it has hit me yet.
-I was on ESPN.
-Ari and I are attempting to cook every once in a while and guess what! We haven't poisoned one another yet so I think that's a good sign. Here's to hoping!
-HAPPY NEW YEAR!
-Planning for dance camp for this summer is underway and I am very excited about it. I really like thinking about the summer. Warm weather. Tans. Not wearing make up. Not doing my hair. Making money. Sunshine. Parker comes home. Swimming. Summer nights. Being home. ohhhhhh it just sounds so good!
This is one of my favorite pictures from the holidays. New years kisses hahahaha

-my chocolate consumption is getting out of hand. I blame those things called hormones.
-I have got Ari addicted to bejeweled blitz. Bad idea. Don't every try it...
-I love sitting on the front row at basketball games and I fear that I will never be happy with anything else now that I have experienced this magicalness.
Jummmmbo Tron action! Spirit fingers yet again. Old habits die hard.

- My lovely friend and former roommate Candace is a fabulous cook and lucky for me, she loves to cook food for other people. She knows I can't cook so she invites me over at LEAST once a week to enjoy a good homecooked meal. How kind! These are some of the pictures of the food she has made for myself and sometimes Ari too. She has also started invovling Ari and I in the cooking process every once in a while so I'm slooooooowly learning how to cook. Its a work in progress. I still hate it.
-Welllllllll I have by some miracle convinced Ari to give me a foot massage and she just asked if I want lotion so I guess that's my cue.
Cheers to the freakin weekend.