After dropping Zac at his recruiting activity, I drove down to Salem, where we were staying with Zac’s grandma. The kids were so exhausted, and Nolan screamed the whole 30 minutes drive, but we got there safely, and got everyone in bed about 2 hours late. Zac’s grandma commented, “Wow do your kids usually go to bed that easily?” Ha! No way, but when they are as tired as they were, they both fell asleep immediately. This was a tender mercy for me, because I was stressing over how the sleeping arrangements were going to work out. And sometimes when baby (or toddler) is overtired, they have a harder time calming down. But luckily it was easy, especially since Zac wasn’t there to help me.

The next day we went to BYU’s Bean Museum, where Addie loved seeing all sorts of animals and pointing out all the ones she knew, and giving them names. Then off to Zub’s for lunch (yum!), and back to Grandma’s to spend the rest of the afternoon/evening.

Saturday we had a playdate! We went to Rock Canyon Park with some friends and family and just played on the playground and talked. I’m sorry if you weren’t able to come or didn’t know about it. I literally sent out the email on our way to the airport, so if I missed you, I’m so sorry! I did very little planning ahead on this trip. Later on we hit Cafe Rio for lunch (of course), Cami and Juli came to visit us at grandma’s, and then Kami and Matt came down later that evening. Thank you for all making the trek down to Salem to see us!! We loved seeing you and wish we could have been there longer!

Sunday we spent some time at Salem Pond, feeding the ducks and playing on the playground. Addie LOVED Salem pond. The weather was gorgeous, so we spent a lot of time outdoors on Sunday. After a big fun family dinner that night, we were exhausted and had to get packed and ready to leave at 5:45am the next morning for our flight. I told you, we are crazy!!

It was a whirlwind trip, where 3/4 of us got colds, but we are home now, and are getting back on our schedules and trying to catch up on our sleep. Next up…..a new school year. We are starting a co-op preschool with Addie next week, where I will be helping with the teaching.

Spam Cartoon

My little brother is applying to BYU this year, and BYU has been communicating with their new applicants through email. Unlike years past, for whatever reason, acceptances have been significantly delayed. However, yesterday he received an email from BYU Admissions saying the acceptances will now be sent out Monday, February 9th. He was so excited! Then he noticed that there was an attachment at the bottom of the email, which contained EVERY email address of EVERY applicant to BYU this year. There were thousands of emails on this list. Are you kidding me?? Who was smart enough to attach the list of every applicant to an email that went out to thousands of 18 year olds? I have concluded that maybe this is the reason that acceptance letters have been so slow this year…technologically inferior employees.

Question: What would you do if your email address was on this list, sent out to thousands of people who could sell your email address to any and every spammer they could find. Over 183 billion emails are sent each day, and probably 180 billion of them are spam. Is your email box ready to accept this many messages every day? Even the most insecure person doesn’t want that many friends.

Beautiful huh?

Tonight for our family night we decided to go take a tour of the Gordon B. Hinckley Alumni building on campus. I don’t know if they were doing special tours to honor his life because of his passing, or if they do them all the time, but we loved it. It is a beautiful, welcoming building that houses artifacts and mementos of his life that were special to him and that he felt compelled to donate to “his” building on campus. It was so special to experience things that were important to him, including his family, the gospel, and the education that is offered at BYU. I recommend this activity to anyone who is going to be in Provo anytime soon. Isn’t it a beautiful building?

Also, DH and I have decided that we are master pizza makers. We tried a new pizza tonight with Chicken, Alfredo and pesto sauce, and green peppers. It was so good! We can’t wait to finish it for lunch tomorrow!

I have loved the class and have learned tons about the history of America. Now American Heritage is not a typical American History class. It focuses less on dates, and more of the unique structure of the American political system. We talk constantly about the social contract, which is an unwritten agreement between the citizens and their government, and how it is constantly changing.

Today we talked about the Civil Rights Movement and how it was the last major reconstruction of the social contract. The lecture was great and the discussions of the details were moving. I am not going to go into the horrid situations which surrounded the country during these times, but we were shown a film that was moving. I know there are numerous details about the Civil Rights Movement that I do not understand, but this tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. really struck me and I wanted to share it with you. Although this was not the exact movie we were shown,it is a similar video.

• Free stuff. I work for the School of Music, which means I get free tickets to many School of Music events and performances. We have not fully taken advantage of this perk, but once or twice it has been nice to get to attend something that I would otherwise have missed because of the cost (once again, the salaries here are not huge).
• The environment. I have never once had a complaint about the quality of people I work with here at BYU. There is very little gossip or office drama to deal with. People work hard and get things done, and if they don’t, at least they are nice to work with:)
• Parking pass (and gate card). After four years of attending BYU, not once did I ever park closer to campus than a 10 minute walk. Until I got a job here. My parking pass allows me (and my student husband) to park as close as we want to any building on campus. We have to share a car, but it has worked out great so far!
• Tickets to the Las Vegas Bowl Game! While students have to put their name into a hat for a lottery to maybe get the chance to attend, faculty and staff get to buy real tickets to the BYU bowl game just because we are employed here!

There are other bonuses, like getting to watch BYU devotionals, taking classes (like the Photoshop one I’m in), and free tuition, but I don’t want to get too carried away. I just wanted to let everyone know about the hidden perks that working for BYU offers.

I posted the invitation so you could all see how amazing Andrea is at Photoshop after only one lesson! – Zac

This year both teams were coming in with 7 game winning streaks and it was going to be a good game. As the game progressed in its early stages, it was apparent that it was going to be a defensive struggle and a game of field position, and would likely be decided in the final few minutes. As it turns out that is exactly what happened.

If you didn’t see the game, you need to. It was a great game. There was tons of emotion both by the players and the fans. At one point, the Ute’s were deep in our territory, and we were dangerously close to the getting a safety. The stands were louder than I have ever heard. I had both my ears plugged and I was whistling as loud as I could (my voice was already gone) and the Ute’s had two consecutive false starts. Now that is what we call home field advantage! It was a great game to be at and the first game I can ever remember where the stands were still packed as time expired.

The victory was made possible by a fourth and eighteen pass from Max Hall to Austin Collie. That was the defining play in this game because it allowed BYU some additional downs and placed them in long field goal range. Luckily we got a few breaks and then Harvey Unga ran the ball in from 11 yards out to get BYU in the lead. There were still 40 seconds on the clock and the Ute’s had 3 timeouts so the game was far from over. There was a big defensive stand and the Cougars pulled away with the victory. The best part may have been seeing the fans rush the field and carry the players on their shoulders. That always gives me goosebumps and this time was no different. What a great game for my last BYU home football game as a student. GO COUGS!

Watch the BYU slideshow from the game. BYU v Utah

I have to be honest, when my wife told me she had gotten tickets, I wasn’t too excited about going, but now that we are just a few hours from the show I am actually looking forward to it. You know it should be neat to rub elbows with the elite members of the LDS music scene. Who knows, maybe I can get an autograph from someone cool!

We don’t really know what to expect since apparently they are scaling it down this year. It is happening in one of the BYU ballrooms at the WILK therefore, not exactly black tie, but I am sure some people will get all gussied up for this thing. I hope there are some performances from the nominees, that would be cool.

Some of this years nominees are:

• Steven Kapp Perry
• Tyler Castleton
• Mack Wilberg
• Craig Jessop
• Gladys Knight
• Jenny Jordan Frogley
• Julie de Azevedo
• Peter Breinholt

With all of these stars it has to be an amazing night! Well, it is getting a little late so i should probably go get ready and while I do I probably should listen to some sweet church music and get familiar with the artists. I’ll write again tomorrow, hopefully with some photos of all the celebrities I get to meet.