The Big Surprise!

Finally, I am able to let my surprise out to my family. I came home to Wisconsin on Tuesday to surprise my entire family. My sister was the only person to know that I was coming home because I needed someone to pick me up from the airport. Some friends knew but that was it. It was a great surprise and my mom was in tears when she found out. Last weekend, she found out that my brother, who is in the army in Kansas, and his wife were not able to make it home for the holiday because the army was making him work. She was really upset and saddened over that and even more because she knew I couldn't come home at all. Brandon, my brother called Monday night informing my mom that he was able to come home and would be in Wisconsin by Thursday. That made my mom really happy but then to get a call from me when I was in Chicago informing her that I was coming home was a very nice surprise for her. I came home and had a home-cooked meal and then went and surprised more of my family. Everyone was blown away that Trescha and I could keep it a secret for over two months about me coming home.
It is nice being home. I spent Wednesday at the camp I worked at during the summer and played with the children again. It was a nice day and reminded me how much I love the camp and the campers. Then that night, I went out with Pearl and Boomer who worked with me as Program Directors this past summer (Their real names are not Pearl and Boomer. Those are our camp names. Mine is Pebbles!). They both go to school in state so it was a nice treat to go out with them. Unfortunately, we also had to say goodbye again that night until we get together over Christmas break again. It won't be long.
Other plans for the week here include hanging out with my friends from high school (wow, that still sounds scary!), go to Festival of Trees, go to church at the ward in Wausau again, play games and maybe squeeze in some sleep.
Now it is time to go eat a lot and enjoy the few days I have in Wisconsin until I return to Logan Sunday night! I will put up pictures later I promise!

First Time to Idaho

Another few weeks have passed by in a hurry. It is hard to believe that it is Mid-November already. I drove past a house today with Christmas lights up already and it dawned on me that Christmas isn't too far away! That means I come home soon; less than a month!

I went to Idaho this weekend to visit a friend from Wisconsin, Jodi. She attends BYU-Idaho located in Rexburg, Idaho. We had a lot of fun. Rexburg is a place where you must find and/or create your own fun so we did pretty well at that. We played Ultimate Frisbee with a bunch of people, played at a park, went to a deserted barn, watched movies and had a scruptious, homemade Sunday dinner. Here are some pictures from the weekend. The first one is Jodi and I when we were walking around campus. The second one is some of Jodi's friends and I at the park Saturday night.

I discovered a few fun facts in my physics class last week. We had a "Microwave Day" where the students could bring anything to class and we would put it in a microwave and heat them up. So the highlights included a lightbulb and cheeto bag. If you put a lightbulb in the microwave, it lights up! It was really cool. A cheeto bag, when empty, starts on fire for a few seconds and then shrinks down majorly. I have included a picture of me holding the cheeto bag after my roommates and I did it outside our room. (In case the microwave exploded, we didn't want our apartment to catch on fire!) No worries, the microwave survived and it was super cool. The picture of me is bad; I wasn't looking so sorry!

And finally the other news of the week is I registered for next semester for classes. I am enrolled in 16 credits plus 4 credits of religion classes. My classes include: Statistics 2000, History 1110, Introduction to Parks and Recreation, Political Science 1100, Soccer, and Physical Science. For religion courses, I am taking Book of Mormon Part 2 and Family History. I only have one class on Tuesdays and have Thursdays completely off, which I am excited for!

Well, that is all the news for this week! I hope and pray that things are going great back inWisconsin! Less than 30 days and I will be home!

C'est Novembre!

Thought I would throw in some French! It’s November and that is super exciting! That means only one more month until I come home (40 days to be exact)! Halloween was great. We carved pumpkins the other night. Mine is Tigger because it is sort of hard to see! It was quite a mess since we didn’t have the right “tools” to carve pumpkins.
We won our football game on Saturday against University of Hawai’i! Utah State is now 2-7 for the season. It was my last football game this year, which was sort of sad! Basketball season started this week so our hopes for winning games have increased astronomically. Our basketball team is pretty decent so that is fun! The first few games were crazy. The Spectrum, which is where the games are, is rated as one of the 10 worst places to play for the opposing team. At first, I just thought it was because of the noise levels. That is part of it but it is also because of the student sections. The students are pretty rude at times to the opposing teams. Sometimes, it is humorous like the other night when a person from Northwest Nazarene fouled out of the game, the students would chant his steps. So as he walked to the benches, the students chanted “Right, Left, Right, Left, Right…” And then when the player finally sat down, the entire student section erupted in cheers. It was quite hilarious. But other times, I am sort of disgusted at the things they say. I guess in the past, the students have been warned and even penalized for their cheering and all.
Classes are still going well. I have A’s in everything so far so that is great! On a side note, my knee is doing better finally. It has been too long since I have enjoyed a good, long run so this past week I tested it out. My knee is better if I remember not to run on it every day.

Hope all is well with family and friends! I love and miss you all!