Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

I arrived back in Wisconsin on the 13th and was quickly reintroduced to the Wisconsin winters. I soon discovered that I was being spoiled in Utah with temperatures in the 30’s and 40’s because when I returned to Wisconsin, the temperatures plummeted into the negative digits. I am grateful, however, that I did not have to walk to classes in this kind of weather! Before I left school, we got about 6-8 inches of snow surprisingly so I am looking forward to returning in January and being able to enjoy snow for the next few months of school.
Since being home, I have visited a lot of people, which was nice. I went back to my high school on Monday to visit my orchestra teacher who I had since fifth grade. I was able to see the other viola players that I played with the last few years. The high school has changed a lot and I got yelled at for taking my cell phone out in the office. I realized how happy and thankful I am to be in college now.
I drove down to Milwaukee for a few days to visit a good friend of mine, Jackie. She and I worked at the YMCA camp in Wausau for the past few years together and she goes to Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE). She plays volleyball and basketball in college so I went down to watch two of her basketball games. The first one was cancelled though because of poor weather conditions but we had a lot of fun instead. The second game was awesome with her team winning over Mt. Mary College with a score of 73 to 45. It was the first time I have seen Jackie play so it was really fun and she was the leading scorer for the game! It was great time to spend with her. Included are some pictures from the visit with her.
Plans for the break include Christmas shopping with my sister, making Christmas cookies, spending time with my family, working at the YMCA camp and hanging out with friends. It is great to be home for another two weeks! It will go fast!

USU Aggies vs. BYU Cougars

Last Saturday, I went down to Salt Lake City to watch the biggest basketball game of the year (at least in my mind). Utah State played instate rival, Brigham Young University. Because the BYU basketball coach did not want to play at our school due to the level of noise and our fans, we met on neutral ground and played at the Energy Solutions Arena. That is home to the Utah Jazz. It was a pretty even game having both teams come in undefeated for the season. Sadly, my Utah State Aggies could not hold up to the BYU Cougars and lost with a final score of 68 to 63. I think we were ahead only a few times throughout the whole game. I am proud that we only lost by five compared to our football match-up earlier this year where we were crushed by BYU. I went to the game with Janet and some of her friends so I was the only USU student among a sea of BYU Cougar fans. It was still an enjoyable game despite that.
After the game, Janet and I went to Temple Square to see the lights. During the holiday season, Temple Square puts up a lot of Christmas lights and also nativity scenes. While it was packed with people, it was really neat to see the lights and all. Here are some pictures from it.

This week is full of studying and finals. I had my first final this morning and it went well. I had to present a final project and I got an A on it. I have four more tests this week but they are all on Tuesday or Wednesday. I come home this Saturday and will be there for three weeks. Even though I just went home I am still super excited to see everyone again!

Back In Utah

After surprising my family for Thanksgiving, I left on Sunday. I was expected to arrive in Salt Lake at 10:10pm and then be home by midnight. I did not get home until close to 5am in the morning. Lesson learned: do not fly to Chicago on a snowy day after Thanksgiving. My flight from Central Wisconsin Airport was delayed due to snow for three hours. When we finally left at 6:45pm, I had already missed my connecting flight. However, since the snowy weather was also occurring in Chicago, my connection was also delayed to 10:30. However, the plane we were supposed to take landed in Chicago with a cracked windshield so the airlines had to find another plane for us. We didn't leave Chicago until 1am central time. By the time we left, all I and the other passengers could do was just laugh. Thankfully I was able to sleep on the 3 hour plane ride and then be alert for the drive home. My first class wasn't until 9:30 this morning so I squeezed in about 3 hours of sleep. I am also thankful that I did not have to spend a night in the airport.

As I promised, here are some pictures from the week home.

This is my neice, Megan. She is trying on her new dress up clothes. She will be three in March.

This is our dog, Tilly. Brandon and Bonnie bought the Santa suit for their dog, Outlaw. Unfortunatly, it was too small for Outlaw so Tilly got it. It lights up around the belt buckle!

This is my sister, Trescha and I trying to be serious but our brother, Brandon kept making us laugh.

And finally a nice picture. My brother is on the left, Bonnie, his wife, is next. Then comes me and my sister Trescha. Kevin, Trescha's husband was not with us. I would like to point out that it seems like I am slightly taller than Trescha! That is a big accomplishment for me!

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!

Homecoming Week

Homecoming was this past week, which was fun and exciting. My friends and I went paint dancing Monday night. We basically got in a paint fight and then danced for a while. While it was extremely gross at the beginning, believe it or not, I got used to it. It was not cool when I had to take two showers and scrub like mad to get all the paint off me. In the pictures are my friends: Heather, Chelsea and Alyssa.Friday night was the homecoming dance so my friends and I went and it was pretty sweet. Here are some pictures before the dance.Saturday was the game and the Utah State Aggies came super close to winning. We were ahead, 28-27 until the last two seconds when Fresno State kicked a 58 yard field goal and made it. So we lost with the final score being 28-30. It was sort of depressing since it was homecoming. We only have two more home games, which is weird. I still can’t believe that it is almost November!