Love It

I really wanted to entitle my post "Come What May And Love It" after Elder Wirthlin's talk from conference, but Pec beat me to it. So I modified it :-)

It's been a while since I've written a real post. It's like journal writing. I keep thinking I'll just wait until something interesting happens. Then I have a moment to sit down and realize all sorts of things have happened and, gosh, I'm more interesting than I thought! Okay, maybe not to that extent, but this month has surely not been a latent one for me.

The past two weeks have really been amazing fun. Last Sunday a few of the girls in the ward thought the ward wasn't being social enough (some newly formed couples in the ward sort of broke up the band, so to speak) so they put together a pre-Thanksgiving bash. They sent out a facebook invite and told everyone to bring something. There had to have been at least 40 kids there. Bonfire outside, lots of yummy-ness inside. I was there until 12:30 AM or so just chatting and playing games. The kids in this ward really are a good bunch.

On a side note, some mild banter between me and one of the guys there turned into a small wrestling match. The guy won, but I put up a good fight. I had him in a headlock a few times, but just couldn't close. For a skinny guy, he's stronger than he looks... Poor guy was embarrassed afterwards, though. "Man, that was stupid of me to wrestle with you. I could have hurt you... my pride got in the way. I'm sorry!"

Nice kid.

This Friday I had Thanksgiving meal #2. Elder and Sister B prepared a most awesome turkey meal for Friday Forum lunch. I got to help since I don't have classes on Fridays. It was also the first time since I was, maybe, 5 that I've had a turkey cooked in the oven. Growing up we'd almost always either deep-fried the sucker or smoked it. It was delicious. I love the B's!

Friday night was also our ward camping trip. I froze my tail off (who knew it could get so cold in Florida?!). But it was spectacular to be out in nature. No lights, no noise, just the beach and the stars. Oh yeah, did I mention we were camping on an island? Yeah, it was cool. We actually weren't terribly close to the beach, but our campsite was within walking distance and we all took a moment to check it out. We had everyone turn off their flashlights so we could thoroughly enjoy the stars. Absolutely beautiful. I met some people I wouldn't have known otherwise and got to know people I already knew better. Great weekend. Also, yea for living in UT for 5 years. I was perfectly warm in my sleeping bag thanks to a lovely winter-wear underarmour shirt my bro got me covered by my most-awesome Adidas hoodie, two pairs of socks, and my lucky BYU fleece blankey that my Guelita made me one year for Christmas because I'm her favorite (okay, so the other 40 something cousins also got a fleece blankey, but whatev... I'm still her favorite). I didn't sleep due to the GROUND, but I was warm so I didn't mind. The power of layers!

Prior to the spectacular loss of BYU to Utah yesterday *hangs head in shame*, I made a small gift for our institute director, Brother B, who is a Utah alum. Sister B (his mother) was my partner in crime. She rather obtained a recent photo of Brother B and his family from their Disney World vacation a few weeks ago. I photoshopped BYU t-shirts on all of them (which, with seven kids, took a LONG time). And Mini Mouse became Cosmo the Cougar. I emailed the new photo to my folks and they printed out a banner-size copy of the photo along with 8 11X17 versions of it and overnighted the whole set to me (yea for Mom and Dad!). Also in the package was a huge banner of the BYU logo with the cougar on it. Wednesday afternoon Elder B played distraction while Sister M (the institute secretary), Sister B, Michelle (one of the YSAs) and I put the photos up all over the building. One wound up in the men's bathroom (not me! it wasn't me! I swear! Sister B! Sister B! she looks so innocent, but really...).

The reaction was classic. I should have taken photos, but I didn't think to bring the camera. Brother B was a good sport. He said he'll keep everything up for a week. Good times.

So things are good here in Tally. The next two weeks will be beastly with final projects, but the good news is I am done by December 8th with everything and then I can relax!

Cheers!