Pottery date night, sort of...

Sarah and I found a poster in the Wilkinson Center at BYU advertising a cultural date night in the cultural museum making pottery. We expected it to be where we would get to make a pot on a turn table. We were a little off. It was more for single people on dates than married couples. Some of the games were very BYUish and the pottery portion actually consisted of just a ball of clay for us to kneed. But we made the most of the situation and even won their "pottery contest".

Here is our award winning pottery, a wishing well with a cobble stone pathway.


And these are the shirts we won for our award winning pottery.

Christmas Time

Sorry for getting this out so late, but here are some updates of our Christmas break. We had a good time in Oregon, despite the fact that there was snow on the ground for most of it (we thought we could escape the Utah weather, we thought wrong). Christmas eve we watched a movie that Sarah's family always watched growing up, Christmas in Connecticut. Christmas was fun, just doing the usual opening up of presents, after which we headed out to Dad's in Sweet Home for the rest of the day. We ended up going to Michael Allen Harrison's concert in Portland, we just had to go the day after Christmas due to the bad weather. The rest of the break was just spent relaxing and playing games, including scum. Sarah really liked that game. We finally made it back to Utah a couple of days before school started, and here we are, just one more semester to go.

Driving through Keizer Oregon, we got to look at the Christmas lights Christmas Eve.


Christmas morning. We look kind of sleepy.


German pancake breakfast Christmas morning.


The Tillamook Cheese Factory. So many wonderful flavors of cheese.

Driving to Oregon...in a BLIZZARD!!!

Just a quick note here about our little trip in the snow. We left for Oregon on the 19th of December from Provo. Just south of SLC we hit a snowstorm that was pretty heavy until just past Ogden. It was then great weather from there all the way to Boise. We spent the night with Nicole and left the next morning at 5:30 to drive to Monmouth, us in our car and Nicole in hers. The blue mountains were cake and we were way ahead of schedule coming into The Dalles. That's when the snow started hitting us. We tried to get some chains there, since the ones I had were not fitting right anymore, but they were all out. So we headed out to Hood River and the chains they gave us there were too big. But they had no sizes left, and the sun was beginning to sink and ODOT was beginning to shut down Hood River. So we took off from there. Immediately it began to snow even harder and the winds picked up. Right after we left Hood River they began to shut the town down except for emergency vehicles. We hit some stalled traffic as winds were getting around 50 mph. Then it got dark. We couldn't see the road, the winds were still 50 mph, and we were going around 5-10 mph in total darkness as our windshields kept freezing over. It was a blizzard for over 2 hrs. of driving. Right when we got into Troutdale they shut down I-84 behind us because of an accident and poor driving conditions. They just barely opened up I-84 today, the 23rd, 3 days after we went through. We finally made it onto I-205 and went down to I-5. After we got onto I-5 they began shutting down parts of I-205. But we kept pushing through, not wanting to stop. We eventually made it to Monmouth after 15 hrs. of driving only to hit an ice storm. But we made it. We are safe. Sorry we don't have any pictures but I think our nerves were too racked to try and snap some photos.

Football at Lavell Edwards Stadium

Yesterday was the last home game for BYU this year. For the club I belong to at BYU, the Landscape Management Club, we clean up the east stands after each game. Lots of trash and hosing. Since this was the last game on this field (they are tearing up the field and putting in a new one in the spring time) a group of us got permission to play on the field following the game. I wanted to get pictures, but was unable to. But it was real cool to be able to play on that turf. I even threw the game winning touchdown. Well, I was just quarterback on the last series and we ended the game because everyone was getting tired. But a great experience to have my senior year here at the Y.

1st Grade!

I just finished my first amazing week in a 1st grade classroom! (If you didn't already know, I was assigned to be in a 1st grade classroom Monday-Wednesday each week until the end of the semester.) My teacher, Mrs. Taylor, is so helpful - a great mentor. I was pleasantly surprised to find that most of the 20 kids have no trouble pronouncing and remembering my name! What a relief!

I get to start teaching lessons next week, so that's very exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time! I will let you know how it goes!

Our Primary Class

As you probably already know, Jeff and I teach primary in our ward. Because there are not too many children in our ward, we teach ages 4-6 (preschool through 1st grade). It's a huge range in age, but we love it! We've been holding off on posting pictures, as we wanted a class shot. It seems like there is always at least one child gone though, so we decided to go ahead a post individual shots.



Going clockwise: Jordan (5), Andrew (6), William (5), Miriam (5), Jordan (4), Julia (6), and Eliza (4)

Hiking the Y

We hiked the Y a few weeks ago. I haven't hiked it since my freshman year, but it was Sarah's first time. She really wanted to do it before she graduated. It was a fun hike. The view was awesome. It's a lot steeper at the top than it appears it would be. The way down wasn't as fun as I slipped on a loose rock and rolled my ankle. But all in all a great way to spend Saturday before school started.