Missouri, Thanksgiving, and Football Games...

What a week! We've traveled over 2500 miles, been to two football games (wins!) and missed way too much school. But, despite it all, it sure was fun!

The one rule in our Missouri trip was that it had to happen BETWEEN the two BYU home games. This might seem rather harsh (you're skimping on family time for a football game?), but these games are actually really important to us. It's ou r last year at BYU, and we'll probably never be to another homegame.

After our solid win against Airforce, it was off to Missouri! We didn't leave Provo until 6:40pm, and then we hit traffic from the game, so we were really worried that we wouldn't make it to Cheyanne in time, but we pulled into our hotel by 1am. We finally made it to Missouri at 10pm on Sunday. It was SO nice to see all the Leavitts! We spent most of our time hanging around at Megan and Ben's (ah, wonderful vacation!), watching movies, reading and eating.

On Wednesday, we went to Silver Dollar City, an amusement park fashioned after old-time Missouri. It was like a little town will little shops and games and rides! All the Christmas lights were up, which was absolutely gorgeous! We went on some really fun rides too; Jordan said that the "Wildfire" was the most intense rollercoaster he had ever been on. We had a crazy good time.

Overall, our trip was wonderful. We had such a great time, and it was awful to leave! I really enjoy spending time with all the Leavitts, and I appreciate their willingness to let us crash their Thanksgiving festivities!

We decided to drive home in one day in order to be sure that we'd be back in time for the Utah game. It was a good 18 hour drive: I do not suggest it! It was just a super long time to be in a car, and we all got into Provo feeling a little queasy. After last years unpleasantness, we at least made it back in one piece, a completely sucessful road trip! Woohoo!

The BYU-Utah game was AMAZING. I had never attended one of these big rivalry games live, and let me tell you, they are intense! Here's a list crazy things that happened:

1. The marching bands! They decided they were in a dueling contest. One of the most notable things was Utah scored a touchdown, so their band played their fight song, so just before their fight song ended, BYU started playing our fight song... etc. Also, after a BYU player got hurt the Utah band starting playing their fight song... classy, people, classy.

2. What was with all the red in the BYU sections? Traitors!

3. There was a guy sitting a couple rows behind us who everytime BYU missed a play would yell, "You gotta be kidding me!" Actually, they're not kidding because clearly they are playing a game. Please, please be quiet. Also, there was a lady next to us who kept whimpering, "Come on Max, you gotta believe in yourself! You gotta believe in yourself! You can do it! Just believe in yourself." (If your not a BYU person, Max Hall is our really great quarterback who sometimes gets jitters during big games). Finally, my favorite was the guy behind us who wore a football helmet... I won't go into details, but I'm fairly certain he was autistic.

4. I ate my last Cougar Tail! These are giant maple donuts... mmmmm...

5. OVERTIME! I'd NEVER seen that before, and when George caught the winning touchdown, it was the most amazing climax to a game ever! Everyone was cheering and jumping, Jordan turned and gave me the most violent kiss of my life, and then fans started storming the field! Usually they have nets to keep that from happening, but clearly someone wasn't doing their job that night and soon the whole field was covered in fans, crowd-surfing Andrew George...

I have some pictures of the awesome night, but I'm having difficulty getting them on the blog, so you'll just have to go to facebook to check them out. Anywho, back to the real world tomorrow (I really don't want to talk about it, actaully...).

He said he didn't have a required number of sources...

Ok, this is my favorite (... or the worst) moment of the week so far. Background: At the very beginning of the semester, my 20th Century Music teacher sent us a syllabus. On that syllabus it said, "You will be required to write a 15 page term paper, topic to be approved by me." Ok, that's fine. The school year began. I got busy with the class and the professor never, ever verbally mentioned the research paper in class. He doesn't mention it until THIS Monday, 4 weeks before the end of the semester, finally giving us the requirements for the paper. Ok, maybe it's a late start, but I can still do this. Someone asked how many sources we're required to have. Here, let me outline the conversation for you:

Student: "Dr. Johnson, how many sources will be required for this paper?"
Dr. Johnson: "Oh, I don't have a requirement. Just as many as are needed."
Student: "Oh, alright."
Dr. Johnson: "That being said, if you have anything less than 20-25 sources, I'm going to think your paper is suspect."
*stunned silence by class that includes gaping mouths and blinking*
Dr. Johnson: "You know, I wouldn't be too surprised if some of you have 100 sources! Just get as many as you need."

So... basically... you say you don't have a source requirement... but you do? Oh... ok. Thanks for being so clear.

I have also recently discovered the joys of pumpkin ice cream! Oh. My. Goodness. It's amazing. As Jordan has distained over, I love fall because I can enjoy all things pumpkin! (Jordan likes pumpkin things, but has this crazy idea that our lives need "variety..." silly...). So far, I have had pumpkin ice cream, and I've baked pumpkin bread, cupcakes, cookies, and muffins. I'd really like to find a good pumpkin soup recipe, too... the weird thing is, I'm actually not a big fan of pumpkin pie. This might be some weird mental carryover from old Thanksgiving (like the way I still don't like cornbread), but it's just never my favorite. I have a theory that maybe I don't like pumpkin pie so much, but I probably will love pumpkin cheesecake. I'll try to make one of those too...

The other big news is that my sister Robin got her mission call! This is so exciting for all of us! She's the first (and probably the only) Johnson girl to go on a mission. Her's call is to Fresno California, and she enters the MTC on February 17th! I'm SO excited for her!

I'm getting anxiou to get out of Provo for a little while and head to Missouri! We can't wait to see Megan, Ben, Mandy and Casey! Yay for vacations!

It finally happened...

Jordan look out the window today and saw white cars. But they weren't really white cars... it was snow!!! What a great way to enjoy a Saturday! I think I'll make some hot chocolate.

In other news, it's been something of a miserable week. Both Jordan and I had big tests yesterday that we'd been dreading all week. Jordan, of course, did fantastically (at least that's what he told me). He really is doing well in school. I'm very proud of him and all the hard work he does. As for me, I had a test in my music of the twentieth century class (it just sounds so interesting, I know) where I had to write 5 half-an-hour essays about five different composers. That's writing strait for 2 1/2 hours. My hand was in so much pain! By that last essay, I'm pretty sure I was using my left hand to guide my right hand across the page. The good news is I actually managed to write for 2 1/2 hours. The bad news is that I'm not sure how coherent those last two essays are... so... I'll just cross my fingers.

The other thing I've been enjoying this week is some really fun exercise classes! I love to exercise, and while I was initially shy of going to group classes, they are so much fun! My favorite is this class called Zumba (anyone heard of it?). It' an aerobic class that uses Latin dance moves to work out. SO MUCH FUN. I think they're all over the US, so if you have an opportunity, I highly recommend going to one. The other class I attempted was a kickboxing class... oh may, I only made it 1/2 an hour into the class before I had to quit. It was a killer workout!

The final good word is that we're definitely going to Missouri for Thanksgiving (barring any unforeseen catastrophes...)! We had so much fun last year, and even though there was some... unpleasantness... in our return, we're going to brave the drive again this year. We head off next Saturday after the football game!

With that, there's a game against New Mexico today, so... GO COUGARS!

Halloween and Concerts

Halloween was a laid back affair here in Provo for us. At first I thought I might want to go to some haunted corn maze or pirate ride (both real things to do here in Utah County), but as the evening wore on I decided that I was offically old and I wanted to stay in the apartment, order some pizza (some really GOOD pizza), watch Coraline and play board games with my husband. It was an all around success, I should say. Coraline was pleasantly creepy, the pizza was amazing, and I won the board game! (I should note: I hardly ever win games). We got a couple of trick-or-treaters (I tried to give out huge handfuls of candy to get ride of it all... I think we were popular), and overall it was a wonderfully pleasant experience.

Jordan had a concert last night, which was really fun to attend. I finally got to see the infamous Gilbert and Sullivan set, which was funnier than I had even imagined possible! Ok, Ok... I mean, really, how cute is Jordan dressed up as a pirate, dancing around proposing to girls, doing a strait-legged walk and finally wearing a police cap and a shaking nightstick? I mean, really, people, it was utterly adorable. Choralography with a choir of 180 men is probably the sweetest thing to see in life.

Other than that I've been losing steam in school. Jordan's doing great! He's on top of all his classes, he seems to enjoy work for the most part (if nothing else his employer seems to love him... to death... Jordan comes out of every meeting completely confused at the love this employer has for him), and generally tends to be a happy camper. Me? Well, Music of the 20th Century is probably going to do me in. It's weird, about half way through every semester I have to ask myself: Do I even like singing this much? My self-esteem seems to really be suffering... but alas, I suppose it's too late to back out now. I guess I'll just have to write those three 15 page papers...

Overall, though, life is content. Jordan and I are still trying to decide what we're going to do for Thanksgiving, but I think I've convinced him to drive to Missouri... more on this next week!