The Baby or BYU Football?

Jordan and I just returned from a long roadtrip across the USA, and with that we had LOTS of time to talk. With college football season fast approaching, we talked a lot about BYU football and such. Now, I know Jordan loves BYU football, but the amount of his obsession only recently became clear. On our way there, we had this conversation:

Amanda: "Now, Jordan, you realize that we won't ALWAYS be able to rearrange our schedule every single BYU game day, right?"
Jordan: "Why not?"
Amanda: *shocked* "Um, because you're saying that almost every Saturday from September-December we'll have to work around a football game for the rest of our lives."
Jordan: "And this is a problem because..."
Amanda: "Uh, what if our kids have a soccer game?"
Jordan: "Oh, I'll have a smart phone by then and I'll be able to watch it there."

etc.

Of course, when ever I start getting to involved in talking about baby stuff and when the baby comes, Jordan's favorite change of topic has been to turn it to BYU football.

Here's another we had during our many car rides:
Amanda: "So, Jordan, do you promise that if I go into labor during a BYU football game that you'll come to the hospital with me."
Jordan: "Well, I mean, if you're just 'in labor' with an epidural and it's going to be hours before the baby's born, wouldn't be ok if I went to the game? I mean, if you're going to have the baby RIGHT THEN, then I suppose I'll miss the game..."

The big question came on our trip home, when I asked:
Amanda: "So, Jordan, if BYU went to a BCS Bowl this season, what would be the bigger event of 2010: Our first child being born, or BYU going to a BCS Bowl."
Jordan: *silence*
Amanda: "Did you hear me?"
Jordan: "Yes, I'm thinking about it... that's really hard to say."

....

Amanda: "YOU HAVE TO THINK ABOUT IT?"
Jordan: "HA! If BYU goes to a BCS bowl, they won't play until 2011! So, the biggest event of 2010 will be the baby, and the BCS bowl will be a 2011 event!"
Amanda: *stunned silence*

So THAT'S where his priorities are... :) Hahahaha

DISCLAIMER: Of course, Jordan is very excited for the baby, and I'm sure that if I was going into labor, he'd miss the game (but we'd probably watch it in our hospital room... hey, I like BYU football too!), and I'm sure he'll be very happy to have a baby AND have BYU win.

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...).

Our busy week is almost over, what a huge relief. I can't site exactly why, but I'm crazy excited to see October finished and November beginning. That being said, I'm definately loving the fall weather. It's just so beautiful!

This week I decided I need some nice warm, fall food. Wednesday I made some beef stew in a crock pot, and oh man was it delicious (the left-overs didn't last long). Then on Saturday I made some pumpkin bread (thanks Renee!), and today I made arroz con pollo. Ok, so maybe the arroz con pollo isn't really a "fall dish" per say, but I ate it a bunch while visiting the Pratts my last semester at SFA in Nacogdoches (which happened to be fall semester), so... by association it's totally a fall meal.

While I do enjoy cooking, I'm not usually on such a big cooking kick (my favorite weeknight meal is throwing some chicken on our beloved foreman grill, making instant rice and a salad and wa-lah! a meal is born), but I hope it continues. During school, especially since I tend to have evening classes, it becomes difficult to cook more extravagantly during the week. I hope that when I'm finished with school I'll be able to be a more consistent cook. Jordan like to enourage this line of thought...

Another fun thing that happened this week was Jordan's mom was in town! It was just a brief stop-over betwen a family reunion and flying out of Salt Lake, but we enjoyed it none-the-less. She stayed over Sunday night and then between classes on Monday took us out to lunch at Red Lobster before she had to catch her flight. It was so nice to see her and we really did have fun teasing our waiter Phil (Kait had a bit of a crush...)

Ah. The TCU game. I will just say a few grief-ridden words: Oh, thou BYU Football Team, why hast thou forsaken us? For Homecoming? 7-38? And how could it be that your only two losses have been home games? Witnessing the losses personally is like putting salt on a wound... (sub-question: why do we blow out our away games and get killed at our hoome games? Bronco's plan for success next year: 12 away games).

(I snuck out of the opera for about an hour to watch is last night. When I got back I let people know about the score and one chorus girl said: "I'm glad I'm at the opera tonight because at least in opera we ALWAYS win!")

The job search has truly begun in earnest for Jordan, and he's doing really well. He had his first interview a week ago or so with Mercer, an actuary consulting firm with branches all across the US. Jordan said the interview went really well and we're waiting to hear back from them in a couple of weeks. They asked Jordan what his top three locations are and he said #1- Hartford, #2- Kansas City and #3- Philadelphia. Cross your fingers everyone!

So, other than that, I've been reading memoires that include cute, funny animals (it's a weird reading trend, I know...). I just finished Marley and Me (I cried and cried and cried... and when I tried not to cry my throat hurt), and before that I read a book called An Owl and His Girl, which was also sad (animal memoirs are always sad because the animal ALWAYS dies at the end... you'd think I'd spare myself and find happier reading material), but really it was just interesting to read about barn owls. I recommend both if you're looking for easy reads but emotionally fulfilling material. Anyone have any other book suggestions (you don't have to suggest animal memoirs...)?

Anywho, the opera's over and Homecoming Spectacular is over, we're going to see the King Singers on Wednesday (yay!), Thanksgiving is coming, and we have high hopes for snow to make an appearance soon. Jordan's still upset every morning when he looks out to see white cars and he suddenly realizes that the cars are actually white, not covered in snow...

P.S. Did anyone else realizes you can't write your blog in a word document and copy it onto the blogger? That was real annoying...