Missouri for Thanksgiving... again!

Things we did in Missouri:

-watch probably around 20 hours of football. Cried a little when Boise State lost. Cried even more when BYU barely lost the Utah game.

-Play tons of rounds of this awesome game of Time's up. It's like taboo and charades wrapped into one. My favorite moment:
(trying to guess who's on the card)
Ben: Um... oh, I don't know who this is... is he in Pretty Woman? No, I don't think he's in Pretty Woman...
Dad: Alec Baldwin!
Ben: Yes!

-Enjoyed a delicious Thanksgiving feast! And Pie. Lots of pie.

-Showed off my beautiful baby girl.

-Talked and talked and talked. My sister-in-law Kelly, who has a baby girl three weeks younger than Clara, was in the basement with me, and even though we both knew we should sleep when our babies sleep, we couldn't help staying up way too late talking.

-Went Black Friday shopping with Jordan's mom! I wasn't going to go, but then as I was sitting around the house I realized I was a missing a great time, so I decided to go catch up with them!

-Played Dominion a ton.

-More talking.

-Eating DELICIOUS food.

But more important, we were able to spend quality time with our family. I enjoyed spending time with everyone, and I so hate it when I go. *sob*

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...).

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!