Temple Square Lights!

Brad and I decided to escape the finals week stress in Provo and went to visit family and see the lights!

Brad liked the long eared donkey... he thought it was cute

too bad you can't see me in this pic... forgot to put the flash on

It's crazy how they put the lights on EVERY little twig in the tree!

this pic is supposed to be by the statues of Hyrum and Joseph, but the person didn't get the heads of the statues in the picture... thank goodness for the cropping function.

Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown

Through Rain, Sleet, and Snow....

No... I am not talking about the mail man. I am talking about your friendly neighborhood ice cream man. Ours likes to come out on freezing cold nights when it has been snowing for two days straight... don't believe me? listen up:

Sorry the video is weird... but if you listen closely you can hear our crazy neighborhood ice cream man. Making sure you get your ice cream fix on cold and snowy nights :)

Our neighbors think he is actually selling drugs...

Las Vegas Bowl: Do Stats Matter?

If you haven't heard my BYU Cougars are playing against my OSU Beavers in this year's Las Vegas Bowl! Naturally, I'll be rooting for the Cougars, though rooting against my beloved Beavers will not be easy. I'll probably root more for the Cougars than against the Beavers if that's possible. I hope for a great, close game and may the best team win!



I compiled these stats from the NCAA homepage. Looks like BYU has the edge statistically, but will that matter on the field? I'm excited to find out! Go Cougars!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

This is what I saw when I opened my door this morning at 8:30 AM... SNOW! Finally. It has been freezing the past two weeks, and I personally believe that if it is going to be freezing outside then there better be some snow! :)

ALSO I decorated my apartment all Christmas-like this last week:

My little Charlie Brown Tree

Our stockings have been hung over our TV with care...

(10 brownie points to whoever can spot Brad)

The front room area (minus the bookshelf)

Lion King

 

The promised picture. Just in case you didn't understand from the last post... the Lion King was AMAZING! I loved it. There was only one little thing that bothered me... the adult Simba did not have a super strong voice. Nala and Rafiki though, their voices were INCREDIBLE. The costumes and set in this musical are so well designed. And it helped that we had the most amazing seats ever. (Thanks Dad!) Even Brad liked this musical (although he tried to explain to me that it wasn't really a musical). If you ever get the chance, see the Lion King.

Giving Thanks

For Thanksgiving we went down to Vegas to visit my family AND we brought Allison with us! It a fun and relaxing trip. It was nice to play games, chat, eat lots of food, watch movies and such with the family.

Some highlights of the trip:

1. Lemon cream cheese pie with graham cracker crust.... my all time favorite pie from Marie Calendars
2. Thanksgiving meal feast.... it was delicious! Thanks mom!
3. 2012 - I do not like end of the world movies... and thus did not really care for this one, but the special effects were VERY realistic. (So much that I have officially decided I don't want to witness the second coming.)
4. BYU vs Utah - Brad is still a little sad we didn't go back for the game... but we did get to watch it in a nice warm house on a nice big TV and BYU WON!!! barely. But they did.
5. LION KING Musical - the reason we missed the BYU game. The Lion King was amazing. The seats were amazing. The music was amazing. The set was amazing. The costumes were amazing. And all the singers (minus adult simba) were amazing. I highly recommend you go see it in vegas if you get the chance.

we are working on getting pictures... tune in for a later post.

Disneyland!!!! /Halloween

So... for halloween this year Brad and I went to Disneyland with my family. It was so much fun! Adam and Whit came with their cute children, and they loved the disney characters. We might not have relaxed that much but it was a great get away!

Here are some phone pictures.... we forgot our camera:

One of the family favorites. I did much better this year! I even got a higher score than Brad one time!

Jake (bottom right) finally rode the California Screamin this year... I think he described (or screamed) it best when he said over and over again on the ride, "I'M A MAN!"

I have no idea who is in front of us.They changed space mountain this year for Halloween... it had some ghost lava thing chasing us throughout the whole ride....

And of course, my personal favorite - Splash Mountain! We went on this and I sat in the front thinking "it's fall, they won't make it splash me too bad" .... WRONG. I came off of the ride drenched. No worries, It's still my favorite.

Where the Wild Things Are

The book was better....

In Memory of FunnyChuckle

In memory of our beloved FunnyChuckle, I've created a memorial facebook photo album. Check it out!

[link]

School Days

So recently I started my "practicum" which is basically a mini - student teaching where I focus on lesson planning and teaching literacy. I am in a second grade classroom and I LOVE it! Granted... I have only been in the classroom a few days so far, but I have already taught small groups and it is so fun working with children!

Come back soon for updates on Disneyland :)

Dissappointment

This weekend has been full of dissappointment:
1. BYU lost to TCU
2. Angels lost to the Yankees

Ok... so maybe it hasn't been FULL of dissapointment, but it was still dissappointing.

On the flip side, there are some very exciting things happening this week:

1. I get to go into a 2nd grade classroom for the next month starting Tuesday
2. Zach leaves the MTC for Canada
3. DISNEYLAND!!!! on wednesday Brad and I leave for disneyland to join up with my family!

Golfing with Tiger

So Jessica and I have gone golfing THREE times in the past three weeks. Not only are we now tight with Tiger Woods, but Jessica actually beat Tiger the last time we went golfing with him (of course she was driving from the lady's tees (and she almost beat me)). Plus I golfed a fourth time with some friends. After golfing only once in an entire year, what happened to get me on the golf course 4 times in 3 weeks? Fair question. It's Jessica's fault and I haven't minded one bit. She's taking a BYU golf class and learning how to golf. The best part of the class is the requirement to golf 27 holes before the last week in October.

I must admit, Jessica has improved a lot at golf, and this might just be her sport. Now all we need to do is get Jessica her own set of golf clubs and we're set!

Cool Stuff

So I have this technology class that I am taking for school. It basically teaches us about different technologies that can be used in the classroom to make learning more hands on and exciting. I have had a lot of fun with the projects. Like creating a virtual tour of the moon, and an abc book, and a class website. Anywho here is the link:
Abracadabra

Africa Post #3 The Most Disgusting Creature in Africa

AKA the Hippopotamus. That's right. Hippos are disgusting. Before this trip I thought they were such cute pudgy animals, but I was decieved and oh so naive. in Swahili they are called Kiboko. I bet that word is also used for awful stench.

We saw a lot of hippos on this trip! In fact there were some that were right by our camp:

 

See that bend in the river? That was their hangout spot. So while we were relaxing and eating they were out there soaking in the water and making disgusting noises. It was actually kind of funny.

 

Here is a closeup of our hippo friends... all they do is sit there... in the nasty muck all day. At night they come out to get some food. 

 Look at those monstrous teeth!

We actually got to see a hippo run, haha. it was pretty funny. They can run pretty fast for being so large!

Come back next week for more Africa pics!

Social Media Video

I thought this 4-minute video was eye-opening and too good not to share:

Africa Post #2- Lions and Tigers and Bears oh my!

Minus the tigers and bears. This post will be all about the lions. Lions are very territorial and stick to their Pride's land, unless they are starving or something. We saw A LOT of lions. There are several prides in the Mara, and then some roving males that follow the migration. Lions are also BIG cats. Twice as big as a leopard or cheetah... let's just say you don't want to mess with them:

The king of the jungle

They are soo lazy! unless someone gets in their domain... then fight's on

on the hunt
We found her just after she made the kill, which is why she is still biting the neck. We never did see a lion take anything down, it usually happens at night or early morning (before 6 AM)

The Lovers... they were mating...

A pride of lions... this one had a lot of teenage lions.

Here is a "teenager"

and then the babies! there were actually three cubs... but I don't have that picture yet. We drove around in this tall grassy area for a good two hours and then Brad spotted the Mama in the grass... so we drove up the hill to see what was going on and found three week old lion cubs!! So Cute!

Come back in a week to see more africa pictures!

Snow in September

Yesterday it snowed. The mountains were covered, and I saw a few flakes in the air. The day before was like 90 degrees. September 29th was the last day of Summer and September 30th was the first day of winter....

What happened to our beautiful fall weather!?!?!?!?!??!

Africa Post #1 Giraffes

So we saw a lot of giraffes on this trip. I loved it. They are officially in my top three of African animals. Along with the cheetah and an undecided animal. I did not know this, but giraffes stay together in large families, we saw one that had over 16 giraffes in one group! Do you think a group of giraffes is called a family or a gaggle? Brad and I voted for gaggle.

Ever wondered what giraffes look like when they run? well thanks to Taylor's giraffe call we got a picture.

Look at that cute face!

They are so funny looking! I love it!

This picture is being used for my Africa ABC book/movie for my class.

Stay tuned for more Africa Pictures!!

Ketchup

Wow, I have not blogged in a LONG time. Shame on me. These last 2 months have been crazy, here is a recap:
- 2 week Africa trip
- 1 week recovery in Vegas
- Move to Utah which included unpacking the storage unit, finding couches, and a washing machine.
- The washing machine.... that deserves its own post actually... but after maybe 8 uses, it broke, and the place we got it from has REALLY bad service, so now we are looking for ANOTHER one.
- school of course.
-Labor day weekend in fruit heights with Brad's family
- Weekend in Vegas- Went through the temple with Zach, its so awesome to go to the temple with my family! Nate and Mike and Jill came too, I love them. Then was the Oregon State UNLV football game which Brad already addressed.

I am still in the process of getting things together and decorated and such, but it's coming together nicely! In the past month we went to our real ward once, so they prolly think we are inactive... oh well.

Preview of Africa Posts:

Are you excited? you should be. There are SO MANY pictures that I cannot possibly narrow them down to fit into one post, so I will be breaking them up over the next month or two... So keep on checking!

BYU #7!!!

Check it out! BYU is now ranked #7 in the AP Poll and #6 by ESPN!

Beavers Defeat Rebels (barely)

Jessica and I had a great weekend in Vegas these past few days. Friday night we went to the temple with Zach. On Saturday, we watched football almost all day- can't ask for a better Saturday than that! The best part was going to the OSU vs UNLV game. The game started at 8pm so the temperature was only in the 90's. We were sitting on the second row, 35-yard line, right behind the UNLV team, so we were right in the action.

The first quarter ended 0-0 in kind of a deadlock. The Beavers turned it up in the second and third quarters, outscoring the Rebels 20-7, but missing a critical extra-point kick. The fourth quarter raised my blood pressure to an unhealthy level as UNLV scored two unanswered touchdowns to go ahead 21-20 with little time remaining and the wind blowing hard against the Beavers.

Bleak would be the best way to describe our hopes as the clock ticked and confidence wained. As our drive was about to end as quick as it started, a personal interference call gave the Beavers a first down and renewed hope, but there was still most of the field to cover to get into field goal range. A couple of key completions by Canfield and a much-needed first down run by Quizz Rodgers got the Beavers close enough for Kahut to kick the winning field goal.

Amazing game!

Quizz Rodgers ran for 166 yards, had over 200 total yards, and added a touchdown as the Oregon State Beavers beat the UNLV Rebels 23-21 on Saturday night.

Kahut kicked a 33-yard field goal with 7 seconds left (and against a strong wind) for the win.

We are back

Yes, we survived our African Safari. No, we did not get eaten by lions or get malaria or jungle fever. Yes, we did have an AMAZING adventure. It was the perfect ending to our adventurous summer. No, I do not have pictures yet. Yes, the pictures are on their way. although, not all the pictures will be posted on here.... you will have to come visit me if you really want to see them :)

The Past Week

So here are just some random pics of some things Brad and I did this last week...

I started knitting again! These are some baby booties I made for some friends we made in Texas. They are due in August and September.

Aren't they cute? This is a really simple pattern click here if you want to try them out!

On our way from Texas to Vegas we played chicken* with a semi!!!

Brad saw the colossal Hoover Dam for the first time!

Now we are off to Africa! Unfortunately that means that there won't be any updates for a couple of weeks.... oh wait... that's normal :)

*ok... we didn't play chicken with the semi... it was being pulled by another semi... but it still looks freaky!!

Happy Birthday Brad!!

Last Sunday Brad turned 24!!! As you can see he got some nice presents from me AND I initiated him into the Morris family traditional cake bite!