WARMS MY HEART

I wasn't really excited about waking up on a cold, snowy day until I saw a note that this cutie left for me.

I love how she hyphenated 'Mom' and made the 'Y' in the 'You' look like

the 'Y' from BYU. She even wrote BYU at the base of the 'Y'

I love you too Abby! She is such a sweetheart!

RIVALRY GAME

It's that time of year again. The Friday night after Thanksgiving, the night before the big BYU/UTAH football game. All of the Cougar elf's and Ute elf's are out and about decorating the neighborhood.

This year we enlisted the help of Barack and Michelle Obama. They are BIG Ute fans, ya know! We had the neighbors yard decorated perfectly. We went to color a Ute house blue and were gone for 5 minutes. When we came back, Barack had been kidnapped. This is the only picture I have of him before he was stolen.
The next morning, here's how my neighbors yard looked:

We were really sad that someone took Barack. We set up a hotline where people could call with tips. Even a reward of cinnamon rolls were offered. We had several tips come in. My neighbor next door saw a strange car pull up and put Barack in the back of the car and then sped away. Then my neighbors across the street, who had their yard decorated with The Obama's went to the football game. Knowing that Barack was missing, they were really surprised to arrive at the football game and see our Barack cutout at a tailgate party. They asked the guy where he got the Barack cut out and he said, "Uh, Uh, Uh...it's my friends." Well he is now a person of interest in our case and I hope he feels guilty about stealing.

During all of this commotion of Barack's cutout kidnapping, I made the CARDINAL mistake. I broke RULE #1...I left the garage door open while I was searching for Barack. BIG MISTAKE!!! We came home to this confetti in our garage and our car had some new paint.

But it is all in good fun.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the neighborhood. I love when the BYU houses turn red and the Ute houses turn blue.

This picture totally cracks me up. A cute little 8 year-old boy in our neighborhood was decorating this Ute house. I died laughing as he took a blue table cloth and put it over this Christmas sign that says JOY. However. he decided to leave the 'Y' uncovered. TOO CUTE!!

The funniest of them all was this morning, the day after BYU's 1-point loss. Some neighbors put this in our yard. We laughed and laughed. True football fans know this is play on Max Hall's famous speech from last years game with Utah.

Thanks for the fun memories and tradition.

And, whoever has Barack...we will find you and bring you to Cougar justice!!!

CHARLESTON

Daren's brother and sister-in-law live in North Carolina and they LOVE Charleston, SC. They have been there several times. So while we were "in the neighborhood", we met them in Charleston for the day. They were awesome tour guides and we had a great time seeing the city with them.
We started our day with a carriage ride tour of Charleston. I'm a total city girl and when our tour guide got on the carriage to start the tour, I leaned over to Daren and said, "Isn't she supposed to get on the back of the horse? Why is she on the carriage with us?" Well apparently I said this question a little too loud and it was stupid thing to say since everyone laughed because there was no saddle on the horse. Oops!

The tour guide stands in the carriage as we stroll through the town. I'd never seen anything like it!

Charleston is such an old town. It was amazing to see the beautiful homes and churches.

After our carriage tour, Ryan and Melissa took us to a Southern restaurant. We had fried green tomatoes. I had never tasted them before and they are REALLY good. After that amazing appetizer, which I'm sure is only like a 1000+ calorie appetizer, we had fried chicken and this sandwich called a Hot Brown. I have never had a Hot Brown before but let me tell you...it is SO yummy! It is a deep fried thick piece of bread, turkey, bacon, a tomato (the only healthy thing on it) and melted cheese over a cream sauce. I think it was like a million calories. But anything with enough bacon, cream, butter and cheese is delicious!

Since we didn't consume enough calories at lunch, Ryan and Melissa took us to this bakery called Jestine's. I have never been to a more delicious bakery! I couldn't decide what to buy because all of it looked amazing. So...when in Rome...I bought $23 worth of bakery goods AND a Diet Coke. At this point, does a Diet Coke really matter? Anyway, they have the BEST cookies I have EVER had in my entire life there. They also have Coke Cake, which is to die for, and the best coconut cream pie in the world.

With our bellies now totally full, we took a harbor boat 3 miles to Fort Sumter, which was the site of the beginning of the Civil War. It was incredible being there and thinking about the events that took place there.

On the boat back to Charleston, this bridge sits in the bay. It was so beautiful. We also watched dolphins throughout the bay as we sailed back into the harbor.

And saw this really cool barge. I had never seen such a large barge before. I wondered where it came from and what was in those carriers.

I am SO mad that we didn't take a picture of the 4 of us together. We took like a million pictures the entire day but not one of the 4 of us.

Thanks Ryan and Melissa for the fun day. We had a lot of fun seeing you and spending the day together. I just love Ryan and Melissa. When Daren and I first started dating, they were the first members of Daren's family that I met. They both were so kind and I instantly felt loved and accepted into the family because of them. Ryan is more than my husband's brother to me. He is like a brother I never had. Hugs to both of you. We are dying to come back and see you soon!

And a special thanks to this guy for an AWESOME week:

Happy Anniversary to the love of my life! I love spending my life with him. He is the PERFECT person for me and I am so blessed to be his wife!

HILTON HEAD

Daren and I spent last week in Hilton Head, SC for our anniversary. It was SO MUCH FUN!! I made him promise me like a million times that we would come back. It reminded us a lot of Hawaii and San Diego. The entire island is so clean, not a piece of trash to be found anywhere. The weather was amazing, 70 degrees and sunny the entire time. It was the perfect week!

While getting massages, I noticed this saying was on the wall. It summed the week up perfectly!
Nothing is better than waking up to this:

And having a view like this:

And spending a week with your best friend!

I have so much to blog about so I will start with only a few things today. The first day we were there we rented beach cruisers. Everyone rides bikes everywhere on the island. Everyone also owns a Buick and a golf cart too. But we LOVED riding bikes. The first day we rode 15 miles along the beach and throughout the town.

The next day we rode 10 miles.

Daren looked SO happy riding on the beach. I will forever have his happy face riding on the beach etched into my mind.

We rode our bikes along the beach and found this really fun restaurant for breakfast, which was the site of THE MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENT of my ENTIRE life. This picture will forever remind me of what happened 30 minutes after this picture was taken.

On our anniversary, Daren planned the BEST DAY EVER!! We slept in, went to lunch at The Crazy Crab, right on the water. Then we rode bikes all afternoon and went to dinner at my FAVORITE seafood restaurant, The Chart House. He had 10 gifts for me and he would surprise me at all different times during the week with these awesome gifts. They were things like the last 2 seasons of The Office, which we watched on the plane, perfume, new PJ's, a CD, new exercise clothes (much needed for winter), special sentimental gifts, a Japanese CD so I can learn some Japanese words, and best of all... A NEW CAMERA! It was so fun because I never knew when a gift would happen to pop up.

We were really sad to leave. And, it has stunk being home today doing laundry, going to the grocery store while a blizzard is supposed to hit at any moment. I sure miss our 70 degrees and beautiful beach in Hilton Head!

SILLY SABBATH

What a day at church! I had a difficult time keeping a straight face during sacrament meeting because:

*One child said their favorite number is 16. Why 16? Because you can date at 16.

*Child A made a questionnaire and asked Child B to fill it out. One of the questions said, "Who is my favorite member of the family?" There were multiple choice answers. However Child B wasn't listed as a possible answer because Child A and Child B are usually butting heads. Child B was PROUD they didn't make the cut as a possible answer.

*Another child wouldn't close their eyes during the prayers because as they say, "Closing your eyes during prayers is OPTIONAL." REALLY??? I didn't get the memo on that one!

LAST BREATH

It's not unusual for me to get a phone call from the elementary school during the day from one of the kids. Usually they don't feel good and want me to come get them, or they are bored at school and have some sort of "ailment" that they think they need to come home for. Usually I fall for the line because "WHAT IF" they really don't feel good and I leave them at school? I will have guilt! So, I will cave and go check them out.

However what happened yesterday went to a whole new level.

I was at lunch with a friend and my cell phone rings. I notice it was the elementary school. I answer the call because what if it is something really important? The call went like this:
Camille: Huh Huh Huh-breathing hard. Mom....I can't breathe.

Me: What's wrong? Are you hurt?

Camille: More hard breathing. No, I just can't breathe. Can you come check me out?

Me: Well what happened?

Camille: I don't know. Huh Huh Huh, trying to catch her breath. I was outside and it is cold, and well...I just can't breathe.

Me: Well you obviously can breathe because you are talking to me. Can I talk to the nurse?

Camille: More breathing sounds. Ok. Now in a normal voice, obviously found her breath. Mrs. C...my mom wants to talk to you.

I didn't fall for this one. Does she not know who she is dealing with? I was master at getting checked out or something like that. Between friends who had access in the attendance office or avoiding the recordings when the school called with an unexcused absence...I know better than to use the "I CAN'T BREATHE" excuse to get out of school.

Camille...C'mon you gotta come up with something better than that!

LITTLE COUGAR FAN

This girl LOVES BYU! She dreams of going to college there. She gets really excited when we pass by the stadium. She begs us to take her to the BYU games, not to get the yummy brownies or ice cream but because she LOVES BYU! She even does the Rise & Shout and knows most of the words. It is the CUTEST thing!
I think it is genetic and she gets it from this guy:

He beams with pride when she talks about BYU and how much she wants to go there.

A few days ago she was playing at a friend's house on their play set. There were wood chips on the ground and since she wasn't wearing shoes she got a sliver in her foot. We couldn't get it out and it became infected. So today we went to the doctor to get it out. I told her after the doctor's office she would be going to back to school. The doctor came into the exam room wearing a BYU shirt. Abby was SO excited to see he was a Cougar fan.

I said, "Abby do you like his shirt?"

She said, "Yes but if he was wearing a Ute shirt I would kick him!"

We all laughed. Well the sliver was removed but she was SO cute and SO sweet and SO much fun to have home this morning, I asked her if she wanted to come with me to a boutique at my friend's house to see the jewelry she was selling. We went out to lunch and to the boutique.

Thanks for the fun day Abby! Glad your foot is on the mend.

And....GO COUGS!!

MANY SUGARS

Early this morning, Daren dropped Kazuya off at BYU. The Japanese students will continue their trip to Bryce and Zions, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and then back to Japan on Sunday.

For the past week, all we have done is eat, play, hang out with friends, and eat and play some more. One night last week while we were having hot cider with the Japanese students, I was explaining to them to be careful when they drank the cider because it is very hot, like tea. When one of the students drank the cider, he says, "Oh, it has many sugars." It has kind of become a joke this week about how much sugar we have all consumed. I feel SO gross from eating SO horrible. Between the trip to Texas Roadhouse, JCW's for cheeseburgers and cheese fries, Halloween candy and the BYU Brownies last night, it felt really good to go to the gym early this morning and see my trainer. In fact, I saw her yesterday at Wal-Mart. As I was walking into the store I had a sucker in one hand and a bag of chocolate candy in the other. Talk about being caught with your hand in the cookie jar!!! I was returning the bag of chocolate though. She beat me up pretty good this morning and I totally deserved it.

We had a fun week. We have done something every night and every day for fun. We have hung out everyday our fabulous neighbors. It has been so much fun but I am ready to lay off the MANY SUGARS and get back to reality.

FINALE

Tonight was the closing social at BYU. Abby was VERY excited to be going to BYU to have dinner. She had to wear her new BYU shirt to the closing social. We had a nice dinner and a closing program. Earlier in the day, Kazuya went to the Olympic Park in Park City.

Kazuya is VERY FUNNY! We had all laughed at how much fun he is. I think he is VERY popular at school because every where we go, he knows somebody. We found out today that he loves to sleep and his favorite class is PE. He also told us how much he LOVES America because it is "free" and not "strict." I thought he would fit in great in America. We have told him to come back to America and bring his family with him anytime.

The kids are really sad he is leaving, especially Abby. She has been his shadow all week long. Tonight as we were leaving BYU she started to cry because she was going to miss Kazuya.

Thanks for coming to America Kazuya! Have a safe trip home!!