Book Orders

Do you remember how much fun it was to order books from the book order in elementary school? Well, it's amazing! It was book order time at the BYU Preschool so I took advantage of the super cheap prices on excellent books. The only drawback was the agony of choosing from so many great books. The Curious George books came in a set and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs was one of my absolute favorites as a kid. If I had a few more dollars to spend I would have gotten a set of 4 Ramona books and How Do Dinosaurs Go to School.

Sick Day

I do not recommend getting sick! I'm pretty confident it was a 24 hour flu because I'm reaching the end of 24 hours and feeling quite a bit better. Luckily the sickness came AFTER going to one of my best friend's mission farewells. Besides her wonderful talk, the best part was when they read in the new member name of Rand Sack. Stephen and I had to look at each other to make sure we heard it right. Then we chuckled (no worries, Rand was not present, which is still rude, but his parents had to have known what they did in naming him that).

Me with two of my best friends (Ally and the soon-to-be Sister Niebergall in Frankfurt, Germany) at an open house for another one of our friends who just got home from his mission.

I'm also happy that the nasty flu crept up after we went to see My Fair Lady at Pioneer Memorial Theatre with my parents on Saturday. I'm sad to say that we skipped watching the BYU game to support a play on the U of U's campus... well not really that sad, it was a great play! I highly recommend seeing something there. The tickets cost as much as a BYU play but the actors were professionals instead of students. Check out a fun preview for My Fair Lady on the main page of their website.

Go Cougars!

Today we babysat my cousins while my aunt and uncle went to the BYU vs. UCLA game (more to come on our babysitting). While we were walking home from the Provo library we could hear the marching band playing the fight song. Let's just say you don't know true Cougar spirit until you see a 3 year old stop in his tracks to sing just about the entire fight song, including, and especially, the RA RA RAs. It was so adorable.

Go Cougars! We were utterly amazed at touchdown after touchdown as we watched the score online. Most overrated team in the country... I think not, ESPN!

Summer Reads

One of the best parts of summer and one of the reasons we're sad it's over is the reading. We definitely get our fill of reading during the school year, but I think you'd agree that it's slightly different. Here's what we read this summer:

I finally got to finish the Harry Potter series (!!!) and also found time for the Peacegiver (one of the best and most practical books I've read about the Atonement) and Speaker for the Dead (I liked it a lot more than Ender's Game).

While we both signed up for the Provo Library summer reading program, Stephen was the only one who read enough books by the end of the summer to get the T-shirt (pictured below at my insistence). He even won a loaf of Great Harvest bread. He read 3 books by Orson Scott Card, a science fiction book called the Foundation, the Infinite Atonement, and Elantris by Brandon Sanderson (if you're into the Wheel of Time Series, BS was appointed to finish writing the 12th and final book since Robert Jordan passed away last year).



The highlight was listening to Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians, also by Brandon Sanderson, on our car ride to Minnesota. It's a funny book for kids and grown-ups about a boy with a talent for breaking things who is on a life or death mission to rescue a bag of sand while battling the secret network of the evil librarians. It ranks in my top 10 childrens' books.
Any suggestions for next year (I know we read a lot of fantasy/science fiction this summer but we really do like other genres)?

Vacation

So, this is what I like to call "The Lazy-Man's Post." Have you ever had a blog post that seemed so daunting that it completely prevented you from making any posts for weeks? Well, there's an easy way out: just make an intro paragraph, then post a billion pictures.

The following pictures are from our trip from Provo to Rigby Idaho (to visit Heather's Grandparents), then to Yellowstone, Rushmore, and then Minnesota (to visit my family and go boating on a lake). Enjoy!

In case you were wondering...Heather actually did go in the water. But the photographic proof of that is on my brother's camera. We'll get it posted eventually.