BYU vs. ASU

So Ashley and I went to the BYU vs. ASU men's basketball game tonight. BYU won 81-68, but the reason for the post is afterwords I was looking on BYU's website at the box scores and saw that I was in one of the pictures taken during the game. The picture is of Jimmer Fredette (seriously that is his name) with me in the background circled in yellow. I am not sure where Ashley is though. By the way Jimmer is freaking good.

Thanksgiving in AZ!

So last week on Wednesday at 6:30 pm Andrew, Kelsey, Ashley, and I all jumped in our Civic and started making our way down to AZ for Thanksgiving. After driving ALL night we arrived in Mesa at 5:30 am and dropped Andrew and Kelsey off at my sister Jen's where my family was having Thanksgiving. Ashley and I then continued our way down to Tucson, where her family was gathered for the festivities.

We arrived around 8 am, just enough time for me to change my clothes, hop in the car with Scott and Greg and head off to their annual Turkey Bowl Football game. I am going to blame my under par performance on lack of sleep, but deep down inside I think it was due to being out of shape and getting old (which is depressing). I was however surprised to find out that I am not that bad of a punter!

We enjoyed a nice Thanksgiving dinner with Ashley's family (which was pushing 60 people and held at a church, and apparently and small gathering). We had a blast hanging out with all off Ashley's immediate and extended family. Except for when Greg (brother-in-law) turned us all into slaves and forced us to assist him in his move. Just kidding, I can't complain, I spent the majority of the morning searching for my wedding ring which I knew I left securely in the grass at the football field (for safe keeping).

On Saturday we drove back up to Mesa and celebrated my nephew's Braden's birthday party. We got to hang out with my family for the rest of the day and then headed back to freezing cold Utah Sunday morning. It is now 17 degrees outside and I hate my life. However, the semester is almost over. Just two weeks left! Wish me luck on finals!

Ashley's New Job!!!

So I have slacked off the past week and forgot to write a blog entry. However, we have had some good news since the last post. Ashley took a job at a Dentist office in Payson, which is about 20 minutes away. Normally I would not allow Ashley to work for the spawn of Satan, however due to the current job market I decided to concede. (I really don't think Dentist are so bad, but the hygienist who clean your teeth are!) She really likes her new job and the staff though. They all seem really nice. She works the front desk, and loves the Dentist and staff.

School has been going great. I am getting used to BYU and am working hard to finish up this semester over the next couple of weeks. We are exited to be heading down to Tuscon for Thanksgiving this year. We get to see a lot of family, but the 12 hour drive we have to make through the middle of the night is going to stink! Well I hope all is well if all of our friends and family! Leave a comment it would be great to hear from you.

Park City! Family! and Braden!

My parents, Jen, Nate, and Braden, all decided to come to Park City for Halloween! Surprisingly Park City is a pretty happening Halloween destination. They close down the main strip and all the stores pass candy out to the kids trick-or-treating. They also have a dog costume parade, with very creative costumes.

Unfortunately, I have limited picture up-loading capabilities right now so I will just post this one of the cabin we are staying at thanks to Abercrombie & Kent.

The house is so big, it comes with its own elevator. And you better believe I have used the stairs less than a handful of times.

I will try and get the rest of the pictures up next week.

Ryan is a champion; BYU Football is not...

So this weekend ESPN choose Provo to host their weekly ESPN College Game Day TV & radio show. It was pretty exciting as it brought a lot more national attention. Unfortunately BYU's defense forgot to show up the first quarter giving up 21 points and all that good publicity turned into bad.

The good news is the BCS trophy goes along with the TV & radio show! They had a section of our local grocery store set up where you could take a picture with the trophy. So I did. Ashley for some reason did not want to join my picture.

I also was enrolled to win an all expense paid trip to the championship game. I think my chances are pretty good at winning, so those of you who would want to be one of the three can start sending me gifts now.

This week we actually had pretty close seats at the football game. To bad BYU had to loose. We had an adventure getting to the staduim though. As soon as we left a crazy rain cloud blew in and it was raining, windy, and we got soaked (we usually walk to the stadium). It was raining and blowing so hard, that I had to keep my hood over 75% of my face and head down, which caused me to run right into a sign. The little kid behind me started laughing really loud at me. It was embarrasing. Once we got there, Ashley had to go back home to change shoes as her's were soaked. Luckily it was just that one cloud so the rest of the night was dry.

Birthday, Bowling, & Bugs!!

On Friday we celebrated Andrew's 22 birthday at my Aunt Kathy's house. Kathy bought filet mignon's, which I cooked like a champ! They were sooooo goood. Ashley made twiced-baked potatoes, and texas sheet caked with mint chip ice cream. It was a good day.

This morning, Ashley and I went to the Mt. Timpanogos Temple, it was very pretty with the fall colors. We enjoyed a nice lunch at Kneader's.

Right when we walked in the door, Kelsey texted me, saying how bored she was at work and to come down and bowl with her. So Ashley and I went and bowled two games. I had the high score of 140, which is pretty bad. Although Kelsey is really good at bowling.

When we got back from bowling we found fifty billion bugs around our complex. We have seen them around lately but they were in full force today, enjoying the nice weather. I guess they come out in the Spring and Fall, but die out once it gets cold. It is pretty funny to watch Ashley try and get in our place. She is not a big fan of bugs and they fly onto her and she freaks out like a wierdo.

We watched the BYU football game with our neighboor's. They were nice and accepted my own invitation for us to come watch the game with them since we don't have cable. BYU didn't have a great game but they came out on top.

We had a fun weekend! School is going great. We miss everyone and leave a comment to let us know how you're doing.

Poll Answer's

The past couple of weeks I have been posting polls and many of you have been voting. So I thought I would go over some of the answers .

Last week's poll on what is taking me the longest to get used to in Utah, the answer is C. I get shocked ALL the time here and it drives me crazy.

Most of the time it is directly after exciting our car, and as soon as I touch the door to close it, BAM!! I get shocked. I have started to use my tennis shoes to close the door now just to avoid it. Apparently the dry air has something to do with it. Andrew says that he would get shocked a lot too when he drove Kelsey's Honda Civic, but now he drives the MDX he doesn't get it as much. So I've decided to sell our Honda Civic for a yellow Land Rover Defender 90.

Ok the week before's question was What was your favorite movie, that I saw, from the Summer. Based on the answers then I would have to say mine was Star Trek. We just saw it again at the dollar theatre and it was even better than the first time. However, just in the last week I saw X-Men Wolverine and Harry Potter 72 and both were also really good!

Three weeks ago I asked what my emphasis should be in (if I can get into the dumb Business school). So I have been taking this lecture series class where each Friday, a BYU Alum comes to speak to us about their profession. And each profession relates to an empashis I can choose. So far we have heard Sales & Marketing, Real Estate, Corporate Finance, and Supply Chain. And believe it or not the only things I am interested in so far are the two things I just left!!! Sales & Marketing and Real Estate!!! I still have Wealth Management, Management Consulting, HR, Accounting, Risk Management & Insurance, and Information Systems left to be covered in this lecture series so I am still not sure yet.

Snow?!?! In September??

So we have been living in Utah for 35 days now. We have been enjoying our time here so far spending a lot of our free time driving up the canyon, attending BYU sporting events, and spending a $1 to see a movie! (they have an awesome $1 theatre here)


However, this week the weather took a turn for the worse. On Tuesday evening a rain storm blew in and it rained hard all night. We woke up the next morning and found SNOW, yes SNOW covering the mountains!! For those of you not familiar with Provo, the mountains are less than 20 minutes away and easily seen from any direction. Since that day it has continued to be cold all week.
(I find the cartoon funny, seeing that sub-prime mortgage's lead to me returning back to school...which is located in the snow...I don't know why I feel the need to explain this but yet I continue to type)


I think it is going to be a long winter for us seeing that we are complaining about weather in the high 40's. I think the only thing that will get me through the winter is if I buy a season pass to one of the local ski resorts so at least I can be snowboarding. However they are expensive so if any of you want to be the first to donate to the Ryan snowboarding fund I can let you know our new address.



Other than the freezing cold weather we are doing pretty good. Ashley is working hard looking for a job, and I am working hard at school. I have my first set of tests that I have to take on Monday and Tuesday so cross your fingers that I do well!

Ashley's Bday, Saturday Fun!

As many of you know we celebrated Ashley's birthday this Thursday!!! Ashley, Kelsey, Andrew, Aunt Kathy, and I went to Andrew's restaurant to enjoy Ashley's favorite dish (my least favorite) sushi. Because we are poor and have no money she didn't get many presents from me. So she decided that on Saturday she wanted to go for a drive to see the fall colors.

So this morning Ashley, Andrew, and I started our day off going to Great Harvest Bread Company and Jamba Juice to enjoy a great breakfast. We then drove up Provo Canyon and stopped off at Bridal Veil Falls to hike around. (Joe, Matt, Andy I totally think we can climb up this)

After, we headed to Sundance where they were having an outdoor art festival which we walked around and checked out the booths. Then we continued past Sundance which turns into what's called the Alpine Loop and is famous for its fall colors. I have to say it was very pretty. I have never really enjoyed Fall because in California you don't see tree's like this.

After Alpine Loop we ate lunch at this great place called Kneader's, where they bake all their breads and have wonderful desserts.

Located practically down the street from Kneader's is a new Cabela's so of course we had to stop and check it out.

You know you're in Utah when you have to take a number and then wait for your number to be called, like you're at the DMV, just to talk to someone about guns!

We then headed back to Provo for the BYU vs. CSU football game. We ending up missing a lot of the first quarter because I am retarded and though it started at 5 pm for some reason. But It ended up being a great game. (much better than their pathetic loss last week) I do have to give a shot out to Paul Madsen #76 on CSU team (he is mormon) because he was the only CSU player to help a BYU player up after he threw them down, which made me laugh.

After the football game we headed to the Women's Soccer match to watch them destroy Utah State 3-0. I had fun their because some crusty old Utah State fans were getting upset and I spent rest of the game trying to say this to make them more mad.

So we had a really busy, but really fun day! Happy Birthday Ashley! Love ya!

BYU...Women's Volleyball?!?

So Ashley and I attended our first BYU sporting event this evening. This may come as a surprise, but we went to cheer on the BYU women’s volleyball team. You can make fun of me if you would like, but we had a fun time. We played San Diego (yes the German translation) State and it was a very close match.

BYU won the first set followed by San Diego taking set two and three. We rallied in the forth set and came from behind and won to force a fifth set. In the fifth set we destroyed them! The only reason we won was our #12, Kayla Walker I believe, she is 6’5” and dominated on offense with 31 kills but she was maybe the worse blocker in women’s volleyball history for her height with 2 blocks. I tried to get a moment with her after the game as they were running in the locker room but a news reporter got to her first. I hope she doesn’t Google her name often because she could definitely beat me up.

I was able to secure two miniature volleyball’s which were thrown into the crowd. The first because I got mad hops and the second I snagged from Carlie McKeon, which the announcer made fun of me for stealing it from a girl. But you know what; I saw her give another girl a concussion in a basketball game last year so if she really wanted it she would have put up a better fight. That volleyball had a voucher for a free popcorn which I thoroughly enjoyed. I did end up giving her the mini volleyball, but I kept the free popcorn voucher.

Well all and all we had a great time and this was just a taste of what Saturday’s football game against Andy’s Florida State Seminole’s. Which brings me to this week’s poll (yes, I’ve decided to include a weekly poll with my blog). Who will win the BYU vs. Florida State Football game?

Major = Business; Emphases = ?

I was going to blog about our moving in experience, because it's a funny story, but Ashley has already started working on a post for that which you will see soon.

So I know I want to attend the Business school. I like business, it was fun doing the mortgage thing, but I don't know what my emphases should be in. Each Friday I attend a lecture series where a successful Marriott Alumni comes and speaks about their specific profession in the business industry. Hopefully this will help narrow it down for me, but in the meantime I need your help.

At BYU there is the Marriott School of Business. At the Marriott School of Business there are two options; the School of Accountancy, and the School of Management. (I am talking a business writing class, and we are studying grammar. This is the first time I have ever used a semicolon before in my life besides making a winking smiling person ;) via online, and no I obviously haven't done it since I met Ashley. I don't know if it's grammatically correct though) Under Management you have to choose an emphases of Finance, Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Global Supply Chain, Strategy, and Organizational Behavior/HR Management. So I created a poll to the right ----> in which I need you to suggest what emphases might give me the greatest, most unique set of skills, so I can make millions of dollars, buy an island and fly you all out to vacation with me. Next week I will reveal what I am leaning towards, and ofcourse this all depends on if I get into the dumb school or not!


Update: School is going great; Ashley is working hard on finding a job, and the reality of us living in Provo for the next couple years is starting to sink in. (How do you like that semicolon huh?)

Andy

This is a picture of our good dear (old) friend Andy. If you read the comment section it's obvious to tell his political stand point......baby

Pig Roast

As many of you know this blog is primarily Ashley's (even though she updates it once a year). Well I am now taking over this blog because my business writing class requires I keep a weekly blog as part of the the course work. So be careful while leaving comments as my BYU professor may be reading them. Although he did say today that we could plagiarize if we wanted to burn in hell which I thought was pretty dang funny since I like to say that a lot, especially while giving lessons to the youth.

So for my first blog post I would like to share something I did two weekends ago. For those of you who don't know, our friends, (now old friends) threw us a going away party which included roasting a pig in the ground. It was probably one of the top 5 coolest things I have done so far in this life and I suggest everyone do it or at least come to one of our annual pig roasts in the future. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

Here is the pit in which Wilbur cooked. Joe said he could dig it in 15 minutes but did not take into account he hadn't water his backyard since he bought the house so the dirt was more like a rock. It took him 3 hours to dig this.

This is Wilbur hanging out in Joe and Tiffany's fridge. I would not be surprised if Tiffany makes Joe buy a new fridge and put this one in the garage to designate it as the annual pig roasting fridge.

This is Wilbur right before Tim, came over to save the pig roast and show Joe and I how to make a pig roast rub.

Close up of Wilbur.

Wilbur wrapped in Banana leaves

Once Wilbur was in the ground it was cool how you could stand on top and barely feel the heat from the roaring 2000 degree coals below. It was pretty cool especially because I did not think this would work at all.

This is Tim, Kellie's dad, using his electronic thermometer to test if Wilbur was done. When the thermometer hit 170 degrees we leaped like school girls, as we were all nervous about the Wilbur cooking all the way.

Even though Matt Felt had been up for 96 hours straight, or close to that, he made an appearance and supervised Matt Jackson digging up the pig. I could be wrong but this may be the only picture of Jackson doing manual labor. Unfortunately Kellie couldn't make it due to Taylor not wanting to come out of her nice comfy home until she was forced out earlier that morning.



Joe and Tim working on getting Wilbur out of his nice steamy oven.

After we lost two of Wilbur's legs, Joe and Tim had to get creative and used cooking sheets to put under Wilbur for support so we wouldn't loose any other body parts.

Wilbur after we cut out about 1/2 of his meat.

If you are thinking to yourself that Wilbur must have been delicious, moist, and flavorful, then you are right. He was quite tasty and we are thankful to our friends for throwing us such an awesome going away party. We are also thankful for Taylor being born before we moved. So you can expect to check back once a week for an update. I hope all is well with everyone!

Congratulations Ryan!!!!

Its official, Ryan has formally been accepted into BYU!!! He applied for the fall semester earlier this year and found out after he submitted his application that some of his credits were non-transferable. He met with a counselor and was told to reapply after his spring semester and he would be admitted. Since Ryan is such a good student (I can brag because I'm his wife!) all he had to do was get a few more credits. We knew he would get in because the counselor assured us that he would based on his excellent grades. (Yay! I'm so proud of you, again!) So he sent his application in and was accepted! Like I said, we knew he would get in but now its official!!! Congratulations Ryan!!!

Summer Update

Hey all! Just wanted to post an update of our oh, so interesting life! Actually, not much has changed! Ryan and I just finished our spring semesters and have started summer school. Ryan is taking a government class. He really likes it, maybe because his professor is republican which is a rarity in a California college! Ryan just has the one class and will spend the rest of the summer working as much as he can before we move. I have four classes this summer! Yes, four classes! I'm taking two per session. three of the classes are history, surprise, and the other is in sociology. After this summer I have an online class to take in the fall and then I'M DONE!!!! Yay! I'm counting down the days!

We are super excited for this summer because we have a lot to look forward to! Erin, my sister, will be having her baby boy in three weeks!!! She is scheduled for a C-section the first week in July! We have another baby to look forward to from our friends Matt and Kelly! They are have a girl in August. Lets see, I know about four other people having babies this summer as well... ... ... (Seriously everyone is having a baby!) Anywho, we are excited for all of them!!!

We are planning a vacation to Mexico in July. The Waddell family is going to Cancun for a week but it unfortunately falls right in the middle of my second summer session. So my vacation will be cut short from a few days. Oh well, at least I still get to go. The only thing that I'm not so excited about is that I have to fly by myself to Mexico with two connecting flights in Mexico. Hopefully I wont get kidnapped by the drug cartel and held for ransom!

Ryan is playing for a coed soccer team on Thursday nights. The Kumquats ( that's the name of the team. Yeah, interesting name) include several members of the Mag 8. (That's the name of our friends. Yeah, we are sort of nerdy for having a name. Actually the name was given by Andy and we never refer to ourselves as the Mag 8 except for on the blogs. I blame Andy) Anywho, the games are fun to watch because Ryan has never played soccer before and actually he is pretty good! I'm super impressed! We do tease him because he toe pokes the ball! The game is something we look forward to each week!

Finally Ryan and I are starting to make plans for our move to Utah. We don't have a place to live yet but we still have a few months. Honestly I don't really want to talk about moving because it just makes me depressed!!! Just Kidding! Actually I'm not!

Well that's all for now, hopefully next time I will have more interesting things to talk about! Take care!

My time in Tucson

Just an update of my spring vacation in Tucson: I love my nieces! They are the cutest girls ever! We had lots of fun at the park flying kites, ridding bikes and having dance parties. We spent some time in Mesa and met up with Courtney and Andrew. Courtney came down to Tucson for lunch and play! I got to hang out with Erin and Greg a lot! Oh, by the way, Erin is having a baby in July!!! She is having a BOY!!!! Yay!! She is super cute and pregnant! We can't wait for little baby Austin! Anyway, It was so much fun to see my family! Thanks again Greg for the great idea!!! The next few posts are about my week!

Bikes in the park

Morgan and Taylor love their bikes!!! Morgan just learned how to ride with out training wheels! Here are some pictures of them being crazy girls on their bikes!

Lets go fly a kite!!!

For Easter Ryan and I got Morgan and Taylor a giant 3D elephant kite! It was huge!!! They girls loved it! We took it to the park while I was there. Here are some pictures!