Weekend Getaway & Update

It’s been almost a month since I’ve posted anything and I have incurred the wrath of The Momma. So here is an update on Jeff’s and my busy life during this first month of school. After an exciting and eventful summer, keeping busy with school and work has resulted in most days looking very similar to the one before, with a few exceptions.

Jeff is taking 3 classes, working 20 hours a week and he is the TA for an Intro to Engineering class this semester. He keeps busy. Near the end of the summer, I left him alone for a few hours and even a couple of days a few weekends in a row, so he decided to order a couple of fun looking computer games to keep him entertained at times like that. Of course, now that he actually has the games, he rarely has time to play them for more than a few minutes at a time. He is in a Products Design class, for which he is designing a water filtration system directed at the emergency preparedness crowd. Sadly, the rest of his group comes up short on their assignments most of the time so he has to work extra hard. He grades and creates quizzes for the freshman class he is TAing for. He also came up with a project for them. They had to use a little airplane kit to make a propeller-driven car.

Jeff has also been preparing for the career fair this week. He has researched several companies that will be there so he will be ready to ask them some good questions. Last week, Jeff interviewed with Exxon. They had recruiters out a week ago Thursday and after telling them that he had interned with Exxon before, they invited Jeff and I to a dinner that night at Carrabbas. It was fun going with him and getting some yummy free dinner. Of course, it was very long (we were there about 2 ½ hours), but overall it was a good experience and I learned a lot about what it would be like to have Jeff working for Exxon. He got a call the next day and had an interview a week later (Thursday). He knew his interviewer from his internship in Virginia last summer. He only asked Jeff a few questions since he already knew and liked him and then just wanted to talk sports for the rest of the interview.

I am taking 5 classes this semester, but since they are all very time consuming, I have had to cut back my hours at work to only 12 hours a week (Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays). I was grateful to have such a sweet and understanding husband when I started to get a little overwhelmed and sleep deprived trying to do it all. He told me I should just quit my job. He is so good to me. I am also grateful for the large amounts of unexpected money we’ve been blessed with through grants and scholarships so I don’t NEED to work a full 20 hours a week. For the most part, I am enjoying my classes. I am taking Parenting and Child Guidance, Adolescent Development, and Intro to Family Processes, all of which are very interesting. My Adolescence class in particular is a really fun class. My professor values creativity and class participation so we have some fun assignments and good in-class discussions and activities. I am getting ready to start a study in which I will have several BYU students fill out a survey I created in order to determine whether adolescent boys or adolescent girls engage in more risk-taking behavior (technically, ages 18-21 is still considered late adolescence and we would have needed permission to conduct studies on adolescents under 18). We were also given the assignment to read a novel directed at adolescents and present it, emphasizing certain adolescent themes, pretty much any way we want to (a film, poem, model, diorama, scrapbook, game, journal, etc.). I’m reading The Hunger Games. I’m excited. My other two classes are Critical Inquiry and Research Methods, which is pretty boring, but I’m required to take it, and Statistics, which I have heard is SOO hard, but I currently have over 100% in the class, thank you very much!

Despite being very busy with work and school, I am doing my best to get in a good three runs a week. At first, I let having a lot of homework get in the way of this, but soon realized the importance of getting out and getting some exercise every so often. It helps me to relax and stop stressing about my mounds of reading and assignments. Not to mention the fact that it feels SO good to get out and run after being cooped up in classes and the apartment doing homework all day. I’ve had to use the indoor track on campus a couple of times lately since its already getting so cold outside (I’m REALLY sad about this. It’s a sad sight already seeing snow on the mountains.)! I’m going to miss running my usual route to and around the beautiful park a couple of miles from our house, partially because the last couple of times, a man has been there with his adorable new German Shepherd puppy.

Our weekend activities these days usually consist of long bike rides, dollar movies, preparing and teaching lessons to our awesome Sunday school class (we love them), and football. We have All Sport Passes with a big group of friends so we all sit together at the BYU home games. It’s nice to see everyone since we rarely have time to get together otherwise. And if the games are away, we usually all get together at someone’s house to watch it. It’s a lot of fun. Most of the guys are on an intramural football team together too, so we all get to see quite a bit of each other these days. All the wives sit on the sidelines at each game and cheer and catch up. The guys are doing great! They’ve won their first three games by a pretty big margin and it looks like they might be headed for an undefeated season. Jeff plays quarterback and I love being reminded what an incredible athlete he is every game. He runs SO fast and jumps SO high! It’s amazing! Last week, I played team mom and brought Fall-shaped frosted sugar cookies for after the game (pumpkins, leaves, ghosts, bats, apples, acorns, etc.). Jeff and I found some really cute and cheap cookie cutters on Amazon and I had gotten them in the mail earlier that day. I was excited for an excuse to try them out!

Speaking of Amazon, Jeff and I LOVE that site! We buy everything on it! And lately we have been getting a whole lot of free money towards it. Jeff got us some Amazon credit cards in the middle of August and every time we use them, we get points that eventually translate into Amazon money. We’ve used them on some of the cruise expenses, tuition, books, and everyday expenses and have already racked up quite a few points. We’ve earned about $75 dollars. AND I use a search engine called SwagBucks whenever I need to look something up because I earn points for using the site. Every 45 points I earn, I can get a $5 Amazon e-gift card from the SwagStore. I have 5 unused dollars right now. It’s awesome! Gotta love free money!

In other news, Jeff and I are SO excited for Jared and Brynne, who had a precious little baby girl about a week and a half ago. We got to visit them in the hospital the next day. They named her Emme Kate Higley and she is absolutely adorable. We loved getting to hold her and visit with Brynne and Jared and the Maxfields, who were visiting at the same time. It made me even more excited for Jeff and I to have one of our own! I can’t wait to be a mom! Not too far away.

Our latest adventure took place this weekend. In fact, we are driving home from it as I type. Jeff and I spent the weekend in Denver. He had to pick up a laser for work. They already have one, but since they share it with the Physics department, they decided it would be nice to have a second one and a man in Denver was selling his for much much less than it would cost to buy one new. Since the Mechanical Engineering department was footing the bill (gas, hotel and food), Jeff and I decided it would be a nice little weekend getaway for us so he volunteered to be the one to pick up the laser. We left after class on Friday afternoon and arrived seven and a half hours later at 11:30pm. We stayed in a nice Marriot hotel (Jeff found a great deal as usual) right next to an IMAX theater and about 6 miles from all of the rest of the entertainment (Mile High Stadium, an aquarium, zoo, and amusement park).

Saturday morning, we left around 9 to pick up the laser. Jeff and Rob tested and discussed the laser and then loaded everything into the truck while I hung out downstairs watching Food Network with Rob’s wife and baby girl.

On our way to get the laser

Mission accomplished.

For Daddy: We stayed only a couple of miles from Mile High Stadium. Too bad the Broncos didn't play until this afternoon.

We went to Chipotle for lunch and got massive, delicious burritos. Jeff was happy to eat the rest of mine when I couldn’t finish it. Then, we headed to Elitch Gardens, the amusement park that used to be a Six Flags. Jeff, of course, managed to find a buy-one-get-one-free deal online so we got in for just $15 each. The park was all decorated for Halloween and played Halloween music. I think Halloween is so fun so I was excited. They had a few shows later that night that we didn’t end up staying for and a couple of haunted houses that cost extra. Jeff and I were so excited to find that the park wasn’t very crowded and we got through each line in about five minutes! We got through every ride we wanted to go on in about 2 ½ hours! Sadly, I don’t do as well with roller coasters as I used to. I used to LOVE them and they never made me sick, but Jeff and I had to alternate really loopy roller coasters with more mild rides because the more intense ones would put me on the verge of a headache or upset stomach. I did fine and enjoyed them all until the last ride we went on, which flipped us around and around really fast. It made me really dizzy and a little nauseous. I had to sit down for a minute afterward. I felt bad for Jeff, who loved every minute of it and had not been the least bit affected by all the spinning and flipping, but he was very sweet and understanding, as he always is. It was dinner time and we decided we had been on all of the rides we wanted to so we left the park for dinner. For some reason, getting in the car brought back the dizziness and I tried to ignore it, but Jeff said, “You don’t look so good, Babe.” Apparently, I had gone a little pale. Who knows why! I swear, my body has gotten so much more pansy lately! We got to IHOP pretty soon though and after I got some food in my stomach, I felt a whole lot better.

So excited as we walk into Elitch Gardens.

On the Dragon Wings ride (a lot like the swings at Knott's)

The ferris wheel

After dinner, we went to the IMAX by our hotel and saw Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs in 3-D. It was really cute. Then, we went back to the hotel to enjoy our last night in our nice room and I enjoyed a nice long back rub from my sweet husband as I fell asleep.

Looking really awesome in my 3-D glasses

Jeff looked pretty cool too

This morning, we got up, enjoyed a nice continental breakfast and headed out at 8am. We thought we had downloaded the two Saturday sessions of general conference to listen to in the car in between the two sessions today (Sunday), but somehow ended up with only a few minutes of each. So we’re going to have to listen to them when we get home and maybe next week. We’ve been listening to today’s sessions on the radio, though and it has been wonderful. I love general conference! We have the most incredible church leaders and the church is so true.

And for your viewing pleasure, a couple pictures of Jeff with a GIANT wad of gum in his mouth. My cousin, Doug gave us one of those 6-foot rolls of Bubble Tape in sacrament meeting a couple of weeks ago and after church, I dared Jeff to put the entire thing in his mouth.