Go Cougs!

Wow! We attended the BYU-UCLA football games yesterday, and WOW is the only word for it. UCLA couldn't seem to do anything right. It was uncanny. The final score was BYU - 59, UCLA -0. I felt sorry for the ROTC because every time there is a touchdown or field goal, they do as many pushups as we have points. So if I did the math right, they ended up doing 255 pushups. I can barely do 10!

Our tomatoes are coming on strong, and I'm not sure what to do with them all. If anyone has a good salsa or spaghetti sauce or tomato soup recipe, I'd love to collect some. Sometime I'll learn to can tomatoes as well, but I'm not quite comfortable trying that on my own yet.

Princess Day and Sunday Activities

We just returned from Boise again, where two blastocysts were transferred (implanted) into me. Blastocysts are more developed embryos with more cells. I am to be on bed rest for the next two days to give them a good chance to attach, so Walt has been so attentive and sweet, not letting me do hardly anything. He's cooking breakfast right now. I am allowed to sit on the couch or at the table, and I can shower (whew!). They call these two days of bed rest my "Princess Days". Luckily I only have to endure two days of it, but already I can tell that if this is what princesses do (or don't do), I want no part in it! :) There is a 60% chance that one of the blastocycsts will attach and result in a pregnancy, so we're praying hard.

So I'm compiling a list for my personal benefit of Sabbath appropriate activities that help keep a spirit of worship and reverence on Sunday. I've got most of the traditional things like write letters, write in your journal, study scriptures, etc. But I'd love more ideas. If anyone has ideas of activities they participate in on Sunday that help keep it a holy day, please let me know. I'm looking for ideas for adults, not necessarily for kids. I'll post the list in a week or so in case anyone else wants fresh ideas.

Equation for Love

In a recent email exchange between Walt and me, Walt wrote the following. I thought it was so cute and so Walt, I had to share it:

Well here is my love for you,

My love = love x infinity

Where love is the condition in which Walt’s heart is full or touched for Julie and infinity is 1/0. My love represents the total sum of love Walt feels for Julie. From this we can derive the following equation,

Julie = cute ^ (Infinity)

Where Julie is Walt’s wife. Cute is term of affection or endearment. Infinity is 1/0, or an non-measureable amount. This thesis is given as a technical guide for the geek to understand Walt’s love for Julie.

Walt

Boyz II Men

So as one of my very last Young Women Personal Progress leader goals I needed to memorize the 13th Article of Faith and attend a performance using the Article of Faith as a guide to evaluate what I saw. So I bought tickets to the annual Timpanogos Storytelling Festival tonight and took my cousin, Katie. We arrived, and they were unable to locate our tickets at the will-call desk. I told them I'd bought the tickets online several days before and received an email confirmation about it. The performance was sold out, but they said they'd trust us. So they printed us off a couple tickets, and in we went. It was packed solid with people, but we finally found a spot to spread our blanket (it was an outdoor amphitheater) and settled in to hear some great stories. We pulled out the program they'd given us, and on the front cover in all their glory was a picture of Boyz II Men. Live! Thursday, August 28th! Scera Outdoor Amphitheater! I knew there must be some mistake. Sure enough - the mistake was mine! The Storytelling Festival didn't start until the next night, and I had accidentally snuck into the sold-out Boyz II Men concert to fulfill a Personal Progress goal. Hmmm. Boyz II Men was totally in when I was in junior high and high school. We had a good laugh about it and left to get ice cream instead. We'll try again tomorrow night. :)

At It Again

We're full swing into our next In Vitro cycle. I started my shots on Wednesday, and this time around I get to have 4 a day. We'll be traveling to Boise for the main procedures this time, which will require three trips (we've already done one). This has been a motivation for me to calculate our gas mileage. I found that our truck gets about 20 mpg on the freeway, and my car gets about 31 mpg in town, which probably means more like 35-38 on the freeway. Big difference!

My brother Bryan and his wife Sarah moved out this week. They lived with us for the summer, and it was so fun. We'll miss them. We don't have anyone to play Scrabble with now. :) And Rocky (our guinea pig) isn't getting nearly as much attention as he did all summer.

I'm back at work 3 days a week (loving it!) and looking forward to babysitting my niece Lilli on Mondays while her mom does student teaching.

Walt's High Adventure Trip and De-boning Chickens

Walt returned late Friday night from a scouting High Adventure trip to the Tetons in Idaho/Wyoming. He and another leader took 9 boys (14-18 years old) on two days of hiking and one day of whitewater rafting. They had a wonderful time, and they came back a day early, which made this wife very happy. Now the girls at church are asking when they get to go whitewater rafting. Sounds fun to me! Walt has been great about organizing outdoor trips for the boys. Last fall they went mountain biking in Moab, and in May they went backpacking in Coyote Gulch. They boys learn outdoor survival and recreation skills, they learn how to pack and organize their things and how to work together to plan food for different types of trips. Lots of great skills.

On Tuesday morning Edith, a friend in our ward, came over and showed Sarah, Liz and me how to debone a chicken, lay it flat, season and prepare it and come out with a lovely and delicious rolled chicken dish! It was amazing. The poor chicken didn't stand a chance. We've been eating it for a few days, and I will try making it myself in the next couple weeks so I don't forget how. See pictures.

Summer of Family Reunions!

We have had four family reunions this summer and loved every one of them.  Last week my grandmother turned 80, and we all went to Seattle to celebrate with her.  She is spunky and energetic with naturally brown hair still.  She started a cherry pit fight with me while we were there.  :)  We also celebrated my grandparents recent 60th wedding anniversary.  While in Seattle we took a side trip to Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands of Puget Sound and stayed in a cabin for a couple nights, hiking during the days and eating and playing games in the evenings.  There's nothing more fun than just spending time with family.  It was the first time all of us including Jonathan (my new step-brother) had gone somewhere together.   Yea!