BYU Basketball Game

Brittany scored three tickets to a BYU basketball game, and since John was working, Ed and I got to accompany her last night. They were playing University of Portland, and won handily!

In addition to a great game, we enjoyed the spectacle of BYU sports! They had something going on all the time, including this giant round screen that came down at the beginning. The cheerleaders, and the cougarettes were great, as was the mascot, Cosmo.

As a special treat, we also got to see BYU's Vocal Point a capella group perform!

And if that wasn't enough, we also got to ride the Utah Valley Express, Provo's new free and fast bus! It made getting out of the stadium and back home easy and pleasant!

Spring Cleaning

Why does January make me feel like organizing my house? Maybe it is because after storing the Christmas decorations we just can't stop? So, I talked Ed into moving the organ out of my study! It took up so much space that I really wanted to find a new home for it! After we moved the organ out, I got two new chairs and a nice little table from Costco to create a little sitting area for my visitors (mostly Ed).

Happily, we found a nice moving service that came the next day to move the organ. Ed had to clean the driveway with the leftover snow to facilitate the move!

We were super happy the organ fit in the basement rec room. We switched the couch and the loveseat, which enabled us to pull the couch forward and create extra space behind it. You can just see the organ on the right behind the light!

While we were at Costco we picked up this very cool game table that we had our eye on last year. We passed up on it before, as we had no space for it, but with the new arrangement, there was magically more space in the back of the room!

And, lastly we finally found the perfect table for our back hallway (also at Costo)! It feels like we have a brand new house! After Ed finishes building the new shelves in my study closet it will be perfect!

Two Book Clubs, Two Days

Yesterday the Alpine Cove Book Club met to discuss C.S. Lewis' book, Till We Have Faces. I enjoyed part I of the book, but totally missed out on the deeper meaning in Part II. I was so bored with the dream sequences and the second guessing of life, that I lost interest in the end. The ladies filled me in on the redemption and jealousy themes of the book. I was not convinced. He could have said that in about 100 less pages!

Today the Alpine Book club met to review I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. That was a fun read, full of quirky characters, and starry a misty castle. It was written in 1948, but is still popular, apparently, as there was a 2 month wait to check it out. I ended up downloading it on Kindle instead! It was fun talking about our favorite parts of the book!

Last Blast of Christmas

The Wilkinsons invited us over to see their Christmas decorations before they start dismantling them! It was amazing to see the variety of themes they have used! This was a nativity tree, but they also had a nutcracker tree, a star wars tree, a Disney tree, a music tree, a BYU tree, a 12 days of Christmas tree and many more!

By the time they get the trees down they start decorating for the next holiday! It is Ron's passion, but Vania seems to support him good-naturedly!

While we were there we also got to see the fabled pirate ship bed in the Neverland rooms in the attic! It looks like a magical place to grow up! (Or never grow up!)

Snow Birds

Finally, we got some snow worth mentioning this year! It snowed off and on this weekend, and if it hadn't been for shoveling the driveway three times, it would have been perfect! Great big, wet snowflakes!

It was also lots of fun watching the birds at the bird house! It turns out, birds are very messy eaters, and they spend most of the time on the ground picking up stray bits of bird seed! We've had mostly spotted towhees, dark-eyed juncos, California quail and Woodhouses' Scrub Jays. It's been fun learning the names of them!

Movie Day

Ed and I were happy I didn't have to go to Huntsman Friday to get the rest of my infusion. That freed up a whole day for us, so we decided to go to the Mt. Timpanogos Temple to see the changes to the temple ceremony. There were a lot of other people who had the same idea, and the temple was full! We arrived at 9:30 a.m. and didn't get to go through a session till 10:30! We had a little extra time to do some baptisms before the endowments! The changes were great, allowing for more gender equality for women.

On Saturday we watched Inside Out with Brittany, John and the girls. I'm happy to report that I didn't sleep through the movies on either Friday or Saturday!

Grandpa had some fun showing off Coda's tricks to Mabel!

Crystal got a dog this weekend, and we're excited for her!  Her as-yet-unnamed dog looks a lot like a short-haired Coda! We can't wait to meet him!

Fifth monthly treatment at Huntsman

Thursday we had my fifth monthly treatment of Rituximab at Huntsman. My friend, Tricia Honey, showed up to keep us company. She has had her own cancer story, which was much more dramatic than mine! She felt right at home in the infusion center!

I was able to take the entire 800 mg dose in one day! The first time ever! My body is much more tolerant of the medication now that my blood is in good shape. My next treatment is the 31st of January, and we'll see where we  go from there. They have been collecting blood samples from my siblings to see if they are possible matches for a stem cell transplant. In the meantime I feel great, and would get out walking if it wasn't freezing cold and snowy outside!