Casa Bonita

For Ben's Birthday, we went to Casa Bonita. We had a great time! We really do love this place!

                                           

Snow White and #BYUBound

 

Spring Break

 Normally, we are on a cruise for spring break.

This spring break is quite different.

Yesterday, Claire got her wisdom teeth out! She was a trooper and did great. She is healing perfectly so far.

Then today we left Claire at home to rest and the rest of us went on our first hike of the season to South Valley Park. It was a perfect day for a hike, and quite refreshing for the soul! It actually feels like spring is on it's way and the worst of winter is behind us. I hope that is the case! I'm sick of winter!

Birthday Boys

 We celebrated Mac and Ben and their Birthdays on Sunday!

Housing Accomplished!

 

It's been a pretty stressful couple of weeks figuring out Audra's housing.

The plan was for her to room with Brinlee.

Unfortunately, we didn't know there was a "preferred roommate" deadline, and we missed it. So she couldn't just sign up with Brinlee from the start.

Luckily, because we learned this when we toured BYU last September, Audra applied early so she got an early day to pick her housing. Brinlee was a week later, and since she had the later housing date, Audra could not reserve a bed for Brinlee- instead, Audra had to get her bed, then hope that there were still beds left when Brinlee got on and then Brinlee could reserve a bed for Audra.

See why we were stressed?!?

Audra picked a bed at Heritage Halls- no problems, there were hundreds of beds left.

Then, we had to wait. And wait. And wait until it was Brinlee's turn. And cross our fingers that there were rooms with two beds left.

I checked bed spaces daily, and they were filling up.

Finally, it was Brinlee's turn, and she got a room for both of them! They are officially roommates next year!

There will be 6 girls in the dorm, and they have started texting each other. They are from all over the country, and none of them from Utah- which Audra is very happy about.

She is still scared. And I can't believe in 5 months she will be at college. 

But she will be amazing! The world needs her making a difference in it!

Throwback

 One of my favorite pictures with the best little brother on his 18th Birthday.

Big Changes

 

This young lady has some really big changes headed her way.

I had to drive Audra up to CU Boulder for a band thing today. On the way, she told me she had decided to go to BYU, but that she was scared because she doesn't know anyone who is going. Which is true. She knows two boys who got in but they are both going on missions first. She knows one girl who got in, but this friend decided to go to SVU to play soccer instead. Audra said she is really scared to go, but she would be scared no matter where she went.

I dropped her off, where she also didn't know anybody, and I got texts throughout the day from her saying how miserable she was. The conductor was super mean and yelled at them non-stop, pretty much calling them goof-offs and lazy who didn't take anything seriously and were wasting his time.

She ate lunch and dinner alone. She even asked another trumpet player if she could eat dinner with her, and this trumpet player said no because she was eating with her band.

She texted, alone and miserable, while eating dinner saying she was on the verge of tears and she hated being there and never wanted to do anything like this again.

At 9PM, I drove back up to Boulder to pick her up (yes, she could have driven herself, but she was really nervous to drive to Boulder by herself). On the drive home, she said that while she was eating dinner, Brinlee from HXP randomly (not randomly) texted her from out of the blue. She hasn't heard from Brinlee in 8 months.

Brinlee is from Wisconsin. They got to texting, and Brinlee said she got into BYU! Audra said she did, too, and Brinlee asked if Audra wanted to be her roommate! Now, she and Audra are making plans to move into Heritage Halls together!

Obviously, this was not a coincidence. This is God's doing, and God is so good! I hope Audra remembers this experience for the rest of her life, because Brinlee listened to the Spirit to reach out to Audra at a really dark time!

God is good!