Two States

Hello all! Sunday evening here in Provo. Winding down the weekend and getting ready for a new week. Brooke and I are for the first time in our marriage experiencing what its like to be apart for an extended period of time - not fun. However, we are working through it as an acceptable sacrifice and an opportunity to grow even closer (about the same way we have looked at early time periods of long separation like freshman year of college, the mission, etc...now its only 3.5 weeks, so nothing really compared to a couple of years!) Tomorrow Brooke will have been back in good ol' Washington State one week, filling in at Heartland. So, as she puts in hours of work back there, I continue putting in hours of school here. Another round of midterms coming up this week. Three to be exact, plus a quiz (in that particular class...Honors Isaiah...they are pretty hefty quizzes though!). Have continued also to get to know my professors better and build relationships with them, so that is nice. Still investigating quite diligently what my major is going to be...lots of ideas, but I think I'm getting it narrowed down. However, I did join the Honors Program at BYU this past week, meaning that upon completing extra projects/requirements, can graduate with honors in the top 2% of BYU. So that is a definite goal I have made for myself.

It has not all been work and school for the two of us this past week though! Brooke has been getting into Guitar Hero with the family back home! Apparently we are going to rock it when I go visit her in two more weeks! She also enjoyed Wenatchee Wild hockey games both Friday and Saturday nights thanks to their season tickets. I got an almost instantaneous cell-phone video of the big fight from the game on Friday! So it was ALMOST like I was there! Here in Provo, the weather has turned VERY spring-like, though I'm trying not to get my hopes up because knowing this place, it will probably snow another foot before March. Anyway, I do try to enjoy it while its here, so yesterday I woke up to bright sun shiny skies, and decided to go for a hike in the evening and hopefully get some good sunset pictures. I had a great hike and though clouds had moved in by that time of the evening, still got some pretty pictures and beautiful views out over the valley. Got to play in the snow. I didn't go on a trail, just parked and started hiking up the hillside lol! Towards the last part, which was very steep heading up to the top of the ridge, there was decently deep snow (had the effect of being  deeper because of the incline) and since it was all over these small shrubs, there were lots of air pockets underneath, and most steps involved sinking into my knee or above. Got a great thigh workout to say the least! Pictures are posted below :)

Thats about it for now. Time to plan out the week a little and get to bed. Our greetings to all of you!