Lacey takes me out Star Gazing on the plains of WY

Here are a couple pictures I promised to post of me and Lacey up on the bluffs above Powell, WY, star gazing. It was really cold, but we stayed out for about an hour. The sky was clear and you could see the Milky Way.

It's freezing out here!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Page and Sean came to Powell for Christmas. They arrived on Friday afternoon. Saturday we finished our shopping and that night went to see "A Night at the Museum" which was really funny. Sunday we went to church and then relaxed at home. I made a big taco dinner for Christmas Eve. It was really good if I do say so myself. Christmas morning Sean woke us all up at 7:30 a.m. That was a lot better than past years when we could expect him bouncing in at 3 a.m. After the presents, I made a breakfast of cinnamon roles, eggs, sausage and piggy pudding. The rest of the day we snacked on cheese, cut meats, crackers, shrimp and Christmas night we had apple cobbler with ice cream. I think we all got plenty to eat. Page took the kids back to Livingston on Tuesday (26th). So I will be alone all week and plan to go to Montana on Friday night to share New Year's with them.

First Day of Winter

Happy First Day of Winter. Today we had a nice snow fall of a couple inches, don't know if it will stay on the ground long enough for a white Chirstmas but winter came in to northern Wyoming with snow. Page and Sean braved the snow and made it from Montana today for Christmas. Lacey and I went up on the bluffs last night away from the city lights to look at the stars. They were beautiful. We saw a few shooting stars like the picture above. Lacey made some hot chocolate and we bundled up pretty warm. Lacey took a few pictures of us and once she downloads them, I will try to post a couple. HAPPY WINTER!!!

A BYU Blowout

Las Vegas Bowl: BYU 38 Oregon 8

Congrats to the Cougs! They dominated Oregon all night, last night. I am suprised at Oregon's collapse at the end of the season. I'm sure they never recovered from the USC loss.... hehehehe. The Vegas Bowl was rocking last night. The biggest sell out in it's history, and you basically saw a sea of BYU Blue. After the win, BYU fans stormed the field and the BYU QB, Beck, lead the crowd singing the BYU fight song. I'm happy for BYU. This was their first bowl win in the last 5 tries. I think they have their program back on track and can't wait to see what they do next year. Hopefully they will be good for Sean's freshman year....

Eragon

I got into Livingston last night, with Lacey, at about 8 p.m., and we noticed that Eragon was playing in the local movie theater. We had to go see it! Eragon is adapted from the Christopher Paolini's novel of the same name. Paolini is from Livingston and a little older than Lacey. Sean was playing in the pep band at the high school basketball game, so we called him and told him to meet us at the theater at 9 p.m. The place was packed. A lot of buzz in this small town about Eragon, with the Livingston connection. The 7 pm show must have been sold out becuase hundreds of people were pouring out of the theater. The most common quote we heard "You won't like it if you read the book". I was prepared for that. I have read the book. I remember Sean and his friends being a little dissapointed with Harry Potter after reading the book, since you can't put all the detail into the movie that is in the book. Let me just say, I agree.... the book is so much better. When you know all the details in the book, you notice how the director skips over things you thought were important and you wonder how people who didn't read the book are going to know that. It also is wierd how at times the director will totally disregard what is in the book and change it a little. However, I did like the movie. It did seem like a low budget film compared to Star Wars and Lord of the Rings... my two favorite movies. So I was a little dissapointed in that. My favorite character wasn't even human. I think they got Saphira, the dragon, right. She was just as I pictured her in my mind. The movie was only about an hour and 40 minutes long, so they had to rush everything. Not enough time to really bring out the struggles of Eragon and his preparation by Brom and the development of his use of magic. Oh well, and I hate to be rude, but I thought the fairy princess would be a lot prettier. I also don't thing the movie did a good job in introducing some of the characters. If I didn't read the book, I would not have known a lot about who they are. I guess when they film Eldest (book 2) they will draw these characters out more, I hope. I would say it's worth going to see this movie just to see Saphira. What a dragon!

Getting Ready for the Winter Formal

Sean took Chelsea Bowden to the Winter Formal tonight. They looked wonderful. We had a little trouble with the corsage today and it took three trips to the flower shop to make it acceptable if not completly right. Sean went with a group of kids from Church. They had dinner at the Carters before heading over to the high school.

The Grand March

They have a "Grand March" before the dance. All the bleachers on one side of the gym are full with parents and friends to watch the couples make an entrance. They had 171 couples. Sean and Chelsea were #125. They get announced and everyone claps. When Sean and Chelsea came out in their lime green, you could hear an audible sound from the audience in delight! Anothter interesting observation... only the Mormon girls had their shoulders covered in the evening gowns.

Sean and Sant

Sean and Sant at the Winter Formal

Sean and Chelsea at the Winter Formal

Sean and Chelsea posed for pictures

and we had to grab a couple shots for ourselves too. It was a fun night and it was nice to see Sean go to a formal dance at school, his first!

Trojan Defeat

USC 9 UCLA 13

Oh the agony. What an ugly game! Our cross-town rivals beat us in the Rose Bowl today 13-9. It was such a low scoring game... a real defensive battle. Have to hand it to the gutty little Bruins. Their defense was on fire today and killed our late drive to win the game with an interception. I knew anything could happen in a rivalry game, but we did so well against Oregon, then Cal, then a huge win against Notre Dame.... it may have just been too much to sustain. We have 15 Freshman starters on this team and we had 9 injuries of veteran players over the season. Yet we were only a win away from playing in our 4th straight championship game. But it hurts to lose to a rival. I hate that more than missing out on the BCS championship game, I mean, we still are going to the Rose Bowl! We are Pac-10 Champs for the 5th straight year ( a Pac 10 record). However our 63 games 'scoring over 20 points' streak, a NCAA record, was broken today, our 7 game winning streak over UCLA was broken today. Give all the props to the Bruins, they played great. How in the heck did they lose 5 games this year? Looks like we will play either Michigan or LSU in the Rose Bowl. Both teams would be fun to play. Under Pete Carroll, loses have been very rare, haven't had to deal with it too much. Good thing I had Sean's winter formal to keep me busy tonight.