To Zions! ... or the Aquarium

We had been planning all week long to go down to Zion's national park with Ben and Sydney on Friday morning to camp and hike, but on Thursday Sydney hurt her foot running and the trip got cancelled. So, we ended up going into work in the morning anyway. We decided we still should do something all together, so yesterday afternoon we drove up to the Living Planet Aquarium up in Sandy. It was really fun! The aquarium is built in an old grocery store building by the looks of it from the outside, but they had a lot of stuff in there. My favorite part was the teeny tiny sea horses and Spencer said his favorite part was touching the stingrays. The otters were also pretty fun to watch.

When we got back from Sandy we went to JoAnne's to pick up some more fabric to back the quilt I'm making for Josh and Katy's baby. I have some pictures to put up of my progress with that. I'm pretty proud of it so far. Then we went to the library to rent Hamlet for class because we have to have it all ready by Tuesday. We started out reading it together, but after the first act we decided to listen to the readers on the free iPad version we downloaded. That worked a lot better because we could follow along in our books and read the commentary on the side as we listened.

We also picked a bunch of apricots from the tree in our yard! We're going to try to make some jam with them at some point today. We'll see if it works out. But first today we have to go up to campus to study in anatomy open lab for a couple hours, then run to the library on campus to borrow the humanities textbook and get all of our reading for that class done. Our textbook is still in the mail. Hopefully it shows up soon. Like today or Monday.

That's about it for now! Time for some breakfast... Oh, and we also heard some great news about Christy coming out next month for a tennis camp and about Dad and Tyler coming out for a football game at the end of August! We're really excited to see them! And AnnaMarie and Tyler and all their kiddos next month too!

First Day of Class

Well, we both survived our first day of classes. :-) Anatomy was fun. The lab was pretty interesting, if not slightly overwhelming, and the lecture was really good. We were given 119 terms for parts of the skull, vertebral column, and rib cage to memorize for Thursday (Tomorrow!!). There will be a quiz at the beginning of each lab on what we learned in the previous lab. That's two a week. They lay out 10 things marked with tape or a pointer and you just have to write the name down on your paper. Easy, right? We'll definitely learn a ton in this class. I'm thinking that the lecture portion of the class will be easier than the lab portion. We start working with cadavers next Tuesday. Last night we rented a model skull to study and worked on it for a couple hours. I could probably point to most of the things at this point when they are named, but I have to be able to name it when someone else is pointing to it. It's a start. Spencer's better at this kind of thing than I am.

So our anatomy lab is 12 to 2, then lecture is 2 to 4. Then at 4 we ate some food and then went down to the RB for Spencer's weightlifting class. We talked to the professor and he said it would be fine if I came and joined them when I get off work, so we worked out until 5:45, ran to the locker rooms to change, then ran up to campus to get to our 6:00 humanities class. The professor seems super nice and we only have one paper that's due at the end of the semester. Plus, we don't have in class quizzes. So really, the only tough thing about that class will be keeping up with all the reading. And staying awake. It goes until 8:30. Yuck. Also, we need to start packing lots of food for Tuesdays and Thursdays. I also need to look at my work hours and cut back a bit to fit anatomy review sessions and open lab hours each week to keep up with that class.

Summer Term Begins

Well, it's back to the old grind. For some reason I am still feeling a bit burned out from winter semester, and am not very excited about getting back into classes and schoolwork. Maybe part of that is the fact that I didn't go through my normal pre-class routine with buying textbooks and organizing everything like I usually do. Spencer and I are signed up for the same classes, so he just picked up our textbooks one day while I was at work. I guess we aren't in all the same classes. He's taking a weightlifting class. I was going to take it with him, but it starts at 5 and I have to work until 5, so I'd never be to class on time. I'll probably just go join him in the weight room after I get off work anyway. We're taking anatomy and a humanities class.

We only have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but our classes go from noon to 8:30 p.m. I'd rather have it like that than have class every day though. This way I can still probably work about 30 hours a week if I want to. We'll see how hard the workload is for the classes. I'm pretty nervous about anatomy right now, but maybe when I get into it it won't be so bad. I'm excited to learn it, but we cover between 2 and 4 chapters each lecture and we have lab quizzes every Tuesday and Thursday. It's mostly memorization, with names of bones, muscles, etc. and their spelling. If you are more than 1 letter off on the lab quizzes I guess they mark it wrong. I think it will be fun, but it'll be lots of work. Thank goodness Spencer and I are taking it together so we can quiz each other. I'm not sure how hard our humanities class is going to be yet. The professor hasn't emailed us or posted a syllabus online or anything, so I guess we'll find out tonight. I think the biggest challenge with that class will be keeping on top of all the reading that's going to be assigned. We have a textbook, a selected readings packet, and 3 novels to read (Hamlet, Frankenstein, and Rosencrants &Guildenstern are Dead). This is only a 6 week course, people! I think I'll enjoy these books more than some of the books and stories I had to read for my other humanities class though. Greek and Roman mythology weren't really my thing. It should be good.

Benjamin had a couple of his classes yesterday for the first time and I asked him how it was. He said he feels like his biology class will be tough, but he'll like it and that his writing class will be the death of him. I think he'll be alright. He mentioned that he feels like the stupidest kid in his writing class, and it made me think about my first classes at BYU. I felt like the dumbest kid in my trigonometry class I took summer term of my freshman year. I didn't even know what the unit circle was and we had to memorize it in 4 days. I got into Chem and Biology classes and felt like I was way behind everyone that had taken AP Chem and Bio in high school. They all talked big about how easy stuff was for the first two weeks (it was all new to me!) but then their head start came to an abrupt end. Really though, I think for the first couple weeks of every semester for my freshman year I thought I was so far behind everyone and that they were all way smarter than me. But here's the thing about BYU:  Nobody is stupid here. Even compared to your classmates, you can't say who's smarter. Some kids are awful at chemistry and some kids are awful at english, but nobody's stupid. Everyone focuses their studies on something they enjoy and where their strengths are. I'm pretty good at the sciences here, but if I had to take a history of music class where you have to listen to classical songs and name the song and it's composer I'd probably do terribly. In high school everyone is pretty much taking the same classes so it's easy to label your classmates as smart or dumb, but it's different when you get out here. I think Benjamin will do great with his classes once they start rolling.

Our Story

Spencer and I met exactly two years ago. I had just finished high school and was starting BYU summer term, and because Spencer worked the year before his mission, he was just starting, too. We met at convocation of new student orientation and were in the same "Y-group" together. Before convocation started I told myself I was going to be extra outgoing and make some friends right off the bat, so when I found a seat I tried talking to the people next to me. The girl on my right was already talking with the girl on her other side, so I turned to my left and said hi to the kid sitting next to me. I'm not sure if he didn't hear me, or if he chose to ignore me, but he didn't respond at all and I wasn't going to try again. He looked a little strange anyway. So, I turned around. I introduced myself to Spencer and found out we were both from Michigan. We talked a bit about his mission to France and my experiences overseas in Japan. Basically, he's been my first and best friend out here from day one.



For lunch that day we went out on the lawn, split up into our Y-groups. Spencer and I sat next to each other and talked some more, and then the group decided to play some ice-breaker games. After a couple I suggested we play the kumcha game. It's a silly game, but it always ends up being funny. It turns out that Spencer hates games like that and thought I was ridiculous for suggesting it. I found that out later.

The next day (I think) I went to the cannon center for breakfast and spotted Spencer when I was trying to find somewhere to sit, so I asked if I could sit with him. I didn't know very many people yet, so it was nice to recognize someone there. We talked about our Y-group and probably our Y-group leader (that's a whole different story..) and I said something to the effect of "I'm really scared of dating RMs (returned missionaries)." Just as it came out of my mouth I remembered that Spencer was an RM. I remember thinking, "good one, Abbey. Way to go." He had this weird expression on his face like, "oh... okay." I did some fast back-peddling that only made things worse, I'm sure. I was completely embarrassed.

Somehow Dan joined up with us and we became this little trio that always hung out together. I don't even remember meeting Dan, but the three of us became friends really fast. I was falling for Spencer, and I thought maybe he liked me, but I wasn't sure. We had started running in the mornings with a group of people, and the group got smaller and smaller over the first few days. One morning I went outside to run and Spencer was the only other one who showed up. We were both pretty tired still (it was 6 in the morning!) so we ended up just walking and having a nice chat.

One Sunday night, about a week after we had gotten there my roommate was hanging out with some people she knew from Provo, Dan was going to a family something, and Spencer's family was in town for Josh's wedding, so he was going to dinner with them. I didn't have anyone to do anything with. As I was complaining to them that everyone was leaving me Spencer suggested that I could go with him if I wanted to, but it might be a little awkward. I agreed. I met his family and we had a nice, slightly awkward time. That night we came back and since my roommate Sarah and Dan were still gone, we hung out. We decided that we'd be a thing or whatever, and I think we decided that we'd go on a date that Friday. He was so excited to spend time with me that I convinced him to take me to see the new Twilight movie that was coming out.

Josh and Katy's wedding was on Wednesday of that week, I think. Caroline had come into town for it because her family is friends with Katy's family from back in Michigan, and somehow we figured out that she and Spencer were going to the same wedding. I decided to tag along. (I don't usually tag along to family things without knowing the family, so it's weird that I did twice that week.) I went to the wedding reception with Caroline and left with Spencer. It was great. It was probably more awkward seeing the Thornocks that day because on Sunday we were just friends, and then on Wednesday we were a thing or whatever.

Friday was a fun date. The Waltons had given me a gift card for the movie theater, so Spencer brought me to get ice cream and then we went to see the Twilight movie. The movie wasn't that good, but we held hands and I couldn't have been happier.

Anyway, we dated all summer, then off and on for the next 9 months or so. Even when we weren't dating we were still chemistry study buddies and best friends, so we saw each other pretty much every single day. Sometime around Easter I got over a lot of my fear of being in a serious relationship and decided that I wanted to give it a real chance. We officially got back together the night before my 19th birthday and I knew that this would end in marriage or nothing at all. We wouldn't be able to stay friends if we broke up again because neither of us dating anyone else when we broke up before. And that was the entire point of breaking up. A few happy months later we knew this was the real deal and that we were going to get married. It was probably around July or August when we knew, but we didn't tell anyone for a couple more months.

Spencer's the best friend I've ever had, and sometimes it felt like he's the only one I needed. He was endlessly patient with me while we were dating. I think he knew he wanted to marry me for a long time before I was open to the idea at all, but he never said a word because he knew I wasn't ready. He got me through the crazy stress of my first set of midterms and finals (and every set after that), encourages me in my dreams and goals, and makes me smile and laugh every day. His testimony and knowledge of the gospel has amazed me from the week we met, and it still does. I love just being with him and talking to him. We spent hours that first summer in the dorms under our tree just talking. He's the best and I love him so much.

 

 A little adventure we took to see the ducks on campus with Dan and Kara one day.

Oh, and to race paper boats.

Hiking the Y with Pace, Sarah, and Connor. It was such a fun summer. :-)

Minneapolis

On Thursday afternoon we left Ironwood for Minneapolis! I couldn't wait to finally meet those twins and to see all the other kids again. 4 hours of driving isn't bad at all compared to how much we've been driving this trip. Plus, we were listening to Angels and Demons on CD, so that made it go by pretty fast. AnnaMarie kept the kids up so we could see them for a little bit and eat dinner with them before they went to bed. We had shabu shabu, which was so good! I don't think I've had shabu shabu since I lived in Japan. It was so much fun to see the girls and those two boys are so cute! Jane was especially funny. She talks so much now, but can't say half of her consonants. She eagerly volunteered to say the blessing on dinner, and she thanked Heavenly Father than Spencer and I could be there with them then paused for a good 10 seconds to stare at Spencer before finishing. Katie is getting so big. I can't believe she's turning 5 this year. She loves to have treasure hunts, so we joined her in a few each morning. After dinner AnnaMarie put the kids in bed and the four of us played some games together.

On Friday morning Caroline came over with Ryan, Calvin, and Sophie to do my hair and to take some bridal pictures for me. Our picture time was cut a little bit short in December, so I wanted to take some more. Caroline's the best. It was so fun to get back into my wedding dress again. After pictures, we came back and played with the kids for a while and then went to the grocery store all together. Seriously, I don't know how AnnaMarie or Caroline ever go to the store with all of their kids. The kids were good, but it's just a little crazy having 7 kids there, even with 4 adults! Also, you get way more attention from random people with twins than with just one baby. Almost everyone stopped to look at them. We went over to Michael and Caroline's house then and the kids ran around in the sprinkler outside until dinner time. Dad, Benjamin, Christy, and Carolin got there around 7 to join the party.

On Saturday Tyler, Spencer, Dad, and Carolin whet to a Twins baseball game. Dad wanted to take Carolin before she goes home to Germany, and it sounds like she really enjoyed it. Spencer loves baseball, so I think he had fun, and it was his job to explain all the rules to Carolin. :) I stayed with AnnaMarie, Christy, and Katie, Jane, Jack, and Aiden. We went swimming at their new gym. Their kiddy pool is awesome! Christy and Katie played together and Jane and I played together pretty much the whole time. Jane was kinda timid about the kiddy slides and the waterfall things they had at first, but warmed up to them after a while. It was really fun. That evening we hung out at Michael and Caroline's again and Spencer kicked my trash at air hockey. I couldn't even finish the game (3 8 minute periods. We played 2 and I was done.). I started out winning by like 4 points, and then all of a sudden he scores like 6 in a  row on me!

Sunday morning we went to church at AnnaMarie's ward and helped hold the babies. At one point AnnaMarie was out changing Aiden and I was holding Jack. Jack started freaking out so I brought him and and he just cried and cried until AnnaMarie got done changing Aiden. Aiden let me hold him without all that crying. :-) After Sacrament meeting Benjamin, Spencer, and I hit the road. After stopping to get gas and change, then stopping once because Benjamin thought he might have left his external hard drive at the gas station (he actually went into his suitcase in the trunk to take it out, but just zipped it back into the suitcase) we were on our way! In Iowa we had to pull over for a while because it was raining so hard we couldn't see more than 5 feet in front of us with out windshield wipers on high. Then it started hailing. We made it to Gothensburg, NE that night and stayed at a Super 8 (much better than the Motel 6 we stopped at on the way out!). Yesterday we left Gothensburg around 6:30, and after what felt like the longest day of driving we've had this trip, got home by 5. Our trip out was so much fun! It was great to see everyone and take some time off of work before classes start up next week. We're excited to have Benjamin out here at BYU, too! He's going to have such a fun time.  Pictures and more posts will come! The ones about Ironwood and Grand Haven will show up below this one though... I'm working on them.

Ironwood

On Friday night we headed up to Iron Mountain to meet Dad and the kiddos the night before Benjamin's UP Finals Track meet! It was great to see everyone and we got there on Dad's birthday! We didn't really know what to get for Dad so we got him a nice black polo. (I know, lame.) Anyway, we're all sitting down in one of the hotel rooms when I notice that Dad was wearing a black polo exactly like the one we got him!! We had him open it anyway and he just laughed.  Getting him a shirt was a little lame, but getting him a shirt identical to the one he was wearing is worse. Sorry, Dad! We'll do better for Christmas.

Benjamin's meet was a lot of fun to go to. I ran into quite a few people I knew and it was exciting to watch Benjamin high jump. He cleared 6'2" for a 2nd place finish. It was a great day for him, but it was disappointing that the other guy won. One of these days we'll go high jumping at BYU's track together.

Christy and Carolin

Spencer and I left after his first race (he did two races and high jump) to head back to Ironwood so we could see Chantel before she left town. We got there and had time to give him a tour of the town in a fruitless hunt for a pasty place that was not out of business and was open for dinnertime. Okay, so a tour of Ironwood only takes like 30 minutes on foot, but it was fun to show him where I grew up. Ironwood's kinda lame compared to Grand Haven. I had a fun time chatting with Brian and Chantel when they came over. It was really nice to see them. I kinda felt bad for Spencer though. It's not that much fun hanging around talking with people you don't know about a town and people you don't know.

Spencer and I at the falls

For the rest of our stay we tried to find fun things to do. We took a hike to the waterfalls and to copper peak ski flying hill. We would have gone to the beach or something, but it wasn't warm enough for that. We played games with Christy and Carolin. Benjamin stayed pretty busy packing for BYU and finishing up his Eagle Scout stuff. Way to go Benjamin! You got it all done! We ended up cutting our stay in Ironwood a little short to go down to Minneapolis a few days early, which was really good because we got to spend more time with all the little kids and babies.

The UP summed up in a picture. :)

We'll be back to Ironwood in December and we'll have to go skiing or tubing and sledding. It was nice to be back for a while and to see everything that Dad, AnnaMarie, and Caroline had done to the house in the last year though!

Grand Haven

We had so much fun in Grand Haven! It was so good to see everyone and it was fun for me to see Grand Haven in the summer. It is such a fun town! Mikayla was done with school because she was graduating, but Brigham had school, Mom teaches, and Dad and Anna (Spencer's cousin who's staying in Grand Haven for a while) worked during the day, so we got to spend some quality time with Mikayla! We had fun. On Friday we took a walk with Jeter (the dog) to a park and played frisbee until we got kicked out for having a dog with us. Then Dad got home early from work and we all worked on cleaning the boat and getting it ready to go. That night we took it out and went over to the pier to get ice cream. It was a lot of fun, but I just about froze to death. :-)

The Pier

Saturday we went to a White Caps baseball game in Grand Rapids, which was super fun. The White Caps ended up losing, but I didn't care too much. Every Saturday game they do fireworks at the end, so we stayed for those. I don't know why I didn't take any pictures. I need to get better at that.

Church was really nice on Sunday, and Spencer and I even joined the choir because they were singing that day and were a little short on people. After church we played games as a family. We played games pretty much every night together, which is so much fun. Oh, and we got to watch some home videos from when Spencer was little. :-) He was a funny kid. Mom also got a bunch of pictures and albums down so I could look childhood pictures of Spencer. He was a cutie.


Monday was Memorial Day, so everyone was home. We decided it would be fun to go fishing. So we all got up at the crack of dawn, went to buy a day fishing license, and went out on the lake. We didn't catch anything and Mikayla threw up over the side of the boat. Then Anna got sick, and we got our two fishing lines tangled together. We went back in a little after that. :-) I've never caught a fish, and I'm pretty sure I never will. Fishing just doesn't work for me. It was fun though!

Whoo fishing!!

We got back into town and it was like 85 degrees and sunny. It was HOT! So, we decided we should go to the beach! We got to the beach and it was like 70, cloudy, and windy. It was pretty cold, but Brigham and Spencer built an awesome sand castle (again, why didn't I take pictures?) and Mikayla and Anna tried to tan. Through the clouds. We went back to the house where it was still hot and Mikayla, Anna, and I laid out on the deck for a while. I think I managed to get a tan line. Barely. For dinner on Monday Dad got out the dutch oven and made a rice and sausage dish over the fire, then we had s'mores for dessert!

 On Tuesday morning Spencer, Mikayla, and I just hung out for a while. We played the Wii for a while and some Guitar Hero. In the afternoon we went for a walk with Mom around the downtown area. It was fun to see all the little shops. Tuesday night Brigham had baseball practice and Spencer went to that to watch him. I helped Anna stain the house for a while. When they got back Spencer caught for Brigham for a while so he could practice his pitching.

On Wednesday morning Mikayla, Spencer, and I went shopping a little. We got Mom a cute gnome sitting on a mushroom for her front yard for Mother's Day, and we got Dad a new Yankees hat to replace the one he dropped in the lake while we were boating. The only thing that I insisted we do while we were in Grand Haven is go on a date, so for lunch we went to Buffalo Wild Wings together. It was pretty good and it was just fun to have a couple hours together.

That evening we went horseback riding at Kelle's. That was so much fun and Spencer just about got bucked off. Kelle trains horses, and neither of these were totally trained yet. It was nice to see Kelle for a little bit at least. Someday we'll have more time to actually get to know each other. After dinner the whole family went to see the musical fountain downtown. It's the world's largest musical fountain (or it was when they built it). It was a Beatles-themed show.

The Musical Fountain

Thursday was our last day in Grand Haven. Spencer had a dentist appointment in the morning so Mikayla and I just hung out. We ended up talking and losing track of time so we were late picking Spencer up. I felt bad. After we picked Spencer up we went grocery shopping to get stuff for dinner. Spencer and I made some teriyaki chicken and egg rolls for everyone.

Contrats Mikayla!

After dinner we all went over to the high school for Mikayla's graduation. It's not all that exciting watching 400 people graduate, but I was happy we could be there for Mikayla. :) We're excited for her to move to Idaho and be closer to us. It did end up taking us like 45 minutes to get out of the parking lot afterwards though.


Our trip was so much fun! We miss everyone already and can't wait to see you this fall!