the stars are shining

Ok, some of you have already seen this stuff because I put it on facebook. But I'm writing it here. Again. It's just that cool.

I have a little brother. His name is Thomas. He's very not little. He's 16 years old and 6'5" and weighs 243 pounds. He's a giant and always has been. Probably always be, since I'm pretty sure he's not done growing.

He's also a football player. He plays offensive tackle and also something else on the defensive line. He's good. This past weekend ESPN covered his football game against our hometown rival Columbus East and broadcasted it on ESPNU. I don't get that channel, but Jaime's sister does (thank you, Vennesa!) and she kindly recorded it for me. Then I was able to watch part of it on the internet afterwards. It was really fun to see him play. It was my first time because I'm never home during football season. I was supposed to be this year but things didn't quite work out as planned (shocker) so I'm missing it all again. You'd think he'd just play a sport that happens over Christmas break. I mean, geez. But ESPN helped me out and gave me the chance to see my little giant brother play.

AND he's really good, as I mentioned previously, so they did a short feature about him on the website. You can click here to go the website to read it. You have to be an insider to read the full story, though, so I'll just post the text right here for you.

Thomas Shoaf's stock rising
Jared Shanker

Thomas Shoaf of Columbus (Ind.) Columbus North doesn't have any offers yet, but the Class of 2013 prospect is considered one of the region's best and is already starting to get attention from a number of BCS schools. Shoaf, a 6-foot-5, 243-pound offensive tackle, is on the radar of Boston College, BYU, Indiana, Iowa and Utah. "I've talked to Indiana University quite a bit," Shoaf says. "Indiana is pretty interested and would like me to come (visit). I'm a Hoosier over Purdue, definitely, and I've been to a couple games." Shoaf is LDS and much of the family on his mother's side lives in Utah. Shoaf said he visits a few times a year, especially during the winter, as he's an avid skier. His sister also graduated from BYU. "I'm a very big Cougar fan, but I do support Utah, too. They'd kill me if they knew I supported both," joked Shoaf, adding his family is split down the middle when it comes to allegiances. Shoaf's goal is to eventually get to 270 pounds, which would allow him to keep his athleticism, one of his biggest strengths, Columbus North coach Tim Bless said. "He's really athletic, and he moves well," Bless said. "He's got a great frame." Shoaf said he's at his strongest in pass protection but is working to improve his all-around skills. "I'm extremely solid in the pass game and pretty solid on the outside," he said. "My footwork is one of my strongest areas. I put an emphasis everywhere and am trying to get better in all positions."

Isn't that cool? He's famous! And he's legit! And yes, that is me that's mentioned. Too bad I haven't actually graduated yet. Oops. But it sounds nice. His sister graduated from BYU. Yeah. I like that d on the end.
 
What's that? You want to see him in action? Well, here's a link to a video. He's #56 on the white team. You can see him pretty well at about 1:08 and 1:50 rushing the quarterback.
 
In other news, my adorable freshman sister Micah made the soccer team in her first year of high school. Pretty impressive. You can probably see her in that video, too, at the end. I'm sure she was one of those decked out in blue rushing the field.
 
They make it pretty easy to play the proud older sister. Go Bull Dogs!

august of love

Ok, here's the picture post I promised last time! Even more has happened since then, but for now you'll just have to be satisfied with some photos.

A couple days before Aubrey's wedding, Jaime, Aubrey M, Alaina, Dee, Aubrey S, Angela, and I headed up to Cheesecake Factory for a bachelorette party. That's it. We didn't even bring gifts. We just ate delicious food and enjoyed each other's company. Call us lame. That's fine. But it was delightful just the same. And that rhymes.

Then, on August 4, Aubrey and Jason got married. It was the first sealing I'd been to and I loved it. And also, I love them. And they fed us a delicious meal at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building afterwards. Totally worth taking work off.

Here's Aubrey, Erik, Braden, and DeeAura waiting outside for the couple to come out.

Sarah, Angela, and me

And then they came! And then they kissed!  

There were a bazillion other people there and it was a bazillion degrees, but they were the most beautiful couple for sure.

There are only two married girls in this picture. Blows my mind. The boys around here need to take their blinders off. I mean, really.

That unfamiliar guy in the front is their friend Tyson, who is also the friend of several of my friends. He went to St. George with my friends last year, but I wasn't on that trip so I don't know him very well. But he's fun. And nice.

This is the work of Braden. And some other guys. I was really hoping they would accidentally decorate the wrong car. I'm pretty sure they got the right one, though.

That weekend, Angela, Hailey, and I accompanied Jaime to her parents' house for their annual Zogawanna camp. They have a family campout in their backyard. Don't worry, we pulled a futon mattress out to our tent and we all shared it. Much better than sleeping on the ground.

Then we went to California! The very first day we got there we headed down to San Clemente beach.

You can't tell, but somewhere out there are Hailey and Jaime getting beaten to death by the waves as they tried to body surf.

The next day we went to Six Flags Magic Mountain, which was fun except almost all of us weren't feeling too well afterwards. Amusement parks aren't quite as easy to recover from when you're an adult. The day after that, we went boating. I didn't take pictures of any of that. Oops. But that night, we went to an Angels game. I don't have pictures of us there, but here's the field!

Our last full day there was Saturday and we headed down to San Diego. We saw the absolutely gorgeous San Diego temple.

We also went to the Mormon Batallion Museum, which was a lot of fun.

And we became honorary members of the Mormon Batallion. All the glory without the 1000 mile walk. 

The view of Old Town San Diego from the tower. Out of everywhere we went, San Diego was definitely my favorite. 

We went to La Jolla to see the tidal pools. The scene at the beachside park was just out of a movie. So Angela, Jaime, and Hailey joined in the scene. Angela's doing some yoga moves, if you can't tell.

Hailey, Jaime, Angela, and I rode to and from California together. It was a pretty solid foursome.

There are some kind of slimy...I don't know what...things at the beach that you can stick your finger in and they close up around it. Hailey, Angela, and Jaime all did it. I love Hailey's mouth in this picture. I got videos of each of them but they're not that exciting. Sorry. I was hoping they'd have bigger reactions.

Here's the whole group. There were 13 of us that drove down together, and we met Derrick Williams and his sister Jenny down there. They didn't go to San Diego with us, though. Front: Angela, DeeAura, Hailey, Cody, Jaime, me, Keith. Back: Mitch, Adam, Sarah, Merrilee, Aubrey, Erik.

I think they may have hit heads. But they just looked so happy to be together.

Are you kidding with this scenery?

The ocean is a great place to think.

I'd never been to California before so I was pretty excited for the trip. I really liked it, especially the beach. I don't think I could ever live there, though - the traffic is out of control. I'd go insane. I think next time I go to visit, I'll choose one place and stay put. There's so much to see in southern California, and we really tried to see a lot of it which means we were in the car at least a fourth of the time. I don't love the car, so I'd do that differently next time. And I'd spend way more time at the beach. But overall, it was a fabulous first experience with fabulous people!

The same day that we got back we moved into our new house. We've been here a week now and it's finally starting to look homey. There's a lot to do still, so I'll post some pictures a bit later. Last night, though, we hosted a surprise party for DeeAura, whose birthday was on Saturday.

Steve Hall, Aubrey, and Mitch

Adam Ellison and Angela

Lauren Johns and Brittany Percifield, who very recently became Brittany Shane!

Whitney and Jaime with a couple of friends of DeeAura's

Alaina, Becca, Merrilee, and Sarah with the birthday girl

Love these girls!

School started yesterday, but I only have one hour of class a week and it's on Thursday. So my life hasn't really changed except now Jaime's not around as much. I'm definitely a fan of almost being done with school.

i'm not together, but i'm getting there

I haven't blogged forever because I have pictures to post along with the blog posts. I'm moving this week so I packed up everything and moved a lot of it yesterday. Including my camera cord. Oops. So here's a very basic, picture-less update of what's going on. I'll have to do a picture post once I finally get settled.

1. I'm not going to Spain. I've posted before about how I was questioning things and not really sure what to do. I was still on the fence until a couple of weeks ago. I was talking to Jaime about things and how stressed I was about everything. Then it hit me. Spain's a no-go. Even if I were to get the required paperwork done in time (which is looking even more impossible now than ever before since I still haven't received my background check from the US that I was expecting at least two weeks ago), I have no money. There's no way I could live for a few months without getting paid. So I made the decision and started looking at options for this fall, which brings me to number 2.

2. I'm moving. A few friends and I found this great house in west Provo. It's not BYU-approved but getting approval hasn't been too hard. And the lack of BYU approval makes it way cheaper. Friends. This is a legit house! Like with a yard and fence and everything! Once we get in and settled, I'll post some pictures of our cozy home. I'm living with one of my current roommates, Aubrey Shuler (going on three years living together!), Jaime, and Jaime's current roommate and our friend Whitney Ehlers. We're super pumped. I'm just super excited to be done with moving. Definitely on my list of top 5 things I hate doing.

3. This move has been especially stressful because on Tuesday night, I'm leaving with some friends to go to southern California for five days. I've never been to California, so I'm whoa excited. (that was for you, Jaime) I said that in Relief Society today and everyone looked at me like I was crazy. I'm from Indiana, people. We don't go to California. We go to Florida. Anyway, going to California isn't the stressful part. The stressful part is that I have to be out of my apartment on Thursday, which is two days after we leave. We can get into our new house also on Thursday. Two days after I leave. So I have to be completely out of my current apartment before I leave for California but can't move in to my new apartment until after I get back. We finally were able to work it out so we could move most of our stuff into the garage, since the people who still have the lease there aren't even living there anymore. It's still been hard, though, because we had to move most of our stuff on Saturday, but then I had to leave out things for these next few days, then I had to leave out a suitcase for California. It's like packing for three different things at once. Lame. But the worst part is over, and I made it.

4. If you'll remember, my car broke down about a month and a half ago. Inconvenient, yes, but not the end of the world since I was moving to Spain in a couple of months anyway. Can't really drive to Spain. But....now I'm not going to Spain. So that meant I had to get a new car. After several weeks of agonizing car shopping (agonizing because I hate researching and searching for things almost as much as I hate moving), I finally bought a car on Tuesday. It's not anything fancy, just a 1999 Honda Civic. But it works for me and it was even a little less than what I'd been hoping to spend so I'm happy about that. AND this means I am now 100 percent independent of my parents! I was doing ok before, but they still owned my car and paid for the insurance. Not no mo. It only took me 25 years to get here, but man, does it feel good. And man, is it expensive. So now I just need to get rid of my other car. Does anyone want a 1998 Ford Contour that needs a new transmission? You just let me know and I will hook you up.

5. Two of my good friends, Aubrey Morrill and Jason Gillespie, got married last week. I was able to go to the sealing, which was a fabulous experience. They're both wonderful people and they've definitely put in the work to get to this point. I've lived with Aubrey the last few months, which has been a lot of fun. I was worried about living with an engaged girl, but she was anything but a bridezilla. She was actually impressively calm and did so much of everything herself. Even made her own bouquet. Amazing. I'm so proud of them and really excited for their future.

6. This fall I'll still technically be a student at BYU. I was able to work things out to keep my job at the MTC through December and to count that as my internship so I can still graduate in December. That means I only have class for an hour a week and I can only work 20 hours a week since it's an on-campus job. That means I'm going to have a lot of free time. I'm hoping to find another job that's only 10 or 15 hours a week and that's pretty flexible so I can work around my very strange MTC schedule. Any suggestions?

To sum up, I'm still living in Provo. Still a BYU student. Still poor. Someday I'll graduate. And someday I'll get to go home and see my family. Someday.