Been Long Enough?

Did you miss me? I know at least some of you have. I was planning on going as long as it took for Dania to mention it in one of our conversations, but she hasn't. After this blog was mentioned in Andrew Woodruff's fantastic blog, however, I decided my loyal readership deserved a post.

Because of the long break, I actually have stuff in my life that has happened. Let's see...My first ever niece was born on March 15. She's such an adorable little girl. I adore her. Babies seem to almost have magical powers. When I went and visited my brother three days after she was born to see her, I was grinning from ear to ear the whole time. Partially because we were talking about some funny stories, but mostly just because I was holding my little niece. I'm man enough to admit that I love babies. Maybe not as much as girls seem to, but I really do.

Additionally, I was accepted to Phi Eta Sigma. It's the freshman honors society at BYU. I was kind of surprised because I didn't have a stellar first semester of college, but they accepted me anyway. I guess I'm continuing my high school tradition of receiving honors while still giving sub-par effort. Speaking of sub-par effort, my first year of college is done! I finished my last final yesterday morning. It's kind of wake-up call that I really am an adult now. I've moved back home for the summer, and now I get to look forward to the sometimes-arduous process of finding a job. Yippee. Said goodbye to a lot of good friends, some of which I won't see again for another three years due to missions, and some who I may never see again, even though we'll be going to the same school. College friends are just like that. Unlike in high school, you really have to work if you want to stick with the friends you make. Especially with a four month break where you all go back home to various areas of the country and the world, it takes determination. Luckily, we have such ease of communication these days, that it's really not all that hard to do.

Before I started taking finals, though, I spent my "reading days" doing some very excellent activities. Thursday was spent at the aforementioned Andrew Woodruff's house doing a The Lord of the Rings Extended Edition Marathon. It was a fantastic event. Kudos to Andrew, Aaron Wheatley, me, and my friend from college CaryLynn Jensen that I brought along for sticking out all 11+ hours. We even watched to the end of the credits of Return of the King, which took a long time because it listed all the members of the official Lord of the Rings fan club. Lots of good memories from that day. It takes a lot of dedication to sit through all of those movies, so those who do are big fans of both the movies and the books. It was fun to talk about all the things they put in and the little nit-picky details. And we cracked our fair share of jokes too. If Andrew or Aaron ever become general authorities, be sure to pay attention to their talks.

After that lazy, couch-potato day, I went out and played frisbee the next morning. I love that sport. It is the best sport on earth that I have played. It combines the motion of basketball, the precision of football, and the back-and-forth pace of soccer. If you have never played ultimate frisbee, you need to. If you do play ultimate frisbee, let me know when so that I can join. I ran myself into the ground last Friday morning, and to a lesser extent Saturday as well, but it was so worth it.