BYU Homecoming 2012

This would've been the first homecoming weekend where I wasn't around in awhile. I guess I missed 2008 when I was in China, but besides that it's been straight since 2006. So much fun! My parents always go up for it (not when they were in Mexico, obviously...) and I wanted to be part of the fun, as always. Brandon and family usually go up too but they didn't this year. So them and Kase were missing :( Brad and Carli are legit professional travelers and they are always everywhere, so they came too.

Getting there was a little adventure. I'd been riding the Greyhound quite a bit because it's the cheapest way to get to Phoenix whenever I fly out or go to see family in the valley (like $18 or something). My parents were in Vegas the week before doing some campaigning for Mitt Romney, so I took a greyhound to Vegas. I actually felt the most safe on that bus ride than I have on any other, which is funny because I sat next to kids who were headed to Vegas for one of their 21st birthdays and offered me some of their pre-party alcohol, I guess. They were white though (sounds bad....I know.....) and were about my age and a few were visiting from Australia. It was from 3am - 7am. "You get what you pay for." It was fine.

Drove to Utah with my parents and Aunt Pam. I love her. Bought her book she just wrote, called Promises of the Constitution. While I still have yet to get past the first few pages (I need to learn to make time to read) I've enjoyed it so far. It breaks the Constitution down into short parts and then explains those with 500 word descriptions. Something along those lines. I'm excited to read more of it. She knows so much when it comes to this stuff. I try to pick her brain every time I'm with her.

We had a great time. Got there on Friday and I got to see Tara and Kristin on campus. 

 "1, 2, 3, Kristin's pregnant!"

 WHAT!!! She doesn't even want kids, ha. But her husband is "going to make her," as she says. The story is that she was off birth control for a week. She just didn't get around to refilling her prescription. How in the world does that happen? She's wasn't too excited about it, so we tried to make up for her lack of excitement :)

When I saw Tara at the Wilk she was going to tell me she was pregnant, but after we were talking about Kristin's unwanted pregnancy she thought it would be awkward to tell me so she didn't say anything. She should've :( but I was soo happy for her! Her daughter, Hazel, was only 9 months old at the time though...crazy girl!

Homecoming parade: the BYU basketball float

 And this is by far my favorite picture of the whole weekend. Henry had a balloon and accidentally let it go after the parade passed. And of course Papa, being the animated man he is when it comes to his grandkids, was right there with Henry. How upsetting for poor Hens. Haha hilarious and so cute!

BYU Homecoming game: The Women's Basketball Team was recognized on the field at half time. "Freshman, 6'1" Broookkeee Roommmmneeyy!"

Run it, Fruk!

She failed at throwing the shirt (or whatever it was) to us. Thanks...

 The crew, minus Erika. I think Annie was sleeping. Cousin Josh at the top.

With our wonderful family friend (and Brooke's BFF), Catherine Asay

I wish I would've had time to see more friends but I got to see a few and loved it! We celebrated Erika's birthday as well, which was fun. We went to the movie Pitch Perfect, and I missed half of it because I was getting ice cream with Abby :) I liked the movie much more when I saw it later, edited. :) Hydee just had a baby so BATH didn't get together and I wanted to go see Hydee and her new boy Dawson but we couldn't make it work. Hard when you don't really have a car that's yours.

OK fine, my other favorite picture of the weekend. This little boy is SOOOO animated and personalitiful (yes, I just made that up)! When you ask him to smile, you get this face :) Ooh the Hens

I rode back to Las Vegas with my family because we have family there and Brandon Flowers (lead singer in the band The Killers) who is LDS was speaking at a youth fireside, along with his wife who is a recent convert. My Uncle is in the Stake Presidency and hooked us up with backstage passes (you weren't allowed to take pictures at all during the fireside). So we got one afterwards! We actually had to ask someone else to take a picture of us on their phone and send it to us, since no cameras or camera phones were allowed in. Lucky for us it worked out!

 It was awesome to hear his story of how he came back to the church, and his wife's story of how she converted. So cute. Bryce is a huge Killers fan and says that he could tell in their music that Brandon was LDS and was coming back to the church before he even found that out, just in the stuff he writes about in his songs. Brandon mentioned that at the fireside as well. That's pretty cool. Bryce got his autograph but when he went to ask him for it, his hand was all shaky and his voice was all high, he was so nervous. I made a comment to Brandon Flowers something along the lines of, "Bryce is ssooo excited to meet you, if you can't tell." Bryce got embarrassed and got mad at me later, ha. Just sticking to my role as big sister :)

Such a fun trip! Just like all of them :) I flew straight from Vegas to Chicago - next post!