Scott's Mission Call!!!

So this week Scott my little brother (who happens to be much bigger/stronger than me unfortunatelly) finally got his mission call, which is really funny because I think we got our calls the exact same week in March. So Wednesday, after a disappointing no show, we had to hold our horses for the call, and let me tell you they were dying to get out of the gate. Thursday night he got it. Stew, Emma, and I raced up to Heritage Halls (the best dorms on campus) and he opened it up and started to read... I was sitting right next to him and I ahead silently to myself. Haha, I may have even seen it before him, I don't know. So it turns out he's going to serve in the Auckland, New Zealand Mission! I agree with my Grandma Roylance in saying that it sounds more like a vacation than a mission. Doesn't sound like he's going to suffer too much she said. Apparently Auckland is one of the nicest/wealthiest cities in the world and I guess they eat very well. He's only gonna come back bigger than me and wanting to kick my trash at rugby. I just might have to pass. Son congratulations Big Sexy (Scott) we love you bro!

I got nothing!

Alright everybody, I have to admit this week I have just about nothing to talk about. "I ain't got nothing to say to you!" So here I am just trying to fulfill the assignment before I go to bed. Alright so this week we had our first intramural football game. Yes, this is my sixth intramural team so far this year. It took me a second to count them all up. I'm addicted, what can I say? And there's no intramurals anonymous. Don't judge me. So Barry rounded all the boys up and we hit the new fields up north of campus. I'd never been to them before and so it was fun to see. They're brand new artificial turf fields and a lot of fun to play on. The only thing is they make the field wider for nine on nine. There's a sideline that looks like the actual sideline but turns out it's not. Needless to say, I got confused a few times. It was funny. So after lots of tough D and little scoring we found ourselves up at hafltime 7 to 6. The score didn't change till the end of the game after Ian got in the endzone after a game-clinching intereception by the Big D. So we got in, got out, and went home (which was a good thing because it was really cold). Be sure not to miss next week's action as Da Bears and Luchadores will be ready to put on a show! (Football Thursday at 9; Basketball Thursday at 9) Yeah "we're in a bit of a pickle Dick"...

Alright everybody! This week's post is going to be a quicky. So most of you may know by now that I'm addicted to ultimate! I have to say it is by far the best sport ever invented! It might just be the best innovation since the wheel. If not, it definitely beats currency and fire and all that good stuff. So now that winter is fading fast and spring is knocking on the door, we had a blast playing ultimate Frisbee these last two Saturdays. So both games were "pretty much amazing" which is "pretty much" one of my favorite sayings. That and like. So this Saturday, meaning yesterday, we suited up after a good sleep in. We ran over to Kiwanis Park and found a load of people over there. It wasn't worth staying, so we cut our loses and raced over to the field south of McDonalds. It's "pretty much" the best kept secret in Provo. Let's keep that on the DL. So we got there, picked teams, and started ultimating. It was tons of fun, despite the sunburn on the face. Haha it had been a while since I'd seen any sun. To those of you who didn't join us you should be jealous. It was awesome! Maybe next time yall! Note: Okay this isn't from when we played on Saturday but these are still some of my Frisbee bros! (Fall 2008 Ultimate Intramural Team)

Chuck, Bowling, and our Not-So Devastating Loss

Okay "gente" (that's what we call everybody who's listening in Portuguese, or it can just mean the good people). So quite a few random things occurred this week, all of which are worth mentioning. I did take a big grammar test for Management Communication, so hopefully you'll notice that my grammar is a wee bit better than normal.

We'll start with Chuck our beloved fish. A couple of weeks ago-ish, a handsome looking fish mysteriously showed up at our doorstep. When we opened the door, he was innocently floating there in his azul-colored fish bowl. We couldn't believe someone would just abondon him there like that, so we had to take him in. Fortunately, the atrocious abandoners left what little food they had left to help support Chuck. This most surely was an attempt to ease the burden of their guilt. Apparently they just didn't have what it takes to take care of the guy. Moving on, we had a great week or two with Chuck. He loved watching ESPN with us and wasn't ever annoying. Sadly, after one cleaning of the fish bowl we couldn't take it anymore and the chore of feeding him every day became almost unbearable. We would have put up with it, as to not lower ourselves to the anonimous donor's level, but we realized it was against Liberty Square Management's rules. Being such obedient individuals as well as law-abiding citizens, we were forced to solve the sensitive situation. I deposited Chuck in the toilet and Stew flushed. If we go to hell at least we'll be there together. It was tough but in the end I know we did the better thing.

Sports Center:
Okay this week was a good one in Provo's world of sports. Tuesday we had our Liberty Square Championship game. Unfortunately it didn't quite go as planned. When we got there we found ourselves in a little bit of a mismatch, and we just couldn't quite pull off the upset. We played against a bunch of cocky "safados" with very low IQ's. In the end they won, but little did they know we came out with the real prize. So they may have won the 100 dollar prize divided by ten people, but we got a free large pizza each...much better deal! We actually meant to lose. Oh, and by the way, the meat-lover's pizza was to-die-for. Although we ended up as the runner-up we're still making fame with our picture in the Liberty Square Office. You should all check it out sometime. Basketball on the other hand was a big success. Saturday morning at 9 in the morning we showed up a stuck it to them. Only six of our players showed up, but that turned out to be perfect. We rarely had to sit out, and when we did we wanted to. After the beat down was over the score was 63-33. Good work team!

Okay Bowling was great! We'll have to talk about that one later.

TEAM JOSH DANCE!

So back tracking about a month or two, I have to recount the biggest feat of the semester, even though I'm sure you've all heard me talk about it more than I should. So midway through fall semester we had this great idea of creating a ward co-ed volleyball team. Stroke of genius! So after a long and hard-fought recruiting battle we landed all of the 5 star recruits (Ian, Josh, Erin, Kim, Brett and I jumped on first) and we were later able to steal Erin, Megan, and Jordan) before the end of signing day. Props to all for the amazing recruiting job. So both of the Erins, being our hard-core volleyball junkies decided to whip us into shape and make us practice. Haha, so apparently there are positions and rotations in volleyball, there are even rules! Who would have guessed? Anyways so after a little work we entered into regular season play. Before continuing we can't forget to extend our thanks to Josh of Washington for being the early bird and getting the team schedule for us. In honor of the act (actually it was a mistake) we were dubbed "Team Josh Dance". Going into the season we met very little competition. Our veterans on the team were a little bit upset over the lack of competition but fortunately they got over it. We told them to breath deep, be patient, and that everything would be okay. Thankfully it all worked out. So to sum things up, we made it through the season (5 games plus an extra) unscathed and with a perfect record. We didn't even lose a game. At the end of the season we were ranked halfway through Division II and were excited about the competition as we had only been playing what seemed like the worst of Division III. But by the time the bracket came out, we were mysteriously bumped back down to Division III again (there are four divisions). We weren't really sure how that one happened, but weren't too upset as the prospect of plundering the highly coveted intramural champion t-shirt was too enticing. Tournament play started and once again we started to dominate the 64 team bracket. After easily winning three games, the tourney became a double elimination tournament of 8 teams. Next there was a fluke and we somehow managed to lose our the first game of double elimination play. It was all pretty chaotic, some people were injured, some didn't show, and moral was down. It was a pretty bleak time for Team Josh Dance. The true story behind it all is we wanted to play as many games as possible. If we lost our first game in the double elimnation tournament that would mean we would get 2 more games than if we would have just one it outright. After losing the first game we came back through the loser's bracket and made our way into the championship game with the team that originally sent us to the loser's bracket. We would have to beat them twice being it was a doulbe elmination tournament and they hadn't lost yet. We only had one loss to give or it was over. So with all of our many friends and family for support up in the Richard's Building the showdown commenced. The rival team laughed and scoffed at us, assuming we were an easy pushy, and that we would just roll over and die. Much to their dismay we came out of our cages like lions and found our groove. They really didn't know what hit them. Somewhat shocked and taken aback they let the first set go in just 2 games. Getting that out of the way we made it to the real championship match. Best of three games. Now that the stakes were high and all of the chips were on the table we went at it like Gladiators fighting to the death. After a bit we found ourselves one game to one, headed for a third and final game to just 15 to determine the champion. It couldn't have been more intense. As the enemy came out quick we found ourselves in a big hole with little hope for escape. At one point we were down 6-10, and my expectations for the season had just about vanished. Then a miracle happened. With Jordan up to serve with us down a few points we leaned in and gave it to them. After a few consecutive socks in the face and a final mishap on their part we realized to our atonishment that we had won. We overcame the odds, and accomplished the seemingly impossible. After the dust had settled the score was 15-13 in favor of Team Josh Dance. After much rejoicing (involving many tears and embracing) we claimed our prize. Veni Vedi Vici. We came we saw and we conquered and headed off to Dairy Queen with our heads held high. Well now that this is getting to long I better stop. 2 months later we find the team reunited with a name change and a few new personnel. Tuesday we play for the Liberty Square Championship and we admit we are very curious to see how big the "cash-money prize" will be.

Night Skiing @ Brighton

Who went snowboarding at Brighton on Friday night? I did! And it was a lot of fun. Two weeks ago we went up to X96 and got our "freeloader" passes, getting us a 2 for 1 deal at Brighton (night skiing). So saving a dime or two, we had a blast up on the slopes. Having had so much fun the first time, we had decided for the repeat, the double or nothing, the encore, the "please sir may I have so more". The do it again. "Do it"! Okay so it was a blast the first time and even better the second. Eric, Kevin, Tiffani, Kim, Ian, Abby, Josh, Kristina, Bekah, and I smashed into Eric's and Ian's cars and after a quick pit stop at Sevvy, we headed for the canyon. After winding our way up Big Cottonwood Canyon, while listening to a little Aerosmith, EFY, Rascall Flatts, you name it; we arrived at our destination. We made it up around 4 or 5 o'clock and we didn't slow down till it was over at 9. It was a quick 4 hours.
So just for the record, I am proud to announce that I did make it down my first black diamond even though I didn't take it very fast. I kind of just mozzied on down heel side. This was mostly due to Ian and Eric's encouragement. It was still a lot of fun and I was really proud of myself. It was only my second time going snowboarding since I've been home. The first time I went two weeks ago was relearning time (not that I knew really well in the first place ), but this time I was really getting back into it. I even impressed myself, well at least after we got going a bit. I admit Tiffani and I took a spill coming off of the lift. I also plead not guilty to the fault, but then again so did O.J. I only took a few plunges, but those weren't enough to get or keep me down. Unfortunately my board did catch a few times but let's not worry about that now. When we were done we cruised back down to Provo and topped the night off with some Little Caesar's pizza and a little bit of Bargs. It was a good night!

Xtreme Sledding!

Alright so it's late Friday night, and passed curfew so naturally I'm bored at home looking for something other to do than go to bed, which, yes, would be the rational thing to do. Too bad that's left me. So a couple of weeks ago, due to a stroke of genius, we had a showdown with Rock Canyon Park, north of the temple in Provo. After rounding up the troops (all my brothers and sisters from the BYU 165th Ward, i.e. Liberty Square East side) and arming them with the slickest of sleds, we boogied it up to the ice bowl. After taking a few glamor shots we decided to get down to the nitty gritty. One of the most legitimate of sources known to me, my roommate Ryan Stewart, reported the following:

"Have you ever been sledding on pure ice... i have! oh and was it fun! let me just replay some of the amazing highlights!

1. a overused iced over sledding hill

2. 4 girls, 1 sled, a huge jump and about 5 feet of air!

3. brandon screaming LOOKOUT before hitting 3 random kids at the bottom of the hill.

4. our "see who can sled the farthest" contest especially when brandon dived onto his sled after sprinting 20 feet and aim himself at the biggest ice jump on the hill.

5. jeff's last run of the day (he came back to the car with a bloody fat lip)" (emphasis by author)

Injury Report: (with explanation in parenthesis)
Sara Callan- bruised buttocks (see Stewart, #2), out 2-3 business days
Brandon Snow- bruised ego and shoulder (lost to Stew in the distance competition, and almost literally crashed and burned in the attempt to outdo him, see Stewart #4), will remain bruised until a run of equal or greater distance is reached
Jeff Hanson- fat/bloody lip (couldn't help but go out with a bang), due to recent events, we're pretty sure that lip is undergoing "treatment" (wink wink) and should be just fine.
3 random more than likely freshman- status unknown (see Stewart #3), required treatment: ummm, whatever they do to make bowling pins feel better, let's just say they won't be back anytime soon!

So that basically covers the gist of the expedition. Stay tuned for further extravaganzas on ice!