The Christmas season is finally here!

Last Thursday was a great feeling. I finally turned in all of my assignments for the semester and now I can finally start focusing my attention on two things: (1) Christmas, and (2) Finals. This past week Jill and I journeyed across the street, over to Smith's grocery store to buy our first Christmas tree. We also drove to a couple stores to get a tree stand, lights, and some ornaments--it's finally starting to feel like Christmas! What really made the season feel more like Christmas though was going to the annual Bonneville stake Christmas concert to see Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband, Sam Payne, and many other famous LDS irish music ensemble musicians. They performed many traditional Christmas songs and hymns while also adding their "bluegrass" flavor, which made the performance all the more better. It was a great show that helped me really start feeling the Christmas spirit this season.

The hard part of this time of year is trying to balance the joy of the Christmas season while preparing for a stressful week of finals. Christmas is associated with love, service, giving, gratitude, and peace while finals week is associated with stress, hatred, frustration, and...well...anything BUT being happy...except for when the week is over. When I compare these two opposites, it's hard to focus on the positive but I've decided to anyways. I've realized that it's such a huge blessing to be a student at BYU and to be able to further my education and become a better person. Finals is a stressful time but I'm becoming a better person because of these tests--and isn't that what life's all about--become a better person? I've said goodbye to Jill for the week because I'll only see her for a few hours at most but when the week is over, It's Christmas time..and let the joy begin!

My Grandma

Tonight Jill and I went to Salt Lake City to see the First Presidency Christmas devotional and it was amazing. And as great as it was, my favorite part of the night wasn't the devotional. It was being able to visit with my Grandma, who lives in Salt Lake, a couple hours before the devotional and being able to catch up with her.

My Grandma is such an amazing person. She treats everyone so respectfully and wouldn't say a negative thing about a single person. She's had some pretty difficult trials this past year but it seems like she is still loving life and living each day with a full heart of joy one step at a time. Even for the sweetest, kindest, and most patient person, there are still times when life can be stressful and we wanted to make sure that she wasn't going to have a stressful start to her Christmas season. I feel like I am pretty much at the peak of my stress level when it comes to finals (which are right around the corner) and Jill and I thought it would be a good idea to focus on my Grandma instead of focusing on ourselves.

Jill makes DELICIOUS no-bake cookies so we decided to take a few of the cookies to my grandma before we went to the devotional, along with a Christmas flower arrangement that I made in my floral design class earlier in the week. When we arrived at her house she answered the door with a pleasantly surprised look on her face and anxiously told us to come in. We sat in her living room and talked for about 45 minutes before we had to go but it was so fun to see her reaction to our surprise visit and little gifts. She was so happy to see us and loved telling us stories about the family and how well everyone is doing. I love my grandma for the amazing person that she is and the example that she gives me of being a Christ-like individual--full of love and patience. I'm glad that we could spread a little Christmas cheer to her and hopefully get her holiday season off to a good start

Black Friday....not the best experience

Jill and I went shopping on Friday, hoping that we would find a bunch of great deals.....Although we did find a couple, Friday was just another ordinary shopping day. There was something a little different about black Friday though, and it wasn't the deals. It was the long lines that we had to wait in, the traffic jams that we were stuck in, and claustrophobia kicking in every store that we entered because stores were so packed with people.

The first mistake that I made was bringing Jill to shop with me when I was shopping for an item that I wanted to get her. I thought that I had a great idea by dropping Jill off at the Fashion Show Mall on the Las Vegas strip and then going to my "secret store" to buy her "secret gift". The idea was a good one and Jill had no idea where I was going or what I was doing but after realizing that I left my wallet in Jill's purse when I was checking out at the "secret store", I knew that this was going to be a long day.  I had the store put the items on hold that I had picked out for Jill, hoping to return in about an hour.....that didn't quite happen. The store that I was at was only about five miles away from the Fashion Show Mall but it took me about half an hour to get there because of all the traffic. When I got to the mall, I called Jill hoping to meet up with her but quickly found out that her phone had died while she was in the mall. After several minutes of searching for Jill, She called me back with what little juice she could squeeze out of her cell phone battery. I found her in Forever 21, a store that we ended up shopping in for another 2 1/2 hours--not the best store to get stuck in for a guy. We stayed at the mall for about another hour after we left forever 21 and then headed back to the "secret store" to get the present that I placed on hold for Jill. Since I'm not too familiar with Las Vegas, I ended up taking a wrong turn to the store and had to drive an extra 45 minutes in order to get back on track and to the "secret store". When we got to the store, I bought the items that I had picked out and brought them out to the car only to find out that the items wouldn't fit it the car. And the whole time I was in the store and bringing out the gifts that I got for Jill, she had to close her eyes so she wouldn't ruin the surprise. Because the items wouldn't fit in the car, we had to go home empty handed and waste a good two hours trying to find this store and having to go there twice because I forgot my wallet the first time. Black Friday definitely wasn't the best experience this year.

Happy One Year Jilly!

One year ago today marks the best day of my life, the day that I married my best friend, Jill Dutson. Right now we're in Las Vegas, visiting Jill's family and in a few hours, we'll be off to celebrate our anniversary on the Las Vegas strip for a couple days.

Before I got married, I heard from a bunch of people of how hard the first year of marriage is and how you figure out who the "real" person is that you married. I can definitely say that the first year of marriage has been the best year of my life and has been nothing but bliss. And the only thing extra that I've "really" learned about Jill, is more of what I learned about myself. And that is not knowing that I could really care and love for someone as much as I do for her. I don't mean to be all mushy and stuff but I really love this girl. Of course marriage has it's challenges but I'd rather look at them as learning experiences and ways to grow both as individuals and together. 

Now that we've had the best year of marriage, we can put it behind  us and now make the second year our new best along with every year that follows. I love you Jill--you're my best friend.

Greetings from Ohio

Jill got her first shot at an interview for PA (physician's assistant) school this weekend in Marietta, Ohio. She was preparing all week long doing mock interviews with me, other family members, and my professor, who was kind enough to sit down with Jill and walk her through the interview experience. Good thing she decided to do all the preparing because it definitely paid off--she rocked it in her interview! 

The whole trip was quite the traveling experience. Thursday night, Jill and I drove down to Las Vegas to meet Jill's parents, who were coming with us. We woke up early the next morning to catch our first flight, which took off around 8:00 that morning. Throughout the rest of the day, we were making stops in Los Angeles, Cleveland, Columbus, and finally, Marietta. While driving to Marietta, we realized that it was 11/11/11 and that in a few minutes it would be 11:11. We decided to celebrate by going through McDonald's and all order hot fudge sundaes with french fries. The whole experience was pretty crazy funny but at least we can say that we took time to celebrate 11/11/11 @ 11:11.

 

The next day while Jill was in her interview, Jill's parents and I decided to tour around the town a little bit and then we decided to go down into West Virginia to check out an oil and gas museum. It was really fun to travel around the area that Jill and I could potentially be living in for the next couple of years. Jill finished up the interview by around 3:30 and then hopped in the car with us to drive up to Columbus. During the drive, Jill told us of the different experiences that she had and told us that she should be getting a letter in the mail within the next couple weeks letting her know if she's accepted or not.--so stay tuned!

We finished the night by going out to eat, stopping at Tim Hortons doughnuts, and watching the BYU football game at our downtown hotel. What a day! The next day we got up for church, stopped by the Columbus temple, ate at the"famous" Waffle House, and now I'm in the airport, writing my blog, and ready to go home and sleep. But the traveling doesn't stop here. We will be arriving in Las Vegas around 9:30 tonight and will be pulling up to Provo tomorrow morning around 4:30 in the morning. Let's just hope that there's no snow and ice on the roads...

Lessons from John

Jill and I have an elderly friend, John, who we visit once a week. When we're hanging out with John, we usually let him do most of the talking because he doesn't have anyone to talk to for the most part throughout the week. He talks to us about his love of fishing and catching fish in the ocean as a kid. He talks to us about how he's won awards for tennis, golf, and shooting. He talks about his service in the military, his love for his pet bird, how he likes to collect pictures of lighthouses, and really, anything to do with a lighthouse. John seems to be a pretty happy man at 81 years old.

The one thing, though, that's missing from John's life are his kids. His three kids are all alive and well but he mentioned to us that he's lived in Provo for seven years and that he can count on his fingers the number of times that he's either seen his kids or heard from his kids in the past seven years. When John was telling us about this empty part of his life, Jill and I were both squirming a little in our seats for a couple reasons. First; we obviously felt terrible for John and wondered how his kids could really neglect him. John is perfectly fine at 81years old. He has a sharp mind, he's social, and it's actually a lot of fun to be around him. Second; it made us realize how important our parents are to us and how we would never want to neglect them.

John seemed to understand that his kids have been busy with their own families and careers but he told us that all he's wished for has been a phone call, a hand-written letter, or a visit.We, of course, can't solve John's problem of not being able to see his kids that often but we can definitely be a friend to him by spending time with him. Although he is sad about not seeing his kids, he seems to keep himself pretty busy by going on long walks with a cart that he's made. This is no ordinary shopping car of sorts--it's basically a survival cart. Attached to his cart are several things; an umbrella, a flashlight, a chair- just in case he wants to rest from walking, two cup holders, a cane-not for walking but "for hitting dogs", reflectors, and an American flag.

John, Jill, and I have become good friends over the course of a few weeks. We find his stories really interesting and like I said, he is a fun guy to hangout with. Most importantly he's been teaching us lessons that he hasn't realized he's been teaching. He's helped us understand even more how important family is and to always stay close with family. Jill and I are really close with our families. We always want to spend time with them and if we had it our way, we would always be with them. Unfortunately things get in the way like school.....work.....and.......school. We love both school and work but we love our families more and are excited to be close with them forever.

What friends are for

Two years ago this past weekend would have been filled with dressing up in costumes, going to dance parties, eating all the candy that I could hold down, and washing down the candy with ice cold root beer while staying up until four in the morning. Now that I've gotten married, things have slightly changed....in a good way.

The weekend started off great with our team winning our last flag football game of the season on Friday night. It's been tradition this year to go to Denny's afterwards and reward ourselves with our outstanding play (even though we only won half of our games this year, we still like to give ourselves a pat on the back). Then comes Saturday, the day that is supposed to be set aside as my designated homework day. Instead of homework though, two of my best friends and I decided to go fishing up at Strawberry reservoir. It was a good decision. I feel like I haven't taken too many weekends off from school this semester and fishing was exactly what I needed. I've really only been fishing about three times in my life, as opposed to my friends who are pretty experienced fishers, but who could pass up a good relaxing trip to hangout with some old time buddies for the day. On the way up, we stopped at a gas station to fill up on snacks and junk food and just talked about old times as roommates. When we got the the reservoir, we set up our poles and headed off to our spots to catch some trout. Within half an hour, Nate had the first bite and ended up reeling in a good 20 inch or so rainbow trout. Nate (who is definitely the most experienced fisher out of us three) got the second bite of the day and called me over to come real in the fish. As I was reeling the fish in, we realized how big this sucker was. After a good 5 minutes of tiring the fish out, we got it to shore and labeled it the "trophy fish" of the week. It was a big 24 inch cut throat trout. Even though Nate did the work of getting the fish hooked, he still labeled the trout "Aaron's fish". It was kind of cool because it was the definitely the biggest fish that I've reeled in from anything outside of the ocean. Even though it wasn't really my catch, he let me take the pole and real in the biggest catch of the weekend. I guess that's what friends are for. The rest of the day was filled with a few hours of only a couple more bites, some chilly weather, and a lot of time to think while staring at my bobber to see if any fish were taking the bate.

Even though this weekend wasn't filled with dance parties, haunted houses, candy, and soda, I still had the best weekend because of the time spent with friends, family, and my best friend, Jilly, who I was with pretty much the whole time--except for fishing--sorry Jilly, guys only. Who needs dance parties and costumes on Halloween weekend when you have friends and a wife like mine--who really make every weekend the best weekend.

The balancing act

This past week has been stressful. The week was filled with tests, homework assignments, projects, and work. I didn't get to see to much of my wife or my friends throughout the week either. Good thing that we  have Sunday.

Tonight Jill and I went over to her sister's house to celebrate our niece's birthday. We had to dress up in costumes because the birthday party had a Halloween theme to it. I loved seeing how excited our niece was to see everyone arrive to the party all dressed up in costumes for the night and to see her try and figure out what everyone was dressed up as. What I thought was more fun though was actually dressing up for the party. I honestly haven't gotten all dressed up in a Halloween costume in a long time. It brought back memories from High School and from my freshman year here at BYU....ahh the good ol' days. 

What I love most about these family get-togethers on my wife's side of the family are the games and prizes. Tonight, we had a dance contest, a contest to see who could throw the most pennies into a jack-o-lantern, and, my favorite, a contest to see who could stack three golf balls on top of each other the fastest. The golf ball contest was my favorite. It took a lot of concentration and a lot of time, but I was able to finally do it. I knew a lot of people probably wouldn't believe me when I told them about the balancing act but here's the proof...

Yep, that's three golf balls stacked one of top of the other. It can be done!

Gift from a Stranger

Recently, Jill and I have been trying hard to get to know the people around us. We live in a little 8-plex apartment and within the past month or so, we have had about six vacant apartments filled with new neighbors. We have gone out to dinner with one of the couples, have had the girl downstairs over for dinner, and tonight we had our two neighbors from Central America over for dinner. I've really enjoyed meeting our new neighbors and becoming friends with them.

We had a lot of left over brownies after tonight's dinner. So we decided to take them to the last neighbor's house who we haven't had the chance to meet yet. They just moved in and from the sounds of it, they didn't know too many of the neighbors.They seemed pretty happy to meet me...or....maybe they were happy to get some delicious peanut butter chocolate chunk brownies. Either way, I'm glad that I was able to reach out to our neighbors and bring them something nice.

Reflecting back on my childhood, I remember doing this same thing around Christmas time. That year, my family was trying to think of who to do the "12 days of Christmas" for. The "12 days of Christmas" is the concept of giving a gift to family member or friend for each of the 12 days before Christmas. That year, we decided to do the 12 days of Christmas for my aunt, Yvonne. She was about 80 years old or so and lived alone. Starting on the 14th of December, my family would bring a gift each day to my aunt Yvonne all the way up until Christmas day. When we left a gift, it was usually just me, my brothers, and my sister. We would quietly tip-toe from our car up to her front door, knock on the door, leave the gift and hide behind her fence. It was funny to us kids how Yvonne would always look around her apartment door for the person dropping off the gifts each night. Little did we know how much of an impact it had on her. Within the next year, Yvonne passed away. As our family was cleaning out her apartment, my mom stumbled across a letter that was written by Yvonne. The letter was intended for her "secret friends" who dropped off gifts each day leading up to Christmas. Tears filled my mom's eyes as she read the letter that was written out of love for these "strangers."

It's amazing how a small unanticipated gift can bring someone so much happiness. A couple of brownies from me to my new neighbors may seem like nothing. But who knows, maybe those brownies are just what they needed.

nieces and nephews

It's amazing how many titles that you take on when you marry into a new family. When I got married, I was instantly someone else's new son, grandson, brother, cousin, and uncle. The title that I love the most is uncle. On my side of the family, I don't have any nieces or nephews. But since my wedding, I now have 6 nieces and nephews on my wife's side of the family. They are quite the joy in life. On Friday night, I got to babysit one of my nieces and one of my nephews. My little two year old nephew, Edge (it's a different name but I like it), followed me around everywhere I went. It was like having a mini me in the house for a few hours. If I was on the couch watching the BYU football game and he wanted my attention, he would pull my fingers and drag me around the house wherever he wanted to go. It was fun to see his sense of wonder that he had. I tried to put myself in his shoes and see the world through his eyes and let me tell you, life is great at age two. We had some good bonding time while we were together. It's an exciting thought for me to be able to watch these kids grow up even though I'm not part of their "blood related" family.

 I was at another sister in laws house tonight for sunday dinner. They have been married for about seven years and have three kids. One of the little girls, Gracie, and I were playing on the couch together and she looked at me and said, "Anon (it's her way of saying Aaron) you're my favorite aunt!" Everyone in the room just busted up laughing. She realized what she said was wrong and changed her statement to "uncle". It was pretty funny. I may not really be her favorite uncle (or aunt for that matter), but tonight was my night to be the favorite.

Even though I've only known these kids for a short period of time, I love them like they were my own. They are just a little extra light for me and my wife to have each week when we visit them over the weekends to play. I love having them in my life because they seem to teach me new things every time I'm with them and instill within me a sense of wonder that I have seemed to have lost since being a little boy.

Gratitude

The last five or so years of my life has changed me dramatically. Just over five years ago, I was in high school and I had no idea what direction my life was heading in. More importantly, I had no idea how many blessings were in store for me. I started off my senior year of high school by earning my Eagle Scout, an accomplishment that I never thought I would achieve. Around November time in 2005, I was accepted into BYU, which to me, was a long shot. I also graduated high school and found a job going into my first year at BYU. While at BYU my freshman year, I received my mission call to serve in the New York Utica Mission. I was ecstatic at the chance to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ for two years of my life out East and considered it to be a great opportunity and blessing. The principles that I learned and growth that I experienced  while on my mission has changed my life forever and has helped me gain a more eternal perspective on life. About a year after I got home from my mission, I met the woman of my dreams, Jill Dutson, and we got married on 20 November 2010. I consider this the greatest blessing of my life, and I always will. I was also blessed with the abilities to start a small window washing business and learn some of the basic skills of business and networking. I'm so full of gratitude for these blessings that I have received over the past years. I would have never imagined myself in the position that I am in now when I was a senior in high school just over five years ago. I am grateful for the God who gave me life and who continues to support me in everything that I do. For all of these blessings that I have received and that I continue to receive, I owe it to Him, my Father in heaven.

Money Ball

Yesterday (Saturday) I went to see the movie, "Money Ball" in theaters. I give the movie an enthusiastic two thumbs up. It's about the the story of the General Manager of the Oakland Athletics, a major league baseball team. It's about how major league baseball can be unfair as far as paying for players. For example, the New York Yankees pay out over two hundred million dollars total each year two their players. On the other hand, you have the Oakland Athletics, a small market team, that pays their players about 50 million dollars a year total. It's hard to compete in major league baseball if you're a small market team and can't buy the right players for your ball club like a big money market team can like the Yankees or the Red Sox. This story is about a General Manager, Billy Beane, who figures out a mathematic way to reorganize his baseball team, the Oakland Athletics. Since he doesn't have the money to sign the all star baseball athletes, he signs players that are the best position for their value. He starts by using the "on base percentage method". His goal is to win. In baseball, a team can win if they score runs and you score runs by getting on base. Thus, his goal is to look for the best players that he can afford, who get on base the most. His theory doesn't work out for the first few weeks of the season but in the long run, it works wonders for the Oakland Athletics as they go on to win 20 consecutive games that season (a major league record). I don't want to say too much more because I don't want to give the movie away but it's an inspirational movie that makes you really think outside the box. Go see the movie!!

Here's to you, Jill

 Before I got married, I constantly heard comments from different people saying that the first year of marriage was the hardest. I met my wife a little over two years ago. We started dating in the winter of 2010 and got married in November of that year. She is an amazing person. Let me tell you, our first year of marriage has been nothing but bliss! We are hitting our ten month anniversary tomorrow and life couldn't be better. The best part about marrying Jill is that, I really did marry my best friend. And what's better, is that I get to spend the rest of my life with her. She always makes me smile. Even if we're having an argument, we seem to find some way to laugh it off (it usually entails going off on a scooter ride-which is definitely the best purchase of our marriage so far). She's absolutely everything I wanted and more in a wife. She has an amazing family, she's constantly striving to be like Jesus Christ, she's smart, she's BEAUTIFUL, and she has a nice car. The first year of marriage is definitely different from the single life, there's no questioning that, but it's definitely been the best year of my life. I can't wait to make next year the best year of my life with Jill, then the next, and the next.

Ten Years Ago

Ten years ago I was in the 8th grade and living in my home town of Eagle, Idaho. I was just arriving to school when I heard the news of a plane that flew into the world trade center tower in Manhattan. I didn't really know what to think. I didn't know a lot about the world trade center, I didn't know a lot about terrorists, and I didn't know what the country would do in response to the attack. Shortly after the first tower was hit, there was news of another plane hitting the second world trade center tower. Many people seemed to panic at the school. I remember the mother of a friend of mine came to pick him up from school. I thought to myself, "why do so many people care about what's happening in the east? It's not going to effect us out here in Idaho..." I was wrong. There were many kids at my school who had relatives who were in New York when the attacks happened. My own dad was even supposed to fly out to Washington D.C. the next day for a business trip. I'm glad that he didn't because there was another attack on the pentagon. I never would have thought at that time in my life that such an event would scar the United States forever. The attacks on the world trade center may have left a hole in our hearts but it also made our hearts a lot bigger. The event brought Americans closer together. I'm so grateful for all of the heroes that sacrificed their lives to save others.  They have left a legacy that will never be forgotten and one that will live on in history of America and one that brought the country together.

Food, family, and football

My wife and I have gone to my hometown of Eagle, ID for the holiday weekend and are very sad to be leaving tomorrow. This weekend has definitely had a "Thanksgiving" feel to it. I've had the chance to catch up with family, who I haven't seen since I was a boy in high school. I've gained about five pounds eating my sister's home made pies, red vine licorice, and even more junk food. Last of all, it was a good weekend of football. Boise State beat the 19th ranked SEC powerhouse Georgia, BYU beat another SEC team, Ole Miss, and Eagle High school football laid the smack down on Timberline to start the season off 1-0. I was really excited to see Eagle High play because their quarterback, Tanner Mangum, recently just signed with BYU to play in 2014. Tanner is a four star recruit and is rated in the espn top 150 recruits in the nation. He definitely lived up to his hype by passing for four touchdowns and over 300 yards through the air. I’m excited to see what this kid can do throughout the season at Eagle High and then on to college at BYU. He won't be playing for another two years though as he still has to graduate from college and serve a two year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.