Rooting for the Home Team

Lesa and Chris with 3 of Their Young Kids

Ken graduated from Brigham Young University in business management, and I attended the rival school on the hill in Salt Lake City in music education and vocal performance; the University of Utah. When we were married 39 years ago this September, the rivalry was a bit obnoxious with seeing Ken wearing a BYU golf shirt to a University of Utah function with me. Of course, he did that on purpose, more to irritate me than bother any of my U of U friends. And although I love singing the U of U fight song, "I am a Utah man sir and I live across the green," my loyalties pretty much depend on where my kids (and in the future, my grandkids) are playing basketball (or soccer), or performing.

I've noticed that the rivalry between Utah and BYU is almost as strong as it is with Duke and North Carolina, in my mind anyways. I saw that vicious, at times, rivalry when I attended the Duke / Carolina basketball games. Between the rude t-shirts worn by the Duke "Crazies" at games, the expressed anger with the attending fans during the games, and my true Carolina blue friends, I was amazed at how heated the rivalry was, and still is in Utah.

That leads me to seeing recent pictures with my kids on Instagram, first Chris' family decked in Utah clothing, then Josh's family posting the next day in BYU clothing. I smiled at the competitive spirit brewing. A couple of years ago I saw 1/2 of Ben and Cooper's kids wearing BYU t-shirts and the other 1/2 sporting U of U t-shirts. Ben, you see, graduated from the U of U in marketing and Cooper graduated from BYU in art. In fact, my conversations with Calvin on our morning walks a couple of weeks ago had him talking about uncle Chris and basketball, but then siding with BYU saying, "grandma, I know uncle Chris is coaching there but I think I'm going to BYU."

Chris, Lesa and Family

Chris and Lesa both attended and graduated from the U of U, Chris playing basketball (now assistant coaching there), and Lesa playing soccer. So they are obviously decked from head-to-toe in red as often as possible. Angela, who doesn't seem to have an allegiance either way, graduated from and played basketball at BYU, but rooted for Chris when he was playing at the U against BYU. (No pictures or t-shirts?) But Joshua, Ashleigh and their entire family are Cougs through and through with both Ashleigh and Joshua graduated and played basketball at BYU. "Rise and Shout the Cougars are out!"

Once when their son, Chamberlain, was being put to bed by grandma (me) he said, "I know you are a Ute fan grandma, but I'm going to play for the Cougs (BYU)! Are you going to come to my basketball games?" "Of course!" was my immediate answer. Like I said, I am 50/50 on this entire thing. Wherever my kids and grandkids play or perform ... I'm rooting, and their biggest fan. But all of this rivalry is fun to watch, especially on game days when BYU plays Utah. So, who do I root for? It depends. 

Cousins Kelli Jo and Madison

Utah Fans Like Dad?

Or BYU Fans Like Mom?

California Dreamin'

Shopping

Living in California is very exciting, for sure. But we tend to get so busy working and keeping to our daily and weekly schedules that we rarely take the time to really see what is here. However, when we are blessed to have our family come to visit (or we steal them away as we did this past week with Adelaide), we stop and make it a point to see all that California offers ... or we try. We jammed so much into the week Adelaide was here that it has taken a few days for us to recover. But...we loved every minute with her. We even took in sights we'd never seen; like standing in the middle of the street to catch a picture of the Hollywood sign on the hill, or work our way through the huge crowds of crazies in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre. From Hollywood to San Diego, we literally saw it all. Addie never stopped smiling, and neither did we. When asked what was her favorite thing she did, besides the rides at the Disneyland parks - it was seeing the San Diego and LA Mormon temples and buying those cute white skinny jeans at Nordstrom's at the Spectrum!


Day 1 - Spa Day and School Shopping
Day 2 - Sea World and Swimming with the Dolphins
Day 3 - Hollywood
Day 4 - Church
Day 5 - Disneyland
Day 6 - Beach and Spectrum

Nothing better than Disneyland in the Morning!

Tinkerbells Castle

Mator in Cars Land

California Adventure

Lonesome Addie on Cups Ride

Cars Best Ride Ever

Addie Loving Disneyland

Cute Toontown!

Choosing the Ears to Buy

Newport Beach on 15th Street

More Ear Choices

Traditional Ears Decided Upon

1 hour wait to get on the Cars ride?

Grandpa teaching Boogie Board skill

Spa Day

School Shopping

Dolphin Interaction

Learning to Train the Dolphins

Grauman's Chinese Theatre

(Sun in Eyes) Hollywood Hill Sign

Theatre Star Handprints

Love My Addie Visit! 

Lego Love

Lego's, like Barbie dolls, constantly update their inventory with the latest characters, cartoons, movies, and trends with new sets hitting the toy store shelves. My grandsons love lego's and every birthday, Christmas or "grandma visits", the gift requests always include Legos. The only thing I recall about this Legos frenzy is that when walking barefoot in a home that is Legos crazy, I step on one that causes me a little pain. But, I still smile, pick it up, and try to find the rightful owner.

Nolan's 12th Bday Lego's

Before I switched from my Droid phone to my iPhone, I took a lengthy video of Nolan telling me
all about his Legos collection. He started sharing his complex collection with me on one of my earlier visits last year and I was so fascinated with all that he knew, how everything worked within the set, and the psychology behind the various sets, that I said, "hold it ... let me record you." However, that video would not upload from my Droid phone to youtube - it was just to large of a file. So, the memories about that hour of explanation from Nolan is lost, but the excitement about his collections still makes me smile. So, this 12th birthday of Nolan I asked for the hyperlinks to the two sets he wanted, clicked and purchased them. He, obviously was thrilled!

Chamberlain

My last visit with Josh's family saw me heading to the Hurricane Walmart to have cute Chamberlain pick out his set. And of course, Calvin loves them as well, although Calvin tends to like the Super Hero characters sets. On our morning walks he would tell me all the ins and outs of various Super Heroes. I said, "wow, you know lots about Super Hero's. Calvin's confident answer to me was, "I'm a Super Hero genius!"

Calvin's Batman Collection