BYU Football!

It's that time of year again!

BYU football time!

In all reality, in our house it's "college football" time as Jon loves to watch every game.

We love the changing weather, the excitement, the game, and the healthy football food. 

Mmmmm....

We even made a little shrine in the corner of our living room :)

But getting back...

We had a little bit of a kick-off party... because the more the merrier, right?

 We weren't sure who was and who wasn't BYU fans... 

so we just invited the whole ward.

 

And the Cougars won!

Always a good thing!

Weekend in Utah!

When baby sister started running so well for SUU- we knew we really should see her race.

And then when she decided she would go on a mission next year- we decided we REALLY needed to see her race at least once in her life.

She's pretty awesome.

So to Utah we went!

And here she is- we found her right before she raced and got to chat a little bit.

PS- it was SOOO cold.

Post race, all smiles.

After her race- we made our way back down to Provo to hang out with even more family!

Saturday we woke up to snow!

We were pretty excited... except we knew that we were going to have to sit in it through a football game.

Oh boy.

So we bundled up, and off to Lavell Edwards Stadium we went!

It was SO fun being back! 

But it was a little bit slightly miserable to be wet and cold...

(Shhh, don't tell Jon)

BUT we DID finally thaw out...

and the snow left the mountains looking fabulous!

Love, love, love BYU.

"Bet Your Bottom Dollar, You'll Lose the Blues in Chicago..."

We definitely lost our warm weather blues in Chicago this past weekend!

The leaves were turning color, the weather was COOL, AND we got to wear our jackets!

We miss Fall.

Why is Houston still so hot?

I need a Fall...
I don't mind not having a winter- I'll take Houston winter.

But I need Chicago's Fall.

Is that too much to ask?

Anyway- back to the trip.

The purpose of the trip was to see these cousins- The Moodys...

and their newest addition...

AND go to a BYU football game.

More about that in a minute...

Chicago was SO much fun to walk around...

and walk we did!

Wrigley Tower

 Mmmm... the Hershey's store!

Tribune Tower has different stones/rocks from famous buildings from all over the world! 

Soldier Field

For those of you who don't know-

I served an LDS mission for 18 months in Poland.

I've always been so bummed that Houston doesn't have a big Polish population.

I mean, really.

Jon doubts that I speak Polish.

We heard someone speaking Polish once on our cruise and Jon says "Go talk to them!"

Sorry but no. 

I don't want to have an awkward conversation in Polish with someone I don't know.

Thus Jon continued to doubt my speaking abilities.

He made me promise that if we went to Chicago that I'd talk to someone in Polish because Chicago actually has more Poles than Warsaw!

So we took a gander down some Polish neighborhoods...

And found a great restaurant,

with some legit Polish food!

 And yes I communicated very well with our Polish waitress and Jon was SO impressed that he wanted to take a video...
But I forbade it.
I'm mean, I know.

 But doesn't this food look amazing?
Ah... it makes me want to visit Poland SO bad!

We called it a day for Friday and went back to their apartment.

P.S.

The view from their apartment was AMAZING!!

Saturday we headed to South Bend, Indiana (never been to Indiana before!) for the 

BYU-Notre Dame football game.

It took some intense prep work...

the fluffage of the hair.

This little girl is ready for her first game!

Before the game, we stopped off here...

And then made our way over to Notre Dame campus.

 We of course got a lot of comments on Jon's hair.
The best comment by FAR was this...
Guy - "DUDE, is that your REAL hair?"
Jon- "Yep, sure is."
Guy- *Calling to buddy* "Hey come here! Come check out this WHITE guy with an AFRO! *turns back to Jon* I've never seen a white guy with hair like yours."
Jon- "Ummmm, thanks?"
 They preceded to have a nice conversation about the F-word, Mormons, Mitt, and how Jon is a conservative AND an environmental engineer.
The guy didn't believe him.

 It was beautiful!


And very crowded...

 Pretty sweet buildings on campus...

 Ok but as pretty as it is-
we are ready for some football!
We made a stop at "Touchdown Jesus" for good luck...

 got our tickets...

 And headed into the stadium!

 We had amazing seats... five rows back.
I was on the edge of the BYU fan section.
Which meant I had some Notre Dame fans on my right.
Let me just say this...
I'm glad Jon's obsession with college football does not include getting stone drunk every weekend.
Blessing.

 It was a great game...

...but too bad BYU can't ever win.
Ugh.
Nothing like easing the wounds with some deep dish Chicago pizza from Giordano's.

Sunday back in Chicago, the Moody's blessed their little girl.

AND it was a beautiful day- so we did some more walking around the city.

Millenium Park

Underneath the bean sculpture...

So mind boggling.

I got so dizzy looking at this.

 More skyline...

And an evening stroll down to Navy Pier...

 And we even ran into Obama and Mitt :)

 

Thanks Chicago and Moodys!
We had such a fantastic time!