¡Feliz Navidad!

I suppose that it is only appropriate that I should wish you all a Merry Christmas en español, as I will be going to Argentina this spring! I will be going with the nursing program at BYU, for six weeks during the spring term. I don't know exact dates yet, or really anything else, but I do know that I will be doing some public health nursing and I will also be working in the maternity hospital in Tucuman. I am very excited, and just slightly apprehensive, as I have never traveled much before! I will keep you all posted as I find out more information.
Other goings-on include finals, a few of which I have finished already. I have an online research final, an oral med- surg. final, and a national standardized pharmacology test to take still, in case you were wondering! I should be done by Wednesday, but I have a lot of studying to do between now and then! One thing that has been hard for me at college is to keep the Christmas spirit and the joy of the season in my heart and mind while the stress of finals looms overhead. But I am trying really hard this year. Although I am not really a huge snow fan, I have appreciated this recent snow because it has made it feel more like Christmas to me (to those from out of state, we have at least 12 inches of snow, all from the past couple of days or so). Another thing that we did that helped me feel the Christmas spirit is watching Charlie Brown's Christmas. I know, it sounds a little silly, but partly, it is tradition, and I also just love the simplicity of the story. Charlie Brown is feeling weighed down by the commercialism of Christmas, and he wants to find out what the true meaning of Christmas is. Linus is the only one able to tell him, and he recites the story of Christ's birth, which helps everyone to see that they need to stop focusing on materialism, and be a little kinder to each other. I think it is a sweet story. Anyway, thanks Danielle and Kirk for letting us borrow that movie from you! That is pretty much the sum of what I have been up to the past few days. I look forward to spending some quality time with all of you or hearing from you soon.

Long time no post...

Thankfully, Rochelle has made up for my lack. We have both been very busy as of late. On the day before Thanksgiving, Rochelle called her mom to ask a question about what to buy one of her siblings. She and Marissa were there together, when they found out that Rochelle's Grandma had passed. Needless to say, they were both very sad, and tears were shed. I met them for lunch just a little while later, and we decided then, that it would be best if the three of us took off and drove to Oregon for the viewing and funeral. I went back to work for a few hours, came home and got the car ready for any emergency, and we took off. We drove into the night, slept for a few hours in a Hotel 8, and took off again in the morning. Weather on the way there was mostly good. There was a little ice on the roads, but not much, and it was mostly safe going. We got there just in time for Thanksgiving dinner. We enjoyed the time we had with her family, and were grateful for the time we had with them. This will be Rochelle's first Christmas away from home, and it will likely be a while before we see her family again. Had we not gone up, it would have nearly been a year without seeing them. So we were happy to be there. We were also glad that we could be there for Rochelle's mom whom was obviously effected by the situation. But everyone seemed to handle it very well. The funeral was nice. I enjoyed hearing the talks about Grandma. I didn't know her very well, and so it was a good time to hear what she was like, and to learn more about the family. I played lots of ping-pong, chess, pool, foosball, cards, and just about any other game we could think of. I enjoy being a big brother. I tease everyone a lot and have fun teaching them how to do things. It is an experience that I have never had before. Well, after the funeral was over, we changed clothes and left for home straight away. The weather home wasn't nearly as good. We hit storms almost immediately, and I was definitely a white knuckle driver that night. Much of the night I was going 30-40 miles per hour feeling like I shouldn't be going over 20, but watching some cars around me go 50-60. It was scary. Several times I could feel the car loose traction and gain it again a moment later. I was grateful that we never lost control. We slept again that night at that same Motel 8, and started again in the morning. The weather on that day was much better... until we got into Salt Lake and Utah valleys. I felt like the last several miles of our freeway drive were as bad as any. Thank-goodness that's all over.

At work, I have become an man with many hats. Lately, I have been wearing the IT hat almost exclusively. We had a small room full of clunky old computers that did a great many things. We bought a bunch of nice new computers that would soon take their places. Oh boy, what a head-ache. As we have redone everything, it has left everyone very stressed and begging for answers, and they usually come to me. With my currently small amount of IT knowledge, I have been trying to fix everything, but everything takes me a lot of time to fix because of the learning curve. There are a lot of things I would do differently if I had to do it all again. Oh well. We are nearing the end of it now, and I may begin to program once again. I have been writing a task management program that is to be integrated in our internal software. It is mostly done, but I have left it alone for a while as we have a been working on these other things.

Oh man, will I sleep well tonight! Anyways, Love you all, and I hope you all have a fantastic night!

BJ

Highlights from our trip to Oregon

BJ and I (and also my sister Marissa) went to Oregon about 2 weeks ago. Although the occasion was sad (we went for my grandmother's funeral) it was good to spend Thanksgiving and that weekend with my family. Here are some of the photos highlighting a few of the things we did:

 
This photo was taken one morning when we didn't have a lot going on. Marissa is doing an Eye Spy book with Anna.

 
This is me, Tayler, and Anna, on the day after Thanks- giving. We went shopping on this day and helped my mom work on some of her choir concert stuff, as well as funeral preparation.

 

Cara grew her hair out to donate it to Locks of Love. She had planned on getting it cut at Christmas time, but I guess it just got too hard to manage! It was an intense moment!






We took some family pictures on Sunday.






"The Girls": Anna, Cara, Marissa, and Rochelle







"The Guys": Tayler, Collin, and BJ








One more family picture. This is in the church after our grandmother's funeral, right before we left for home.