Thursday, April 29, 2010

Graduation

Last week Harrison graduated from BYU with a BA in Middle Eastern Studies/Arabic. Many people told me "...Husbands can't graduate without he helps of their wives...this is your graduation too..." So I found many opportunities to remind Harrison of that fact. However, he said if that was true, then he also delivered Jack when he was born. Sooo...

Last week Harrison graduated from BYU with a BA in Middle Eastern Studies/Arabic. I'm so proud of him!! He has worked so hard.



What is our plan now, you ask? Harrison will commission as an Officer in the United States Army and will become active duty this fall. Until then, he will be working in Provo for the Census Bureau and he has LDAC - Leadership Development Advanced Camp (I think...I'm slowly learning the Army has its own language) this summer at Ft. Lewis in Washington. LDAC is a fancy army acronym, that means he will be tested on his knowledge and skills he learned during ROTC. So from mid June-mid July Jack and I will be hanging out with the Poulson clan in Oregon.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Sandhurst 2010

Harrison was on a special team through ROTC that participated in a competition called Sandhurst that was held at West Point Military Academy in New York. Mom and Dad and Liz Smith were so nice to watch Jack for us so that I could go and watch Harrison compete! (my first time away from Mr. Jack overnight...am I a bad mom if I didn't suffer from baby separation anxiety??) It was such a fun time and BYU did so well! They didn't place as high as they hoped to (they got 4th place last year) but they worked so hard. The course took about 5 hours to complete. This means 5 hours of running, climbing, crawling, and lifting - all with their gear on. It was a 15 mile timed course through forests, water, and mountains. Needless to say, everyone on their team had to be in really good shape. BYU placed first in land navigation - the biggest part of the competition!!


Here is a video of some of their events:
There were 49 teams competing from West Point, other ROTC teams throughout the country and several international teams from Chile, Great Britain, Canada, and Afghanistan. BYU has really made a name for themselves at this competition throughout the years. And this year a British General spoke at the award ceremony and singled out BYU during his speech. He read the 13th Article of Faith and having never even heard of BYU before this competition, he complimented "Brigham Young University for striving to live their life that way..."



The West Point campus was beautiful!!


We took a train into the city the last night in New York and stayed right in Times Square.
So fun!!
Thank you Smiths for watching Jack, and thanks to John and Emily for letting me stay with you at West Point!!

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Easter in Vegas

I've avoided any updates because it is so annoying to type anything without the use of my enter key (and my arrow keys are broken too...did i mention that??) so this won't be a cutesie post. Jack and I spent Easter in Las Vegas with Harrison's family before I left Jack with M&D Smith to meet Harrison in New York. We had an Easter egg hunt, then spent the next couple days having fun shopping, saw a show on the strip, and watching movies together. It was so much fun!!