My Prayer

Today Marcel played the drums at church, which means I sit all by myself during worship.  I'm used to it now, plus it makes me more grateful for the times we get to enjoy worship together.  After the first song, Pastor Ryan called the church elders and leadership team up to the altar to be available for our prayer requests, just like he does every week.

Without missing a beat, the little girl (I guess she was around 10, which is influenced by Marcel thinking she was 12) sitting in front of me, stood up, squeezed her way in front of her mom sitting in her chair, and went to an open couple to ask for prayer.  She came back and again took her place to join the congregation in corporate worship.

Worship was wonderful.  The sermon was touching as we plan for many upcoming opportunities to serve our community, but witnessing the faith of a young child was simply the most moving part of church today.

I pray that when God allows Marcel and I to be the earthly parents to some of His precious children, we will raise them in such a way that they have a faith in God as strong as I witnessed today.

BSU vs LA Tech

Last Tuesday there was a BSU football game, one that my mom and Don wouldn't be able to go to.  Instead of letting their tickets go unused, they allowed Marcel and I to use them.  We had a blast.

I was preparing to freeze the whole time but it wasn't actually too bad, thanks to the wonderfully warm jacket my mom let me borrow, because I couldn't go to the game and not wear BSU attire.  Marcel did save the day by buying us hot chocolate at half-time, but not until after we watched the marching band.

All bundled up!

The marching band is huge, compared to watching the high school bands

It wasn't until after we took pictures of the marching band that we decided we should probably have some of the actual football game too

Final Score
BSU 49
LA Tech 20

Visit to Victor

For my birthday, my mom gave me money to take a vacation to visit my sister in Victor, Idaho (very near to Jackson, WY).  That same day we decided the best weekend for both of us would be Halloween weekend.  It was great until I forgot to request the day off from Michael's and ended up having to work Sunday, making us have to leave at 7am.  We still had a GREAT time.

There was snow in the mountains, but thankfully not in Emily's backyard like they had the weekend before

 On Friday, Emily and Matt both had to work so Marcel and I drove to Jackson and did the tourist stuff, which included sitting in this huge bear chair!

We also visited the Grand Teton National Park, but instead of paying admission, we simply chose roads around the pay stations.  We still enjoyed the beautiful park, but didn't see any animals.   

At Granite Canyon Trailhead, the one spot we got out of the car in Grand Teton National Park.  It is here that we learned you need to make extra loud noises to prevent bear attacks during mating season, but the sign didn't tell you when mating season was.

Marcel LOVES beenies that keep his ears covered, but we did leave this one at the store

 Emily and Matt live on a golf course, since Matt is the superintendent of it.  He does all the landscaping and other outside stuff to help the golf course run.  After Marcel and I got back from Jackson, we decided to play a few holes.  We are far from professionals, but had a lot of fun.  By the 3rd (and last) hole we played, I almost got the hang of it.

Marcel even accomplished one of his lifelong dreams: to drive a range picker.  Granted we weren't shagging the balls off the driving range, but driving is driving.  This is what we used as our golf cart because the golf carts were all parked behind the mowers, and it was simply too cold for golf that required walking!

After a great partial round of golf
(this is the view out their back door!)

We got up early Saturday morning to head to Yellowstone, but our first stop was Mesa Falls, which Emily had yet to see too.  It was 114 feet high and 200 feet wide.  It was here that we discovered it is always a good idea to carry toilet paper in your car because you can't depend on the public restrooms at nature scenes to be stocked!

I think there are better pictures of us at the falls, but this one is my favorite because you can see Emily & Matt taking their picture at the other outlook.

Don't tell, but we actually took this picture on our way out of the park ;)

Elk...we followed directions and didn't get out of our car to take a picture and to not add to the near accident behind us, Marcel used the side mirror to get this picture.  The only other animal we saw was bison/buffalo.

 The best part about Old Faithful was that we got there about 30 minutes before the next eruption.  It was cool and now we can both say we've been there, but I would have been very disappointed if I had to wait the 90+ minutes between eruptions.  We also watched a very cool video about the eruptions, that Emily would be more than happy to explain!

We crossed the contintent many times.  After I looked at the map I undertstood why.  Who got to decide to make the divide a very crooked line?

We got out of the car at Yellowstone Lake, which was gorgeous.  Marcel and I even put our fingers in the water, which was freezing, who would have thought, right?  It is also where we took this awesome picture.  Good thing for self-timing cameras, because no one else stopped at the lake.

The whole drive through Yellowstone, Marcel was pointing out the scat and after the lake decided that he needed a picture with it.  He actually got 3, but this is the only one I'm posting because I don't like the one where he's pretending to lick/eat it.  I will say that he was very disappointed that the one we found for our picture wasn't ripe.  In fact it was very frozen.  Being the photographer, I, however, was very grateful for its condition.

Look at MaryBeth be artistic!

 After Yellowstone, we headed back to Jackson, to get a souvenir.  We didn't get them our first time through because we were hoping for some from Yellowstone, but their store was super lame.  Plus, Emily said we had to get a picture under this arch.  We were kinda bummed that even though the Christmas lights were already wrapped around the entire thing, they hadn't been turned on yet.

We also enjoyed seeing a deer on our drive to their house, watching some cable shows, playing Wii and helping Emily get her Pro status back at bowling, watching a scary/suspenseful movie, grocery shopping, touring Victor & Driggs (both tours took about 5 minutes!), listening to the sound checks of 2 bands putting on a concert at the restaurant we ate dinne at, and plain ol' time to catch up, none of which was caught on camera.