Viva la France!

For your reading pleasure, here is a thrilling excerpt from an email I received today.

Dear Summer White:

Congratulations on your acceptance to BYU's Winter 2008 Paris SA program.

Participation in an international experience can be life-changing and I encourage you to do all you can to prepare for this experience by studying the basic geography, cultural customs, and the history of the places you will visit. You will be required to attend a preparation class which will further orient you for your in-country experience. We have found that the better prepared students are for these experiences, the more they get out of them.

We are happy that you have chosen such an excellent complement to your education at BYU. Previous students have unanimously referred to their international study as one of the most significant experiences of their entire college career. We welcome you to the growing number of BYU students who believe "The world is our campus."

I'm so excited!!!

Date #2

Last night I had dinner with Long, Kaci's friend from BU who is now a grad student at BYU. We ate at Costa Vida, which is quality Utah Mexican food and conveniently close to my place...but I was coming from campus because, long story short, I waited for 3 hours to give blood and couldn't wait any longer. And I am scheduled to work 4-9 on Friday nights, so I got someone to cover 4-7 but no one for 7-9. So we ate early and then he walked me to the MOA, where I found out for some reason they weren't planning on me coming in and had rearranged the schedule accordingly. So I went home and then to the dollar movies with Kristin because our other two roomies were at Homecoming Spectacular. So in a nutshell, yesterday didn't go as planned. But the date was good. Long was really nice. This is a random picture of him from Facebook.

President Hinckley!

That's right, he came to BYU on Tuesday! Last year he came on Halloween and it was awesome except I was sitting in the back because I came right from class, and consequently I was sitting with people I didn't know. This time was even better because miraculously, my three roommates and my roommate's boyfriend and I all got to sit together even though we didn't plan it. I worked early and when I came out of the museum at 9:15, the line to get into the Marriott Center was already to the end of the building and getting longer by the second. (And devotionals, or devos as we like to call them, start at 11:05.) I don't know how far it is between the buildings, but it must have been a pretty long line. So I decided to skip my 9:30 class (don't worry, this is not habitual) and get in line. Natalie's class got canceled (lucky), so she joined me soon after I got there and helped me save seats.

This was about an hour before it started.


The men half of the choir, who sang a pretty English song called "To Be A Pilgrim" in honor of Pres. H.'s missionary service in England.
Waiting for Pres. H. Susan Tanner, YW General Pres., was there with her husband who's an academic VP. Elder and Sis. Hales were there, and our friends the Kerrs. :)
When he walked in and sat down and people started taking pictures like crazy, he covered his face. He is so cute!
Pretty packed! They estimated there were over 22,000 people there.

Highlights: He started off congratulating us on earning the #1 spot in the Princeton Review's "Stone Cold Sober" ranking for the 10th year in a row. That was cute. The business school was also #1. He talked about the 13th Article of Faith, the difference between being honest and true, and chaste and virtuous. He told us to be grateful that we can attend BYU (which I am) and mentioned Karl G. Maeser and how he taught Pres. H.'s father back in the day. (Dr. Maeser was the second president of BY Academy and is the founder being honored this week for Homecoming. Without his support, BYA probably wouldn't have made it.) He emphasized honesty and that there are no shortcuts to the top (which, coincidentally, is the name of a book he recently read about an amazing mountain climber). He said the key to greatness is hard work, and talent has little to do with it. He ended early and it seemed way too short, which was disappointing, but it was awesome to be in the same room as the prophet! What made it even cooler is that I'm taking teachings of the living prophets for a religion elective and guess who we've been talking about? I'm loving him more and more!

Date #1

So Robby challenged me to a dating contest...whoever goes on more dates between now and Thanksgiving will buy dinner for the other person when I'm in Arizona. Ground rules:

1. I have to post a picture of my date on my blog.
2. "Hanging out" doesn't count. Thank you, Elder Oaks.
3. For Robby and Sharon's dates to be valid, no kids.

So it looks like I'm winning! Last night I went on a group date with my friends Candice and Stephy and three guys from their ward. We had dinner and then went to a women's soccer game. (Which we won!) My date, Marcus, just happens to be a big fan of Boston, the Red Sox, and Fenway Park. I thought you'd appreciate that, Kaci. :)

Game 1: BYU vs Arizona

Rise and shout, the Cougars are out! Natalie and I met Candice and Stephy and some of the other 41 people we got all-sports passes with and walked to the stadium together. As expected, we coded sorry b's! I was a little disappointed that it wasn't a shutout. (Arizona scored with 53 seconds left, for a final score of 20-7.) But it was fun, except the part when Candice and I very nearly passed out and consequently missed most of halftime. My roommate Kristin is on the cymbal line and had lots of fun, although she also almost passed out after their long march-in. (She commented, though, that they took care of her and were nice about letting her sit out pre-game, which wouldn't happen at LHS. DC and the DC jrs, aka section leaders, would act like it was the end of the world if someone needed to sit out.) It was b's hot. It wasn't too bad later in the game when it was a little cooler and we were actually hydrated, but we were out there for four hours. At halftime Ty Detmer and Gifford Nielsen's jerseys were retired and they spoke and LaVell and Pres. Packer were there. Kristin was on the field pretty close to them, so she thought that was way cool.

Oooooh. Crooked lines.

If you look closely you can see that they're spelling out "COUGARS" upside down. This would have been a better picture if it was more centered, I know. We were on the 10 yard line but not too far up.

Road Trip!

Last Thursday (was it only 8 days ago? It feels like months) Stephy and I drove to Utah! We caravaned with two other people but I was in her car the whole time.

Cranking up the tunes somewhere in Wyoming!

It was interesting trying to get a picture of both of us while she was driving...and not look directly into the sun.

And there was a beautiful rainbow! Driving through Provo Canyon was a little scary because it was stormy and very dark, but we made it! It was wonderful to see my roommates again, especially Natalie who I hadn't seen all summer.

Denver Zoo

Last Tuesday when I was visiting my friend Stephy in LOUISVILLE, Colorado (that's right, like our Lewisville), our amiga Candice met us at the zoo, where we had a lot of fun and fit right in. :) First, here's an animal quiz for Molly. Can you name them all?





This was funny. It was an indoor exhibit, and one of the zoo people came through the door to give the animals water or something. But while she was trying to corral another one, this one got on top of the door and it took her several minutes to get him down. When the door opened wider we saw a sign on the inside: "CAUTION. MALE LIKES TO SIT ON DOOR."



We all did individual monkey-face shots too but I chose the more flattering pictures. :)

I was trying to look scary but then started smiling so...it's goofy.

Petting the nice gorilla statue.

All of us! It was so great to see them again.

Goofy Burpems

I miss Eli! This post makes me happy, though. It's from the last time Logan and I babysat him, August 25. He was tired, but happy. Good combination. It makes for loopiness and snuggliness. :)