Long Time, No "C"

Hello everyone. Our quote from today comes from Victor Borge, a comedic musician. He has a live performance that is just awesome. Anyway THIS LINK shows the part that the line is from, but he doesn't really get to it until about the 6:40 mark.

It has been a very long time since we've written. Now that school is starting up again we feel like we should turn over a new leaf and start keeping up. We know no one really reads this anyway, but we thought we'd at least do it for posterity.

Last time we wrote was back in February! Since then a lot has happened. The biggest thing is that we have a cute new niece as of March 7! Chelsea Anastasia Mecham was born then and she is just adorable. Here is a picture to prove it:

She is a physical prodigy, she is! She held her head up the first couple days she was born and has seemingly progressed very quickly physically. We've started a weekly tradition of having dinner with Mary, Derek, and Chelsea so we get to see plenty of her. It is so great!

Also during March I (that is, Christian) traveled with the pep band and the BYU Men's basketball team to March Madness. Yes, I did shake hands with Jimmer while we flew on the same plane together. I also got on TV during the Florida game. Here's a pic to prove it:

Unfortunately we lost that game, but it was still an awesome ride being in New Orleans. I tried all kinds of new foods like clams, beignets, alligator, and other stuff. It was so great being there.

In April Brittany finally graduated with a B.S. in Psychology! Woo hoo! I have such a smart wife. Both of our parents came up for the graduation ceremony. It was so great spending time with all of them and seeing Brittany walk across that stage! I'm so proud of her.

At the end of her BYU career she applied and was accepted into a graduate program through Utah State University. The program is a Masters in Special Education with BCBA Coursework. For those of us not intelligent enough to understand all that it's basically coursework so that she can be certified to work with children who have autism. She eventually will be developing individualized behavioral therapy programs for those children. Basically it's doing what her boss is doing. She's looking forward to the program and really hopes to get a lot out of it.

In June we had our 2 year anniversary. We are no longer newlyweds! For celebration I recreated a date that we had gone on while we were dating in Houston. I surprised Brittany by taking her to Hogle Zoo and then going out to Olive Garden. 

This is a bird show that we saw there

There were little cubbies you could climb into and watch the prairie dogs up close.

A big ol' spider during "Predator's Awareness Week"

Us at the bird show

We had tons of fun. There were some baby lemurs that had been born the previous month and they were adorable to watch - chasing each other around. Also, some robotic dinosaurs had been set up around the park to yell at you and stuff as you walked by. There was one display of the Dilophosaurus (the acid spitting one) that actually spit water at unsuspecting passers-by. One family noticed this and the dad promptly parked the stroller holding their one-year-old right in the way of the stream. The little one had no idea what was coming and got a face-full of water. It was so cute and sad all at the same time.

Towards the beginning of the summer I started teaching the 5-year-olds in Primary at church. It has been an extreme adventure! I don't have an official partner, so every week they grab someone from priesthood and ask them to sit in with me. Every week I get challenged to find new ways to keep the kids attention and find some way to keep them on the spiritual side of things. I think it has been great practice for when we have kids later. Brittany continues in her calling as Primary pianist. She still likes that, and it's fun to give "looks" to each other during sharing time and singing time.

Brittany's family came in July for Kathy's 25th high school reunion. After the reunion they came and stayed with us for about a week. It was great fun being able to just relax with them (as I didn't have school during the summer term). We played lots of games and just enjoyed being together. While they were here we had a big surprise party for a congratulations on getting into graduate school party for Brittany. We got together with all kinds of extended family from the happy valley. We really loved seeing so much family up here this summer.

We did go down once to Houston for a brief respite from the dry weather of Utah. My brother Joe, who is mentally handicapped, had been working with his bishop and stake president in Houston to get permission to go through the temple to receive his endowment. Finally, they got all of the meetings and interviews and preparations done so that he was able to set a date. My parents flew us down and we spent a long 5-day weekend vacation in Houston. It was the greatest weekend! Besides all of our immediate family we spent time with, we saw our cutest nephew, my grandparents, and some of my old friends from high school. It was such a wonderful weekend.

After coming home from Houston, we had to prepare for the horror that is band camp week! I am once again the section leader for the horns in the BYU marching band. The horns this year are shaping up to be even better than the previous years I participated in! The music is way difficult, and they are already on top of it. It is so great to listen to these 16 other horns. It was a hot week, and we had a few people passing out and MANY sunburns. Also, after way too long of a respite, the horns won the spirit stick during band camp by dressing up as a herd of zebras during safari day and having the clarinets hunt us (using their instruments as rifles). As hard of work it was, the fun I had getting to know a new band out-weighed the suckiness of the weather.

And now it is back into the swing of another school year. Brittany's classes are on Wednesday nights, so she's looking forward to that in a couple of days. My classes started today. I think I'm really going to enjoy the classes I am taking so far. Economics will be very difficult, though. Today, I auditioned for ensembles and I was lucky enough to make it into the BYU Wind Symphony as the assistant principal horn again. This year we will be touring France, Belgium and the Netherlands! This will happen after spring semester around May. I can't wait, because I haven't been farther out of the country than the Canada side of Niagra Falls. It will be quite an experience.

Well that's all the update I have for now. Hopefully we'll remember to write again in the next weeks.
Love love,
B&C