Josh goes to college
It’s been a WHIRLWHIND couple of weeks, in the best possible ways. The weekend before Josh was leaving Halle and Owen came down and we all went to dinner at Old Mine. Then, we had one last family game of Skull King, where, as we all know, if you have a yellow, you have to play a yellow!” It was a perfect evening. Then we played some pickleball on Sunday afternoon, and had our last Sunday Dinner with Claire and Josh. Sunday dinner is going to feel so small with them gone.
Monday August 26th, Rusty, Josh and I loaded up the Lightening for its inaugural road trip to Utah to drop Josh off at BYU. The electric car is still just a little bit inconvenient for travel, but, what can you do? As we were loading the truck, Dash jumped in and WOULD NOT get out. He didn’t want to get left behind!
We got to stop by and see the newly completed Grand Junction Temple, and WOW! It is really stunning. We brought Dash along for the trip and he kept trying to lay on top of Josh’s suits.
After we got to Grandma and Grandpa’s house, we spent the evening assembling Josh’s e-bike, and unpacking the hordes of Target and Amazon boxes that we sent to Utah. BTW…..want to know when Josh did the majority of his packing for college? between the hours on 10pm and 2 am the night before we left. And Josh got to meet his newest little cousin, baby Sawyer.
The next day we made a quick run to target for some groceries and a few things we’d forgotten, then we made our way over to Heritage Halls building 14. Check -in and unloading were so smooth. And not very busy. After a pretty boring summer, Josh wanted to get to BYU ASAP, so he picked the first day he could move in. We immediately met one of his roommates, Talon, who was so helpful in helping to bring everything in from the Truck. Grandma and Grandpa were with us too. Between all of us, we were very speedy! We then started to unpack, build the nightstand and hand his one piece of decor—a Colorado Flag that Kari gave him for graduation.
He had a great first few days meeting new friends, staying out way too late, and doing Freshman Orientation. I went to Parent Orientation and woah—they are excellent salesmen. After being a BYU skeptic my whole life, I am SOLD. COUGARS FOREVER! And who can forget the first home football game and hiking the Y!
President Reece spoke and here are a few notes I took:
President Reece—you look good. Not just in physical appearance, but you look GOOD. In countenance, in who you are.
You are not here by accident. Don’t listen to the voice of doubt. You are here for a reason. Find out what that reason is.
Univ 101— We care deeply about study’s AND about building faith in Jesus Christ. We want you to be amazing accountants and engineers, but it will not be at the expense of building faith in Jesus Christ. These two things can coexist.
- We want you to succeed. We are not here to weed you out. We are here to set you up for success.
- Our faculty have committed their time, talent and resources to this class to have small sections so you can have CONNECTION. We have a loneliness epidemic and we are going to do our part to stop it. And you need to do your part. BYU education is going to give you precisely what you put into it. Lean in to what it means to be a BYU Cougar. This epidemic can be solved by basic things. Take off your headphones , look up from your phone. Be involved at church. It means getting outside of yourself.
7,262 Freshman. 63% women 37% men. Largest freshman class
$3300/semester
60% of students speak a second language
200 study abroad programs
197 Majors
A BYU education should be (1) spiritually strengthening, (2) intellectually enlarging, and more (3) character building, leading to (4) lifelong learning and service.
To add to an already very fun weekend, it was also Will’s wedding!
I already miss him like crazy, but could not be more excited for him. This is exactly where he needs to be.
