Favorite Day

We had an absolutely great day on Saturday.  So great, it get's its own blog post about it.

It was a great day of Family, Friends, Food and Football.  We started off talking to my mom for her birthday.  It was early Saturday morning for us and Friday evening for them.  They were getting ready to go to the BYU-Utah State football game.  It was really great to talk to my parents and my sister Karen.  It was my dad's birthday a couple of days before.  Happy birthday Mom and Dad.  We love you both.  Thanks for all your support and help.  We hope you enjoy your present.

After talking to my parents we jumped into getting ready for friends to come over.  We were going to watch the BYU USU game on ESPN.  One of the students here has access to ESPN through his Grandparents Comcast account.  So thanks to Spencer Bowen's grandma.  Alauna was amazing with preparing food and making it a great day for everyone.  We had Chili, cornbread, cinnamon rolls, hummus, pita chips, salsa, artichoke dip, carrots, celery and a cream cheese bacon tomato feta dip.  It was all amazing.  It was all home made from scratch.  Alauna is so amazing.  It was all so fresh as well.  We went to the fresh market the day before to stock up on tomatoes, onions, chili pepper, and carrots to make everything.  The food tasted so good.  She made 48 cinnamon rolls and everyone was eaten.  Most of the friends that came over are college students studying here and it had been a while since they had had a cinnamon roll.  I'm glad they really enjoyed them.

The BYU game was ok.  Glad they won, but really kind of a boring game.  The drive right before half time was a lot of fun.  The defense played awesome as usual.  It is a lot of fun to watch Ziggy Ansah, Brandon Ogletree and Kyle Van Noy just create havoc for the other team.  It was just great to watch a game live as it happened.  It was the first and probably only time this year I will be able to see a live BYU game.  We do get to watch some of the games replayed on BYU TV but usually this ends up being a couple of days later so it's not quite the same.  Still better than nothing.  Going to BYU football games with my parents, Brannon and Alauna are one of the things that I miss most about living in Utah.  Hopefully we will be able to go to the bowl game this December and see them play live.  The way things are shaping up it looks like it will be the Poinsettia bowl.  San Diego would be awesome for a day or two.

After the football game Brannon came up and whispered "Dad, can we light the fireworks".  That is when the real fun began.  We had a few strands of small firecrackers and then a few strands of these big firecrackers.  They are probably 1/2" diameter.  We started out just lighting them and throwing them.  Then someone said let's grab a pop bottle .  We had a two liter bottle and would stick a large firecracker in the two liter bottle  and that was cool for a bit.  Then someone mentioned black cats firecrackers and that took me back to being a kid in Gooding, Idaho and lauching a tuna fish can in the air with a black cat.  Alauna got me a soup can and with a screwdriver and hammer I made a hole in the soup can that we could jam one of the large firecrackers in.  We then got a plastic mop bucket, which eventually got blown up, and put water in the bottom.  We then placed the tin can in the bucket with a bit of water, lit the fuse and the can blew about 60-70 feet in the air.  IT WAS AWESOME.  Of course we had to do it again and again and again.  Chris Gilbert from ASU, Brannon and Spencer Streeter were my partners in crime with launching the cans.  Eventually we blew the top off of that can and hole in the side of the bucket. We got a new bigger can and a metal bucket to launch them out of .  With the bigger can we made two holes and put two firecrackers in the can.  We thought this would lauch it twice as high.  It didn't make it twice as high but it did make it twice as fun.  The fuses, even when lit at the same time did not seem to burn at the same speed.  One would blow and launch the can in the air and then the other would blow and shoot the can in a different direction mid air.  At one point the second one blew and shot the can straight at our friends and the kids standing on our balcony on the third floor.  Luckily it wasn't going that fast and caused no harm to life or property.

There have been firecrackers and fireworks going off all week because of the Chinese National Day.  I think our neighbor was tired of the fireworks going off, however.  At one point he stood on his balcony with very few clothes on.  There is still debate on whether he was half-naked or the full Monty.  Regardless he, in broken English and hand signals was asking us to stop.  We moved the show to the front of the house.  Lit of the last few fireworks and finished the show.

It was so fun just to relax with friends watch football, eat some good food and blow something up.  Thanks to Alauna and all our Nanjing friends for a great Saturday.

Boyd