Nielson's and BYU

We took a day on our vacation and went down to Provo/Orem/Springville to visit friends and stop by BYU. Okay, in all honesty, we really went so Angie could get her fix of Café Rio. We know there’s closer locations to Layton, but it’s just part of the tradition to hit the one in Provo so off we went.

We first headed down to Springville to see Sara and Luke. They boys apparently were in some kind of crazy mood I guess. This was the best shot we got of Luke and Austin together, and it appears that Austin has grown a 3rd arm, but rest assured, Lucas is back there somewhere and that’s his arm you see.

For those of you who don’t know Sara and Luke, they were in our ward when we moved up to WA and lived in Renton. Luke is a few months older than Austin, so they quickly became best friends. Sara and Luke moved back to UT last year and we’ve been missing them ever since. So in our household we have to distinguish between “Buddy Luke” and our Lucas/Luke. We miss Buddy Luke a lot and are always very excited to see him every chance we get.

After Springville we headed north to Provo. We like to stop and visit the old stomping grounds. Only problem this year was that our vacation was so late in the summer that it was Education Week at BYU. Holy cow there were tons of people there. We ended up parking south of campus and walking up the dreaded hill. Never thought I’d have to traverse that hill again, but it actually brought back some good memories. However, I never had to push a stroller up that hill, and especially not one w/ 2 kids on it. Wow, that was tough!

We headed to the bookstore to load up on some BYU gear for the upcoming football game. BYU came up to Seattle and played UW on Sep. 6th and we went with some members of our old Scenic Hill ward in Kent. The football game is another post entirely, look for that one shortly. The preparation for the football game took place while on vacation. At any rate, it’d been somewhat of a long day already. The boys were both tired from playing at Sara and Luke’s house. It was early afternoon and definitely nap time. The bookstore was crammed with Education Week participants. We were slowly making our way through the clothing section to get T-shirts and hats for the football game and Austin was not happy with us. He was ready to go home (to grandma’s house that is). At any rate, Angie found a couple of cute BYU hats for the boys and brought them over to try them on. Lucas loved his, but Austin threw a fit. He ripped off his hat and proceeded to scream, “I don’t want to wear the hat. I HATE BYU!” I swear the entire bookstore went dead silent. Instantly all eyes were upon us. To be quite honest, the next few minutes were something of a blur. I don’t think I passed out totally, but there was definitely a lack of oxygen flowing to my brain. Luckily Angie knew exactly what to do. She picked him up and beat the UTE right out of him! I’m kidding, I’m kidding, nobody run off and go reporting us to the authorities. I’m just saying that before I knew it I had armfuls of hats, T-shirts, and glow-in-the-dark basketballs with instructions to “Buy these, I’ll be back in a minute” and off she whisked with the stroller and the boys.

After I recovered from the shock of the moment, the lack of oxygen to my brain, and the sudden disappearence of my entire family, I slowly proceeded to the cash registers. Luckily, for my sake, all the registers were down, which gave me plenty of time to stand there and gather myself, as well as for others to recover from the blasphemy that had so recently been thrust upon their ears. Soon enough, my family returned with several Jamba Juice’s in hand and all was restored to its natural order. Not only that, but a deep and meaningful conversion had taken place along the way as well. For no sooner had they returned with the drinks, but that we found Austin now singing praises to beloved BYU, purveyors of his new favorite drink, the Jamba Juice. Thank you Jamba Juice, for making all in the world right again.

After the bookstore we let the boys play on the hill by the library for a while. First, because this gave them a chance to get out of the stroller and run around a bit, and second, to facilitate the finishing of our drinks. Here’s the boys having fun rolling down the hill:

After they worked out all their wiggles, we proceeded over to the new Student athlete building where they have displays of all the sports memorabilia. We received a fantastic tour from the gentleman working there. He had lots of fun stories to tell us, things we’d have never known just roaming around on our own. Here’s some fun shots from our visit.


With the Cougar:















With Ty Detmer’s 1990 Heisman Trophy:















Austin with Shawn Bradley (well, sort of):

We had a great day. It was a lot of fun. Alas, we finally accomplished what we’d set out for that day, and stopped by to get Angie her Café Rio shredded pork salad on our way back to Grandma Joyce’s house.