More Hobbit Time

This week Whitney got her braces off (for the second time), took all her BYU finals, and arrived home in time to go to the premiere of the Hobbit with her boyfriend Jesse (yes, it's official.) They went as Galadriel the Elf and Pippen the Hobbit. They actually ended up with tickets to go twice, once at 8:30 and then again at midnight. Since they had both just finished finials, it was a little hard to stay awake for the second showing.  What a fun way to start the holiday season, and just look at that beautiful (and expensive) smile!

BYU Football

Whitney has a job this year managing several consession booths during BYU football games. All the more reasons to have season tickets! It's fun to see her working at the games and visit with her on her breaks. GO COUGARS!

Off to BYU!

Whitney got home on a Saturday night from Germany, and left for BYU that Monday morning. A little jet lagged I'm sure, but very excited. She got the opportunity to attend the Foundations of Leadership conference and then New Student Orientation where she made lots of new friends. She turned 18 that weekend, the day before classes started!

It's Official

I guess once something goes out on Facebook it's official. That's were Whitney announced to the world that she has decided to attend BYU Provo! She had been leaning toward BYU Idaho for it's smaller class sizes and cheaper tuition, and even accepted their offer and chose a track. Then the official acceptance came for BYU Provo and she was much more excited about attending there in the end.

Steve and I drove down with her on Saturday and checked out all her dorm options. It was fun to tour the campus with her and a flood of memories came to me as we toured the dorms I used to live in. Sadly they have torn down the actual building I dormed in with my friends, but we walked into one that still stands and it smelled just the same! Whitney chose a different, more updated dorm option that I believe will suit her well. We are very excited for her to start in the fall. I know she will have a wonderful experience. We are very proud of you Whitney!

LTUE by Whitney

This weekend I got to go to a three day long writers conference at BYU. IT WAS AMAZING!!! It is called LTUE (Life the Universe and Everything) and is an annual sci-fi and fantasy writers conference. My Aunt Bree was speaking at some of the workshops and it was fun to be able to see her speak at diffrent author panels. All the classes are on different subjects from "Do I need an agent?" to "Writing fractured fairy tales," and they are all taught by published authors. I was able to attend all three days and was with my writer friends for all of it. It was an amazing experience that has been an epic learning opprotunity for me, and I cant wait to start applying it in my life. My writing friend Julie and I both made a mutual goal to be two of the published authors on the panels next year. No, I'm not crazy, we are both fully aware of the actual reasonable amount of time it will take for us to get published (several years) but it's going to be a nice, spurring, "shoot for the moon and you'll land among the stars" kind of goal. I'm excited to keep writing and I'm nearly finished with my first manuscript. I can't wait to start writing my second one and apply everything I've learned in my first one to my second.