Ethan Parker

Mike and I went to a park and played some Frisbee Football. It was a game we made up right then and there where you throw each other the frisbee/football and catch it at the same time. The game then evolved into throwing the football at the frisbee, then throwing the frisbee at the football in mid air. It was lotsa fun.

I don’t know why its called that, but its a fun place by Utah Lake along the Provo River. Here is a picture of me jumping to catch a ring, it was cool! They put you in a harness, you climb a tree, jump to get the ring, then lower you to the ground and you think about how cool it was. The BYU 4H mentoring program through Utah State University did it for us. Its the thing I mentor Mike through.

Here is a hat you don’t see every day. We got it for her birthday along with a pound of fudge from the BYU Bookstore. Mmmmmm. My mom has degrees from both schools! You’ll never guess how old she is, lookin’ good, mom!

They took us to a sweet Thai Restaurant called “Thaifoon” and it was yummy, even days after. At the restaurant I ate a super hot pepper that caused me to respect peppers a little more. I drank like a gallon and a half of water. Gateway Mall is really nice.

Every year BYU does a spirited activity involving wholesome young people and large amounts of blue foam. This year was no exception and it was a blast! What mucho fun! They had two enormous slip-n-slides set up with blue foam being constantly poured on them. At the bottom of the hill there was a moat of 2-feet deep foam you could play in. Eric and I wrestled and slid in it a lot. Oh yeah!!!

Our skin was dyed quite blue afterward but we got hosed off and joined the community shower afterward.

Here we are in our blue foam glory.

You know how sometimes you see a piece of art in a museum and you say to yourself “hey, I could do that!” and wonder if you really could? Well, we did. For our group activity in my singles ward, we decided to make a group art piece. Everyone brought a random object and we all worked together to be as creative as possible for about 25 minutes. Here is the result!!!!

Here is piece # 1. It’s playful, fun, and juvenile. That’s why we put it near a bunch of kid’s drawings. Maybe it won’t get taken down as fast?

Here it is up close. As you can see, the action man is parachuting down to safety atop the CD coming out of the milk jug. It symbolizes Utah’s heritage of fearless pursuit.

This next one is called “Hope”. Let’s just hope no one notices that the tag says “Harrison Fine Arts Center” rather than “Harris” oops. It does inspire hope, though, look!  —–>

Here it is in all it’s glory. One person brought X-ray paper, another: CDs. Another: a frisbee (the base) and yet another: a flower and one more brought pot holders. It’s mystery is only exceeded by its power.

On a serious note I do think its kinda cool! The CDs are growing, then break (tragic moment to be overcome) then it gets higher and becomes a flower!

Normally I wouldn’t embed rock into my blog, but this is quite appropriate at a time like this.

This is my neighbor’s work here at BYU. He loves Incubus and painted this stuff on canvas, then sewed it together. This is a lyric from the song “I miss you” by Incubus. Pretty darn impressive, I like it. The words glow in the dark, too!! We can all learn from this kind of passion and talent. What is most important to us? Is it on our wall?

Before I moved to Provo to attend BYU,  I must say my expectations weren’t very high. I thought there would be lame, boring people and a so-so school. I couldn’t have been more wrong. BYU is a very highly esteemed private university and has many programs that rank in the top 5 in the nation.

Here are some pictures of a rainbow yesterday.

In the Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-day Saints, we have a leader, or president. President Thomas Monson we also call a “prophet” just like Moses or Abraham in the bible. It’s a bold claim, we know, but that’s really what we believe.

He came to BYU today and spoke to us in our weekly devotional. It was great, he’s really funny for being an 82 year-old retired printing executive. Today he spoke about other prophets that have lived in the past 60 years and told us a more human side of them. Their favorite food, favorite quotes, foibles, and so forth. It was a great experience to be there.

Here’s what it looked like.

Last Saturday I went to a great reception! I got to see some cousins I haven’t seen in a long time that traveled from afar. The farthest was from Japan! It took place in Orem and there was an awesome live band. Leading it was Larry Green, guitar professor of BYU. Turns out we’re related now! My cousin married his son. We had a stake dance that night so I thought his band was going to be playing there, but he was at his son’s reception instead, glad I still got to witness some family rock and roll.

Here’s a pick of the great-tasting slushy ice-cream table.

Great date, huh? It was. Last Friday Eric and I doubled and played some Tennis, went to Brick Oven, and played some Scrabble goodness. Lotsa fun. Then we went back to our apartment where we played with the giant load of accounting stuff that Eric and I got from a job fair I recently went to.

Here was our scrabble board. We played where you can make up words as long as the definition is cool!

Yup, food inside. We got “unlimited pasta bowl” at Olive Garden. Word to the wise: don’t go to Olive Garden for a bargain feast. Bad idea, you’ll probably just fall for the $6.25 dessert, too. It was pretty super amazing, though. Choclate cake with goo inside and vanilla sauce with strawberries, mmmm.

This is our Y group! They were one fun bunch of freshman and we had a good time. Didn’t get any dates out of it . . . dang. Hey, they were born in 1991, is that bad?

Y group is what they call New Student Orientation at BYU. It’s a few events that happen the week before school starts where 2 group leaders (Eric and I) show you around campus as well as take you to some really fun activities like concerts, dances, and other neat presentations about BYU. At one of the events the Young Ambassadors performed a lot and a football player told of his conversion from being a Ute to a True Blue BYU Cougar! Also Jerico Road performed, if you’ve ever heard of them.

Y group meant a lot of free meals that week. Bless you, new students.

This is from Aug 12. Here’s Mike with the girls basketball team at BYU. Lucky we were walking by their court and he wanted to peek inside. They were cool about it. Man, girls just seem to trust you more when you hang out with kids. Bonus!

Last Saturday Eric and I went wakeboarding with the Stake High Couselor assigned to our ward and it was a blast. Super fun people, super nice boat.

This is the text that started it all. They thought it was too cloudy, ha!

Here’s brother Tassainer in his boat. It’s pretty nice. They are coming to pick me up after I backed the boat into the water. It was a little scary, first time I ever backed a boat down a dock with a super nice truck. Went fine, though, no damage to people or goods.

Eric busting up some wake. He’s pretty good.

Here’s Ethan having some fun behind the boat. Man, where do you find quads like that?

E-Rock giving a thumbs up. Wakeboarding is so much better with gloves.

Tubing is fun, but sometimes ya just gotta bail.

Temples are the Mormon Church’s most sacred and important buildings. The church currently has 130 operating temples throughout the world. Eric and I went to the Provo temple this afternoon. Everyone wears white when they enter the temple to symbolize equality in God’s eyes. White also symbolizes church member’s commitment to keep clean from the sins that would destroy families.

I love the temple because inside I grow closer to God and feel a special peace there.

Provo Temple

These people were on campus as I walked by. They were just holding hands with the statues like this and got excited when I said I wanted a picture. Who knows. I was able to email it to one of them, though, because of this fancy phone (palm pre).

Yo YO! I finally got a smart phone. Yup, one of those new-phangled doo-whackys that can check your email, take 3 mp pictures, do “tweets” and even make phone calls! It’s called the Palm Pre and so far I likes it pretty good.

Here are a couple pictures we took with it. That’s a true blue Parker Planners shirt if you couldn’t tell. We’ve got T-shirts, its official.

Today Benjie and I went to the BYU Bookstore to knock some heads. They always sell out super fast at the beginning of a semester like this and almost never have at least one of each color of planner available. We wanted to park right by the bookstore in a 30 min spot but there weren’t any available except for this one with a scooter in it. Benjie got out of the car and moved the scooter so we could park there, no hesitation. Man, I love that guy. No fear.

Turns out the BYU Bookstore is doing better than we thought and they had a ton on the shelf again.

In the bookstore we met a couple people that had just returned from their missions and they were glad to buy planners!! Yes!! Thanks Jane and Brig! Welcome back from Canada!

Last Saturday was so much fun! I got to spend a lot of time with a friend of mine, to protect her identity we’ll call her Car Queen. Turns out Car Queen needed a safety and emissions check to get her ride registered. She knows I have a little mechanic experience so she wanted me to come with. We found out that because the check engine light was on her car had little chance of passing. They pulled out the diagnostic dealy-o and we found out it was some kind of emissions equipment failure.

Commonly that’s a bad O2 sensor so we took it back to my place. We had a ton of fun getting the O2 sensor out and worked together great. She even got underneath her car to turn a wrench! The grease on Car Queen’s shirt and face was pretty cute; I must admit. So we cleaned off the sensor and drove the car around for a while to try and see if it was fixed. We just may have solved the problem! We’ll see.

We made good friends with the folks at Jiffy Lube, too. They treated us like family because we tried to do our own mechanic work and even let us use their cool hand wash stuff.

So later that night she played some piano music for me and I played for her. Props, Car Queen, props. I’m not dating any one person right now but she just might make the call-back list in the future.

be good

Ethan