Merry Christmas!

We spent the Christmas in Cambridge, away from our family. But we recruited our neighbors, the Morgans, and some other ward memebers to have a huge Christmas dinner--turkey and all. It turned out pretty good, with lots of leftovers, and a little game of Settlers to top it off.
We had a great Christmas and hope everyone else did, too!

Somehow we managed to bring our Christmas tree across the country, but not any of our ornaments or decorations or even our stockings. Luckily, our local grocery store had ornaments available. A few twisty-ties later, and our tree was decorated! Now, if we only had some presents...

Dyal Family Thanksgiving

The entire fam (except us, of course, and Adam in Japan) was together for the holiday. I couldn't help showing off my family.



(l to r) Seth, Dad, and Nate


Baby Jackson!


(l to r) (front row) Nate, Keli (second row) Jenn, Jackson, Chelon, Dad, Mom, Mike (last row) Ricky, Seth

Thanksgiving in Our Nation's Capital!

We were graciously invited by the Oliphants (thank you Baxter) to spend Thanksgiving in DC. Our mutual friends, Justin and Emily Ekins, also decided to spend some quality Oliphant time and were good enough to drive us down with them. A mere ten hours later (ie 4:30 Thanksgiving morning) we were in Washington DC! After a few hours sleep, we enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with the Oliphant family, who treated us like we were one of their own.
We were also able to have a reunion (albeit a far-too-short one) with our east coast relatives, Brad and Kim! It was great to be able to see them and get to know their neck of the woods. Brad even introduced Brandon to a guy in their ward who does EXACTLY what Brandon wants to do in ten years. It's all about the Thanksgiving connections!

The rest of the trip was a whirl-wind of tourist sites: The Iwo Jima memorial, Lincoln memorial, Washington memorial, WWII memorial, Boy Scout monument, the White House, the US Capital, the Natural History Smithsonian, the Air and Space Smithsonian, the Holocaust museum, the Pentagon, the Air Force Memorial, the Navy Memorial, the Korean War Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, the National Archives, Pot Bellys (yum)... And we didn't even see it all!

The trip was far too short, but much appreciated. We can't wait to go back sometime soon for a longer stay!


Thanksgiving rain (Justin, Brandon, Felicia, Baxter, and Emily)


Thanksgiving dinner (with cousins Missy and Tom)


The US Capital


They DO exist!


Brad gives his approval


DC Subway after the Holocaust museum


One of the more interesting DC statues


The actual C-3PO and R2-D2!


What the spider statue!?


Future Supreme Court Justice?


Happy Thanksgiving from the Wilsons!

Harvard v. Yale

The Harvard Stadium

As part of our Harvard experience, we, of course, had to go to the big rival football game: Harvard v. Yale! It was an, um, unique experience to say the least. Our seats were as high up as possible. Literally. But that's okay: The stadium itself was so small that the furthest seats were about as close as the upper seats of the lower bowl at say, BYU or U of U stadiums, so not bad. We watched the game with some of our friends from around here (and started off the game with some Red Bones BBQ - see our post from Oct 24).

About the game:
- We lost. Harvard got stomped on. Apparently this is the first Harvard/Yale game that Harvard has lost in 6 years. Brandon has a theory that he will never go to a school with a winning football team. As anyone knows, Kearns was horrible at football, and the majority of his undergraduate years were under Crowton. But as soon as Brandon left BYU, what do they do? Start kicking TRASH in the MWC. Go figure. Someday Brandon would like to be able to root for a winning team while he actually lives in the same time-zone as said school.
- Half-time show: Apparently there is some long standing tradition among these Ivy League smarties to have the students put on their own half-time shows.
Yale's portion: The medieval club's version of a half-time show, complete with a larger than life pegasus (representing Yale) and a hydra (for Harvard), which is eventually killed by the pegasus.
Harvard's portion: Various biblical references in which God is smiling down on Harvard and cursing Yale (ie John Harvard parts the 'crimson red' sea and the Yale students drown; Yale is like unto Sodom and Gomorrah, etc). We had no idea that Harvard was religious! It ended with the band marching in a Y formation and a giant hand giving the Y the finger. Finally, the band forms an H and the giant hand gives a thumbs up sign, with the narrator stating, "And God looked at Harvard and it was good!"
- Weirdest costume: the guy in the banana suit.
- Strangest crowd past-time: paper airplanes. By the 3rd quarter, the paper airplanes were more interesting to watch than the game.
- The after-show we're glad we missed (we left with five minutes left in the game): the streakers. Ew.
All in all, quite the once-in-a-lifetime experience.


Our view from the highest seats in the stadium (we moved down at half time so we didn't have two pillars blocking our view)


Yale's pegasus


Yale drowning in the red sea


Giving Harvard the thumbs up


Abraham, Ruth, and little Lizzie Wise with us at the game


Brandon's scarf shows his school spirit

Celtics v. Jazz!

This week, our heroes Brandon & Felicia had the chance to go to the Celtics game thanks to the Harvard Law School Couples' Association, where the Celtics were defeated by none other than the Utah Jazz. From the photo, it's fairly obvious how AWESOME our seats were. . . Good thing Harvard's got all this money floating around to subsidize everything - even our social life! We met this really neat couple, the guy is from Belarus of all places. Of course Brandon had a good time chatting it up in the Русский. Life just can't get better than a few over-priced hotdogs, two teams you could equally root for, and a fun time with some Post-Soviet товарищи!

(Shout-out and thanks to B-Bax for the hip shirt!)

Halloween-ness

So, Felicia and I both dressed up for Halloween. Felicia had to for work - apparently the elderly residents at her occupation demand fun costumes - so she was a hill-billy-esque girl. Freckles, and wheat in her hair, and everything! It was SUPER cute.

I took a more formal route and dressed up as my Property professor. He is by far the most frightening of my professors this semester, so many of my classmates took it as a bold sign of courage. I think the professor was flattered. The only downside was that he did indeed notice my homage and picked on me in class from the get-go. Oh well. You take what you can get I guess.

Otherwise we had a fairly quiet day. We did go to a sweet Indian restaurant for dinner. Indian I think fits for any holiday. :)

The Weekend: RedBones, New England Aquarium, etc

So, Felicia and I had some adventures this weekend. It started with our Friday night adventures in the greater Boston area. Turns out there are three other guys in my section with birthdays this weekend, so we decided to combine our forces and become the Birthday Team. After long and hard deliberations, Team Birthday decided to have its first annual celebration and much anticipated shindig at the famed RedBones BBQ. About 40 people showed up to wish us well, which in all reality is about half the people from our 83 person section. Rumor has it it was by far the most well-attended social thus far. We had a good time.

Saturday, after a fun-filled morning of homework, Felicia and I took the T into town to go to the world-famous New England Aquarium. Aside from our camera breaking towards the end, we had a BLAST! We saw all sorts of sea creatures: sharks, sting-rays, sea-horses, sea-turtles, harbor seals, penguins, tuna, etc. They had this neat jelly-fish exhibit too. (sorry team, no squirrels). Our favorites by far were the sea turtles. They had one that was huge! We got to watch while they were feeding him cabbage. Yum for borscht!


(Felicia and Brandon do Disney!)


(and you thought Jaws was scary!)


(See if you can hear Felicia singing Outkast!)

Sadly though, as mentioned above, our camera was dropped while we attempted to get our picture taken with a guy dressed up in a shark suit, and our camera is no longer functioning. I know that all the feliciabrandon.blogspot.com fans out there would have loved the proposed pic, but our ol' camera just didn't make it. Apparently digital cameras are pretty fragile. Who knew? We're gonna take it to BestBuy zavtra to see if we can get 'er fixed. Saddest day ever. . .

Our Church Building

We have told some of you about how interesting our church building is. It is considered an historic building in Cambridge and, therefore, few things can be altered (ie the Church can't put a sign on the outside of the building). It used to be a factory; the room we use as the chapel still has the old beams and cog wheels. It makes for interesting church meetings!


A look at the rafters


The building entrance


View from the street

The Commonwealth...

Superfluous regulations, socialist government programs, horrible customer service, lack of smiling, rampant squirrel violence.... When we first got here, Brandon kept saying how much Cambridge reminded him of Moscow. But saying that Brandon and Bucky think alike isn't much of a compliment.

Boston-isms

Things are a little different here in Boston, so I made a list of words to help all you non-Bostonians for when you come visit. We wouldn't want you to sound like a tourist!
(Naturally, most of them have to do with food.)

rotary = round-about
the T = the subway
frappe [pron. 'frap'] = milkshake
milkshake = flavored milk without ice cream (ie chocolate milk)
grinder = hoagie or submarine sandwich
jimmies = sprinkles (as in, on ice cream or donuts)
chowdah = chowder (this kind of pronunciation applies to a lot of words; try it on the following: Harvard, dog, garbage, park)
whoopie pie (see pic) = a kind of homemade oreo that's sold in a lot of bakeries



So until next time everyone...Mataheah!

BYU/BC Game, a tragic defeat . . .

Thanks to some vast generosity on the part of one David Magleby, we were able to attend the BYU/BC football game. Aside from the really expensive hotdogs, we had a blast! I'm not sure if it is common practice among the jet-set Cougar fans, but there were a lot here. As we were wandering around showing Baxter the sights, it seemed like every other group were Cougs. But really, who wouldn't want to come visit Boston? (hint, hint to all you feliciabrandon.blogspot.com readers out there)


Waiting for the bus . . . which was the good option given how far Boston College is from our place. The bus is weird, mostly cuz it smells funny, which is why Brandon is grimacing.


A little pre-game excitement, although maybe the shadows on our faces are a foreshadowing of the defeat soon to befall us!


Dejected. Just dejected.


Even though we lost, we were still happy that we got to spend time with friends, like Baxter, Emily and Justin. Emily and Justin have been here a while longer than us and know of places to get some good eats, like the crepe place they showed us. Umm, crepes. Numptiousness!

Friends in Town!

Our first house guests! Baxter and Nate came and visited us, but somehow we didn't end up with any pictures of Nate, so it SEEMS like only Baxter was here, but Nate really was, too. Either way, what a great excuse to go out and party in Boston!


Baxter and Brandon at the subway.


Supermen...with an anchor!


Secretly overjoyed to see the USS Cassin Young


Guns away!


Found it! (the old north church)


Taking ourselves WAY to seriously (it's really a picture of the Boston skyline)


What are you lookin' at?


The funny thing is, we don't even know who this is a statue of.


Near Faneuil Hall with Baxter and our new favorite friend, Ellie.


The Capital Building

Our one regret? We only had Dunkin Donuts once during their visit. Next time, Baxter!

Harvard Museum of Natural History

Brandon looks good from above!


Felicia is showing this whale how it's done...


...while Brandon is getting blown away by another whale's bad breath.

(dental hygiene is so important)

Some Random Shots of Harvard Campus