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. :)