BYU EDUCATION WEEK

There's nothing like BYU Education Week for renewing, refreshing and recharging your life!  And this year was no exception.  I am sooooooooooo glad I got to share it with these AWESOME ladies!  (All of them are my bestest girl friends ever!)

Me - Kotten Kandy - GJ - Key Lime Pie - Amy

Mil

But every "story" has a scary/tense part.  Right?  Right.  So our trip started off uneventful.  Amy, Key Lime Pie, Kotten Kandy and I left Saturday morning.  While we were on the road, Scott called and told us his father (Grandpa DeGooyer) had a massive heart attack.  We prayed for him the entire way.  (He's doing alright now.  He had a 5 by-pass surgery on Sunday and is now home.)
Then Sunday:  As we were driving through Wyoming we got a flat tire.

We took action.  Although eventually a nice trucker came by and helped us loosen the lug nuts which were extremely tight and we were struggling to remove them.  We then drove 12 miles to Rawlins, WY on a "donut" tire.  When we got there, everything was closed and we couldn't get our tire fixed or buy a new one until the morning.  So we did what any self-sufficient ladies would do: we decided to patch it ourselves.  A really nice, older couple helped us.  But unfortunately that is not the end of this exciting tale.  Another man (and his traveling companion) also tried to come to our rescue.  They were SCARY and Amy and I felt uneasy around them.  (I was sure they were serial killers - but that is because my favorite tv show is Criminal Minds.)
Anyways, these bad guys followed us to our following stop.  Luckily, Mark and Gay (the older couple) also made sure we were OK.  The tire did not hold air.  And we had to put the "donut" back on.  The creepy guy took charge and would not leave until we were "OK."  Mark and Gay also stuck around because they felt the evil from this man too.  (Mark and Gay were our angels from heaven.)  FINALLY the scary guy (he never told us his name) and his "friend" left.  We back-tracked.  We called the local bishop and found a place that would repair our tire in the early morning.  We got a hotel and felt relatively safe... until Amy decided to do a search for the scary guys on sex offender websites.  Sure enough, we found both of them.  It's frightening to think of what MIGHT have happened.  And we know Heavenly Father was watching out for us and sent us Mark and Gay!
We finally made it to Utah on Monday.  We got to see one class and then we went out for dinner and a movie with my mom and sister (to celebrate G.J. and my birthdays - We are 11 months and 2 weeks apart in age.)  Dinner was yummy!  (Thanks, mom and dad!)  And we saw the movie America: Imagine a World Without Her" by Dinesh D'Souza.  It's a powerful film that will keep your interest, provoke thoughtful dialogue and bring you to tears.  The film addresses profound moral and historical questions and is extremely well done.  D'Souza is an immigrant from India and a proud American patriot.  He sets out to defend America's founding principles and her historical record of living up to them.  It was an amazing film.  And made me extremely proud to be an American.

Tuesday through Friday was full of classes and performances.  First the performances:
Tuesday night we went to see William Joseph in concert.  He is a captivating pianist and composer and is known for his passion and virtuosity.  And his personality really was cute (although both my sister and I thought he needed to comb his hair.)  He was brilliant and all of us LOVED his music and style.  We all thought his concert would be our least favorite of the 3 performances we were able to see.  He ended up being all of our favorite!!!!!

William Joseph with my daughters!

Key Lime Pie was very impressed with the violinist that performed with William Joseph....

Wednesday night we went to the Variety Show.  It was good.  There were five different performers.  But we definitely had our favorites:  Sam Payne and Peter Breinholt.  The girls were also excited to meet one of the "Liken the Scripture" performers:  Daniel Beck.  But Sam and Peter were definitely the better "performers."

Peter Breinholt with K2

Sam Payne with K2

Daniel Beck with K2

Thursday the girls went to the youth dance and had a great time.
Friday we saw "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers."  "Goin' Courtin'" has never been as much fun as in this stage version.  We loved it!  And left singing "I'm a Lonesome Polecat!"  It was a WONDERFUL way to end the week.
I was able to take a lot of classes.  And I LOVED them all.  I'll try to write up reviews about them this week (or next).  But our favorite presenter was definitely Hank Smith!!!!  He taught a class about being happy.  We all attended together.  And the girls got a picture:

The girls also enjoyed getting to meet John Bytheway.  His class was fun too!

Here are the rest of the pics from the week:

DeGOOYER DAY 2014

We LOVE DeGooyer Day!  And this year was no different.
DeGooyer Day has been a tradition for 10 years now.  There are only two rules for celebrating DeGooyer Day:  1.  The day is entirely about being a DeGooyer and being part of our family. and 2.  We wear matching shirts.  The rest of the day is entirely up to our imaginations.  Over the years, some of the things we have enjoyed together on our holiday have been: sight seeing, hiking, going to the movies, bowling, miniature golfing, etc.

Since money was tight this year, we decided to do something different...  We had a Lord of the Rings movie-a-thon.  We watched all three extended versions, complete with lots of snacks and treats.
Scott designed our shirts, as usual.

This is the back of the shirt.

This is the front corner of the shirt.

Key Lime Pie made lembus bread (which is the bread of the elves.)  It was really yummy!  And we made it with honey from our own hive!

Kotten Kandy made orc brownies.  Don't let the name fool you.  Orcs are evil, but these are DELICIOUS and extremely rich.

We felt like the hobbits as we had breakfast, 2nd breakfast, elevensies, lunch, tea, etc. etc. etc.

The J.R.R. Tolkein story is truly a classic.  We all loved it and loved finding parallels between it and the gospel.  Everyone also enjoyed making fun of their mother/wife as she sobbed during most of the movie.  She cried when it was sad.  She cried when it was happy.  She cried when someone was heroic.