victory...!

Our trip to the Utah BYU game was one to be remembered for a long time to come. Tickets were not easy to come by, but we owe our tickets to Robert Hall (thank you again Rob). In all we had Jonny, Mel, Libby, the Deej, Hala Paongo, Amy and Paul in the group. We piled into our banner adorned transportation at Mom and Dad Frandsen's house (who graciously took the twins and made the trip possible).

Michael was beat. He came to the airport to pick up Dad the night before and didn't get to bed until after 11 pm.


We found parking, put on our BYU paraphenalia (a decision hotly debated as we would be sitting in the student section...) and walked to the stadium.


Michael was fascinated by the 'life size' players and fans to be found in Jonny's binoculars...

The game was filled with frustrating times...


Sweet passes...


And Exciting times...


Much has been written about the greatest game in the storied rivalry, and I won't attempt to wax poetic. The final quarter was PACKED with intrigue, excitement and frustration. We were booed, taunted, mocked and jeered. We were loud, enthusiastic, boisterous and excited. As the last minute wound down I felt tense, hopeful and dejected all at once. I watched the sea of red below us and wondered if we would get out of the stadium without event--regardless the outcome. As we watched Beck dance back and forth behind the line of scrimmage it was surreal...


When Harline caught the ball and we realized what had just happened we erupted with emotion. We were hugging people we had never met. We had a mosh pit of hugging BYU strangers in the middle of which were Michael and I. He was squooshed and lost his gum. It startled him and things were not set right until we replaced his gum. After the drama we celebrated and celebrated. We didn't leave the stadium until we had snaked some poms poms as souveniers, sung the BYU fight song, reveled and yelled at the stadium and generally had our fill.

Thanksgiving in Utah...

Happy birthday to AJ on the 22nd, Jonny on the 23rd. Happy Thanksgiving to all...

Michael enjoyed the Turkey Bowl (that was not football but soccer) in the place of his father and uncle Stevie. He didn't pick any fights, however. Fabulous talent was displayed on and off the field.

Five full tables of fabulous food. The girls had their first taste of, well, a lot of things. Their doctor = Grandpappy said it was okay. My favorite was mom's salad.

Too many pies to count... I sampled 4. I can't believe how much whipped cream this family eats.Great company and lots of cute kids everywhere. Michael loves playing with his "cousins." They now know him as Hala Paongo, and Michael has Zach calling everything a racecar.

Everyone froze during family pictures. Perhaps we'll photoshop some people into the picture?We watched old school home videos into the night... my how everything changes after a decade +.

I simply love being around family. I'm glad we made the trip. A good time was had by all.

rivalry week...!

To kick off rivalry week I post excerpts of a conversation with a Utah fan a few weeks back over electronic mail. His response--a well educated LDS Utah fan--speaks volumes about Utah fans the world over...

I said, "For some reason, your comments about Bronco's defense as a gimmick and your parody of cougartown and BYU tradition stuck with me. The writing has been on the wall since Utah lost to Ben Olsen and UCLA, but I can't help but think that the gimmick in the MWC this year is Utah's offense. I say this all in good spirit and good fun as I endured the type of play exhibited by Utah for the last 4 years from my beloved TDS.

Sorry about wyoming. The bright spot is Weddle...What a cool guy."

He said, "if you will take a look at your current success, you will recognize that it came once bronco pulled his head out and realized that his gimmickdefense was worthless. maybe you haven't noticed, but your belovedcougs no longer run that daunting 3-3-5 that allowed the utes, and manyother teams to punish them over the past few years. nice to see thatthe cougar coaching staff is able to finally realize when a good thingis actually benefitting the rest of the league.

as far as your beloved cougs go. i am sure that life is rosey in cougartown.i got a chill the other saturday and i thought it was from the cold weather. then, i realized that i was feeling the spirit of cougartown and i shed a tearof joy. i can't wait for the next proclamation to the world from your inspiring mayor. maybe he will announce to us that ice cream from the cougareat will shipped to the whole world and we will all be able to enjoy the love that can occur when a 21 year old rm and an 18 year old chosen sister connect over a shared bite of luscious vanilla cream and kindle a relationship that will last into the eternities. i check the provo website every day waiting with bated breath that next proclamation.

as far as i know, i and i look deeply into these things, john beck is yet to cry this year in front of the cameras. i am sure that trend will not hold true though after their visit to rice-eccles stadium. good luck with the rest of your season and congratulations on confirming my earlier statement about your worthless defense. i'll take it as a compliment as opposed to the shot you intended."

My rebuttal, "Good to hear from you. It's nice to see you've been following the cougars. You seemed to have overlooked that two of your wins against teams that we beat came because we injured their star players. See Ballard and Wagner of TCU who are now dominating again. See UNLV's quarterback woes who came into rice eccles limping.

The 3-3-5 was a problem. The coaches did the right thing in switching. However, it is the same guys. They didn't lose many from last year and the new scheme is looking pretty good. I'm suprised to hear your thoughts on strength of schedule as you have beaten utah state, a I-aa team and BYU inflicted injured teams.

What did the 21 yo/18 yo comment mean? Do I sense an anti- 'utah-mormon' sentiment in your words?

In the end you're right. Things will be back to normal if the salvation of your season comes from a win against BYU.

He ended with, "spoken like a true cougar fan!!! although i would have expected a reference to the 1984 championship year or the year when you went 12-0 with doman (i'm sorry, i meant 12-2). or maybe you could have made reference to the team as the armies of helaman as mendenhall did last year. i know that your team has been fighting fiercely and bravely for the freedom of and pride of cougartown. if you will read back through my email, you will see no reference to the strength of our schedule or about how well we are doing. i am actually quite disappointed to see that we are doing so poorly, but still remain a true and optomistic fan. congratulations on your feat of injuring the players of other teams. i guess that is one way to get a victory, but i never knew that it was something about which was worthy of bragging. and if you will also read through my email, you will seen no reference to your players, only a flawed defensive scheme.

i am sorry that you were offended by my "anti-mormon" sentiments. as you well know i was never smart enough or spiritual enough to get into the Lord's university. i just struggled through my classes up on the hill and was lucky that they let me go on a mission. i mean, after i got home from my mission, i joined a frat, picked up alcohol, and never went back to church. the only thing that i can think of to explain the discrepancy in the number of kids is that too many ute fans got drunk at the football games and then went out and got their girlfriends pregnant. as one who has lived in the dorms with all of the sinners, maybe you could offer up a better suggestion.

...being away from utah i had forgotten how arrogant and annoying byu fans are..."

Your reactions?

motivation...

life lessons...

i am on the trauma surgery service. every day i deal with patients who flew off their motorcycles, rolled their cars at high speed and are paralyzed, brain dead, in extreme pain and the list goes on. in one of my rare moment of reflection i thought of my dear old dad. he covered the ER at ventura county medical center and certainly saw the same types of patients.

a sense of guilt came over me as i thought of my 'occasional' speeding and my general flippancy about things speed. my father made a personal, moral decision years ago never to speed. i remember egging him on as a teenager on the way home from gunnison when his brothers and my cousins would pass us up before reaching levan ('navel' backwards).

the question is how his personal decision affected me. do i speed because i felt repressed all those years of being passed up? or do i feel guilt for speeding despite my father's decision that it is morally repugnant? am i personally more or less safe because of my father's decision?

one thing's for sure. i won't let the car roll until everyone has their seatbelts on...just like my father before me.

my steps to curb my son's need for speed? stickers like lightening...

mormon pre-empts romney...

Well, the writing is on the wall and it is conceivable that in two years--if my predictions hold up--we may have two mormon's among the ten (or so) most powerful men in Washington...that should get the cult conspiracists talking.

Congratulations to the democrats. Maybe their time at the anti-WalMart rallies paid off. Perhaps it had more to do with the debacle parodied by peter and stephen on halloween. Maybe it has to do with very poor managment of a fragile Iraq in the first few weeks, months and years after 'victory' was acheived. Whatever the reason, it will be nice to see Bush actually use his veto power (once in six years? you could probably keep your liscense if you only had momentary lapses of blindness every six years...)

I look forward to a better balance of power. More checks, more compromise and probably more gettting done in the nation's capital.

Congrats to Reid. Condolences to Hatch. And watch out for Romney.

hanging out...

In Amy's post, she caught some great moments from our weekend, but I wanted to highlight some of my more favorite events...

1. Biking in the San Bernardino mountains. Relaxing and in good company.


2. The Beach...The girls got stuck at Ikea so Matt and I enjoyed the beauty in kid-filled solitude. We were quite the couple.



3. Amy's Halloween Party...Michael's best friends.



4. Just Hanging Out...

Holloween Highlights...

Just so you know, it has been a wonderfully eventful 5 days at our house. My brother, Matt brought his family (wife Angela, children Brinlee and Max) to visit.

Activities included a trip to the pumpkin patch/carnival, a bikride for the men, a BYU win, an IKEA trip for the ladies, a night beach extravaganza, helping Amy in church while Paul was on call Sunday, Disneyland until closing, a Halloween carnival at our house, Brinlee's 3rd b-day party, and of course--HALLOWEEN! Michael and Brinlee had so much fun together! We were so happy to have them visit us.



So here are some Halloween costume pictures...

Michael was a BYU football player (surprise, surprise!). He got the biggest kick out of his cleats (Lafe's old ones) and black marks under his eyes. He alternated between being Hala Paongo, John Beck, and (of course) "just Michael."

Brinlee was Cinderella... and knows just how to curtsey! How many kids get Halloween a birthday on the same day?? This was a big day for our little princess!

The girls were inchworms... costumes found by Grandma Frandsen. They lived up to their Halloween titles and inched all over the place.

They both found each other quite interesting and sometimes inched all over each other!

Oh... and at Disneyland, Michael was tall enough to ride Space Mountain... I still can't believe we took him on it. Paul kept him emotionally stable by singing the "Star Wars" theme song throughout the ride. Below is a picture of the picture they take while you are on the ride.

I was just glad Michael didn't have an "accident," as I didn't bring an extra pair of undies.

left hanging...

75 degrees and hanging out, indoors, forlorn.

mourn with those that mourn...

There is a segment of the population whose suffering rarely ends. >20% of patients on a typical medicine service (personal observation) suffer from decubitus ulcers. I would have posted live pictures but we have our standards on this site. You can find plenty on google image...

Decubitus ulcers are brought on by chronic inactivity/bed rest and the inability to apply proper prophylaxis. Patients are often paralyzed and don't have the social support to be rotated and moved regularly to keep pressure off points of greatest pressure. Once the ulcers form it is very difficult for them to heal because the circumstances that caused them are often unrectifiable. The pain of the ulcer is immense, the infections that brew to the bone are often uncurable and people pass in pain from this phenomenon. Every morning I see people with this problem and every morning I feel compassion, revulsion and sadness. I'm not doing much (consult wound care, iv antibiotics, softer bed, rotate and change dressings) and it's frustrating.

It brings out a thought. To comfort those that stand in need of comfort brings to the light the idea that members of our society suffer to an unnecessary degree. Without support, kindness and service many people will die in pain. Perhaps contact with that pain reminds us we are human, fallible and selfish in nature. Alleviating the pain salves their wounds and our souls.

Our Day Trip to BYU

So the kids and I are in Utah and I must give a report about some of our adventures... well--mostly just one. It was a red-letter day in the life of one 3-year-old Cougar fan.

Our Day Trip to BYU

One must dress for the occasion when visiting the college of one's favorite football team. Yes, the ride there was filled with a running commentary on the "pretend John Beck, Fui Vakapuna, and Hala Paongo" playing a football game in the back seat.

First stop: the Bookstore where Michael was dazzled by the plethora of BYU paraphanalia. He pointed out many Bs and Ys and Us. Our greatest find? A BYU flag:

We've taught Michael that the flag (a US flag) is a symbol of our freedom. So whenever we ask what the flag stands for, he dutifully says "It is a symbol of our freedom." But when he found the BYU flag, he excitedly said: "Look mom, it is a symbol of John Beck's freedom!" and later he remarked that it is also a "symbol of the Cougars."

We purchased a BYU football and put it to good use...

...throwing some touchdowns...

...and kicking some sweet kickoffs.

Then he wanted a picture with the football player.

Needless to say, it was a marked event in the life of the biggest 3-year-old BYU fan in California. We just wish daddy could have been there.

And I can't let this post go without showing you what Grandma found when we were having breakfast the other day:

Yes, Bekah found a BLACK permanent marker. It has been worn/scrubbed off of her skin, and *mostly* cleaned off of the carpet (YIKES!).