Christmas 2011

The semester ended and Christmas break began.  There are always plenty of holiday parties at BYU, and we always take a picture with Justin Bieber whenever we can.

Holiday parties also means mistletoe, and I looked for it at any party we went to.

Cory and I always were game for the photo op.  We took pictures in front of little trees...

...and huge trees.  This was from when we went to see the lights at Temple Square.

I actually spent the week of Christmas with my parents in Wyoming.  Cory had to work her job, but got to spend a few days with her mom in Idaho.  It was during this Christmas break that I told my parents about my intentions to marry Cory.  They were extremely excited and supportive.

Elder Sabey Gets Married

In December I flew out to Denver to be a groomsman for Tyler Sabey, a companion from my mission.  I was glad to be there and take part in the day.  I don't hesitate at all to say he was my favorite companion from the mission, and I had some pretty great companions that I loved.  We served together for 4 straight transfers in the offices.  That is one fourth of my entire time in Argentina.  He married Emma Taylor.

I didn't really know anyone there, but everyone was very friendly.  It did make me miss Cory a lot though.  It was the first time in a good while that I had to fly solo at some sort of large social event.  I didn't like it.

I came home from this wedding with no doubts that I wanted to get married to Cory.

Sensuous Sandwich Challenge

The last week of school my roommates and I decided to take on the Sensuous Sandwich 24-inch Challenge.  It requires you to eat a 24 inch sub sandwich in 30 minutes.  Winners get a t-shirt and your picture on the wall.  If you wear the t-shirt when you come back in, you get free drinks with your sandwich.  I, however, was in it for the glory.

The six of us got our 24-inch subs.  We all got something different.  I went with the French dip, thinking I could get more down with the sandwich dipped in au jus.  I asked for Swiss cheese on it.  You can imagine it takes a while to make six 24-inch subs, so we sat and waited.  They brought the sandwiches and I noticed my cheese looked funny.  I soon realized it was cream cheese.  I guess the lady misheard me...anyway it was either wait another 5 minutes or just start the challenge so I said I didn't care...and that was a mistake.

24 inches didn't sound like it was going to be that tough.  I can pound a 12-inch Subway sandwich in less than five minutes, so I only had to do that twice in 30 minutes.  The first 12 inches was so easy.  The cream cheese was a little weird, but whatever.  The next six inches took me a good bit of time.  I started to feel it, and I had to tackle a glob of cream cheese that just wouldn't go away.  The last six inches was Hell on Earth.  A real mental wall was hit.  My brain was furiously sending out hormones telling me to stop.  My taste buds even started to play tricks on me to make me think that I was dying.  The sandwich that at the beginning of the 30 minutes was tender beef dipped in a deliciously savory au jus sauce had become baby flesh (beef) dipped in paint thinner (au jus) covered in thick chunks of pasty glue (cream cheese).  It was repulsive.  It literally tasted toxic.  It took everything I had to get it done, but I came out victorious!!!  The first 18 inches took me 10 minutes.  The last 6 inches took me 18 minutes.

Here are the victors.  I learned something about each of my roommates that day.  The sheer horror of the situation brought out our deepest characteristics.

1. Zach.  He finished in 12 minutes.  He never slowed down.  He never seemed weak at any point.  When he finished his hands were literally shaking from the adrenaline.  He is a weirdo that likes eating challenges.

2. Kyle. He finished in 26 minutes.  He was mostly silent the entire time.  The longer time went on, the less he talked.  He didn't complain much, but did not actively lift the spirits of others when they were complaining.

3.  Sean.  I finished in 28 minutes.  In the face of pure terror I was making jokes incessantly.  In between bites, hyperbole about the ridiculousness of what we were doing was flying from my mouth.  I kept laughing and laughing when we all knew there was nothing funny to laugh about.  I was crying on the inside.

4.  Brett.  He finished in 29 minutes.  Brett actually got angry.  At one point he actually told me to shut up.  And I quote, "Shut up!  This isn't funny!  This is the stupidest thing we have ever done.  Why are we even doing this?"  He also vowed never to eat Pastrami again.

5.  Shane.  He did not finish.  That is not to say he didn't come close.  Shane was overly-confident the entire time.  He was so confident he would be able to do it that he drank large quantities of soda with his sandwich, and took frequent breaks to walk around and see how the rest of us were doing.  Very considerate.  He even insulted the girl working behind the counter when he found out she had done the challenge by exclaiming how easy it must be if she could do it.  He gagged on his last piece of chicken breast as time expired.

6.  Joseph.  He did not finish.  I guess Joseph gets extremely nervous about eating challenges.  He worked himself up into some sort of anxiety attack and started to gag two bites into his sandwich.  He literally sat and watched us for 29 minutes and 45 seconds, because he threw in the towel after 15 seconds.

BYU Football

The Fall was also full of BYU football games.  As frustrating as BYU football can be, it was also fun to go to the games and hang out with friends.

What you see below is a Cougar Tail.  They are 2 foot long maple donuts, and they are delicious.

That was actually Joseph's hat, but it didn't fit his head so I wore it to a lot of games.

Clearly we had been eating or drinking something red.

It could get very cold at Lavell Edwards Stadium, but that couldn't stop us from supporting our Cougars...sometimes.  Other times I definitely did not go to games because it was cold.

Another Sister's Appreciation

The ward planned another Sister's Appreciation night and the Forbidden Fruits performed once again.  This time we sang, "Hooked on a Feeling" by Blue Swede.

I was feeling so appreciative, that I forgot who I was actually dating. Thankfully Kylie spurned my advances.

We look pretty good, if I do say so myself.

It was a fun night.

Deep in the Heart of Texas

School started back up and Cory started her job.  In September we took a trip down to Austin, Texas.  We technically went for the BYU-Texas football game (BYU lost), but it was more exciting for me to see where Cory grew up.  Austin was a pretty cool place.  I also met my new best friend, Sam.  He is Cory's mom's dog.

Cory Graduates

In August, Cory graduated with her Bachelor's in Psychology from BYU.  It was really great to be able to be a part of the day.  A lot of her family was in town to celebrate, so I met a number of new family members.

It was also around this time that Cory found a full-time job here in Utah.  That was a big deal, because it meant we could continue our relationship.  She originally had planned to move back to Texas, but with things going so well we talked about her staying, and thankfully she found a job.

I felt like it was too soon to talk about marriage, which is why it was so great she was staying in Utah.  I was worried that her moving to Texas might have forced us to talk about more serious decisions sooner than we needed to.

End of Summer

The Summer wound down with me finishing up classes and hanging out a lot with my roommates and Cory.  We did everything from water balloon fights...

To pie eating contests...

Joseph and I actually did not want to try and eat our pies, so our contest was to see who could hold their breath the longest in their pie.  We held hands, and also could not stop laughing, which caused me to snort into my pie.

I attempted to make a tie dye shirt.  It didn't turn out very well, but I still wore it.

At the end of the summer, Brett, Kyle, and Shane all came back and the Forbidden Fruits were reunited!

4th of July

Cory and I thought it would be nice to do something special for 4th of July, so we decided to take an eight hour road trip to visit my family in Wyoming.  It turned out to be really fun. We had a fun time eating a 4th of July BBQ at Lacey and Chris' house.   

After dinner, to burn off the calories, Rhiannon and I engaged each other in an epic lightsaber battle!!!

My Jedi skills were clearly superior...until she entered an insatiable rage that matched even my talents and abilities....

She ran me up the tree...and then I surrendered.  Later Lacey also asked Cory to model some of her hair accessories...and I graciously agreed to help in some of the poses.

I told her she looked like a hippie...loved it.

We then set off the fireworks we had, which mainly consisted of sparklers, and smoke bombs.  After we were all done, my dad decided we needed to buy more because it wasn't as exciting as he wanted it to be I guess.  So we head to the fireworks stand and go inside and he starts to buy more smoke bombs and such, and then he starts going for the big stuff.  I asked if we were going to go outside of town to shoot them off because it is illegal to shoot off the bigger one in town.  He kind of mumbled something and bought them all.  

When we got back to the house we proceeded to set them off.  With the risk of getting a fine slapped on us if a Police car happened to drive by, the adrenaline was pumping.  We set off a few fountains that went a little higher and were a little louder than we expected but it wasn't too crazy.  We then set out our last box, which said that it was a twelve shot show, and that it "shoots flaming balls and lights".  We figured that was what all fireworks do, so we didn't think much of it.  We were wrong...oh so wrong...  We lit the fuse, only to hear a *BOOM* and see a ball of light shoot hundreds of feet into the sky.  I was thinking in my mind, "oh no" when I heard the second boom, and started to scan the sky for the second ball...it wasn't there...I hear the third boom and look down, only to see a flaming missile shoot into the neighbors yard and go out.  The box had tipped over after the first shot and was now shooting fireworks in all directions.  It was a little like Russian Roulette because after each shot, the force of the explosion would spin the box around until it faced another direction.  It didn't take us long to realize this was bad as another shot hit a neighbor's window.  I looked at the box around the 7th or 8th shot and realized it was pointing directly at us. We all started to scatter, with some hiding behind cars and others running to the house.  As I was running to the house, I heard the shot go off and whiz past me only about a foot away.  It hit Rhiannon's little camping chair and went up in flames and smoke.  By the time it was all over, Ebin and Rhiannon were scarred and angry that Grandpa would set off fireworks like that even though it was illegal.  Overall it was a pretty funny experience.

During the trip we also took Cory on a trip to Yellowstone National Park.  It was just us two and my parents on the trip.

It was a beautiful day, and we saw some great sights.  Here we are at the Upper Falls overlook.

We also got up close and personal with some buffalo.  My mom warned Cory that the first time she saw a live buffalo she would probably "crap her pants".  I don't think it was that traumatic.  

We also got to see Old Faithful erupt...after about two hours of waiting.  It is supposed to go off every 50 minutes give or take 15 minutes.  Well, it wasn't very faithful...

Overall it was a fantastic trip for the two of us.

Summer Time

So Spring/Summer started and I took some classes and continued to work at the MTC.  It wasn't as busy as a normal semester obviously so I found myself with more time to be with Cory and hang out with my roommates.  Only Joseph and Zach stayed, so we three had new roommates and spent the summer watching movies, playing lots of softball, and relaxing.  The best part though was all the time Cory and I had to spend together.  

We went to an outdoor concert and Kylie snapped this picture of us.  It really was a great summer because of all the precious time we had together; a commodity that we would get to enjoy less and less during a real semester.

Here we are walking to a ward activity, where we would play softball until Zach threw the ball 10 miles over my head into the Provo River.  We chased it for a while only to succumb to the realization that we would never get it back.  

Spring/Summer also was the season of weddings, and we attended our fair share.  Our romance was blossoming and although we had not used the "love"word, I think we both started to feel strongly for one another.

On Tour in the Magic Kingdom

To gain even more popularity and get the name of the Forbidden Fruits out there, we knew we needed to go on tour.  We decided that the best place to go would be the Happiest Place on Earth!  Not really, the Forbidden Fruits had nothing to do with it.  We just wanted to take a roommate road trip, so we packed up after finals week and headed to Disneyland for three days.  It was so much fun!

My roommates had never been there before so it was definitely a fun experience leading them around the park.  They had always made fun of me for my obsession with Disneyland, but they came to appreciate why on this trip.  Here are some of the pictures we took.

With the big man himself!

Goofy on Main Street

At Shane's request we stalked Buzz until we got a picture with him...

We stood in line at the Princess Fair with a bunch of small girls, but Tiana was chill about it...unlike Belle.

Ariel was alright, too, but she was still a little awkward with some help from Joseph.

While the others were on a bathroom break, we snapped a picture with the Queen of Hearts.

I didn't think we would all fit, but I guess Disney Magic is real!

Here we are on the actual ride, which actually became the source of contention during the trip because I guess Brett and I weren't good teacup partners to have, and Kyle let us know it...

This has got to be one of the greatest memories from the trip.  We went on Tower of Terror, and had a blast. I had never been on it before, so it was a fun experience because I didn't know what to expect.  With all the other rides I had already been on them a hundred times, so I knew what was going to happen.  It was fun to not know anything going on, and as you can see we were holding on to each other tight.

Here we are with Woody and Sarge.

Oh Brett and Joseph fell asleep on the huge roller-coaster?

See no evil. Speak no evil.  Hear no evil...Shane was the evil...

We were so close to pulling it out, especially with how much Joseph was screaming.

Not even all six of us could get it out.

Later we met my mom at the park and took her on Tower of Terror...it was actually really funny...especially when she warned everyone on the ride,"I'm sorry if I cuss!"  BTW:  She did.

We were packaged as toys.

Our very first ride was Space Mountain, and we took advantage of the photo ops.

And again...

After a while we got tired of posing...PUN INTENDED!

When we all discussed our favorite rides at the end of the trip, Shane said his was Tarzan's Treehouse...we tried to tell him it actually wasn't a ride, but he wasn't having it.

After three days of Disney we ended up taking a trip to the beach to put our toes in the water...which was ice cold...

It was a really fun trip that I'm glad we all took.  We made some really great memories together.