Thursday, January 29, 2015

Highlights of 2014 Part 3

September 

September there was a lot of adjusting still to life in Utah, but we have some amazing friends who have helped make that process so much easier. So I want to shout out to Taylor and Dani Johnson, Justin and Anna Hodkinson, Derek and Amanda Walker, Kevin and Kayla Lussier, Brittany and Bryant Hodson, Zack and Marissa Allred, and many others that have been huge blessings in our lives. 




To kick off the month we attended the Salt Lake City Comic Con. Supposedly it’s one of the biggest in the country and it did not disappoint. We got to meet a few celebrities, the best being Kevin Conroy who voices Batman on the Batman: Animated Series TV show, and do a whole bunch of awesome nerdy stuff all day! 


I've got the best wife for letting me dress up like this all day! 


Towards the end of the month my friend Bryant Hodson invited me to help around of the set of his short film Shadow of the Mountain. I was there to pretty much do whatever they needed help with. It was so fun being able to be a part of it, even though it was a very cold and rainy day. After being a part of the filming process it inspired me to start writing my own short film with my buddy Hudson Halm. Hopefully we get the opportunity to film it soon! 

From the set of Shadow of the Mountain


October
In early October one of the greatest things to ever happen in college football occurred, the Jail Mary! ASU was down to USC by 10 points with about 3 minutes left and came back to win on this play. For those that missed it, here it is: 


October my sister Marianne, her husband Andrew, and their cute baby Jed came to visit. We spent a weekend hanging out with them going on hikes, watching General Conference, watching some college football, and having good talks.


Taylor got to spend a week in AZ so while she was gone I got to eat a lot of dominos pizza (I’m obsessed with Dominos right, seriously it’s the best chain pizza out there) and I watched a bunch of movies. You know the ones that girls don’t like to watch:) 

I also started going to the chiropractor for the first time in my life after hurting my back playing football one night. 

In October I was also introduced to the amazing program Sons of Helaman, and right now I am working on becoming a mentor of one these groups.

And of course there was Halloween. This year we had two costumes. The first was Merlin and Madam Mim from the greatest animated Disney Movie ever made, Sword in the Stone! Then on Halloween we got invited to a murder mystery dinner party and our characters were a cop and doctor. Murder mystery parties are way funnier then I thought they would be, and I loved acting like a pompous jerk the whole night. 




November

No matter how the season ended up being for ASU, the first two games (Utah and Norte Dame) of November were amazing. Both games I enjoy watching with my AZ friends Zack and Kevin. 

November also gave us the incredible film, Interstellar! It’s funny the different reactions to this movie. Some like myself loved it, and others did not enjoy it so much. I loved it because it challenged me, it made me think. Like most movies, everything wasn’t just handled to me to sit back and enjoy. This movie stretched my brain both intellectually and emotionally. While the theories and science blew my mind, the story and characters pulled at my heart springs. The themes and messages of humanity are also ones that need to be discussed as well. I loved that this movie has created so many different conversations. Usually when you see a movie, most people either say it was good or bad, but not with this one, people wanted to talk about it. I love that because I love talking about every movie I see. Well I didn’t mean to turn this into a review, but if anyone has any theories and wants to talk I’m all ears. 




On Nov. 20 we packed up and drove down to AZ to spend Thanksgiving with our families. It felt kind of surreal to be in AZ and to not have a house to go home to. While we were down we celebrated my 26th birthday on the 21st by getting Barros Pizza (oh man do I miss Barros) and seeing Hunger Games: The Mocking Jay Part 1. Not as great as the amazing Catching Fire, but still good. 


We spent most of the trip simply hanging out with family and friends. We didn’t really have an agenda, just a good old time relaxing with our loved ones. The foodies that we are we tried to hit up some of our favorite AZ places to eat like Filabratos (at least that’s mine), Gallo Blanco, Tia Rosas, Spinatos, and of course Barros! We didn’t get to go to Geckco Grill though:( 

One of my favorite Thanksgiving traditions is playing in a turkey bowl, and I played in one of the funnest Turkey bowls ever this year (we had a freaking offensive line). After the turkey bowl we went out to Scottsdale for Thanksgiving lunch with the extended Jackson family. After a few hours there we drove back to Mesa to spent time with my Ma (and her delicious rolls) and my siblings. 

The rest of the trip was filled with a little shopping, the new Super Smash Bros (the Wii fit trainer is the bomb!), family pictures with both sides, and some working out with my brother in laws. 

Oh and I can’t leave out one of the best things of the whole trip, seeing the Star Wars trailer with my brothers! December 18th 2015 can’t get here soon enough! 




December 

Man December was a big blur for me. Seriously it cruised by! To start off the month Taylor got a new job at Shep Salon in Provo. It's one of the better salons in Provo, and she has enjoyed working there and learning a lot. It's also been very hard working long hours, and being on her feet all day, but she handling it better than I would!

While Taylor was working her butt off, in my spare time I was playing my old Nintendo 64. I spent a few late nights playing one of my favorite games Star Wars Shadows of the Empire.


Also in the first week or so I started seeing a therapist. I was hesitant to put this in here at first, but honestly I have LOVED being able to see a therapist. It's added such great value to my life and helped me see my life a little bit more clearly. It's not something I will probably keep on doing consistently but, for now its helped. I use to think that when someone was going to see a therapist or counselor it meant that they had some serious mental problems or had some big issue, but I think seeing a therapist is something that everyone should do at some point in their life. At the end of the day we all have issues, and I think everyone could benefit from it no matter how big or small the issues.

About mid December I got to travel down to AZ again this time for my best friend Jacob's wedding reception. He and his new wife Sammi got married in Oregon so we couldn't make it up, so I made the trip down to be there for the reception (and Barros catered so that was another reason to be there!)

When I got back to Utah, that's when things got crazy. Almost immediately after getting home and I started feeling the sore throat, ache feeling symptoms coming on, and next thing I knew I had a fever and I was glued to bed. I was struck by the flu and I had a fever for 5 days straight! I could hardly get out of bed and walk anywhere. It was probably one of the sickest I've ever been. I ended up losing 10 pounds from it all. It took me about a week until I had even a little bit of strength to get out of bed. 

Finally as I started recovering we made our way down to AZ again for Christmas. People always say they dream of white Christmas’s but man I love Arizona Christmases. Christmas consisted of delicious soups, pinatas, temple lights, home made presents, dance parties, Super Smash Bros, and Indian Food. Christmas is easily my favorite time of the year and this was year we were blessed with a lot! 




The rest of our time in AZ we spent hang in out with as much family and friends as we could, did some after Christmas returns/shopping at Scottsdale mall, saw 4 movies, The Hobbit: Battle of Five Armies (great), Unbroken (solid), The Imitation Game (fantastic), and Into the Woods (okay), and of course we ate more delicious food! 



I absolutely love AZ and it’s always hard to leave, especially to what we came home to! We flew home on the 29th and we were greeted with a snow storm, and negative degree weather! It was cold! 

But despite the cold, I have so much to be grateful for. I feel so blessed for the year we had. For all the triumphs and for the defeats. The joy and pain. I didn’t write much about the hard things in this year because I felt that I needed to touch on the things that I was blessed with. With 2014 behind me, I can’t wait for all the things in store for 2015! (Star Wars in 11 months baby!!!) 



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