Date 3: Plan C

Well this Friday made up for the rest of the lousy week.

After trying all week to find a who was free Friday between 4 and 10, I finally found one Thursday night while I was at Joel's house watching the BYU/TCU game. Her name is Alana Brown, and I guess the only place I really knew her from was the Emmet dances. Anyway, right after school on Friday I drove over to Emmet High School and picked her up and then drove back to Horseshoe Bend chapel. Without the radio on. Crazy, I know, but I was pleasantly surprised when we didn't run out of stuff to talk about. Anyways, once we got to the church, we (Michelle, Zack G., his date, Joel, Melanie, Brother Moses, Alana and I (Jake and Josh showed up later)) all piled into the s' cars and drove up through the gorgeous and untamed Idaho wilderness to the Moses' ranch in Dry Buck. Its a really cool little place, its got a little house, barn, couple of sheds and this little playground that Melanie and our dates played on while Joel built his "man" fire, Brother Moses looked for the other horses and Zack and I played cowboys. For a couple of city boys, I think we did pretty good; we managed to get seven horses tied up and saddled without getting our brains bucked out and, contrary to what you might've heard, Brother Moses didn't have to fix every saddle that I'd done. Also contrary to what you might've heard, Zack and I were the first to volunteer to double with our dates when there weren't enough horses.
Anyway, after we'd saddled them and Melanie had given those who needed it a brief horse-handling lesson, the nine of us on the seven horses and Josh Black on the four wheeler set out for a sweet ride around the Moses ranch and then back to Joel's "man" fire for hotdogs and smores. A little cold, but otherwise very awesome. After that, Alana and I rode with Joel and Melanie back down to the church, and then I took her home, talked with her parents a little, said goodnight and then somehow managed to get from Letha to our subdivision without getting lost. So awesome. Easily the most fun I've had this month. I guess third time's a charm, huh?

Rite of Passage - SO HOT!

Derek went to Provo to hang out with his buddy, film a movie, attend an awesome BYU game and drive home with us (Austin, Heather and Luke). On the way home, we stopped at Costa Vida (a rip off of Cafe Rio) to get food to start our fast. Derek had never been there, of course, and didn't want a delicious salad like Heather was having (he doesn't like lettuce...hmm) so he got what Austin was having - a smothered Pork burrito with medium sauce. Everything would have been fine but Derek is more of a...mild sauce person. He wasn't quite ready to handle the spiciness of the medium sauce. His face turned bright red, his eyes were tearing up, he drank 5 glasses of water and couldn't finish the burrito. He kept putting the water straw on his lips to cool them down because they were burning! It was pretty funny. I'm sure a few years down the road he'll be ordering the spiciest thing on the menu and it won't faze him at all. This was merely a rite of passage for our little Derek. He handled it pretty well, although some tears were shed.

A Little Update

Horseshoe Bend Football, 2007
0-8

Games Left: 1

Current No. of Players: 17
Current Coaches: Rau, Schmitty, Self and Beckman
Players Quit/Injured beyond timely recovery: 9
Head Coaches Fired/Resigned: 2
Total Coaches Fired/Resigned: 9

Lost: Not Just the First Episode but the Entire First Season

This Saturday was typical. I cleaned a little, then Dillon, Mom and I went into Boise for a little sewing machine/Halloween shopping and then to help Uncle Terry get some couches out of his storage unit. Naturally, I wasn't very satisfied with how my one day off was going, so I came up with the great idea of going to a dance. I'd drive into Boise, drop Cassidy off at Austin and Heathers' (she babysat for them) and then Dillon and I would go on to the dance. Saturday Night Entertainment Problem: Solved. Or so I thought...
First, I tried to call Amy Carpenter to see if our old stake was having a dance that night. I called three times and never did get to talk to anyone. This of course didn't slow me down, because I'd already talked to Heather and she'd confirmed that there was a dance this weekend, so we were good. Then Dillon decided he didn't want to go to the Meridian Stake Dance because, quote, "There's so many people". After a brief scuffle over this, I apologized and told him he didn't have to go if he didn't want to and fortunately he was eventually talked back into going by Mom and Dad.
So, finally, Dillon, Cassidy and I get in Dad's car and head to Boise. Without event, we make it to Heather's, say goodbye to Heather and Austin and then hang out with the Baby Luke until about 8:20 (the dance started at 8:30) which gave us just enough time to get to the stake center at Eagle and Ustick (where Dad thought it was). Except the dance wasn't at Eagle and Ustick. So we heads over to the stake center at Ustick and Linder (where Heather thought it was). Ten minutes and four turn arounds later, we conclued that there isn't a stake center at Linder and Ustick.
Just beginning to get frustrated, we called Dad, who informed us that there wasn't a stake center at Ustick and Linder (we already knew this...) but there was one at Linder and Chinden, and perhaps Heather had been confused. So we head to Chinden, keeping our eyes open for stake centers, and we found one, not before Chinden but before US Highway 20. Nobody was there, so we kept going on our search for Chinden, which eventually took us to US Highway 44. Now pretty frustrated, we pulled over and called Dad, who informed us that we were stupid and that everyone knew that US Highway 2o turns into Chinden. He also told us that he was on the phone with one of the Meridian Stake Counselors and that he'd call us back. So we start driving back towards Chinden, and then Dad calls back, and proceeds to tell Dillon (I was driving) that the dance was at McMillan and Shamrock, and that we'd better tuck in our shirts because it was Sunday Dress.
Now more than a little frustrated, we pulled into the church and walked up to the doors, only to have a chaperone tell us that we couldn't get in without ties. By this time, it was 9:30 or so, so I figured "What the heck, we've gone to all this trouble, we might as well just borrow a couple of ties from Austin and come back." So we drives down to Austin and Heather's place,(after getting a little lost) and stop the car just long enough for Dillon to get out, swung a U-ie, parked and rushed to the door where Dillon stood knocking softly on the locked door. Really frustrated, I ran around to the back of the building, dashed in through the sliding glass door, opened the door for Dillon (Cassidy was on the phone with Heather for some reason) and started to look for ties. Seven minutes later, we got back into the car and drove back to the stake center, except we missed a road in the dark and got a little lost again. Attempting to get into the church for the second time, Dillon and I walked up to the door and the man said "Oh, I'm sorry. If I'd known you were coming back I would have told you to change into slacks. You (me) should probably be fine, but I'm afraid I can't let you (Dillon) in here with jeans."
So I drove Dillon back to Heather and Austin's (after getting a little lost pulling out of the church) and nearly stayed there myself, but just thought that it would've been pretty lame to just stay at their apartment and watch movies when there was still an hours worth of dance going on not six minutes away. And so I went back. And got lost again. And then finally found it. And walked in. And actually had an enjoyable time. There was great music, some circus animal cookies and a couple s that totally had the hots for me, I mean, what else could I have asked for?

Derek Flake: Greatest Failure of the 21st Century

This Friday was the Wilder game. Wilder, if you didn't know, is a small town outside of Caldwell with about 1,000+ people, large hispanic community, a gang problem and a football team that we've schooled for the last decade. The game was pretty awesome. We actaully scored some points and played all four quarters, both of which are firsts for this season. Our offense looked really good, we ted for most of the game and scored 36 points. The defense still needs to work out some kinks and we allowed them to score 76 points (though we did send one of their kids off the field in an ambulance).

Dillon and I played a lot. I start as the right offensive guard (Dillon starts on kick off), but one of our guys went out with cramps around half time and so I played defensive end for a while too. I made three tackles, along with being in on a lot of the other guys' tackles, and was also severely laid out a couple times. I also got called for roughing the passer (he had already thrown the ball, and it was less of 'roughing' him and more of 'ploughing' him), which would've been fine except one of our guys had intercepted it and ran for six. I'd never felt like a bigger failure in my entire life, and, no joke, nearly cried when all the parents started yelling at the coaches to get me off the field.

I guess that was pretty much the game... OH, except for this one play near the end of the game when I was blocking this mexican (P.S. on the team of fourteen kids there were two white kids), and then he got really mad and started yelling curses and threats at me in Spanish, and stuff like "Do you wanna go?". Sadly, I'd left my switchblade back in the locker room so I simply said "Sorry man, sorry." Needless to say, I made certain not to walk back to locker room alone.