A month in Aggieland

I can't believe that it has been over a month since we got here! In some ways it has flown by and in other ways it feels like we have been here for a long time. I'm finally starting to recognize people at church and we know our way around town pretty well now.

Here's a few highlights from the last week.

Allison and Brock (my sister and brother-in-law) came up with their four kids for the Texas A&M v. Florida International game.

 It was embarrassing.  No one has even heard of Florida International, yet they were creaming Texas A&M for the first three quarters.  Then A&M made a comeback in the fourth quarter, but we had left by then.  We've decided BYU football games are a lot louder and have people cheering on all sides, whereas A&M has a lot of spirit in the student section and the rest of the stadium is dead.  The best part is definitely the band.  Here's one of their cool formations they do:

Before the game we had sloppy joe's and taught my youngest nephew how to walk.  He is 16 months old but still just likes to crawl everywhere.

You can see a little bit of our front room in the video. That will be my goal for next week is to take the "after" shots of our apartment. I have some before pictures that will scare anyone.

Nate and I also finally got our ring picture.  Everyone buys a Texas A&M ring when they graduate and they are these HUGE pieces of gold on people's hands, it's hard not to notice them.  A guys ring costs about $900!  They hand out the rings three times a year and parents, grandparents etc. come for it. This is the ring that they have out front of the building Nate works in.  A lot of people take their wedding pictures under this ring.

Where's Waldo? Here's a picture of the ring day Nate just worked at.  He's the one in the middle looking up at the camera.
Beyond that, I finished my second week of work.  My job is getting better but I am still not loving it.  The company has a "big brother" sort of feel to it and I don't feel like I really get to use my brain a lot at work.  I am still looking elsewhere but we will see what happens.  I guess I should have a more positive outlook and I am grateful to have income and something to do right now. 

Nate won an award today in Elder's Quorum for 2nd place in the washer tournament. We had a ward activity yesterday where we threw washers onto a board ten feet in front of us with a hole in it. In one turn Nate got three of the washers in the hole in a row. What can I say, Nate is athletic. Even when it comes to washer throwing. I thought it was pretty funny. So now we have a ribbon with a washer on it.  Don't know what we're going to do with that one...

BTHO Louisiana Tech

Last week Andrea and I got to experience our first Texas A&M fightin Aggie football game!


Can't you see how excited we are? Texas A&M has many traditions, and one of those traditions is that students who are juniors or higher can say "whoop" and link the fingers together like you're shooting a gun and point above your shoulder and lift your left leg up. It's pretty fun.

So we started our adventure off by tailgating. We walked around for two hours and it was hot! I mean really hot. By the time we started working our way to the stadium I was sweaty and tired. It took us almost a half hour to make it into the stadium, but when we did, we got to come to these seats:

We sat on the 10 yard line on the 2nd row!

The game wasn't that exciting and I was not impressed with Texas A&M in the first half. They turned the ball over four times! They mishandled three punts/kickoffs and fumbled once. It was a pretty sad half, but the last play of the first half was amazing and it turned the tide for A&M. The Aggies were fifty yards away from the endzone, and Jerrod Johnson got the ball with no time left and threw up a prayer towards the endzone. An aggie somehow caught the ball on the five yard line, and then ran untouched into the endzone for a touchdown! Whoop!

While on the second row, we got to see a lot of fun things:

This is the official mascot of Texas A&M.  Reveille

This is a picture of the marching band.  They do some incredible formations and it was fun to see them walking through the lines like you can see in the picture.

The Yell Leaders

As promised here are pictures of the yell leaders from the practice we went to. We are really excited to go to midnight yell practice on Friday, assuming the rain calms down a bit. We have had really heavy rain the last two days. I enjoy Texas storms though. Then Saturday we are going to go to some tailgate parties and the game!

Yell Practice

No we are not doing the "thumbs up" sign. We are doing the sign for "gig 'em!" I don't even know where to begin. This was our second night here. Nate had a yell practice that he had to go to for work. Hundreds of freshman came to learn the cheers of Texas A&M. There are a ton! I was so mad that I forgot my camera! Luckily a coworker of Nate's took this picture for us, but the thing I really wanted to capture was the yell leaders. They were 20 something year old men wearing overalls with an ATM on the butt (that's the symbol to recognize Texas A&M) and then scriptures and other things written all over their overalls. There are five yell leaders, and I guess they have to be elected. It is a bigger deal than being the quarter back on the football team according to some people. Texas A&M has some crazy traditions. There are too many to explain and I don't understand some of them but you have to check out this website sometime when you get bored.  You can read all about the traditions.  Here is an excerpt about the Gig 'em sign:

Pinky Downs, class of 1906 and a member of the Board of Regents from 1923 to 1933, is credited with the Gig ‘Em hand sign. At the 1930 Yell Practice before the TCU football game, Downs shouted out, "What are we going to do to those Horned Frogs?" Answering his own question, he replied, “Gig ‘Em, Aggies!” while making a fist with his thumb extended. A “gig” is a spear-like tool used for hunting frogs. The gesture became known as the first hand sign of The Southwest Conference.

I will have to include other excerpts as time goes on.  I can't wait to go to our first midnight yell practice (they do it the Friday before each game at midnight).  Anyways, I love the school spirit that everyone has here.  Go Aggies! (and Cougars!)