John's trip to Utah

I went to Utah the 4th week of October. It was wonderful to return to the mountain west, see family and of course attend the BYU/TCU game. I actually went to recruit students from BYU and Utah to attend Duke Law. On Tuesday I was in Salt Lake at the U's law fair and met a lot of great people. My family made it down from Burley and we had a good time hanging out at Temple Square and then going out to Cafe Rio.

My family on the pedestal near the office building with the temple in the background.

Kyerin and Madisyn at the reflecting pool.

My family at the Christus in the Visitor Center.

On Wednesday I headed down to Provo for the Law fair. It was so busy, I had no time to even eat lunch. It was great to see some of the missionaries I had taught and even some friends who are still around. I handed out a crazy amount of viewbooks and generally had a fantastic time talking to everyone at Duke. After the fair was over I went over and met up with the beautiful man, Scotty Zwick. Being with Scotty always makes me happy, he is such an enthusiastic guy and we had a head-bangin good time. Scotty has actually learned some new moves since Mel and I left Provo. He now sticks out his tounge and closes his eyes and was literally rocking my rental car. It was awesome. We hit the malt shop downtown. I then went back to SLC and had dinner with my aunt Shannon and Ron at the OG. Kyerin was our server. It was a great time.

John got to spend some time with Scotty, the beautiful man!!

During my stay in Provo I stayed with Joe my best friend of many years and his wife Sarah. It was great to spend time with him, it was almost like we were Freshmen again at BYU. Crazy story: Thursday morning Joe and I were headed to the library to study but decided to stop by "The Armada," a group of houses where Joe's bothers live. There I met a kid named Robby, he was really nice and it was great to get to know him. Later that evening I found out that he had gone longboarding with Sam and Tom (Joe's brothers) in Pleasant Grove. On a particularly steep hill he had lost control and crashed. He was pronounced dead on Friday. It was almost surreal. It reminded me how truly fragile life is and how in a second it can be over. I attended a bonfire Friday night in his honor and it was great to see so much love for the kid. He had touched a lot of lives. Saturday morning it was off to GameDay!

The next morning Joe and I woke up at 4am and headed down to ESPN game day. Unfortunately we were waiting right by the edge of the orange barriers when the crew came and told us we had to go get in line. It felt like so many people had jumped us in line Joe decided to go home and sleep. I just decided to stay since I had already come all the way from North Carolina. I ended up on the fourth row. It was like a Weezer concert (minus the music), everyone was pushing up toward the front, it was fun once but I probably won't go again. At least not that early.

By this point I was like on the second row.

Joe and John ready for the big Homecoming game! We were still excited at this point--the game hadn't begun.

Oh what a painful game!! I hate TCU. Bob and Bronco coached terribly and Max played a pretty bad game. Nothing really went right.

After the game I went out to eat with melanie's family. It was, as always, a lot of fun. Melanie was very jealous because she was home in Durham taking care of our sweet, sick, cranky, kids!

Overall it was a great trip. I enjoyed connecting with old friends and seeing family. I missed my beautiful wife and sweet kids. I was very excited to come home!