Spider in the car, BYU v Utah + more!

Good morning! Glad you made it back to the blog :)

Let's pick up where we left off last week. :) Last Sunday we got home from a quick trip to Oregon! Here's a few pics that we missed in last week's post:

The Neuffers' cat, Otto. :) I'm not usually a cat person, but he is my exception <3

On the way to the air port :) (it was a busy weekend!)
Also I like how you can tell we're in OR becuase it's green outside:)

OSU pasta in the airport!! Unfortunately we didn't buy this, but how fun?!

We got home late at night and wished we had an extra day to recuperate before the week started.

The next morning we dove right back into work/school, and in the evening we took a hike on the Y Mountain trail for our FHE activity.

View of BYU from Y Moutain. Campus is the area in the middle with red roofs.

We started just as it was getting dark, so we got to watch the sun set as we hiked. :) So beautiful!

Isn't this gorgeous??

(warning: spider picture coming!)

 While hiking we spotted some wildlife:

A big tarantula. A guy hiking near us crouched down and picked it up!

A brave hiker  

The tarantula actually didn't scare me at all, and we both thought it was kind of interesting. Which is weird, considering what began the next morning...

While driving home from yoga on Tuesday morning, a SPIDER crawled onto the dash board!

I somehow got home safely, arching back from the dash as far as possible, and then ran upstairs to get some bleach spray (my weapon of choice because you don't have to get near it!). 

He was still sitting there when I got back and so I sprayed him but missed. The bleach just made him run UNDER THE STEERING WHEEL. Unacceptable. 

This was when I started seriously considering riding my bike back to work later, which I did! I actually didn't drive the car for two days after this incident and have been enjoying riding my bike around town.

Anyway on Wednesday morning we were up early to get to PT and as I started to get into the car, I spotted him clinging to the inside of the passenger window. I yelled to Matt to squish it (I'm sorry sleeping neighbors!). He tried to roll the window down so it wouldn't smear the glass when he smashed it, but the spider dove under the passenger seat and hid!

I rode to the Smith Fieldhouse in the back seat.

Looking back I think we each made some tactical errors in trying to defeat this little guy, but for a while he won.  In the mean time, riding my bike became a nice habit and I think I'll keep it up!

I biked over to campus Wednesday evening to meet up with Janae for dinner! She's in town for the week from Corvallis and it was nice to catch up with her, since we didn't see much of eachother last weekend.

Not too long after dinner it was time for a Relief Society get-together in our quad. 

It was fun to meet the girls who just moved into our ward/apartment compex, and chat with the ones who have been here all summer. I love that our neighborhood is so friendly.

This week for ROTC they did 'water combat training' where they stepped off the edge of a high-dive diving board, blindfolded, in their complete uniform (including boots), holding a pretend weapon.

That's like 20 feet of falling blindfolded!

Then they had to swim the length of the pool holding their 'weapons' over their heads.

his uniform out to dry later

I'm just not sure a lot of people could do that and come out with a smile on their face. But he did. :)

Friday morning I took a wonderful run out past Bridal Veil to Vivian Park. It felt great and by the time the 5 mile loop was over I wanted to do it agian!

An action shot of Bridal Veil Falls, taken while running:)

Instead of more running that energy was put toward subbing a yoga class and finishing a few work projects.

Our Friday night date was volunteering at the MTC :)

borrowed image

Such a cool opportunity:)

volunteer 'badge'

We love the atmosphere and people there. It feels a lot more like fun than volunteer work! And we know they could use the extra helpers.

Saturday morning we got up early for an adventure. 

The alarm went off at 5:45 and we drove to Orem for RUN CLUB!

It was our first time going and I was really excited because I've been looking for a run club for months. We got there when it was still dark out and the stars were shining. The run was literally the hardest run of my life.

View from the top of the hill. I barely made it up

In the late afternoon I took a yoga class at 3B, a cute studio in town. 

The class was taught by a student teacher, which reminded me of being in teacher training three years ago :) Also the class was held in a special event venue next door (I think the studio is under renovation?) and it was fun to do yoga underneath chandeliers. 

This studio offers a free class every Saturday afternoon, and I'm glad to have taken advantage this week! It also let Matt have the house to himself for a couple hours, to do homework before we went to...

BYU v Utah! We had tickets to the "holy war" football game :)

Kickoff was just after 8pm but the stadium started filling up around 5:00. We walked from home an hour before kickoff, and ended up finding seats way up in the nosebleed section. And it was great!

Going to this game together was unexpected because we thought Matt would be in the Cannon Crew every game. Instead, they're now allowing ROTC cadets from neighboring Utah Valley University to join them, meaning everyone gets to participate in fewer games. That's fine with me though - it means we get to go to more games together! :)

It was a tough game for BYU but we had a good time. BYU football has so many traditions and so much spirit that it's hard not to have fun... even if we were losing to our biggest rivals!

Matt and the other ROTC cadets stayed after the game as usual for stadium cleanup (it's an ROTC fundraiser that they do after every home game). He came prepared in boots, and I thought our shoe difference was funny. :)

He came home in the early hours of the morning after cleanup and we both got to sleep in until just after 7am (somehow that's late for us now!)

Today we're off to church and ward choir practice before dinner at Matt's relatives' house. It's shaping up to be a lovely Sunday.

Hope you are having a wonderful day, too. :) 

NEXT WEEK we're going to a BYU leadership retreat + more near Sundance Resort (which we accidentally thought was this weekend! Whoops!)