The BYU Roommate Reunion 2025

Way back in December, Randy hosted his BYU roommates and their wives for a fun five-day vacation.  All but two of them grew up in Arizona together and currently five of the eight still live in Arizona.  This meant everyone was cold even though the weather was pretty great the entire five days.  We had sunshine every day, until we packed up to leave.  

We spent the first day showing everyone around Seattle on a boat cruise on Lake Union.  It's always fun taking people for the first time because they are always in awe of the beautiful mansions, sea planes coming and going, and the Seattle skyline.  We ate seafood at Ivar's and had a great time with no injuries, no car accidents/truck explosions, or mishaps.  Felt like a miracle.

Ivar's Seafood

Tour Guide Mel

After dinner at Din Tai Fung (if you know you know), we drove our three cars filled with people and beach gear, down to Seabrook.  I love Seabrook!  Randy rented a huge and beautiful vacation home with enough beds for everyone although some people had to share a room with bunk beds.  It was beautiful and overlooked pickle ball courts and the beach.  We hung out, walked to the bakery for the most delicious cinnamon rolls, worked out at the gym, explored the beach, sunk the Audi, went to the ice cream shop, ate lots of good food prepared by yours truly, and watched the BYU football game.  It was heaven!

This house was gorgeous!

We hogged the pickle ball courts and didn't feel bad about it

Randy and I had fun cruising around town like we live on a movie set

We took a million pictures but this is enough to give you an idea of the fun we had

The Olympic Peninsula Rain Forest

Now that I have two college boys of my own, I appreciate even more how awesome Randy's roommates are.  They have become great men/fathers/friends, and I wish my boys could have the same experience.  Maybe they will but it feels pretty rare.  It was fun reminiscing about college days too.  One of the things these guys did was applaud whenever someone walked into the apartment at the end of a long day.  Imagine coming home after working and studying all day and your roommates give you a round of applause and cheer for you like you just accomplished something great!  Wouldn't that make you feel like a million bucks? Everyone needs someone cheering them on.  No wonder these guys had so much fun and had so many girls hanging around them, me included.

Landon Went to Homecoming

I still can't believe Landon is doing big boy things.  In my mind he's still ten years old.  He asked a cute girl to homecoming and was no help whatsoever when it was time to make a poster.  Randy is the artist in the family and he was working so I made the poster in record time before I had to drive some kid to some activity.  It wasn't perfect but it was good enough--the story of my life.

Landon has his drivers license but isn't allowed to drive other people yet so I got to be the chauffeur for this group.  Landon's date was so friendly and helped carry the conversation which I thought was super impressive.  After pictures and dinner, I dropped them off at the dance and then everyone went their separate ways to separate parties.  I think it's weird but apparently this is normal.  Whatever.  I'm just glad they went. 

This pose is from the Spiderman movie or something.  

The Great Sinking of the Audi

Randy's Audi sank in the ocean.  I kid you not.  You might be thinking to yourself Wait, didn't they have a truck blow up too?  Yes!  Yes, we did.  The horrible, bad luck we have with cars continues.  At this point I would say we are cursed.  In our defense, we weren't driving the Audi when it sank.  It was Randy's BYU roommate who gets the credit for this catastrophe.

We hosted Randy's BYU roommate reunion in September. We had a ton of fun but I'll share the details about that in a separate post.  Here's what you need to know...

We were staying in a huge beach house in Seabrook WA and we heard there was a nearby beach you can drive your cars on.  Randy and I took the Audi down to check it out and had a lot of fun driving through the wet sand and scattering seagulls.  It looked like a car commercial and we had a lot of fun.  

A couple hours later Randy decided we should take all eight couples back to that beach so we loaded up in the truck and the Audi.  Randy and I were in the truck and our friends were following us in the Audi.  When we got to the beach we knew right away the tide was coming in because the beach was so much smaller with much less space to drive.  We couldn't even drive as far down the beach as we had earlier because what once had been a small stream had become a deep, wide creek filled from the tide.  We turned around and weren't too far from the beach entrance when we came across another wide stream.  We drove through it just fine in the truck but the water was definitely about 2-feet deep.  We quickly got through it and turned to watch the Audi behind us.  This is when things went bad.

I think Steve who was driving the Audi saw all the water spray around us as we drove the truck through and probably thought he'd go across where it was less deep.  I don't know.  It all happened really fast.  Anyway, Steve didn't follow us and went farther away from the shoreline, probably thinking the water wouldn't be as deep even though it was much, much wider to cross.  He hit the water going really fast, with the sun roof wide open and the Audi slammed into 3-4 feet of water and the engine cut off.  Water dumped in through the sunroof and one of the guys in back tried to open the door (dumb idea) and of course water started pouring in.  Then Steve kept trying to start the car again, further flooding the engine with more water.  

I tried not to die.  Randy calmly parked the truck (on dry sand) and waded out while I looked on in horror.  There was a ranger who pulled up and when I asked if he could help pull us out, he laughed and said the tide was coming in and he would get stuck if he tried to pull us out of the creek. (yes, it was an actual creek that had filled with the tide coming in, transforming it from a small stream beach goers could cross, to a large creek).  He told us to leave the Audi there over night and try to get it in the morning.  I died again.

Everyone climbed out of the Audi through the open sunroof and we miraculously got it out of Park and pushed it out of the water.  Everyone watching us was shocked we were able to do this because the creek kept getting deeper as we scratched our heads wondering what to do.  Water continued to pour out from under the Audi as we pushed it out of the creek and onto dry sand.  The ranger lent us his tow rope and towed the Audi off the beach and we took everyone home in the truck.

Long story a little bit shorter...The engine was hydro locked and because we lease the Audi, we knew we would have to replace it if it was totaled (for $44,000).  Steve covered the cost of the tow truck to the Audi dealership ($1,000) and we found out several days later that it was totaled.  Water was still dripping from it and mold had started growing inside because they never opened the windows.  Insurance doesn't typically cover stupidity but since that beach is considered a road way, our insurance covered the claim.  (miracle!)

Watch this video of the crash.  Steve's wife knows it's bad, meanwhile our friends in the back seat are just laughing.  

We are trying to get Steve's insurance to take the hit because he was the driver and has a great insurance record, unlike the Ball family.  But that is sounding too good to be true at this point so lets just assume we will be kicked off our auto insurance policy again.  For the third time.

One of our friends took this picture of us as we were trying to decide if we were financially ruined or not :)

Henry Got Baptized!

It's great to be eight!  Henry got baptized on September 13th and it was a great event.  We flew Marcus and Ethan home for the weekend and we had both sets of grandparents join us as well.  Henry was hoping to get baptized with his best friend Jack but it ended up just being Henry.  Henry performed a duet of "I am a Child of God" on the piano with me, he was baptized by Marcus, and confirmed by Randy.  Ethan and Landon were the witnesses and the grandfathers both gave perfect, short messages about baptism and the Holy Ghost.  We had a room full of people and even had a bunch of Randy's employees come so that was extra awesome.  We fed everyone cinnamon rolls and called it good.  

Henry looking so cue as he walked confidently into the church

We got there an hour early to set up and wait and wonder if anyone was going to show up.  We actually removed two rows of chairs and then had to add three rows as people kept filling in.  I guess we have more friends than we thought!

Ethan saved the day by racing back home to get Henry's white underwear I had bought just for this occasion.  Marcus forgot his too (insert eye roll).  

Return missionary Marcus knows how to take fun baptism pics

Brothers

Our super fancy display :)

The whole fam together

The grands

Jack gave Henry a special baptism towel.  These two boys are such good friends and see each other almost every day. Jack is a week younger than Henry but a year older in school.  And a whole lot taller!

We love you, Henry!  

The Oregon Coast 2025

I love the Oregon Coast! It's been years since I've joined my family at the Oregon Coast.  I booked a yurt way back in January and figured I'd end up canceling the reservation like I have in years past, but as the trip approached the reality of my summer hit me like a slap in the face.  All I do is try to keep my boys off screens and it's exhausting!  I hide devices, I turn off the internet, and then listen to them whine and complain about being bored. I was willing to do anything to make it stop.   So I kept my yurt reservation and took Parker and Henry to the great outdoors.  Let me just tell you this was the best idea ever and I might have to do it every year.  These boys played with each other all day long and since we had a yurt, we had heat and electricity and I love glamping because camping is way too much work.  I packed my instant pot and an extension cord and used that for all our meals.  Our meals were easy and basic because it's easy to feed a family of three.  We took hot showers after the beach and I smiled to myself each night as I climbed into a warm bed instead of a sleeping bag on the ground.  Glamping is my happy place!

We made it to Tillamook in less than five hours and met aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents at Tillamook creamery for lunch.  My boys wasted no time digging in to their ice cream while I visited with family.  

Henry got this badminton set for his birthday and it got a lot of use, even among other kids at the campground.

Hammock flipping was a fun new discovery and only one kid got hurt 

Lots of s'mores 

I broke out my glow sticks that I always seem to have an hand and we had an epic dance party and parade through the camp ground.  Henry was in heaven!

Morning walks to the tide pools were my favorite way to start the day

Our first star fish!  

Henry and Owen discussing all things Mario and Pokemon as they hiked

We RACED to Tillamook one night and arrived as they closed the doors so we had the place to ourselves.  Victory! Many laws were broken so this picture could happen.

Henry on top of the Voldemort tree

Henry found this all by himself and was quite proud of this cute little sea lion that died peacefully(?)

Glorious views

Snuggled up and reading.  My mama heart was so happy!

Twinning!

Owen put Beckett on his shoulders and they became one mean water squirting machine

We discovered ice cream nachos (ice cream with chocolate waffle cookies) and our lives will never be the same.

Gabby and her amazing sand dollar collection

We found so many unbroken sand dollars but the tiny ones are my favorite

Parker posing as the monster/alien from Stranger Things

Henry pulled off a star fish!  That takes a lot of muscle (and help from Mom).

So much beauty

All my boys will never get over the nickname for men named Richard.  I don't get it either!! It's a strange world we live in.

Exploring with cousins

The world was our playground

Henry found the smallest starfish!

Parker and I logged some serious steps getting this kite to fly

Henry actually got blisters from all the digging.  But they finally hit water and that was the goal.  

Then they played in the ocean.

Rainbow fire is my new favorite thing!  You throw a little packet full of who knows what onto the fire and it turns it all colorful and remind me of Harry Potter flew powder.

Parker was a great "big" cousin helping all the littles

Henry's rainbow loom was a hit!  So many kids with so many bracelets that week.

Games out our campsite like always

So many pictures and I could've posted more.  The Oregon Coast is pure magic.  We lucked out with some sunny days and had so much fun with all the different families coming and going while we were there.  Henry slept the whole way home and Parker wasted no time getting back on screens but it was worth it!