BYU Faculty Christmas Party

Marcus was invited to the BYU Faculty and Staff Christmas party.  There were lots of activities for kids (with crazy long lines), Santa, and treats.

Like I've mentioned, Chase loves Christmas.  He's a bit obsessed.  And he loves him some Santa.  When I told him we were going to BYU to meet Santa, he couldn't hold in his excitement.  

Waiting (almost) patiently

SANTA!

Chase also enjoyed the doughnut treats

And he was impressed with the bookstore

Afterwards, we stopped by Trevor and Logan's apartment to say hi.  Chase also got a roping lesson.

Professor (Adjunct) Hardy

Marcus is officially an Adjunct Professor at BYU!  He's been really excited about this opportunity to teach Intro to PR, although a little unsure of what it would completely entail.  His class has 49 students enrolled with a few on the waitlist!  We'll have to check out Rate My Professor at the end of the semester and see how the students liked his class.  

First day of school

Headed South

While we were in Salt Lake, we took an afternoon to head back down to Provo.  Wanted to visit a few places and people.  And of course we had to drive down the I-15 to see how wide and fancy it is after Marcus spent so much time helping with their PR campaign.

We made a point to finally go see Marcus' name on the plaque for being the 2012 Outstanding Senior in PR.  We had gotten a letter about it and finally were able to find it.

Yay Marcus :)

And we also were able to check out the fancy new Bradley Lab at BYU.  It's a good thing it didn't look this fancy when Marcus was at school because he probably would've spent even more time there. :)

Testing out the fancy chair

Chase had to check out one too

He didn't get in trouble- he just was tired.

Looks so nice and professional!

The next generation of PR students

Brian and Courtney met up with us here before heading out to lunch

We had a delicious J Dawgs lunch.  If you haven't been, go.  Best hot dogs ever.  Seriously.  And I'm not a huge hot dog fan.

As we walked back to the car, we passed the duck pond.  Chase thought they were hilarious.

We also dropped by the school district to see Gail, Colleen, and Jenni, who I used to work for when I would do the lunch applications.  Sadly Gail wasn't there, but we took some pictures at her desk anyway :)

Chase loves computers

Seems like we hadn't been to Provo in forever.  It was fun.  Blast from the past.

We also had a few other Salt Lake City side trips.  We were invited to dinner at the Walch's, but sadly I don't have any pictures from that.  Chase was being a stinker anyway.  Well, until Scott got home.  Then he was entranced by his bright work uniform. :)  I also had to include this picture- We had lunch with Jonne and Nana one afternoon, and Marcus snapped this picture.  Nana and her oldest son's oldest daughter's oldest (and only) son.

We had a great time in Utah.  It went by so fast.  It stunk when Marcus got sick, and then when I got it from him... but that aside, it was a busy few days full of fun, friends, and family.

My Stud Hubby

So I married a stud. Seriously. I'm sure many of you realize that, but we were reminded recently. :) A couple weeks ago, Marcus was having a tough time with some work assignments and was feeling really low. Out of nowhere, he received an email from the PR department at BYU saying that he had won an award from the Rulon R. Bradley foundation. Honestly, we didn't really know what that meant, but we made assumptions based on Marcus' hard work for many semesters in the BYU Bradley Lab. And he was shocked to have been awarded anything. The email invited Marcus to a luncheon, which sadly he obviously couldn't attend, and it said they would be sending him a cash award. Sweet deal. He really deserved that!

Anyway, today in the mail, the delivery guy dropped off a good sized manilla envelope. I was a little confused since I didn't remember ordering anything recently, but Marcus sometimes randomly does... However it was addressed from the BYU Communications department.

Assuming it was a letter with the award money, he let me open it while he was at work.

Nope, it was a box. I was getting pretty excited for him since obviously it was something cool, which it was. :)

Here's a better shot of HIS PLAQUE(!) outside the plastic. (Sorry about the flash in the corner.)

Apparently this award was a bigger deal that we realized. Marcus was named the Outstanding Senior in Public Relations for 2012! I'm so excited for him! I'm sure it means a lot to him to have been recognized for all his hard work finishing up his degree, and I wish he would've been able to attend the luncheon and award ceremony. I hope we will be able to hang it up somewhere close to his diploma, once we get that too :)

YAY MARCUS!

DIPLOMA!

Guess what came in the mail...

MARCUS' DIPLOMA!!!

It's funny how having that little piece of paper just makes it seem more real. But he worked really hard for that, and hopefully one day we'll have a place to hang it up. Congratulations Marcus!

Our other little studious one:

I wonder what she had been researching...

hopefully not this: http://www.catswhothrowupgrass.com/kill.php :)

COLLEGE: CHECK!

That's how Marcus has been putting it at least. :)

And this could be his:


And let me tell you, it feels great. His most frequent comment is that he doesn't know what to do from now until when he starts working in January. :) He's been reading a lot, trying to sleep in, and moving to NY. So I guess that hasn't left much free time. But still, it's amazing!

We don't know if he'll be able to walk at the BYU April Graduation yet, so until that happens (or if it doesn't), this will have to do...



CONGRATULATIONS MARCUS!!! Our newest BYU alumni :)

This has been Marcus' semester!!!

Marcus has been working so hard this semester with school, work, and the Bradley Lab. I posted awhile back about how he's been writing for BYU's newspaper, The Daily Universe, for one of his classes. It has taken countless hours, and he is so excited that he only has one article left (his final project). Even though it probably wasn't the highlight of his semester, he did a fantastic job. And I'm not the only one who thinks that...

That's right, Marcus won an award for being the Best Overall Reporter for the Metro Desk this semester -- What a stud! (Thank goodness he found PR after months and months of searching for a major!)

If you ask him about it, he'll probably laugh and say that the class should have been worth way more credits than it was. I counted 26 stories that he's had published this semester, which is amazing! He wrote about almost everything, from parking to the Death Penalty, Veterans' Day to Prop 8, and illegal immigration to food aid. You can find all of them at the Daily Universe website: universe.byu.edu

I asked him what his favorite articles was, and it was his interview with Utah's Senate candidates. It's the front page story that day, so if you're interested, follow this link to the pdf of the paper from that day:

http://newnewsnet.byu.edu/pdf/du20101019.pdf

Marcus' PR Review

Tonight was the Bradley PR semester review, and Marcus (and his group) presented all that they had done for the Utah Department of Transportation this semester. I obnoxiously took pictures. I wasn't too obnoxious actually since I had the flash off... bad choice. The pictures would've been so much better. But here are a couple of pictures of Marcus presenting his part. I love how into it all he is, but he's still smiling and happy. He was pretty stressed about the whole thing, but you wouldn't had no idea seeing how calm and well put together the presentation was. His group had worked so hard with the deliverables -- I know he was proud to be the account executive.

And guess what, not only was their presentation fantastic, they won second place overall! And as the judges said, "they made a potentially boring subject interesting."

Marcus is SO cool!

I wanted to brag about Marcus a little bit... He made this flyer for his design class, and I think it's stinkin' amazing! :) His teacher is crazy picky, and I have no idea what she thinks-- but who cares.... it's great!!! It is small, to avoid becoming blurry after being uploaded to the blog, but I still wanted to share it with whoever checks our blog...
It's for the last shuttle mission (STS stands for the Space Transportation System), obviously scheduled for June 28th, 2011. On the side, it says, "30 Years > 133 Flights > 700 million miles > 1 Last Time" (Click on the picture, it should enlarge.)

Marcus' Busy Day

Marcus had a really busy Friday, but somehow he worked it out so everything was all close together... once we were in Salt Lake. Luckily his parents live there! He spent ALL DAY at a transhumanism conference in order to write an article for the Daily Universe, and he made it through the entire thing with only one bag of Skittles. That's dedication if you ask me. After a quick dinner break with pizza from The Pie, we headed off to his mission reunion. He saw his mission president and a couple former companions, but none of his "children." The funny thing is after the evening there, we only left with one picture...

Charlotte and Marcus

(she's the daughter of Bryan Stroud, one of Marcus' companions)

And then after a short nap, he took off for his work shift to help with General Conference, like he always does. That started at 3 A.M. Marcus is amazing -- I don't know how he does everything he needs to all day and then works all night. I fell right asleep and didn't even hear him leave. And I spent the day hanging out with Cozette and Kate. Cozette did help me finish my actual first sewing project.

For the record, the stripes are different sizes on purpose :)

I think it looks great ;) Definitely a great beginning project. Maybe one day I will get really good at sewing and think it's lame, but right now, I can't believe it's finished. And I did it! (I would take sewing a funky blanket over a transhumanism conference any day! :)

Our Reporter

For one of his classes this semester, Marcus writes for BYU's newspaper, The Daily Universe.

It definitely takes a lot of his time, but it is fun to find look through the papers every couple days and find his name next to an article or two. I am saving a copy of his articles, but he still brings home multiple papers each time, just in case :) It's cute-- he's pretty excited. And his editors think he's doing a great job, which definitely helps him keep writing more and more every week.

You can search his name on the website:

http://universe.byu.edu/

He writes for the world beat, so you can follow that tab as well.

So far, he's been published four times. Pretty sweet :)

1. Here's the link to his very first news article, which was on the front page!

Deseret News cuts staff, merges with KSL

By Marcus K. Hardy

http://universe.byu.edu/node/10296

2. Also a front page article :)

New study shows declining number of illegal immigrants in US

By Marcus K. Hardy

http://universe.byu.edu/node/10435

3. Calif. Senate debates foreshadow elections

By Marcus K. Hardy

http://universe.byu.edu/node/10444

4. This is the next article published today (Sept. 13th):

BYU alum takes stand against Quran burning

By Marcus K. Hardy

http://universe.byu.edu/node/10555

He should write around twenty more articles, so look for his name :)

And the results are in...

After much anticipation, Marcus received an email from the Department of Communications telling him that he could pick up his application results letter. So off he went to get it as soon as he could. However, I was a jerk and made him wait to open it until we were both home. For the record, it wasn't much later because we both get back by 3:00.



And so we celebrated with the cutest mini cupcake ever! Marcus being the PUBLIC RELATIONS MAJOR, not the cute cupcake ;)

He's going to talk to a counselor once all the paperwork is completed, and then he'll have an expected graduation date! (We're anticipating two to three more semesters.)

CONGRATULATIONS MARCUS!!!

BYU Homecoming

Despite a depressing football game, Marcus and I really enjoyed BYU's Homecoming. Jon and Celeste invited us to go with them (and Nate and Briana Weir) to the activity for married/engaged couples. You know you're at BYU when there's a specific activity for that category :) We had a blast!

First there was a dinner catered by Tucanos. It's a Brazilian grill, so there was definitely enough meat to go around, plus rolls, salad, and potatoes. Yum!

Marcus was so excited when he saw the buffet lines-- we ate more than we probably should have :)

Then Humor U (BYU's stand-up group) did a show. They're hilarious! I think we may have to go one of their shows. Of course there were lots of jokes about being married and going to BYU, but we especially enjoyed the ones about little kids wetting the bed... I guess you had to be there.

The Millers

This guy played the recorder with his nose, and then two of them at the same time with his nose, and then two at the same time harmonizing with each other! What a talent ;)

The Strouds were also at the dinner, so naturally we have a Bryan and Marcus picture.

Nate and Briana

Jon and Celeste

me and Marcus

Celeste also has some pictures, so maybe some more will be added soon. My computer died this past week, so it had been difficult trying to post anything. But I'll post more this coming week... cross your fingers.