Hallelujiah for Homecoming!

I love serving on the BYU Alumni Board and each fall at Homecoming I get to return to BYU for our semi annual board meeting.

I arrived on Wednesday evening and got to hang out with Taylor. 

We went to dinner and shopped at Costco.

I stayed with the East Chapter director from Washington DC.  She and her husband just built a beautiful home in Midway 

and she invited me to stay with her.

It was beautiful! I took this picture as we pulled out early on Thursday morning as we headed to Provo.

This year we also had our Chapter Training conference at the same time as board meeting.  As a Chapter director I am in charge of all of the alumni chapters in the Intermountain west, so I helped the other chapter directors plan the Chapter training conference. It was very busy having both conferences at the same time, but I loved being on campus and attending some of the Alumni awardees lectures (each college chooses an alumni to honor at Homecoming and asks them to come to campus to give a lecture)

I got to hear Shaun Parry, a Music Dance Theater grad who has danced and acted on broadway and now has a nonprofit called the Prometheus project.

He travels to India and teaches dance to children in the leper colonies, and to Africa where he teaches dance to teenage inmates. 

It is quite a story and he gave a fabulous lecture in the Madsen Recital Hall.

 One of my favorite things of being on campus during Homecoming is seeing the Y lit up on Y mountain.

I love this place!

Of course I had to reminisce about my college days on campus during Homecoming.

Tom and my first date was to the Homecoming football game in 1977. We sat in the card stunt section.

I don't have any pictures from that first date, but I do have a few pictures from the next year, 1978's Homecoming dance.

We had a picnic up in Springville canyon before the dance,

and evidently that involved a leaf fight,

and a picnic.

I've been scanning all our slides into my computer and I found these gems.

Anyway, back to the present,

and another shot of the Y with the Law School in front

Tom arrived on Thursday evening and was able to attend the Alumni Awards banquet with me.

We walked around the Cougareat afterwards and I found Cosmo!

We got to go to one of Taylor's intramural flag football games.

Taylor was amazing, he had 3 interceptions and 3 touchdown catches

and they won 37-0

It was so fun seeing him play with friends he's had from 

Capital High and from his freshman year at BYU.

Colton, Chad, Austin (from Jerome, his family owns the Redfish Lake lodge up in Stanley) and Taylor.

Colton has been Taylor's roommate all through his years at BYU.

Chad and Taylor have played football together since Junior High

Chad was the quarterback and Taylor the wide receiver.

Things haven't changed much.

The Carr to Morris connection is still going strong.

For Friday's luncheon, we invited Spencer Linton and Jarom Jordan, from BYU Sport's Nation to come speak.

I had heard them speak last spring at our Alumni board meetings and they are fantastic.

They even remembered me when we got together for a picture.

Here are some of the other members of the board.

Taylor took a break from studying and came to listen to Spencer and Jarom.

We too had to get a picture.

I love these guys and listen to their podcast most every day.

We had a mini family reunion during Homecoming.

Now that Sara and Jon live in Colorado, it was their fall break, so they drove to Provo for the weekend.

I got Lucy and Sara tickets to the Homecoming Spectacular.

It lived up to it's name, it was Spectacular.

David Archuleta was the guest artist.

Oh my, he has a voice.

It was so fun being there with my girls + Tom.

BYU honored Abraham O Smoot, one of the founders of BYU and his great great granddaughter, Mindy Smoot Robbins, 

who is a professional singer also performed.

She too has a beautiful soprano voice.

Lucy loved waving her Mom's cell phone flashlight in time with the music.

It was a fantastic show!

Thanks to Patty and Hal, we were able to stay at their beautiful home in Elk Ridge, once Sara and Jon arrived.

Saturday morning was the Homecoming parade.

 Taylor and Tom walked in the parade with me this year.

They gave each alumni chapter, flags from their state, representing all 50 states.

We walked around the Marriot Center parking lot before the parade started and got a look at some of the floats.

These bag pipe players marched along with us.

Here's our parade "selfie"

Devin and Sarah also made their way to Provo for Homecoming. 

They drove down after school on Friday and stayed with Sarah's sister Julie in South Jordan.

They met up with Sara and Jon and family at the parade.

The kids loved watching the parade and especially all of the candy.

After the parade we attended some of the "student gatherings" on campus.

This is the Boise gathering of all the BYU students attending BYU from the Boise valley.  There were about 150 kids.

It was great. Give away free pizza and they will come.

We hung out on campus all afternoon before the football game.

The kids loved being together with their cousins.

They loved shopping at the BYU store.

Zachy even got a cool hipster haircut at the barber shop in the basement of the Wilkinson center.

He wanted to look just like Uncle Taylor.

The Texas student gathering invited us into the Garden Court

 for some free BYU Creamery ice cream.

Afterwards, we went bowling at the Cougar bowling alley.

It was great fun!

Zach had quite the "technique".

And so did his Grandpa!

Sophie greeted each bowler with a hug after they bowled.

3 cute Morris siblings

We missed you Whitney!

Taylor hanging out with Cosmo!

We had to take a family photo in our BYU gear after bowling.

This does make a BYU mama's heart proud

Then we walked over to the Football stadium for the football game.

Tom loved this creative student "fishing for a date" outside the stadium.

It was a beautiful, hot day for a game.

Taylor sat in the student section and Tom and my tickets were in the south end-zone and Devin and Sara and families were in the north end-zone.

 

We moved to the north end-zone at halftime to sit with the kids.

Sophie fell asleep on Tom and Leah was begging to go with 10 minutes left in the 4th quarter, so Sara and Jon left and Devin left soon thereafter.

We kept Lucy with us and witnessed another Mangum miracle as the Cougars rallied and drove down the field to score a 

touchdown for the win over East Carolina.

It was an exciting finish!

After the game on our way to the car, we walked by the Victory bell at the Marriott Center, so we joined Cosmo and a couple members of the football team for the bell ringing ceremony.

 

We even got a picture with Cosmo

which was definitely worth waiting for.

 Early Sunday morning we hit the road and headed back to Boise so Tom could make it to his Bishopric meetings.

We can't wait for our next Homecoming/Morris family reunion!