The Ultimate Season

When people ask you, "What is your favorite season?" what do you answer them?

The answer for me is fall. Every single time. Fall fall fall.

I think my dad sent me this picture one time either to remind me of how cool and colorful Michigan is in the fall...or to complain about having to be the one to gather all of those leaves. (This is outside my house.)

I really don't think I could ever actually be sad during the fall. All I have to do is experience one of the reasons why Fall makes me so happy, and - BAM - sadness is gone.

There are a number of reasons why Fall makes me so incredibly happy. As with any good blog, I will elencate them for you here:

1. Colors.

There is nothing - NOTHING - prettier than a forest turned all different colors. I remember last fall when we drove on roadtrips to upstate New York or Virginia, and I was entertained for eight hours straight just looking at the trees. I could not get over it. Literally every five minutes I was saying "wow. this is so pretty." I love the changing colors so much that one of my main problems with moving to Seattle is that I don't know how pretty it is going to be in the fall. I read weather.com because it talks about how pretty the colors are changing. I call my family in Michigan to get updates on the trees. I'm depressed that this fall I don't live in a forest, but in a desert (but if you think I'm not going up the canyon to see the changing colors, you got another think coming.)

Quick related note: The other day I was walking to my car across the grass and all of a sudden I recognized a sound. *crunch crunch*. The sound of walking on freshly fallen leaves! I had totally forgotten! Fall just keeps getting better and better!!

Here's a picture from the Chesapeake Bay last fall.

Notice the pretty pretty colors.

2. New Beginnings

People always say spring is the time for a fresh new start. I say, You're Wrong! Fall is the time to start anew. New School Year, maybe a new School...a chance to make many new friends, . Looking back at my life, almost all of the big changes have come during fall.

What season was it when I left everything I knew and came to some school halfway across the country where I knew a total of zero people? Fall.

What season was it when I came back from my mission and had to find all new friends? Fall.

What season was it when I went to Washington, D.C. without knowing anybody? Fall.

What season is it now that I'm back in Provo after being gone for the summer and almost all of my friends are married, graduated and left, busy, or practically engaged? Fall.

All this change associated with fall has left a very positive taste in my mouth. Fall is a time to start anew and correct all of the mistakes that the summer inevitably brings.

3. Weather

Literally every single time I walk outside, I get excited. You know, that slightly cold, brisk feeling? I absolutely love it. It's so fresh and invigorating.
Take last Saturday. I had an intermural soccer game, and then we were going to go golfing afterwards. Well, we get done with the soccer game, and it is cold and rainy. Not golfing weather. I couldn’t be too mad though! Even though I really wanted to go golfing…I was just too happy that it was one of those stereotypical wet cold fall days. It even snowed! Normally I would be so mad that it snowed in September, but instead I was just happy because I was able to drive up in my car to a place without houses and sit and read and enjoy the sound of rain and listen to rainy day music.
Oh, and the weather being cold is a lot more conducive to cuddling. There’s another big plus right there.

4. Warm Clothes

This kinda goes with the weather. You really can't wear flip flops and shorts anymore. You get to wear all the clothes that you haven't for like four, five months. Sweatshirts. Long pants. Long sleeve shirts. You forget how good they look! And how comfortable they are!! I want to go buy some.

5. Football

Is there anything better than going to a football game in the fall? Coming home from church on Sunday and catching up on whatever football happened during the morning? Reading espn.com non stop while you're in classes during the week? Going out and playing some pickup football with your friends? I didn't think so.

6. Cross-Country

Doesn't fall just seem like the time you're supposed to run? Crunching leaves, cold rainy days, they just bring back memories of the glory days, when nothing mattered but how fast was your last split and how much you hated Northville High School. Even the smell of fall brings back memories of lazy days at Cass Benton Park, just relaxing and talking after another successful race.

I know there’s some negatives about Fall. Some people don’t like the cold, it’s somewhat harder to find things to do, people complain more about going outside but then it’s boring inside…but stop whining and enjoy it. That’s what I say.If anyone would like to post comments about their feelings on Fall…please do. You can even leave it anonymously, if you don’t want all your friends finding out that you read Logan’s dumb blog.

To celebrate making it to the end, here is a picture of 13 year old Logan camping during the fall. Yup, all the ladies wanted me. How did you know?

Go Fighting 57th!

One of my dreams has always been to be a sports star, or at least a role player on a fairly successful sports team. I halfway reached that during high school, but, honestly, who cares about cross-country/track besides the people that actually run, right? No one cares if you're a role-player, the 3rd guy on the high school cross-country team. Even if you finished out the best 1-2-3 combo in the state.

Another one of my dreams was to play soccer. I played until about 8th grade, when the games moved to Sundays. I loved soccer. I wasn't too bad at it. I was always kinda sad that the games moved to Sundays - I would have liked to see if I could have played high school. Still, the times that I would end up playing, whether I was in Italy or just pickup games here at school I loved it. I wanted to be on an intermural team, but I never knew the right guys who had a spot open on their team. With my graduation next April, I figured my chance was gone.

So when Jaren came up to me and said, "hey, we're starting a ward (a ward is the local unit of organization in the LDS church) guys' intermural soccer team...are you in?" I jumped at the chance. Awesome!

We set two goals for the team:
1. Win - it has been at least two years since a ward intermural team has won even a single game. (Personal note: I was not a part of any of those teams.)
2. Get as many girls to the games as possible.

We took #2 seriously. We went around to Relief Society and made announcements, telling them of this opportunity to give service and prepare to be a soccer mom. We talked ourselves up at Ward Prayer. We went around and personally invited pretty much every girl to come. It was awesome. A lot of skepticism, but we got some people to say they would come.

First game: 20 people. Orange slices at halftime. Chilled Caprisuns afterwards. Water. It was amazing!! So much fun. We were a little rusty - let in a couple of really bad goals. Jaren let the day with his 3 goals, however, and we managed to eke out a 3-3 tie. I played center defender most of the time. They didn't score while I was out there. I don't consider myself to be that good, but I am fairly fast and I understand where I need to position myself.

We followed that up with a number of announcements, thanking everyone for the support (we had like 20 girls at that game. How great is that.) and amazing treats, and getting everyone pumped for the next game. Are you a witness? Were you there to see the undefeated Guys Soccer Team? (luckily, not too many people figured out why we never said that we won, we just kept mentioning that we were undefeated)

During announcement time at Ward Prayer, I busted out my megaphone and started getting everyone to cheer. I felt like the Quarterback at a high school pep rally. Finally, as things continued, I hesitated...and, caught up in the moment, declared, "I am going to guarantee a victory this Tuesday!!!" Everyone cheered and went crazy. It was seriously great.

Of course, Tuesdays rolls around and all of a sudden there's a little bit of pressure. Can we win? I really wasn't worried, honestly. They hadn't scored with me playing defense yet (except for the really really bad goal that went through Scott's hands.) Why would they start now?

Final score - 5-2. We win!!! Ross scored 4 goals and Jaren added another. I had a really good game on defense - both goals happened right after I was substituted out of the game.
Better yet...we had like 35 people at this one. How great is that. It was so much fun! The fans made a tunnel for us after the game, I ran through it like three times.

Our team continues to get better, as people learn how to play soccer. Our next game is this Saturday, 12:00, on the Indoor Playing Fields. The question I have for you is:

Are you a Witness? Were you there to see it?