beginner's luck? not quite. I have a lucky duck.

Before I left for Mexico, Colby put my in charge of watching over his baby--as in his car. There was a bit of a mixup when Colby went to the airport and it involved Ian not flying home and driving Colby's car back to Provo instead. Anyway, Ian gave me the keys and before I boarded a flight of my own, I decided to check on the aforementioned baby.

When I did I kind of freaked out because the clicker thing that unlocks it (what is that called?) wasn't working. The car wasn't beeping when I tried to lock it, the lights weren't lighting up, and I was a tad bit stressed about the whole thing. But I was going to Mexico and I didn't have time to fix it right then, so I decided to worry about it when I got back into town. (Ah HA! It's a key fob!)

A little over a week later, I'm back and calling the Subaru dealership trying to figure out what could be wrong. One transfer leads to another and another and I finally get a guy who knows what he's talking about. He gave me a couple of things to try before I called back. Welp, turns out it was simpler than any of that: the battery was dead (way to leave the overhead light on, Ian). It also turns out that my dear Nana is awesome. For Christmas she got me a "this-will-save-your-life" kit for my car, which included (drumroll please) jumper cables! Really long ones. You're the best, Nana! And My mom and I are kind of cool for figuring this business out and being so troubleshootery. Just sayin'.

Cheers to being handy and prepared!

Forty minutes of battery charging

(and minor stressing because it was taking so dang long)

later and his sweet baby was as good as new.

At some point between Christmas and now (I'm thinking January), a group of us took advantage of our all-sports passes and went to a men's volleyball game.

For those of you who remember my previous post about BYU men's volleyball...you know I love it. That's all I'm gunna say. But luckily Colby loves it too, so that worked out quite nicely.

I know it's kind of hard to tell, but he really did enjoy himself.

And Bree came too, which was awesome.

bree, adrian, and cory

After the game (which we won), we all gathered at Colby's apartment where I was convinced to play poker. We'd played a couple of times in the past, but the games I actually like don't have much to do with poker (aka they require luck instead of skill), so I'm not really fully invested in the "real" games. But it's funny how winning makes you a lot more invested in what's going on.

Yes, I have to admit that the only reason I win anything in the real games is because I have a little duck (aka bird) next to me (named Colby--weird) who translates my awesome cards into something useful. But I'm the charmed one who gets the awesome cards so...what now?!

When it comes to games of luck, however, I stand at the top of Mount Victorious. I'm pretty sure that every time we've played a game called Three Dimes (which is my favorite), I've won. It's kind of amazing. (And it's not bragging if it really is unbelievable, especially to me, that I've done well.) I was tied with Cory and I beat him in the last round by ONE. Total luck? Yes. But don't hate.

cory, the cards, and my loot

the gang

(But we're not one of the bad ones; we're like the Buttercream Gang.)

A couple of hours later we were ready to wrap it up. Luckily we haven't played again, so I've had the poker bragging rights for months now. However, I have no doubt that I will be knocked off of my throne (and high horse--probably simultaneously) and seriously injured (injured real bad) after such a tremendous fall from the top of Mount Victorious.

Throughout the semester, it's also been really great watching Colby play basketball. Cory (mentioned above) recruited him for his intramural basketball team and they did really well. They were undefeated in the regular season, even though they had to play four-on-five one of those games. It was pretty much amazing.

Intramural basketball is an interesting thing. Some of the guys who play get seriously ticked when one of the mediocre refs (who doesn't really know what he or she is doing) makes a "bad call." Things can get really physical really fast, and it's always fun to see the hot head of the other team try to negotiate with the refs for the rest of the game. People are passionate about this stuff. It's strange. But it's still fun to support it and be there!

they were pretty good

I'm a little sad that I didn't think to take a picture with my basketball buddy, Holly. She was dating another guy on the team and we bonded on the sidelines during most of the games. Holly was awesome because she was more than happy to clap and yell and get into the games, so we had a great time together chatting and cheering our boys on. And by "our boys" I mean the entire team. Pretty sure I knew the guys' names better than Colby did, haha.

Oh, the communication skills of women...

gotta love it.

Unfortunately they lost in the third round of the playoffs. After going into overtime and double overtime in their previous playoff games (which were extremely intense), they lost (most tragically) by 5 points.

You had an awesome run, guys!

Go Phenoms!

(You'll have to ask Cory about the "whys" of the team name...because I just don't know.)