Matt and Jill

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

The Significance of One

I've been thinking. I find it amazing how the world materializes, manufactures, and produces so many things that are duplications. You walk into a store and there is 10 things of the exact same thing lined up in a row and you know they have more in the back. But that's only how a man's world works. Everything about nature and in nature is unique. Anything that is natural has some unique characteristic....sure there are things that are considered to be the 'same' but when carefully examined they aren't completely identical. Take a step back, and consider God's world and man's world. Every tree and leaf is so different. Just look outside, fall is like the personality of nature. The 'same' trees show different personalities-one's leaves are pink, orange, and yellow whereas another's seems to still be holding onto all the green it can with only a few yellow leaves here and there and then you see the ones that must have been happy to be rid of all their leaves cause they are already completely off and the tree is as bare and can be. A single leaf can represent many different things just by looking at it: life, change, death. A single tree brought Adam and Eve to fall. Just ONE. It's not like their was a meadow of knowledge trees-just a single tree. Every snowflake is said to be entirely unique. The symbolism is amazing. If it wasn't important, you would think that God would have made a cookie cutter for all snowflakes. A single tear in someone's eye can represent complete joy or sadness. No storm is the same, no plant, no flower. And look at the importance 'just one' has had on every single one us. If you zoom out of Utah, you may see a lot of houses, parks, roads....but to a family a specific house is their home, their safe place, their little temple. Rock Canyon park may just a park to everyone else, but for me it's where I got engaged-which basically makes it the best park ever made. A person may just be someone they pass on street, but another individual that person may be their special someone-someone life isn't worth living if they aren't with them. Someone that has completely changed their life for their better eternally...my husband. There is ONE book that has changed my life in its entirety and has changed many thousands of others...the Book of Mormon. Look at the power that one book has had on this world. The power ONE man had in making sure this book was brought forth and everything he did. We have ONE prophet. The world has tried to make cookie cutters out of humans with celebrities and models, but it just doesn't work that way. Every person is unique, individual, original. The nature of a human is so powerful, I think most of us just don't grasp our own complexity. That's kind of a bold thing to say but when you think of it in a similar way of nature and trying to see God's perspective, it makes it a little easier. So back to nature, I think it is often something we take for granted or don't really think about cause it is always there. But the fact that it is always there is something to consider. Always a reminder of beauty, uniqueness, and something of worth....like us. The changing fall leaves are like a reminder to show our personalities and let them shine. For atleast one time in the year. Their leaves fall off and you can see the tree for what it is, all the branches, the winding and curving it had to do to make the leaves look so pretty when those branches were full before. Their are certain people that do that for each one of us-but usually only specific people, or maybe just ONE. We so often compare to everyone else, but why? I know that I do it quite a lot and sometimes I wonder why. Take a moment and appreciate what you do have-those little individual things that make you happy. You're favorite chair-there's only ONE of them. You're favorite hairdo, perfume, teddy bear, pillow, color. Can you imagine life without all of those little simple things of just ONE that seem to influence you everyday. There has been just ONE perfect man to ever live this earth, only ONE man who sacrificed his life for every single person that has ever lived and will ever live. ONE man's atonement makes it possible for every one of us to make it back to our Heavenly Father for eternity. Amazing, isn't it? I don't know if I was even able to sort of get my point across but I do need to go to bed.

Tag!! I'm it!!

Another wonderful tag....also from Kylar...I guess this is the easy way of getting my thoughts ou there

**10 TV shows I LOVE to watch**
1. The Office
2. America's Next Top Model
3. Mythbusters
4. How it's Made
5. Home Improvement
6. Fresh Prince of BelAir
7. Extreme Home Makeover
8. Price is Right
9. Random game shows
It's a shame we don't exactly get tv (we get 2 channels at this point in time...5 and 13)

**10 of my FAVORITE restaurants**
1. Brick Oven
2. Diego's
3. Cheesecake Factory
4. Applebees
5. Chili's
6. Tucanos
7. P.F. Changs
8. Pizza Factory
9. Los Harmonos
10. Tepanyaki

**10 things that happened YESTERDAY**
1. Arrived at school....almost on time (I would have been on time if my professor hadn't moved our class to a completely different building)
2. Searched Disneyland many hours of the day when I should have been doing homework
3. Attended D&C, Stats, and my Physical Science lab
4. Ate dinner at Legends Grille
5. Went to Walmart and got bunny ears for our tv....Yeah for channels 5 and 13!!!
6. Watched Obama's 'Sweet, I'm the next president' speech
7. Made a chocolate cake
8. Talked to my sis on the phone for quite a long time
9. Decided that I really, really want to go to Disneyland
10. Ran into my brother at Walmart

**10 Things I am Looking forward to**
1. Football season being over....for the sole reason of having Matt home on the weekends and our Saturdays not being totally taken over
2. Physical Science being done
3. Going to Disneyland with Matt (at some time or another)
4. This semester being done
5. Christmas vacation....especially Christmas
6. Owning a set of living furniture that actually matches
7. Owning a house
8. Having all of our thank you notes written and sent out
9. The Bowl game (I get to go too)
10. Eternal Life with Matt

**10 Things on my WISH List**
1. Go to Disneyworld and Paris
2. Write another song on my cello
3. Be rich and not have to worry about money
4. Make a difference in someone's life
5. Go an entire day without my back hurting
6. Be as strong as Matt so I could actually take him on when he starts tickling me
7. Make up a super good super tastey and famous recipe
8. Always have a smile on my face
9. Become remarkably amazing at my cello
10. To go on a totally random and spontaneous adventure

**10 People that I TAG**
1. Brad/Jessie
2. Angie
3. Jenny Marie
4. Heather
5. Gwen
6. Ashlee
And that's all the friends I have...

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Recap

So another highlight recap of this past week:
Last Saturday....obviously there was the UNLV game where Matt did amazing. Matt's parents along with his sister, Wendy, and brother Nate (who came directly from the airport after flying from Virginia) all came to the game. After the game, we all went and visited Matt's Grandpa Putnam, he's super nice and has a great spirit about him. He's getting old and losing his hearing and mobility but still cracks a joke and makes everyone laugh. We made a shopping trip spree to Bed, Bath and Beyond and used up all of our gift cards-They have a deal of 10% off anything on your registry that you didn't get, but you have to use it within the first 3 months....and seeing how last Saturday was exactly the 3 month anniversary mark we kinda didn't have a choice but to go there if we wanted to save a little bit of money. Speaking of 3 months....we've been married for over 3 months now!! Crazy how time flies...but it only flies if you're having fun, right? So we are still happily married and our relationship is still progressing, which I am very happy about. Continuing on...
Sunday....we went to one of my old friend's farewells, he's off to chile this wednesday. Matt didn't quite enjoy the morning so much but I don't blame him. We immediately headed up to Brigham City to see his fam. Nate and his family moved back for a few months from Virginia and seeing as how I had never met any of them besides Nate, and even Matt had never met their youngest boy, Owen. It was fun to meet em and spend some time getting to know them. We went to church with them and here comes the good stories. Matt is pretty much famous up there-everyone knows who he is without a doubt so before church even started he shook a lot of hands of congratulations for his good game. In the middle of sacrament meeting a man came up behind us asking Matt if he would be willing to speak to his young women....Matt said sure and then the man said, "now if you'll just follow me"....it was for a completely different ward!! and the man pulled us out of the middle of a guy's talk in sacrament meeting!! can you say hilarious?! So we went in and girls were basically gawking at him and couldn't believe that was really Matt Putnam. Who knows how they even found out he was in the building....I thought it was quite comical. They asked him a few football questions and we added a few words going along with their lesson and that was basically it. It still made it one of the highlights of the day....Matt is the new upcoming celebrity of BYU football (which I am proud of him for). There was a big get together after church where all the Putnams were they except for Jeff and his family who live in Alaska so I think they had a good excuse. It was definitely a good time-lots of stories and laughing. All the nieces and nephews running around and great dinner. And I learned something new...Matt's celebration move (as seen in pictures below) apparently runs in the family....passed down from his dad. It was great to hear all his bros and sis making fun of him for that one. I can't wait for that one to get passed down to our boys. :) The Putnams are a great group of people to be surrounded with. I am grateful that I get to consider myself a part of em. We headed back to Provo that night-school, work, and football were waiting for us the next day.

The beginning of the week was just filled with the usual school, work and football, been watching a lot of The Office on netflix. We did do some major cleaning in our apt-very happy....nothing really exciting though until Halloween...

And so Friday, October 31...Matt was gone to Colorado before long and it turned out to be a pretty typical Friday besides the fact of dressing up. I was the easiest thing possible....the road

After work I went with my best girl, Alyssa, and we saw High School Musical 3...and yes I thoroughly enjoyed it (I probably just embarrassed Matt by saying that) and we sat in the car catching up on girly talk for almost 2 hours after-good times. Not much of a Halloween but that's fine by me....I've never been much of a Halloween girl-I hate all things scary in any way shape or form...so for me it was the perfect way to spend Halloween night.

Saturday...lots of folding laundry and cleaning....I watched Becoming Jane while I did most of it-highly recommend. I went up to my parent's house to watch the game. Came home and did more cleaning while I waited for Matt to get home. It's always exciting for me when he comes home after game...it feels like a reunion after a week or something.

And today...very happy sleeping in this morning. Went to church as always and our ward had a linger longer afterwards with breakfast for dinner...very good (but of course it didn't fill Matt up, so we came home and made spaghetti to top it off) Matt is just finishing New Moon-he bought it before heading up to Colorado (so he read it in 3 days....I'm so proud). And I think that's basically everything....sorry it's so long....I don't seem to be able to leave out all the worthless information. Thanks for reading!

Yeahoo!!!

Once again I'm a little late getting this up here but last Saturday against UNLV Matt played an awesome game!! (He also had a good game yesterday against Colorado State). He played well the entire game and then decided to step it up a notch again at the end. For those of you who didn't watch the game-the second to last play of the game Matt sacked the quarterback when it was definitely needed cause we had to keep them for scoring a touchdown in order to win. And Matt's sack was basically amazing!! Coach Mendenhall named it as the play of the game! He got interviewed about 4 different times by different newspapers including the salt lake tribune and ksl (he doesn't know who the other reporters were). Well here's all the pics of his amazing sack from the game! Good Job Hubby!!

The now famous celebration move :)

And here's a little section from one of the Tribune's newspaper articles:
Putnam's play
Cougar defensive end Matt Putnam made the biggest play of the game for BYU's defense, sacking UNLV quarterback Omar Clayton with seven seconds remaining to put the Rebels back at the 25-yard-line.
The freshman from Brigham City's Box Elder High said he was fresh from rotating most of the day with Jan Jorgensen and Brett Denney.
"He pumped faked a couple of times, but I just stayed on him and he slowed down just enough for me to catch him," Putnam said. "I just tried to make the play when I had a chance."

Here's the KSL interview after the game-if you go to the UNLV game and it's the postgame 1-he goes on at about 37 min into it

http://www.ksl.com/index.php?sid=3450679&nid=276

Friday, October 24, 2008

Matt's Article

So I'm a little late getting this up here but it's an article in a newspaper up in Brigham City that did a special on Matt...his first real full on newspaper interview and all that jazz. It was printed sometime just before the TCU game.
Here's the link if you have the desire to read it from the site itself: http://www.standard.net/live/sports/145764/

Reaching potential: Ex-Bee Putnam shining in Cougars' defense
There are 2 comments for this page [ View ]Tuesday, October 14, 2008By TRENT TOONEStandard-Examiner staff
PROVO -- For a guy who didn't really know what he wanted after high school, things sure have fallen into place quite nicely for Matt Putnam.
Believe it or not, there was a time not long ago when the towering 6-foot-6, 237-pound defensive end for the No. 9 BYU Cougars wasn't sure if he had a shot at playing college football.
"I don't know that I even had a dream. I was amazed I got scholarship offers," said Putnam, who was recruited by the likes of Stanford, Oregon, Colorado, Utah and Utah State. "I didn't really see myself playing in a big game, probably because I was in little Brigham City and didn't even know what was going on in the rest of the state. Little did I know I was one of the best prospects in the state."
Turns out the former Box Elder High athlete had potential after all.
Fast-forward through an LDS mission to McAllen, Texas, and a redshirt season at BYU, and now Putnam is one of coach Bronco Mendanhall's rising young stars on the Cougars' defense.
After a year of work with the practice squad, the freshman didn't start to see serious playing time until he impressed coaches in the lopsided win over UCLA. He hadn't anticipated playing against the Bruins, but got the nod with BYU up 44 points in the second half.
"It was just crazy. I came off (the bench) and made a few plays. I got an interception," Putnam said. "The coaches were willing to trust me a lot more, willing to throw me out there and see what I could do."
Going into Thursday's game at TCU, Putnam has recorded 13 tackles, two sacks and helped to cause all manner of chaos and confusion for opposing quarterbacks, but hopes his best efforts are yet to come.
Considering the condition of his body following his mission, Putnam is counting his blessing to be performing so well. The Brigham City native said he was 60 pounds too healthy when he returned home from Texas after two years of proselyting for the LDS Church.
"Getting back in shape is not exactly the easiest thing when you are 60 pounds over weight," he said. "But at BYU they take care of us."
Returning to top form wasn't impossible, Putnam said, because the program has worked with so many returned missionaries over the years that they have the process down to a scientific formula.
"BYU has really figured out how to do transform bodies without people getting injured," he said. "They take it easy on us until the body is ready and strong enough, and when we are ready for it, they go full bore."
Even so, until this season, Putnam hadn't played in a football game since leaving Box Elder in 2004, where he helped the Bees to an 18-4 record in his final two seasons and earned all-American honors.
He was prepared for the college game, however, because grew up watching two of his older brothers. One brother, Jeff, played at Air Force and another brother, Nate, played at Utah State.
"(Nate) was one of the hardest workers on the team," Matt said. "He told me to work hard, but didn't give me much more advice. But I knew what to do because I watched him play at USU."
Thus coming back to Romney Stadium two weeks ago was a bit nostalgic for No. 57. He said it was a little strange to be there and not be pulling for the Aggies.
"I kind of grew up an Aggie," he said. "I remember it getting loud and rowdy, so I was ready for that. I knew they wouldn't give up."
The Cougars won the game, 34-14, and Putnam said he almost feels like a seasoned veteran now. He says he can handle the attention that comes with wearing the BYU uniform, the big stadiums, the fan frenzy, the juggling act of school work and taking care of his wife, Jill.
"I am used to it now. Getting playing time has helped it come back," Putnam said. "Sometimes it's surreal. When we are in a huge game with tons of people screaming and all the stuff we get, I'm just like 'wow, from little Brigham City all the way to this.' It's amazing to take advantage of that."

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Football, Football, and More Football!

K here it goes....all the many tons of pictures of Matt from all the games so far. Enjoy! Sorry it's taken me so long to get em up and sorry about the quality of the ones that were taken by me or Alyssa....it's pretty easy to tell if it's one of our pics compaed to the professionals.
P.S. Matt's #57

V. Northern Iowa

His first game ever playing for BYU!! YEAH!!