Kerr Chronicles

Week 51
I'll just warn you right up front--there are a zillion pictures in this week's post. It was homecoming week and we want to share the full experience with you. We also had a pretty busy week separate from homecoming, so lots to share.

Best news is that my great nephew Brigham entered the MTC on Wednesday in preparation for serving in the Vancouver, WA mission. He went on October 26th, the one year anniversary of when we went to the MTC. He is the 7th missionary in our family to be serving right now--his sister is in California, his two grandmothers are companions in Croatia, his cousin is in New York, and his aunt and uncle are in Stillwater. Love being part of a missionary family!

We had a wonderful week at the institute. Brother Valletta was ill (which wasn't good) but we got to fill in for his Wednesday evening class (Foundations and Doctrines of the Book of Mormon). It's the biggest class of the week, and we had such a good discussion in class. Our D & C and Book of Mormon classes were also especially enjoyable this week, as well. As I keep saying, we simply love our YSAs and enjoy working with them so much.

FHE this week was pumpkin carving, and Elder Kerr's was one of the best!

Friday one of our YSAs received her endowment, so we went to the temple with two other YSAs to share the experience. Hannah is waiting for her mission call, which should arrive this week.

Seth, Hannah, and Nicole

OK, now on to America's Greatest Homecoming celebration. One of the highlights is the House Decs (that stands for Greek House Decorations). The homecoming theme for the year is announced in the spring, and the houses start working on their designs then! This year's theme is A Cowboy Dream.

We've previously posted pictures of the structures being built, because the frat houses started in late August. There is a competition between the houses (each is paired with a sorority) for the best display. They have to have moving parts (thank goodness they all have some engineering majors on board--I don't know where they learned welding) and they are massive. On Thursday they start attaching the "pomping" that they've been working on inside the sororities since the end of August, as well. The kids work around the clock (literally through the night) to have everything up and running by 5:00 pm Friday for the Walkaround.

Just a word about what the YSAs did during all this. The institute is surrounded on all sides by fraternity and sorority houses. At 10:00 pm on Thursday, about 8 YSAs started taking donuts around to all the houses (about 14 of them) to cheer the kids on. Then during Walkaround (when the streets are blocked off and 80,000 people wander through the Greek neighborhood from 5-10 pm on Friday) the missionaries and YSAs had a free lemonade stand in front of the institute and also let people inside to use the restrooms. They went through about 30 gallons of lemonade and talked to a whole lot of folks!

Here are some "work in progress" photos taken on Thursday morning, Friday morning, and Friday evening of the house right across the street from us:

24 hours to go from frame to finished!

What is hard to believe is that every bit of color you see is 4 inch squares of tissue paper poked in chicken wire! They are completed in long rolls and brought on site to hang. The detail is astounding, and the color shading is hard to believe--these pictures just don't do them justice.

Here are some more pictures of the decs:

Notice 6' 2" Elder Kerr by the top one for scale--he's dwarfed by the dec!

Here is a picture from the newspaper of the crowd at Walkaround:

Earlier in the week the fountain by the library was dyed orange, and various clubs put up signs on the library lawn--all addressing the theme, and all judged.

The fountain on the right is actually downtown--can't leave a possible orange spot un-tinged

Theta Pond even got in the homecoming act with a big lighted sign:

Saturday was the Sea of Orange homecoming parade--it was fun. Just a couple of floats, but lots of marching bands from high schools in the state, lots of horses, lots of farm equipment (antique and modern), and a variety of other entries (130 in all). It started with a formation fly-over by the aeronautics club--they spewed orange smoke. The first few minutes of the parade were especially touching as the grand marshals were representatives of all the first responders to last year's tragedy. Then there were four riderless horses--each with a blanket of flowers and cowboy boots backwards in the stirrups--for the four people who were killed in last year's parade. The first three were full-sized horses, but the last was a pony because one of the people killed was a little two-year old. There were no dry eyes as the horse went by.