Bread

What, you may ask, do Janelle, little brother Michael, and the Amish have in common? They are all excellent bread bakers! The week of bread commenced last Sunday, when Michel brought over his 25 lb. bag of flour and we made some big loaves, some small loves, some regular rolls, some pull-apart rolls, and even a couple pretzel-shaped rolls.

Later on in the week I came home to the smell of delicious Amish Friendship Bread. We especially appreciated this bread after all the effort of "mushing" the bag of dough each day (well, some days we had to add ingredients, too (and by we, I mean Janelle)). This specific batch of Amish Friendship Bread was quite different from the bread of last Sunday. It was cake-like with a healthy portion of cinnamon on top. I regret that there are no pictures of the Amish bread, but it is long gone at this point.

But bread-making isn't the only fun we have around here. Janelle also happens to be an expert dish-doer. Looks like she's almost done!

I hope your coming week is as bread-ful as the last has been for us. Happy Baking!

Christmastime for Scott!

We got a new piece of furniture recently to make homework a little more pleasurable. Scott's back has endured countless hours of sitting at the computer, and we decided it was time to give his back a little rest. Especially because now he has several more years of homework ahead of him. We spent some of our Target wedding money to get the chair. It's amazing how long those gift cards last. Well, maybe it doesn't last quite as long for those people who don't work for/invest in Walmart. :)

Some of the reviews said that the chair was a pain to put together, but Scott did it in no time. That's probably a good thing because I have the feeling he's going to get the opportunity to put lots of things together in the next few months...

Doesn't he look so thrilled to be doing homework now???

Cougars and the Wachovia Center

I just have to say that we are SOOOOOOO excited that the Cougars are coming to Philly and even more excited that mom and dad will be there at the game. It makes up for the fact that we wont even be able to see the game, since we'll be working. :)

In preparation for that, Scott and I decided that we would be sports editors for a day, to introduce my parents to the 2009 BYU Cougars. So here's your starting line up:

Lee Cummard (30): Also known as the "Spider-Man." Lee is a senior and clearly the best player on our team. He is intense. Our emotional leader and team captain. We count on Lee to "get it done." He was MWC co-player of the year last year and is on the 1st all conference team this year. You want him at the foul line....always.

Jimmer "Jammer" Fredette (32): Clearly Janelle's favorite player. He's from Glens Falls, NY. Maybe his family will be at the game. Jimmer is there to play basketball. He is unaffected by momentum. He might miss some shots, but just keeps playing like nothing ever happened. He'll keep playing even when the rest of the team is doing terrible. He just likes to play, and he's not afraid to drive to the basket. Also on the 1st all conference team with Lee. You also want him at the foul line....unless Lee's already there.

Jonathan Tavernari (45): Also known as "JT for 3" or the "Brazilian Bomber." JT can make some pretty amazing 3's when he's having a good day. He's been having some not so good days, but that's ok. Even when he's not scoring, he is HUGE for rebounds. JT is on the 3rd all conference team. He is really, really passionate and loves the fans.

Jackson Emery (4): Jackson is huge on defense. Well, he's not all that huge. He's kinda small. You'll recognize him. He wears a little arm thing like AI. He is insane. He moves so fast and can steal the ball anywhere. He's on the all conference defensive team.

Chris Miles ( ): I don't remember his number, but he's hard to miss. He's the big guy in the middle. I really like Chris Miles. He's by no means the best player, but he does some pretty good things. His size and presence on the court seems to make a big difference. Sometimes he looks like an airplane when he's defending....not sure what that's about... but other than that... He's a great guy. He did great against Luke Nevill(UT).

You may also get to meet a few people from our bench. But maybe not, because we really count on our starters. Lamont Morgan Jr. has been pretty important to us lately, as has Noah Hartsock. I hope you get to see a little of them, but I really hope our starters don't get in foul trouble.

And just for your information... of the 20 spots on the 4 different all conference teams... only three of them were not seniors. Those three were all from BYU. So the future looks bright as well. However, if Dave Rose heard us focusing on something besides thursday's game.... we'd have ourselves a seat on the bench next to him..... according to Lee. Of course we'd love a seat on the bench next to him.... but I guess Lee wouldn't.

So there you go, Mom and Dad. Have a wonderful time at the game, and cheer loud for our friends!!!

BYU Photo/Mark Philbrick

Hakuna Matata

So basically, I couldn't stand to look at our blog with a picture of our Cougars after the loss last night. I figured it was time to update so that wasn't the first thing I, or anyone else, saw. You know me. I certainly don't like close games or losses. Oh well. We'll see about our seed in the NCAA. #25 should certainly be in the top 65.

It's been a pretty good week here in Provo. Scott and I are so busy, but the good thing is that we both like our jobs/school, etc. The ESL team at Provo High got voted "team of the term" this term. I thought it was really good for our supervisor because ESL doesn't tend to get a lot of recognition. So that was good. Really, I was most excited because I got a gift card to Coldstone. That pretty much made my day. Seriously. :)

But kids are so funny. Sometimes I wish I could just video tape some of the stuff they do. I mean, of course they drive you crazy most days as well, but they are seriously hilarious. So we were doing testing a couple of weeks ago. The test lasted multiple days, but they would finish the test before the period was over, so we showed parts of Lion King at the end of the period on those days. Mind you it was in English with English subtitles. So I'm grading their quizzes on Lion King a few days later and several of the kids are talking about Oscar. And I'm just like- who the heck is Oscar? Took me a few minutes to realize that they meant Scar. Despite the subtitles and the previous questions that mentioned Scar, I guess they thought his name was Oscar. Hilarious. Classic ESL moment.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have one student who is just hilarious and very intelligent. We haven't watched The Lion King for a few weeks now and earlier this week he's in his Geometry class. Mid class he just randomly and loudly blurts out: "I feel about this class like Mufasa felt about the hyenas." I almost died. Where the heck did that come from? I have no idea what made him think of that. And I have no idea how he knew to make such a good comparison. I was actually quite impressed at his ability. :) The teacher didn't know what he was talking about, and neither did most of the other students. They just thought it was funny. He then explained much more quietly to us "I guess it's necessary, but I don't really like it." Haha. He's a good kid.

Well, there are countless more crazy moments and funny awkward happenings every day, but I'll spare you, since you don't know these kids. But teaching, and everything else, is going well here in Provo. We're just crossing our fingers for Selection Sunday. :)

Back to Back to Back

After a close encounter with Air Force tonight, we have claimed a share of our third straight Mountain West Conference men's basketball regular season title! When I say we, I mean Janelle, and I, and Jimmer, and Lee, and the Cougars.

This is a picture from the New Mexico game on February 17th. Jackson's shot ended up going in, so I think this is an especially pertinent photo for today.


Next we head to Las Vegas for the Conference tournament. As far as I understand, we'll be the 1-seed, so we may have a chance to play Air Force again. There are a number of teams that have a good shot at winning the tournament, and a trip to the Big Dance. Beating UNLV at home (or at all, this year) is never easy for us, but I think we can do it. What do you think?