Language Development

Language Development is by far one of my hardest classes and I am struggling to understand a word in the book. Dr. Fujiki gives out study guides for each chapter which helps immensely to know what we have to know. Although I can find where the answers are in the book, I usually don't understand what it means. Our TA who is getting her Masters at the moment said that the book is quite hard to understand and even a bit hard for her. So, last week, I studied and tried to understand what it said for the quiz, but I ended up getting 3/15 points on the quiz, a little bit of a bummer. But on the quiz we took on Thursday, I got a 15/15!!! I was so excited when I checked my score online this morning. I am so excited that I am doing a little better.

Filled Week

(Annette) Life wasn't too exciting this week, but we sure kept busy with the many things that always seem to happen. I had a NSSLHA (National Student Speech Language Hearing Association) Club meeting for my major. On Thursday I visit taught both of my sisters in the ward. Life is very fun and rewarding. The only bummer about this week is that I was going to finish writing a paper on Isaiah on Friday, but of course I left my resource at home and now get to finish the paper this Monday. But also last Friday, we went to a birthday party for the wife of one of the families that Charles home teaches. It was lots of fun getting to know them better.

(Charles) We went to the temple. While this isn't highly unusual, it's one of our goals I'm glad we're achieving. We make it at least twice but usually three times a month. Someday when we're perfect at getting three in, I think we'd like to do weekly.

The BYU football game was OK. We came out pumped up and took advantage of the other team's nervous mistakes. I kept trying to get Annette to go to my grandma's house with me at halftime because I knew how much homework she had. She insisted that we stay and I'm glad we did because I would have been worried sick if I had been listening to it on the radio. We didn't pull away from them quickly and decisively enough until the end. I don't think we looked a ton better than they did for most of the game. Heck, their quarterback looked as good as ours. I'm glad we aren't going to somehow make it to some huge BCS bowl because I'm afraid we'd collapse under the pressure. We'll see if my opinion changes after the TCU game.

A Tribute to My Dear Sweet Wonderful Amazing Wife (and our parental units)

This weekend was quite a roller coaster. There was a thrilling 300 ft climb on Friday night when we went to Cirque de la Symphonie. I can't begin to describe how incredible that was. Then we hit the peak of the roller coaster (you know, that part of the ride that's not fun in and of itself, but it's a transitionary stretch to the next part) when we went to the World of Dance concert. It was OK, but really it was mostly just boring which is weird because usually I LOVE World of Dance. Then, there was that decent where you toss your cookies over the side of the roller coaster and plaster all of your friends behind you with puke. That was Saturday night when my worst nightmare came true and FSU spanked BYU like a red-headed step child.

On Valentines Day, I told Annette that one of the reasons I love her is because she is cultured and versatile. I shared a quote with her that I will share with you. Elder Callister said it so poignantly. "On the eve of his release, one of my fine missionaries during my tenure as a mission president spoke of a girl at home with whom he intended to renew association.

He inquired, “How will I know if she is the right one?”

I suggested, among other things, that he invite her to a cultural event. If she responded that this would be of no interest to her, then maybe he should pursue other alternatives. But if she had compelling spiritual qualities and could be enthralled by culture on Friday and love the athletic contest on Saturday, she might be the type of young lady he could choose as the mother for his children. It might be balanced and rewarding to be paired with her for eternity."

Annette was enthralled by culture on Friday and she at least pretended to love the athletic contest on Saturday. Heck, she probably loved it a lot more than I did. She even pretended to be really upset when we lost to make me feel better. How cute.

And now, a hearty thanks to our parents for raising us in such a way that people don't think we were born in a barn. Our parents taught us that we choose our disposition and how to live a vim life of exciting events. Or, we can be cantankerous curmudgeons. We are so blessed by our wonderful families (and friends) and hope that we can pay you back in some small way.

Fun Week

This weekend Charles and I went to the Utah Symphony's concert "Cirque de la Symphony." It was an awesome mix of the orchestra and acrobatics. We absolutely loved the show and wished you could have all seen it.

(an internet photo)

Our fridge acts more like a freezer and froze some of our eggs even though the fridge's temp is completely turned to the warmest setting possible. The little tuft on the right of the egg is part of the egg carton that froze to the egg when it cracked and started seeping out.

Here we are in the sea of blue BYU fans who became deeply saddened by the loss of BYU to Florida State 54 to 28. We were slaughtered.

This is a pretty cool shot of the game that I took at the BYU Football game. Sorry it isn't great, it was completely across the field and I still had to crop it down and do a crude blurring job of the background distractions so you could see what was actually in the picture.

Charles was so uninterested in the game when BYU started their down hill game that he started texting people (so weird that he wasn't paying full attention to the game).

Hike to Stewart Falls on Labor Day Morning

Charles and I went on a hike up to Stewart Falls Labor Day morning as the sun rose for the morning. It was a beautiful way to spend the morning. There were no one there at the Falls until after I got most of my photos. The Falls were absolutely spectacular and lovely!!!

I don't know why the photos are on here so weird, it looks a lot better then it was.

Pretzels

I made some glorious pretzels this week for Charles' families get together. I had a request for the recipe and thought that I might as well post it up.

The recipe is for our bread maker, so you may have to adjust it.

16-20 Pretxels

1 1/4 cup 80-90 degree water

1 tbs+1/4 tsp salt

1 tbs + 1 tsp brown sugar firmly packed

4 cups flour

2 1/4 tsp yeast

Place ingrediants in bread mixer on dough/pizza dough setting. When done mixing and rising, role out on a floured surface and use a pizza cutter to slice the dough into strips. Gently role the strips between your hands to make a snake. Make it into a pretzel shape and let rise 20-30 minute on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

Boil a 5-6 quart pot of water. Stir 2 tbs baking soda into a bowl of 2 cups of water and set aside.

Boil pretzels in the pot for 1.5 minutes on each side. Place on drying rack or towel. Once cool, dip pretzels in the baking soda water and then place back on cookie sheet. Salt with regular salt or sea salt. Bake in oven 15-20 minutes at 425 degrees. Bake till golden brown. When done, place pretzels on wire cooling racks.

Have fun!!!

Side Notes About Our Life

I had a calendar from Charles that I wanted to put up in our living room/kitchen, but there was no wall space for it, so I used a twisty tie from lettuce, a old spoon, and our cupboard door to hang it up.

Charles cleaned the carpet with his carpet cleaner and it looks marvelous now!

We have a creepy fence out side our front door that makes sounds that would be on a horror film. It is creepy during the day, but even more so during the night.

So, I went to a dentist for a cleaning and such. I didn’t particularly like the place because the hygienist kept yapping and not working. But the dentist gave me the very unfortunate news that my wisdom teeth needed to be ripped out of my head. I have had a deathly fear of having my wisdom teeth out after seeing Colleen get hers ripped out. I am planning to get a second opinion from another place before I am brutally attacked by the dentist. When the dentist told me the news, I started crying right there on the spot. I told Charles I would rather be in a car accident then get my wisdom teeth yanked out.

Charles and I went to the Utah State Fair Saturday evening and we spent most of the time looking and petting the animals! It was fun to use my animal sounds again. While I was taking some really close up pictures of a goat, it got a chunk of my hair and tried to eat it, but I was too quick for him and snagged it away from him.

I wanted to see the rodeo, but all the seats were taken way before it ever began, so we watched a few minutes and then left to see what else was at the fair.

We saw some HUGE cows! The owner said that they were pregnant and weighed almost an entire ton.

As Charles and I were in the turn lane to get on the Freeway going home from the fair, we got in a car accident. We had stopped, but the girl behind us was distracted with her dog and bumped us going about 3 mph. It jolted us. We pulled off to the shoulder and looked at the damage. She had nothing and Charles had a few little paint scratches. The girl felt so bad, but no damage was done and it was perfectly alright. I said that if she let me pet her doggy that all would be forgiven. Charles had been in a car accident when he was in college where he had rear ended someone and got rear ended. The other drivers gave him a break and so he thought that he would pass a long the favor to this girl.

After the accident I said that now I had been in a car accident, that I could now get my wisdom teeth ripped out of my mouth.

First Week of School & BYU vs. OU Game

Hey Everyone Out There In The World

This week for me was my first week of school and I have been surprised how many people I have seen on campus that I know.

The classes that I am taking are:

Clinical Phonetics

Intro to Speech

Language Development

Sign Language

Writings of Isaiah

Country Social Dance

I am loving my classes so far and am pretty excited for them all. My ASL teacher is actually deaf and can speak minimally, so it is quite interesting. My Country Dance class will be quite fun it seems and since Charles has taken the class before, he will be a great help in my endeavors of passing since I am rhythmically challenged.

I made Enchiladas for this week from Colleen’s recipe. They were really good, but for some reason Charles just keeps calling it Lasagna. It is hilarious because right after I call it Enchiladas, he will still say Lasagna. I think we will be making Lasagna for next weeks meal (One meal for the two of us usually lasts about a week).

Charles cleaned our couch with his carpet extractor thing. It was amazing how clean the couch looked after ward even though the soap wasn’t working because the belt broke. Here is a photo of how dirty the water was after cleaning the couch.

This Friday I officially became a BYU Bookstore Employee. I work on the lowest floor in the Pack and Ship Department. With the new semester, my work at Grounds Crew ended, but I am very excited for my new job. I also now get 20% off at the Bookstore!! I let you know what I actually do at my job when I find out. I figured the Bookstore must hire people, but I never saw any job listings for them, so I went up to HR and asked if they had any openings. The lady looked down and said there were openings in Shipping, so I signed up for an interview that day.

BYU vs Oklahoma (Charles’ thoughts):

May I just say, "It's about time!!!!!!!"? I think I saw angels helping our players kind of like in the movie Angels in the Backfield or whatever that was called. All I have to say is that I'll still be surprised if BYU is ranked higher than OU. The press will say something like, "Well, they hurt OU's QB and they didn't beat them because they're better." And thus BYU will be ranked under OU. Oh, and in case you didn't watch the game, BYU--14 OU--13. 20,000 BYU fans got to jeer at 60,000 Oklahoma fans when their Sooners had more penalties than there are stars in the sky. It was also sad that their backup QB needed throwing lessons from my Grandma Thomas. Our defense was awesome, our offense was offensive (to their own fans) but it was a stellar game of two great teams in the most amazing $1,000,000,000 stadium ever built. We were honored to win the first game EVER PLAYED in it. It had a TV that spanned 60 of the 100 yard football field and it was in HD to boot.

Charles got a newer computer monitor from his parents who were upgrading and when Charles went to DI (thrift store) to get rid of the monitor, he was amazed when the DI employee informed him that DI only accepted flat panel monitors. How sad is it when DI wont even take your stuff. Well, I guess that means if you are looking for a new monitor, DI will have nice ones.