Coming up...

Starting Monday, I will be doing this:

(but with a BYU sweatshirt.)

Then on Saturday we get to go here

to see this guy get married.

Man, that's a good looking couple in the background.  I'm excited!  I've never been to California.  Well, I've never been to Nevada either, but I don't think there's too much to see there.  

Then next Tuesday I will be doing this:

Answers

Okay, here are the answers--
Wyoming - Wyomingite
Connecticut - Connecticuter,  or less popular Connecticutian
Maine - Mainer (I also saw one use of Mainiac)
Massachusetts - Massachusett (in tribute to the Native Americans) or just Bay Stater
Illinois - Illinoisan
New Jersey - New Jersian

Quiz

While we were driving through Wyoming, the question came up, what do you call someone from Wyoming?  None of us knew, so we made up some cool sounding names, like Wyome.  That got me thinking about it, so what do you call someone from:

Wyoming
Connecticut
Maine
Massachusetts
Illinois
New Jersey

No cheating.

Textbooks

Some of you may have put these days behind, but for some of us, it's time to go back to school.  One of the most dreadful parts of that is buying books.  Many times I have stood in line at the BYU bookstore after milling through a jillion people, aisles of books, and the expensive pallet-zone, and then spent a couple hundred dollars.  A few times I have purchased my books online, but it's kind of risky because you can't return the book if you drop the class or the professor says you don't really need the book after all (what happened last semester.)  To celebrate my last semester at BYU, I am joining the trend and renting my books. This is why:

Principles of Biochemistry

From the BYU Bookstore NEW: $170.00

USED: $127.50

From Amazon NEW: $99.44

USED: $92.99

The thought of paying up to $170.00 for a book made me throw up a little in my mouth, until I saw this:

 From campusbookrentals.com: $53.14

I looked into it and decided to do it.  You pay to rent the book for a number of days, 1 semester=130 days.  They send it to you with a prepaid envelope to send it back when you're done.  If you need it longer, you can pay a little more, or if you decide to keep it, you can pay the difference of the used price they set.  You can return it for a full refund in the first 30 days.

If you sell back the book to the bookstore, you get 60% of the used value of the book, which would make the money to spent on the book around $50.  I figured it's worth it to rent seeing that the bookstore only took back one of the books I bought from them last semester.  I got a return of $18 from the $250 I spent.  

Now I'm going the less risky way.  If you want to rent your books too, let me know because I can refer you for a discount.

Bakin'

Unlike Mom and Dad, we have an oven that works.  After we got married, I decided that I would make our bread so we could save a little grocery money and have tastier, healthier bread.  This is the result of the second round of bread baking.

And this is the recipe I use.  I customized it from the Scoresby family cookbook.

Whole Wheat Bread

5 c warm water

1/2 c honey

2 T yeast

2 eggs, beaten

1/3 c oil

2 T salt

5 c white flour

11-12 c wheat flour

Dissolve yeast in warm water and honey until yeast bubbles and rises to top.  Mix in eggs, oil, and salt, Add 5 c white flour and let rest until bubbles rise to surface.  Mix in wheat flour, first with spoon, then with hand.  When dough separates from side of bowl, turn out unto floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic.  Let rise and punch down 3 times.  Form into 3 large loaves or 4 regular.  Let rise.   Bake in 350 degree oven for 40 minutes.

Welcome to Utah

I am now the official carrier of one of these (but with my name and picture).

Of course, I stalled on the way there, but the DMV doesn't know that.

I had to wait almost two hours, but I got home and to work on time.  I stalled in the parking lot at work, too, but no cars were around that time.

More Wedding Pictures

For all of you who want to see actual pictures of me and Brian, here you go.  We still haven't gotten the edited ones back, so when you look at these, imagine us looking even better, (if that is possible.)

Wedding pictures

Our photographer sent us the unedited pictures from the wedding. He sure captured the true character of our family.  Stay tuned for more.