Ode to Grechka

Yesterday Spencer and I both had the day off. While most of it we wasted just lounging around and reading, we did accomplish one important task. We went to the Russian store! I've enjoyed most of the traditions Spencer has shared with me from his mission in Russia. I must confess though that my favorite one may be grechka! What is grechka you may ask? Grechka is a cereal product commonly eaten in Eastern Europe. In English, grechka generally refers to buckwheat groats, but in Slavic countries, grechka refers to porridge in general, and can be made from any cereal, especially buckwheat, wheat, barley, oats, and rye. It is one of the oldest known dishes in the Slavic cuisines of the Eastern European cuisine, at least a thousand years old. This Buckwheat grechka is so versatile that it can be used in the morning as a cereal with hot milk or in the evening as a side dish instead of rice or potatoes

Sounds quite appealing right? We bought three bags of grechka at the store! Well, there are many ways to prepare and eat grechka. What we enjoy best is a breakfast concoction (I say breakfast but we enjoy it for any meal!) We'll boil the grains like any other recipe, but at the same time we start to fry up some ham. Once all the water is absorbed or evaporated we combine the grechka with the ham in a frying pan. Then we crack a couple of eggs into the pan and mix everything up. Then we dish up generous servings into large bowls. On our grechka we like to mix in mayonnaise and ketchup. You have to be careful though to get the proportions right. It's very delicious and filling. I recommend that everyone go out and try some grechka....or just come to our house and we'll make you some!

Happy New Year!

This New Years I ended up working a little later than anticipated so Spencer and I decided to do our celebrating close to home. We went out to dinner at Biaggi's Ristorante Italiano at the gateway mall. The food was quite delicious. Then we decided to go see the lights at temple square again....they were still there, why not?

You can't tell but this is us in front of the restaurant

On our way there on trax we ran into a guy named Nathan. He said he lost his wallet and needed some help getting home to Ogden. Spencer didn't even hesitate to help. We got off at the next stop and bought him a ticket for Front Runner. Spencer also gave him a little extra money because Nathan hadn't eaten anything for a while. I was so proud of my husband for being so willing to help someone in need. While we were both waiting for the next train to come to take us our separate ways we got to talking. Nathan said he asked a couple of people before us to help him and they all turned him down. I was really surprised by that. Nathan then asked a bit about us and seemed to come to the conclusion that we were members of the church. Nathan said he grew up in Manti a member of the church but ending up falling away. He said lately though that he's been thinking about changing a couple of things in his life and coming back to the church. We talked about that for quite some time and about the church. Well, both our trains came and he thanked us quite a bit and we wished him good luck. I was extremely thankful for the experience and the chance we had to meet Nathan. We hope that he got home safely and that some day he does end up coming back to the church.



After this experience Spencer and I shared our some of our feelings and previous experiences we had had with situations like this. I said that anytime something like this comes up and someone needs help I just think what would I want people to do if this was me or someone I cared about. I would want help and I would want others to help my family if they were in trouble. Spencer said you never know what people's real stories are. They might be scamming you or they might actually need your help. He said in the end when it's all said and done and you're looking back at your life that he guarantees that you will never regret helping someone when they were in need. It touches me when I see or hear about people going out of their way to help one another. I just think about it this way: we're all on the same team. Generally, we're all trying to achieve the same thing. When teams work together and help each other out, they tend to do better and achieve more. I hope that whenever we see someone in need that we won't hesitate to do what we can to help.



Anyway, so after temple square we started heading over to the '3VE' celebration going on at gallivan plaza. We had a fun time there. It was very crowded! There was a lot going on though so we found ways around the masses. There was a little ski slope set up and people were going down and doing tricks and what not. It was fun to watch. There were a couple of bands set up. We mostly hung out by the one that was playing swing music. Me and Spencer attempted to dance, but it occurred to me that we haven't danced together much. Ha ha ha....we got a little bit better as the night went on though. At midnight they shot off fire works right above us. Last year they had a long show, but this year they decided to cram the whole show into about two minutes! It was amazing. After everything was over we just hopped on trax and went home. We had a great time in down town. When we got home we drank some sparkling pear juice and watched the Grinch. Overall, quite a great New Years! 

Spencer was excited that there weren't going to be tons of people in the backgrounds of our pictures

Pretty Temple!!!

I realize this is what most of the pictures of us look like. You know what though, when it's just the two of you and one of you has to hold the camera out in front that's what the pictures tend to look like

Luckily someone walked by and offered to take a picture

This is the little ski hill/board park

The favorite band

Happy New Year!!!

It's officially 2010

Our new home!

As of November 4th Spencer and I are new proud homeowners! (for those who know my celebration cheer...dee deenee nee!!!) We bought a cute little townhome east of state street in Midvale, Utah. It's so nice to finally have our own place! (not to say that the basements we have rented thus far haven't been fabulous) Our place has great access to Trax which Spencer rides everyday to school and work. I even get to ride sometimes too! We've loved living in Midvale so far. We've only met a few of our neighbors (I know, we're slackers!) but the ones we have met have been great! Our ward was very welcoming when we moved in and we love our callings. We're both primary teachers for the 6 and 7 year olds. Our kids are amazing and we're so happy that we got to keep most of them for the new year. Even though we're a little isolated from the rest of the ward because of our callings we've still had tons of opportunities to get to know everyone and we love the members of our ward. Spencer enjoys playing basketball with the ward twice a week. He's really enjoyed playing and getting to know the members of the team. Now if only the ward played Ultimate Frisbee, we'd be set :) We love having people over so feel free to give us a call and stop by!....We'll make you food!!   

This is our entry way

Kitchen

Ha ha...this is a picture of our frisbee clock displayed in its place of honor

Dinning area

The door to our unfinished basement

Living Room

Main floor bathroom

Guest bedroom

Guest bathroom

Master bedroom

We have a celing fan :)

Master bathroom

This is our little game/CamelBak closet

Merry Christmas!

This year Christmas was a little bit different for me. This year was my first time with the Browns! We had such a great time with family and we wished we didn't have to leave. Every family has their own traditions, and the Browns definitely have some great ones!

On Christmas Eve we went over to the Hart's for a Christmas program and a delicious dinner. I thought the program was very touching! It involved musical talents, inspirational stories, and thoughtful comments. Charles also read the Christmas story from the bible. I thought it was a wonderful way to direct our thoughts towards Christ and to draw the family closer together. This is definitely a wonderful tradition!

This is cute little Jake singing 'Samuel Tells of the Baby Jesus'

Christmas Day was quite exciting. Before anyone could go downstairs we needed to make breakfast and clean up first. Jake woke up quite early so this was very difficult for him to wait! He did very good though and plus I think waiting made everything more exciting! After everyone was awake and breakfast was over we lined up youngest to oldest and went downstairs. Christmas morning was so much fun! And I'm not quite sure if Christmas 'morning' is adequate enough because when you have Christmas with the Browns 'Christmas morning' lasts all day. We opened some presents in the morning and went through our stockings from Santa. Then we went to Grandma Anne and Grandpa Harl's for Christmas brunch. All the family that was in town attended. And once again we had delicious food!

                                                                           

Spencer and Isaac making breakfast. ha ha....we had toast and juice.

     

Stockings from santa

Whenever we asked Jake what he wanted for Christmas he would say Jet fire and Jet Star!! He loves his transformers

This is how Spencer wrapped all my presents. I didn't know what a single thing was. As far as I knew I was getting a Christmas tree, a Christmas cracker, and two pyramids for Christmas!

The tree was my favorite

LuAnne is so amazing! Everything she does is so thoughtful. She made some wonderful things for her family

Jake also got a Boozer jersy for Christmas. He is showing it off!

Cover your face... I'll still show your picture!

For Christmas I put together all of Spencer's missionary pictures in an album. It was fun to watch him look through it and hear him talk about his mission. I listened to stories I had never heard before. I love you Spence!

After brunch we went back to the Brown's for more presents. Even though Alec and Jen's family had Christmas with the Lewis's this year they were able to stop by for a bit and spend some time with us. It was so much fun to see them! We opened up all the presents from siblings. We also had a bit of a surprise when we came back from brunch....there were twice as many presents downstairs then when we had left! I guess that Browns were hiding some. We had fun spending time with each other and watching everyone open their presents. We spent the rest of the day playing fun games.

 

Eric loves Legos!

 

The kids were great about saying thank you and giving out hugs!

Any time Jake or Lily walked past me I would hear...."Janelle, can I have some of your candy?"

ha ha ha....that reminds me of a funny story of Lily. Alec and Jen's family ended up staying at the Brown's for a couple of days after Christmas. I think this experience with Lily happened on the 27th or something...keep that in mind. So I walked down the stairs and Lily was eyeing a basket full of treats and asked me, "Janelle, can I have some marshmallows because it's Christmas Eve?" I laughed and told her it wasn't Christmas Eve anymore so she would need to come up with a new excuse. I told her she could say her socks were cute or that she has a pretty smile...something like that. I also said she would have to ask her mom anyway if she wanted a treat. I went back upstairs and not too long after Lily came up the stairs and said to Jen, "Mom, my socks are pretty can I have some marshmallows?" Ha ha ha...that Lily, she's a cutie pie!!

Isaac transforming a transformer

Pretty!

These are my cute socks that I got from Kezia.

These are pictures of two quilts that LuAnne made. Just a glimps into the time and thought LuAnne went through this Christmas!

Fun cousins enjoying their gifts

Go sugar cookies

While I was growing up, every Christmas I looked forward to making sugar cookies. I loved to decorate the cookies with all the different colors of frosting. I may have enjoyed frosting them more than eating them....wait, that can't be right. I'm pretty sure I enjoyed eating them the most when I was younger.

Well, I decided I wanted to keep this tradition alive with our little family this year. I began preperations by mixing the ingredients and letting them chill in the fridge. Now I'm sure many of you have experienced this, but with all the preperations for Christmas and what not, we ran out of time! I was very disapointed that I wouldn't be making cookies this year, and I was also sad that I wasted all the dough....untill I had an idea. We were planning on stopping off at my parents house on the way to Cedar City, why not make cookies there with the family. So we packed the dough and we were off. We had quite a fun time with the cookies. Everyone was willing to pitch in....even Sarah's family dispite the fact that they had just spent the entire previous day doing the same thing. I guess there's no such thing as too many holiday cookies!

I had to watch that little Gwen. If I left any dough on the counter she would pop it right in her mouth. Tricksy little baby!

While we made cookies Cooper and Paul made orange juice from a box of oranges the Armstrongs gave our parents for Christmas (We LOVE the Armstrongs!!!). Niether of our parents were home at the time so we figured they wouldn't miss the oranges (they never knew they had them in the first place) and that they would love the freshly squeezed OJ

 

I had to be quick to pull up the cut out cookie shapes because Gwen and Hannah just liked to stamp the cutters over and over again in the dough. Those silly babies

The Nathans

Spencer took this picture...good thing Hannah's cute

Cousins :)

Sarah and I had a contest who could make the prettiest face...You decide

Cute Connor with his trains

The frosting of the cookies

I think your cookie is pretty Hannah