Snow!

Kiera's and my snow polar bear- Cub! :)

Kiera and Jayden

Me and Cub

Voyager: Quarantine

Four Henries. Five Djuriches. One Thomas and one Lindsay. Eleven lucky people comprising The (second-to-)Last Mission before Christmas break at the Space Center (where they obviously take their jobs very seriously).

For the record, Graig, Ty, Mel and I were 5 minutes late, not 15 as stated on Mr. Williamson's blog. After Sara dropped me off at home, I didn't waste any time getting on the road to pick up Graig and I drove as fast as I could without sliding off the road or getting pulled over. We were all really looking forward to this mission and Melanie talked almost nonstop both ways of her extensive "expertise" on the Space Center (Ty and I kindly neglected to point out she'd only been on one mission). She talked quite a bit during our briefing too, come to think of it. (Much thanks to Thomas and David for letting her be a security guard.)

I hadn't thought much about what job I wanted before Saturday (probably because it was finals week) but I'd half considered engineer and communications. Then during the briefing when our flight director went through the jobs, I surprised myself by telling Sara I wanted first officer. I've been first officer twice before, once on the Phoenix and once on the Magellan. I loved it. The more I thought about being first officer on the Voyager the more I wanted the job. (So, much thanks to everyone else for letting me have it.) The other jobs were sorted out pretty quickly after Lindsay and Rachel "volunteered" for the two most stressful positions (ambassador and captain) and then Jon (our flight director) told us about our mission to distribute vaccine for a deadly flu to a Federation planet in quarantine.

There were three objectives: 1) Maintain the quarantine on the planet. 2) Prevent civil war from breaking out between the 3 annoying, arrogant continents. 3) Survive.

Our first big problem was the pirates that kept attacking, trying to steal the vaccine so they could sell it on the black market for big bucks. They were able to infiltrate our ship and take over the bridge, knocking us out and dragging us down a few decks where our ambassador (when she woke up) was able to talk the enemy captain out of killing us outright and keep her busy until we were able to steal back a gun and slowly recapture our bridge. (There was more to it than that, including the pirate captain being called to the bridge and stupidly leaving us by ourselves, and a brief time when Thomas pretended to have the flu, but that's basically it.)

Even after we beat back the pirates and locked them in the ship's brig, there were complications with our mission. Ambassador Lindsay spoke with representatives from all three continents on Tyrus 3 (the quarantined planet). All three wanted their people to have the vaccine first and all three were extremely hostile and arrogant to us and each other. One leader even threatened bodily harm and launched a ship (to attack us or go get the vaccine herself, I'm not sure which), breaking quarantine. We had to chase it, shoot it, and beam the leader aboard our ship before hers exploded. Meanwhile, also breaking quarantine, the other two continents beamed ambassadors aboard the Voyager and Lindsay had her hands full keeping them from killing each other (or shouting at the captain while she was trying to work).

As first officer, I was supposed to be sending status reports back to the Federation every ten minutes, so I had a giant digital clock sitting next to my computer. I glanced at it periodically, trying not to look but unable to help myself, trying not to panic that our time was rapidly running out. I was grateful Rachel seemed to have things under control because I was having trouble thinking clearly.

The USS Sahara finally arrived with the vaccine, but they'd been attacked by pirates on the way and lost about half of it, so we had to wait for it to replicate aboard the Voyager before we could send equal amounts to each of the three continents. We also had to inoculate ourselves since the Tyrus ambassadors had broken quarantine. 5:00 came and went. I started to relax. Maybe Jon would let us finish...

We were sending the ambassadors back with the vaccine when Jon's voice came over speaker: "Bad news. You are out of time."

He talked us through the mission objectives and convinced us we'd succeeded. (Do they always do that when you run out of time?) Even I was satisfied with the end results. We'd had just enough time to tie up our loose ends and there wasn't much else we could have done (maybe Lindsay could've used more time to make sure the three continents weren't going to end up at war).

I glanced at the clock on our way out and had a sneaking suspicion we'd been given extra time, a suspicion I gleefully confirmed with Mr. Williamson's Sunday post on the Space Center blog. The Space Center rocks. What more can I say?

CHRIST WAS LOVE

I saw Aunt Julie in the Wilk on my way to work this morning and got to talk for a few minutes. She gave me a Christmas present, a beautiful nativity tree ornament and we talked about the people who are important to us. I just want to say, I love all my family members and friends. I wish I could list you all out because I always feel more included when my name is specifically mentioned when people say stuff like that, but listing everyone would take forever and there's no guarantee I can remember everyone I love because there are so many. There's never a worse feeling than feeling left out.

Also I love that my finals are over and tomorrow I'm going to the Space Center with Sara and her siblings!

So sad to hear about the Provo Tabernacle burning down (4 texts from 4 different people woke me up with the news this morning). We the UCAS class of 2010 are now the last ones who graduated in that building. There's so much history tied into it. I'm proud to be part of the history.

More animations- click to view

Fish tank

Monarch

The staring contest you're guaranteed to win

Teaching myself about photoshop

animation by me :)

The great cheese adventure

Tuesday was a long day. Jill and I both had tests. She had school and I had work. I didn't even make it home until 10.

Not everything was work. While I was taking my World Religions exam, Jill rode the bus to her grandma Bjarnson's and had a little dinner, then got her grandma and her uncle into the car and brought them to campus for a free folk music concert in the JSB. I met them in the Wilk and we watched the concert. Most of the folk music was Irish or Gaelic, which is extra cool because Jill, Grandma Bjarnson, and Steve are part Irish. (Grandma is half, Steve is a quarter, Jill is an eighth.)

It makes me wonder what fraction of me is Swedish. And English. Those heritages come from both my Anderson and Henrie families...

Anyway, we got Grandma B and Uncle Steve back home around 9, and then rather than go straight home I called and begged my grandma Anderson to come pick us up. Jill and I both needed a pick-me-up from our rather disappointing test results (even though we studied hard) and Grandma is a great one for pick-me-ups. She picked us up (literally and spiritually) and took us to her house, where we ate taquitos (yummy!) and talked. Jill also had her guitar, and she was playing it. We ended up staying for scriptures and then Grandma drove us home at 10. She even gave us the rest of her taquitos.

(She was so tired. I felt bad and told her lots of thank-yous. She was nice and said "Don't worry about it, your mother kept me up plenty of nights.")

Once home, Jill and I hung around our apartment reading and studying (and eating taquitos, and playing guitar) for about an hour when she suddenly said, "I forgot! I'm supposed to bring Laughing Cow cheese for my French party tomorrow! Do you think Buylow would have some?"

I'd never heard of Laughing Cow cheese and didn't realize it was just a brand name for fancy cheese. "I don't know..."

"I'm pretty sure the Creamery won't have any. We'd better go now. Do you know what time Buylow closes?"

I did not. But we found out, after we'd walked down the street to it, it closes at 11. (We got there about 11:15. It was kind of disappointing.) We climbed a giant mountain of snow in the parking lot to make the trip worthwhile. It wasn't packed down very hard. The challenge was to get to the top and down the other side without sinking so deep you got stuck.

I thought I remembered there was another grocery store next to Buylow, either to the side or across University Parkway. So after we dug ourselves out of the snow we walked some more. We walked a lot. We even jaywalked across University (shh, don't tell- there was nobody around) but there were no grocery stores.

We walked home, double-checked that the Creamery didn't have fancy cheese (it didn't), and then decided to break out the bikes. (Mara wasn't home or I probably would've convinced Jill to ask her for a ride.) We had no idea where we were going, but I had a vague idea of some grocery stores on the corner of Bulldog Boulevard and University Parkway (the fact that Jill followed me again just proves how clueless we were) so we decided we may as well go there.

Wonder of wonders, we found a Macey's open 24 hours (I'm sorry for anybody who works the graveyard shift at a grocery store) and when we got inside Jill not only found plenty of fancy cheese (she didn't even end up buying Laughing Cow) but I found a rack of ski gloves! The night was cold and I happily bought myself a pair of gloves to replace the ones I lost on BYU campus weeks ago, thinking of how warm my hands would be on the way home. (They were.)

By the time we returned to Wyview for good, it was 1 am. We were both dead-dog tired and practically fell into bed, where we crashed for 6 hours until we had to get up for the next day at school.

And thus occurred the great cheese adventure.

Tip for a first date

Get Jill to do the invitation.

This is the invitation to the UCAS Christmas dance Jill made for my brother Graig. He liked the idea of having a snowflake do his talking for him. Not to mention it is a real work of art.

New speakers

My new computer speakers arrived yesterday. :)

Photogenic kitty

Coaly

Dominoes! with Jenga blocks

Temple Square

Went to Temple Square with Jill, Sara, Graig and Sugar Friday night. It was REALLY cold. We went into as many warm buildings as possible for Sugar, but by the end of the night she was refusing to walk at all and Jill had to carry her to the car.

Nevertheless, good times. The highlight of the night was caroling with the senior missionary pianist in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.

Sara making faces

Graig making faces

Looking out over Temple Square from the top of the JSMB
I like this picture because of the random dog hiney sticking out between 3 human hineys

Caroling with the sweet old man (not pictured) playing the piano

Sugar fell asleep on the train ride home
Notice the Dingleberry's wildly waving arms :)

Writing from "Home"

Ha-ha! My internet is working now! Just an update for those of you who knew about my computer troubles. Thanks Grandpa and OIT!!!

UCASian Hullabaloo

Ryan wanted to have one last get-together with a bunch of people from UCAS before he left on his mission. (He entered the MTC yesterday.) Connor and Belle were kind enough to pick me, Ana, and Joe Meyers up so we could go. It was fun- we talked for a bit, played some card games, ate spaghetti (courtesy of Chef Connor), and finished off the night with "Muppets: Treasure Island" and yummy candy/junk food.

Lauren

Ana

Belle and Connor (not the best picture in the world but my only one of Belle...)

Connor (foreground) was very entertaining with an improvised ballad about Ryan
(background: Joe Meyers)

Ryan, the Conqueror

Galileo: The Hunt

I'm so glad some of you asked about my Space Center mission. I could say I'm writing this "by popular demand," but that's not entirely true. Even if no one had asked, I would have told you. I love the Space Center way too much not to tell you. :)

All day Friday, the anticipation for the mission was building. All my friends knew how much I was looking forward to it, and periodically I would receive a text from Jill or a call from Sara reminding me what was waiting after school. As if I wasn't counting down the hours. As if I hadn't been sending Sara one or two emails every day for the past week with an exact countdown of how many hours, minutes and seconds were left until our mission officially began.

We were going to leave at 4. We actually left at 3:45. Sara, Jill and I piled in the back of Mara's car and went to pick up Jill's friend Destin. He rode shotgun. Directly after that, we got on State Street and headed up to Pleasant Grove to meet Matt at the Space Center. I was so excited I could hardly sit still. We got there about 5 minutes late, I ran in and paid, Matt came soon after that and we started our mission briefing 15 minutes after we were supposed to start. (Which is pretty good, all things considered.)

By the time our Space Center guide led us into the briefing room, I was too antsy to even sit down. He had to ask me to sit like 3 times before I finally obliged. Then he launched into a history of the United Federation of Planets, gave a quick rundown of what the Space Center is (basically, that it's a Star Trek simulator), what our ship the Galileo was designed for (espionage) and how, and told us the details of our mission. My fellow crew members had lots of questions and comments (many of them sarcastic) to interrupt what, in my opinion, was already the longest mission briefing known to man. Don't get me wrong. I thoroughly enjoy Jill, Mara and Sara's company and I'd already decided I liked Destin and Matt. I just knew the best part was yet to come and every minute spent talking was one less we could spend on the mission.

Assigning the jobs, normally (in my experience) the longest part, actually took the shortest. Here's the rundown: Destin, captain. Matt, navigation/first officer. Me, operations and communication. Mara, security/tactical. Jill, pilot. Sara, engineer. (Destin actually really wanted to be engineer and Matt wanted to be tactical but Mara would not budge on the job and nobody else wanted to be captain.)

Finally our guide led us to the Galileo, set us in our places, and gave us our training tapes. (They were actually all on cheap MP3s this time.) Training took another 20-30 minutes. I calculated in my head how much time we'd actually be flying our mission and decided we'd better move fast or we weren't going to finish.

The first time the ship computer spoke, Mara looked up at the viewscreen and said, "Sick." (aka, "way cool.") That one comment convinced me the Space Center is worth my love. If Mara, who is not a nerd, can enjoy it and appreciate it as much as I can, it is definitely worth it. The rest in the crew were suitably impressed too.

We were supposed to be rescuing a bunch of Federation and Klingon ambassadors from Orion pirates. And we would have, had we not died 3 times. All three were our fault. The first time, Matt wasn't paying attention and an Orion fighter snuck up on us. The second time, we were killed in an asteroid field on our way to hack the computers at Starbase 101 so we could track the ambassadors. The third time we made it to Starbase 101 but accidentally rammed it. haha

I want to stress that Pilot Jill did an awesome job in each of these situations. Through an amazingly big error in foresight for such a great place, only the navigation officer on the Galileo can see where the ship is going. It didn't work so great to have Matt yelling, "Go left. Left. Now right. Faster!" and Jill steer the ship blind. His computer is behind hers, so she can't even glance over at it. She dodged like 10 flying objects during the mission between getting shot at by pirates and going through the asteroid field- an impressive feat considering she couldn't see anything.

The third time we died, when we rammed the starbase (oops), everyone was yelling at Jill to turn, get out of the way. It didn't even occur to me until our guide's voice came over the speakers and said, "You ran into a starbase?" that we could have just stopped. (Jill told me later it occurred to her, but people kept yelling at her to turn so she did.)

After that, things went wonderfully smooth. Captain Destin persuaded the local military we were Orion pirates (it wasn't too hard, since they steal all their ships from us and couldn't prove we weren't friendly) and Mara hacked into their computers ("My favorite part of the whole mission," she said) and I decoded some of the messages she found and discovered who had the ambassadors and where they were headed. Destin talked the military into letting us leave the starbase and we raced off in pursuit-

And that's were our time ran out and the mission ended.

"It's all right," our guide said. "You knew where the ambassadors were. If you'd had about 10 more minutes I bet you would've rescued them OK. Consider this mission a success."

I don't. But it was fun, and very well done by our officers. (Sara in particular was a pro- we broke so many things and she had them almost all fixed by the end. Some things- like the shields- she had to fix multiple times.) It was great.

Cake and cookies with Chef Sara

playing with the sugar cookie dough

I had to unstick her after she was finished mixing

The final product: ginger cookies, sugar cookies, and cake!

My favorite treat (of the ones we made)

Originally, we were going to make our own frosting but when I went to the Creamery they were all out of powdered sugar so we made do with a container of ready-made frosting (cream cheese kind). It was SO good! We frosted everything with it. It was particularly good on the ginger cookies (which were Jill's favorite). It was great to have so many yummy treats around the apartment for a week or so. After the cake came out of the oven and we frosted it, I called K.T. to come over (it was her birthday last Friday) and we sang "Happy Birthday" and ate cake while we watched part of our 6th grade DVD and played Uno. Great stuff.

There's still some of the frosting left that I hid in one of my cupboards in the kitchen (shh, don't tell). There's so little left I was afraid somebody would throw out the can before I was done with it so I took it and hid it. I haven't finished it yet.

Breeze

Jacinda, Christina, Sugar, Breeze. That makes Breeze the fourth dog we've puppysat this semester. She was with Jill at Graig's Price of Freedom concert. (The lady sitting in front of us was so tickled- "There's nothing I love more!" and Melanie kept getting off her chair to sit on the floor and pet the dog.) Breeze was also with us for our cleaning check later that evening (she provided negative help in that department) and then left rather spontaneously on Sunday afternoon with her real "mommy," as Jill would say.

Sweet funny-looking dog. ("Sorry about your face," Mara said when she saw Breeze for the first time.) I just felt she was worth mentioning.

She's a yellow/white Lab

With a big nose and dark eyes

Published at 3:41 PM, despite what the bottom of the post says.

48:49:00

Friday's Friday Eve Eve

I can't wait until Friday. Sara, Jill, Mara and I (plus Matt and Destin, two of Jill's friends) booked the Galileo for a 2 1/2 hour mission at the Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center at 4:30 p.m. November 12. I got work off and I've been looking forward to it for two weeks. I AM SUPER EXCITED. Mara's gotten tired of hearing me talk about how great it is, but she's excited too. (I can just tell.) Jill tolerates hearing me talk about it. I think she's actually kind of nervous, but excited too. Sara just thinks it's funny I can't stop talking about it.

I can't stop thinking about it either. I've never been on the Galileo before. When Sara told me the ship moves, I got even more excited. This morning as Jill and I were getting ready for the day (right before we caught the bus) I was talking about the upcoming mission again. Jill smiled and said, "Today is Friday's Friday Eve Eve. Just think of that."

"What?" My mind couldn't grasp what she'd just said.

"Friday's Friday," Jill said slowly. "Thursday. Friday's Friday Eve. Wednesday. Friday's Friday Eve Eve- today!"

So I guess that makes Monday Friday's Friday Eve Eve Eve. Tell that to someone next week when they groan about Monday.

Brush beheaded

Sad, huh. I haven't tried to put the handle back on yet.

Chef Sara: plum cobbler

My friend Sara comes over periodically to make us food. She's given us jambalaya (amazing!!!), cookies (mm) and now cobbler, among other things. She, Mara and Jill were fast friends, one reason for that being how often she comes over. Her self-bestowed nickname has been "The Weird One" for as long as I've known her, and for a while that's all Mara called her because she didn't know Sara's real name. (She does now.)

The formal arrangement for Sara's food is we provide the kitchen and some ingredients and Sara gives us the leftovers of whatever she makes. Here's the plum cobbler Sara made from scratch a few weeks ago:


She's coming over again tonight to make cookies. :)

Deer! In the woods! At BYU!

A few weeks ago, Jill and I were on our way to join Mara at the outdoor tennis courts after school (and work) when we saw a large group of deer in the trees by the heart attack stairs (and, incidentally, tennis). Jill wanted to see how close she could get to them. She was maybe 5-10 feet away when another BYU student, a young man, saw what we were doing and decided he wanted to see the deer up close too. Needless to say, he wasn't quite as sneaky or quiet as Jill. The deer ran off pretty soon after he came.

Jill and I were both kind of disappointed. But it was still awesome to see so many deer at school.

Sneaking up on the deer- she got really close
(The rest of the deer- there were 5-6 others- were deeper in the trees)

"You didn't know I spoke deer, did you?" -Jill

Attempts at rice krispie treats

I was craving rice krispie treats recently. I had bought marshmallows and Crispy Rice for that very purpose a few days before on our shopping day. I've made rice krispies many times before with my family and I was confident in my abilities to replicate my past successes.

However, when I tried to make them on my own, I discovered they're more difficult than I thought. The marshmallow and butter crystallized and hardened into toffee before I could mix in the rice krispies. (Good thing I only wasted a quarter stick of butter.) When Jill came in and saw me gnawing forlornly on the toffee cemented to my spoon and bowl, she said kindly, "Jess, let me help you."

Of course her rice krispies turned out really well. Jill was unhappy with their consistency ("There's not enough marshmallow!") but I ate them just the same.

We re-made our treats a few days later with more marshmallow and they turned out perfect.

Halloween snowman

Check this out (it's on Jill's blog): http://sweetjillybeans.blogspot.com/2010/10/boo.html

Can't say it any better than that.

I sometimes forget what a deep thinker my fun roommate is.

Art on a peanut butter jar

As I was scraping the last morsels of peanut butter from the jar last week, I had a sudden urge to decorate the empty bottle. I used my red Sharpie from home to draw a quartet with a violin, piano, accordion and cello. Sara helped me draw the accordion.

The Fuzzball Quartet
top: violinist, pianist, accordionist
bottom: pianist, accordionist, cellist

P.S. Mom, I got more peanut butter from the store Monday, so don't worry about my daily lunch of PBJ.

Mission calls part 2: Romania

Elder Joseph Melville
Romania Mission
January 12, 2011- January 2013

Mission calls part 1: Mexico

Elder Ryan Bevan (in the orange)
Mexico Merida Mission
November 17, 2010- November 2012

Elder Dallin Steele
Mexico Mexico City (northwest) Mission
February 16, 2011- February 2013

Halloween decor (courtesy of Tennessee)

Last week when Jill and I went to check the mailbox, wonder of wonders, there was a package for Jill from some of her teacher friends in Tennessee- "Mama Amy" and Mrs. Sullivan. Inside were a couple letters for Jill and a wonderful variety of Halloween decorations as well as a bag of candy corn and candy pumpkins. We put them up right away!

Haunted house and tombstone

Spider with big eyes, Mara's least favorite decoration ("It's always looking at me!")

Crashed witch (this is right by our front door)

Jill and I got creative with the extra stars