SBC Ice Cream Cookoff?

This is 4 days worth of email that went through the whole church email distribution list... cracked me UP all week!
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The Porfily have challenged the Spencers that they (Porfily) have a better tasting homemade ice cream recipe than the Spencers. The challenge was answered and the date for the cook off set for this Sunday June 12th Evening after Bible Study. We need beside the Spencer and Porfily Ice Cream makers, we need other people to bring their mixes and ingredients. The mixing will start at 5:30 and eating at 7. Some people could bring fresh Strawberries and others some cake that would go good with homemade Ice Cream. Rumor has it that the Spencers are already making excuses for their recipe as they are unable to find some real old fashion cow’s cream for their tasteless recipe. So if you have a mixer please bring it to make upf for them lowly life Spenscers. See you there.

Signed: The world greatest Homemade ice cream maker

When no response was given, this followed:

Fellow Church Members The Homemade Ice Cream cook off contestants are having some issues. 1st Shirley Porfily pressuring her husband to apologize to the Spenser for calling them low life- thus he ask them to accept his apology. 2ndly the Porfily are having trouble finding one of the secret ingredient to their very old family recipe. They are hoping that it still being produced. No one has reported if the Spencers have found some old fashion real cow’s cream. To find out the end to this story you will have to come Sunday evening to Bible study 6 PM and then the contest results at 7 PM. The reports coming in is that the Spensers don’t stand a chance if the Porfily find the scarce secret ingredient.
Signed The World GreatestHomemade Ice Cream Maker

Then I HAD to respond:
WOW! How do you have time to type such novels?
Bill- the secret ingredient that you are looking for is the little brown pile under the rose bush in your front yard. Feel free to use as much as you'd like. ;)
Shirley- Thanks for making him apologize for dragging the unblemished Spencer name through the mud. Apology almost all the way accepted.
Everyone else- IT'S ON! Recipe has been found, secret ingredients have been compiled, and you are in for a treat from the Spencers. You won't even need to try Porfily's excuse for homemade ice cream... the winning ice cream will be handed to you in a paper bowl with a plastic spoon on Sunday night at 7. Be there or be square!
Cherilyn

Then this came across the wire:
Fellow Church Members and Ice Cream eaters The Porfily have found the scarce secret ingredient, however it is expensive, that will enable them to Kick the Spencer bottoms in the cook off. Spencers don’t stand a chance. It been reported that Mr. Spencer has been seen hanging around the ice cream freezers at the local grocery store; someone even spotted him at the Dairy Cream in Hermiston. Do you think he is maybe trying to sneak in some cheap commercial made stuff to the cook off.
Cherilyn, the member of the Spencers Family that made the challenge for the Home Made Ice Cream Contest, has reported that her pet female lama, Fuggy, has become sick. This probably means she will not be able to attend the cook off.
The cook off committee is suspicious of her ( no one know she had a Lama) excuse thus are asking Church Member and Elder Dr. Veterinary Dan Vanderstelt to call her and offer his service on her supposedly sick Fuggy. If the fact are know she is a poor loser thus not wanting to go down in defeat at the cook off.
Lin Spencer, the most trusted of the Spencer Clan, has tried to spin a tale and scare the Porfily with a face book hack that the Spencers have made recently, some supreme homemade vanilla ice cream with fresh strawberries. I thought better of her, but it funny what people will do to gain fame and fortune. If you have an Ice Cream Maker, a good recipe and the makings, please bring them to the Cook Off. Other People need to bring cake or fresh Strawberries. Remember you must attend Bible Study at 6 PM to get a pass in to the Cook OFF Eating at 7 PM. The Ice Cream Making starts at 5:30 PM.
This probably will be the last report on the Cook Off so see you there!!!! Signed The World GreatestIce Cream Maker

And then the veterinarian:
...............Notes from veterinary record of Dan Vander Stelt DVM --- June 11, 2011.
Examined Fuggy, a 4-year old white and brown female, domestic llama at 9am. Depressed and lethargic on physical exam. Gut sounds absent. Febrile. Took blood for CBC and serum chemistry and poop for a parasite evaluation. Suspect Foul-Play. Poisoning?????? SignedThe World's Greatest Veterinarian :)

And finally from my mom:
Poooor Fuuggghhhyy . . . I wonder if a llama-sized bowl of ice cream would help that depression? (Always works for me:)
So Bill, you didn't like being facebooked? I was just trying to be friendly. But my oh my! Where were my manners? I should have invited you over and shared our best homemade vanilla icecream ever topped with fresh picked Finley strawberries. Uh oh, it's all gone now :( Guess you'll have to wait till Sunday. But we'll make extra then 'cause I'm sure you'll want a 2nd helping.
Best regards, I'm sure, Lin for the Spencer team.

Solar System Reports

I heard this story today after a mini-prank was played on me at school. You see, it was "payback the principal" week at SES and a fart machine magically appeared for use. Today our school counselor got on the intercom (which the neighbors can hear, mind you) and said, "This is for Cherilyn Spencer...." followed by the loudest fart machine fart EVER. I laughed. Yep, I'm like an 8 year old. That brought on this story by a fellow teacher....

Her class was learning about the solar system. They learned "Uranus" and all had a good laugh about it. She then talked about how mature students don't laugh at that word, and from then on... they didn't! (pretty impressive!) UNTIL...

One girl was up giving her report and said, "You can fit 18 moons in Uranus..." and the kids sat there WITHOUT laughing. The teacher cracked a smile, but this is CLASSIC!

(I would have been laying on the floor busting a GUT!)

School's Out for the Summer!

As I'm cleaning I have come across some old writing by a VERY VERY difficult student that I had this year. I've enjoyed getting to relive some of our funny times together...

My Life Planner
- go to work
- bring own lunch
- wear shoes
- wear a dr. coat
- work down stairs

And a story that student wrote about me...
Oce upon a time there was a princess locked in a far away tower. Her name was Miss Spencer. She was rescuted by a little girl named ______. _____ was a great kid (my fave part). She helped her friend clean the dishes and vaccuum the floor. Then they cooked the food together. Yum they said!

Kids say the darndest things...

Today was learning walk day at Sunset...
Question of the Day: What is something exciting that you would like to do?
One student's answer: "Something exciting that I would like to do is put myself in a glass box and go near tigers to see if they could get me out."
This was said in front of the asst. superintendent as well as people from the ESD and teachers from my school... this is why I love my job!

I was reading aloud to my students and a student said, "I will never understand this romance stuff..."

Home Cooked Vittles- TX Food Part V

Texas has a ton of restaurants! Of course, so does any city in America. But seriously... no one should go out to eat for every meal, every single day (although I know a family who does). So head sized donuts, BBQ, Chuy's, and Muellers aside, we did have several meals at home. First off, I learned that anything can be put in a tortilla at breakfast! Ohhh, I need a post about TX tortillas. They were unlike any I've ever had! Eggs, bacon, cheese, and some green saucy stuff were perfect for breakfast. Another breakfast that we had was the aforementioned ingredients AND extra hottie from the night before! Delish. It reminded me of chorizos and eggs from my time in Idaho. Yum. Tex Mex. This might sound like a racial slur, but it's actually a delicious food category! It's got influences from Texas cooking infused with influences from 'ole Mexico. No clue what any of those influences were, but they were there. One big thing was the use of lime! I LOVE LIME (fresh, always fresh) in Tex Mex food now. We had a black bean salad the first night we came in. It had red bell pepper, onion, tomato, lime, cilantro, black beans, other stuff... all cut up tiny and slammed into a tortilla. That was topped with cheese AND THE BEST RANCH I'VE EVER HAD. It was zesty ranch or something. I'm going to have to figure out what that was... I just remembered it. I'll have to scour the aisles at Safeway on my way home. Finally, dessert. Now I think I mentioned somewhere that dessert is perfectly fine to be served at every meal. Did you hear that? Even breakfast. I totally support this. One dessert that we had was sopapilla cheesecake. Oh wow... have you ever had an elephant ear? Well I hate them. But I do like sopapillas, which are deep fried tortillas dipped in cinnamon sugar. Well thing of those as crust and cheesecake on top. Yep, delish. Another dessert, and probably my favorite if you really know me, were Barbara Bush's Chocolate Chip cookies. First off, they have oatmeal and that's my fave (never in a bowl like mush, just in cookies!). Second of all, the recipe made like 500 (or just like 76) and we took a bagful of them home to munch on... we never handed that bag back to the kids! M and I ate them alllll over the 3 day drive. 5 here, 3 here, 6 when we got out of New Mexico safely in celebration.... you know the drill. This post may end my TX food reviews. I still have many more things to write on.... so stay tuned!

Toilet Seats and Donuts- TX food part IV

This post won't be as creepy as the title suggests! While in TX we went to Round Rock Donuts, the home of the head sized donut! If your head is as big as one of these donuts, you must be Goliath... so we decided they are bigger than a normal head and would compare better with a toilet seat. Now having got that out of my system...

They are the weirdest color! They are orange-ish and kind of crusty, but all of those bits that fall off of the donut are worth scraping up off of the picnic table you're sitting at in their parking lot! They're just that good... Now you be the judge! Toilet seat or what?

Inside the bakery, it looks like nothing more than a counter, a place to stand, and a pop machine. I was kind of leery of the food since there wasn't even a place to sit! The line of cars in the drive thru should have tipped me off! We did have to sit in that line the 2nd time we went there because the inside part was closed. I think we waited close to 20 minutes! Well worth it for sure!

We sat outside and shared glasses of ice water to wash down our donuts with, truly enjoying the warm Texas sun! The donuts were still warm which made them soooo soft! Krispy Kreme has nothing on these guys! I tried a chocolate one as well and they were just as good, just not warm out of the fryer. Delish.

The picture that is above I "borrowed" from their website which is linked above... now that I'm looking at their menu I see something called a fried cinnamon roll. Now that sounds like a delicacy. I need to try that one. How about mailing me one, Julie?

Chuy's- TX Food III

On man, what a busy week! I got home on Sunday evening at about 6:00 pm and turned right around to go to work the next day. That was a super fun and rewarding day though, we unpacked our entire school... mostly before lunch! It was incredible. On that note, I'm loving my new digs. That'll have to be another post because we are here again... for Texas food. I already miss it a ton. On Tuesday all of us went to a homeschool co-op group with our hosts called Classical Conversations. I learned some things there that I've already implemented in my own classroom! More on that later as well. One of the best meals that I had came right after school got over on that day... from Chuy's Restaurant. Oh, where do I start? Do I start with the tortilla chips and salsa? YES! They included something called creamy jalapeno sauce with the chips to dip them in. Oh. My. Word. SOOOOO GOOOOOOD! It was white and looked like ranch dressing, but so much better! It had a little bit of a bite to it and just the right amount of seasoning. Perfection. I liked it so much I put it on my Chuychanga as well! At this Chuy's place they had a ton of sauces that you could choose from. With my main dish, the Chuychanga, I chose deluxe tomatillo sauce. I was LEERY of this sauce because of a tomatillo mishap that I had a few years ago. When I worked at Main St. Market in college I was trying to figure out what this tiny green tomato with a husk on it was... it was in the produce dept and looked like a tomato, but it was sticky once you took off the husk! Trying to figure out why so many customers bought this item of produce, I decided to take a bite. BIG MISTAKE! They are so bitter.... I spit it out and vowed never to eat one again. Until March 22, 2011 when it was suggested that I get it with my Chuychanga (thank you, Julie!)... I loved it! No clue what was in it, but it was divine. Now onto my Chuychanga. It was like a regular chimichanga but had a kick... cilantro! I can't stand cilantro, but again.... delish! Or maybe it was good because I doused it in the tomatillo and jalapeno sauces! I washed all of this down with not one, not two, but three glasses of water. It was just that good. The atmosphere was pretty cool as well. There were bold colors on the wall, a ceiling full of hubcaps, and an interesting 3D beer mural on the wall... The tables were tiled and mismatched, which was perfect. I felt like I should have a margarita in one hand and a beach out the front door like a resort town in Mexico. Way cool.