July 24: Utah Pioneer Day

I had Friday off and enjoyed a long weekend for Pioneer Day celebration.

On Friday, John and I went to Taste of Utah Valley in downtown Provo. It was so much fun. We paid $10 each and was able to taste delicious food from 25 local restaurants. Our favorites are Rooster, Sizzlers, and Spoon Me. Oh john also liked the Sweet Ham place, whatever it's name is.
John at the Tucano's line. Our hands were so full that I only took one picture from the fair :-)

We were gonna have a BBQ with soem friends in the evening, but we had to cancel it because we ate so much food and took so much home. But we did go over to my friend Kate's house and cooked some SMORES in the evening!!
Picking tomatillos at Emily's garden


The apple something hotdogs are very tasty!

Then on Saturday, we took Megan to the Oquirre Mountain Temple Open House. This is the first time I've been to an open house as well. So it was a lot of fun! I LOVE THE TEMPLE. Megan was very impressed at how beautiful the inside of the temple is. she's also surprised that people could get married in it. She decided she'd get married in the Temple someday. Yay!! Mission accomplished!

Megan and I happened to wear the same outfit :-)

A couple more weeks, then comes my BIG BREAK!!

My Names

Yesterday was a big mail day! I got my Green Card with my new name on it; I also got my marriage and birth certificates back from the government; Naisi also sent me two letters.

So 300 dollars and 4 months later, I officially became Sherry Li Carr. Hopefully this is the name I'll use for the rest of my life. NO MORE name changes!!

If you're bored to death right now and have nothing better to do, you can read on about my name stories. But this post is for my posterity to come, so they don't get confused in their geneology work :-)

I have four names, just secular. My parents started me with Li Yong李勇, meaning brave, which is 100% a boy's name in China. But I was the only girl of all my cousins on my dad's side. So they decided to blend me in with a boy's name. I didn't mind it at all. I grew up as a Tom Boy.

This lasted till I had to get my ID, which is almost the end of high school. In my dialect, the Y and R sounds are the same. So the ID officer put down my name for Li Rong李荣，meaning glory, because it sounded more like a girl's name. Somehow, my mom didn't see it and it stayed on my ID and couldn't be changed.

So up till college, all my friends know me as Li Yong. And after that, people know me as Li Rong. It's very confusing when my friends from high school and college get together and would call me differently. I almost had identity crisis in college.

In college, I met my first foreign teacher from America. He had such a hard time remembering our names that he decided to give us English names. He passed a name list around and when the list came to me, Sherry was the only one that sounded nice. So I became Sherry Li for my foreign friends. I continued to use this name after I came to America. But legally I'm still Rong Li, and I HATED it! Why? Because they always call me "Wrong". "Are you wrong?" "Uggh... No!! YOU are WRONG!"

"Honey, you're wrong!" "No sweety, YOU are Rong(Wrong)! " John never gets tired of this silly inside joke.

So when I married John, I decided to change my name into Sherry Li Carr. But beause it involves the change of my first name, I had to go to court. When we got there, the clerk in the hall asked me "why are you changing your first name?" I answered, "because it's wrong (Rong)". "Wrong? How can a name be wrong?" She got really confused and we got a big kick out of it :-)

Now all my legal documents show me as SHERRY LI CARR except my Chinese passport, which will remain the same until I get an American passport! My life seems so much simpler. I hope I'll never have to explain to my employers about my names any more.

Okonomiyaki, aka Japanese Pizza

Every month on the 1st Friday, Selnate has a Student Food Day where students would bring food from their own countries. They would bring all the ingredients and demonstrate how to cook it in front of everybody. They also give out recipes so you can go home and try it yourself.

Today happens to be Japan Day. So two of my Japanese students showed us how to make Okonomiyaki, a Japanese style pizza. The word Okonomiyaki means "favorite food" in Japanese. And indeed it was, in Rachel Ray's word, YUMO!!

the "crust" is a mixture of flour, water, cabbage, and green onion. You can add any topping you like: shrimp, squid, octopus, rice cake, beef, pork, chicken... the sky is the limit :-)

Chef Akihito and Chef Hiryo

This is mine :-)

I love my job because I learn new and fun things everyday :-)

The rest of July 4th Weekend

Uhmm what else did we do over the great weekend of jULY 4TH?

We picked cherries and watched fireworks!!

I have cherries coming out of my ears now. I ate half of them and froze the other half.

We got to watch fireworks right outside our window :-) We also made the best use of the sparklers.

July 4th continues- pizza party

My good friend Kate is from Chicago. We used to make these Chicago pizzas together. Once in a while, I crave for them. So we dicided to make them for the weekend.

Chicago pizza is stuffed with spinach, cheese, and sausage optional. It's more like a pie. You put the sauce on top of the top crust. It's yummy! We also made a deep dish pizza with olives, green peppers, sausage, pepperoni, and lots of cheese!!! I wish we had mushrooms :-(

The best part is crushing the tamatoes with my hands :-)

They both turned out great!!

John picked me some peas in the garden. I discovered colorful vegies: yellow and purple peppers, and a three-color cauliflower :-)

I love Kate. She's one of my best friends in Amrica. She's taught me many things throughout the years!

July 4th continues- Freedom Festival

I had Friday off work. So John and I took Megan to the Freedom Festival on Center Street. Kate and her roommate Jillian joined us. We had tons of fun, but we all got suntanned :-( . John's the only one that is happy about the tanning. Megan and I were both sad. We've tried so hard to keep our skin white and pretty through the winter, and now it's ALL gone!

I'll let the pictures tell the stories.
John spoiled me with my first cotton candy!

He REALLY wanted a kilt, but I said no :-)

Remember the Mall Cop? It was fun riding those things :-)

We had fun playing with the hats :-)

We were so brave! WE went on stage and danced the Yankee Doodle with these Colonial people :-)

I love America. I'm grateful for the beautiful life I have right now.

July 4th- BBQ at Selnate

This year's July 4th started with a BBQ at Selnate.

Selnate is a small ESL school with only about 20 students, 4 teachers, 2 interns, 1 secretary, and 1 boss. The school could use a larger enrollment for economic reasons, but I sure love the small size of it. Everybody knows and hangs out with each other. It just feels like one big family.

We planned a BBQ in the backyard at 1:30pm and guess when Mr. Rain decided to visit? Yes, exactly at 1:30pm! But we still managed to have fun!
These two cute Japanese girls had a crush on John, I think, because they couldn't keep their eyes off him. haha, very cute :-)

It was also Karen's bday(Karen is the teacher/administrator.)

Diego dared me to try a tranditional drink from Argentina, called Mate. I didn't realize it was tea until I tried a sip. Oops, the WoW! It tasted just like tea, only sweet tea, because they put sugar in it.
He carried a hot water bottle and a packet of sugar with him :-)

Uhmm, not my favorite :-)

Yessica is my best student. She's smart AND hardworking :-)

It was fun despite the rain!