For the love of Jimmer...

My house (along with countless others) has become a fan-base for Jimmer Fredette, a BYU basketball player in the running for NCAA 2011 player of the year! His name has been mentioned at least once every day for the last month. My boys are obsessed. Even I get giggly when thinking about him (sorry, Steve). It's been so fun to have a BYU basketball star to rally behind. When March Madness began, Steve organized a small trip to Denver, CO so that he could witness the ingenuity of this young athlete and his team. He was so excited to cheer for BYU amidst the other thousands of BYU fans in the stadium. They did not play their best, but they did win. Watching the following game, Steve thought for sure, BYU would lose if they continued to play the same. Then his game time changed for Saturday. The news media pushed the BYU v. Wofford game back in order to be on prime time--not the scheduled 1 and 3:30 pm time slots. Steve's flight left at 6pm Saturday night, so he was going to miss the game. He would have come home Sunday if he wasn't speaking in church and had a special visitor coming to watch. So, after composing himself, he broke the news to me that he was coming home. I was thrilled to have him, but my heart was breaking for this true-blue BYU fan. The girls and I had to drive to Ohare airport late Friday night, pick him up, and then drive to Midway to get his car, and go home. To ease the blow, we invited his sister and brother-in-law over to watch the game with us. Steve smoked the most amazing brisket I've ever had and we watched a great, unbelievable game. My kids have gotten a ton of wear out of their BYU shirts in the last few weeks!

The Brisket--melt in your mouth! One funny side note... When Steve opened the grill (for the first time this winter) to get it ready, a mouse scampered across the back. This little Gus-Gus had been eating the foil from the last dripping pan for who-knows-how-long! He did not want to get out either! It took nearly 5 minutes for us to rid our grill of the mouse. Yikes!

To celebrate BYU making it to the next round, I tried making it special by making Blue and White candied popcorn. My mom had sent me pictures of things to do for a BYU basketball party and the popcorn seemed to be the quickest and most do-able. Too bad BYU lost.

Featured in the picture is the coolest popcorn popper ever! My brother and his family gave it to us for Christmas. We use it almost weekly and love it! Thanks, Wade & Steph!

Now that BYU is out as well as Ohio State, Duke, Kansas, etc., etc., etc. we're hardly even checking our brackets. I think Lizzie is in the lead for our family.

What a fun and shocking tournament!