Lemon Meringue Pie

Well since it will cool down to sixty tonight I'm going to make a lemon meringue pie.  I think I finally got the hang of spelling meringue as well as it no longer turns red when I'm done spelling it.  :)  I'm excited and it looks like it will be a pie crust, lemon curd filling, with meringue on top!  Now I think the trick will be getting them to stick together.  I'll try and post pics once I get them done. 

Not much has been new this week.  We did have an interesting Thursday, but other than that it wasn't a bad week.  We "tested" Chris's new work schedule for August when he takes over the department.  That had us getting up at 4am so that he could be on the train by 4:38.  He then gets to work by 6.  He also got off at 2, so often had a lot of time in the afternoon to get stuff done.  We made it and our bodies started adjusting.  I got to the point where I could kind of sleep through him getting around, but most of the time I just got up and got stuff done.  Surprisingly at 5 am not much is going on so you can get a lot done.  For example, on Friday I got my entire class done in about 2 hours, which is significantly less time than it normally takes me. We have also determined that we will be needing a second car soon.  Our schedules are going to be synced up significantly less and having only one car won't work for us. :(  We still have our bikes and whatnot, so hopefully we'll have a mild fall and late arriving winter (hopefully winter comes this year), and can use those as necessary. 

Our Thursday was an interesting day.  The electric company cut the power to the University and so Chris got to work on back-up generators for a while.  The problem was that the fume hoods didn't work in the labs.  This meant that all the volatiles that typically go up the hood were staying in the room and possibly causing a lot of problems.  The department head canceled labs and even the research groups got to go home early that day.  Chris got to go home and soon there after got a call from me.  I got stung by something at the zoo and ended up in the er.  I don't know what stung me, but I started wheezing and itching so the zoo ambulance rushed me up the street to the hospital.  The docs didn't do much (like I thought) and I'm quite perturbed by the whole experience.  We were going to do a voice over for the video at church that night, but didn't manage to make it in time as it took Chris forever to get to me in rush hour traffic.  I talked with my allergist and apparently this means we're going to be doing more allergy testing.  Oh Joy.  I'm going back to the zoo tomorrow for the first time, hopefully no buggies will bite me. 

One fun thing from this week was a wedding the 17th.  Our friends Erica and Rob (from church) got married and we had a blast at the wedding.  It was a good day overall and we got to spend some time with the "athletic" people from our church.  Here's a picture of us at the wedding, I think it turned out well. :)

Fire Game, B'Day, etc

Well, it was a good birthday overall.  I had to work, but it was at the zoo.  We have deemed them "Zoorthdays" for those of us lucky enough to get birthdays in the summer.  We get to pick an activity or two that we don't normally have time to do and those of us working all go and do it.  For example, in June Katie picked the dolphin show.  I picked the carousel as I've only ridden it twice this summer!  That goes to show just how busy we are, as I rode it almost daily last summer.  We also went through the butterfly tent and it was really pretty, as always.  Here's a picture (taken by Jess E) of four of my co-workers and me on the carousel. 

Last Thursday we went to the Fire game.  Our third for the season.  We had quite a bit of fun, even though the Fire lost on a stupid penalty kick.  The game was good and well played.  We got to see Findley (from the US national team) play against the Fire.  We're slowly definitely becoming Fire fans.  We had 5th row seats and it was great being so close.  We could really tell when people were faking it, hence the ability to say the penalty kick was stupid.  It was the third time Findley had tried to get a call in the box and he finally got one.  The Mexicans behind us said something that I imagine translated roughly into, "That's a stupid call worthy of South Africa" refering to the horrid reffíng the World Cup had.  Linda and I ended up wearing a similar color of purple, so we took a picture.  The other one is a good one of Chris and me.  A couple of pics from the Fire game:

This past weekend we also saw the end of the World Cup.  I suppose my mania will go in the closet for a few more years.  Though Chris is becoming a Fire fan and I'm slowly converting him to soccer as a great sport.  He has thought that for a bit, but in taking him to the games and getting him to cheer and explain things, he's really starting to like the sport.  :) 

It has been brutal this week in terms of heat.  We've had to run our ac, but we're glad for the window coatings that may or may not be legal.  We kind of applied them regardless of the condo association.  They haven't said anything, and we've even noticed a difference on our electric bill.  For running the ac so much it should be much higher than it has been.  We are actually able to turn the acs off during the day and it doesn't get horrid hot inside the condo, which is a drastic change from previous years. 

Hoping all is well with you and that you keep cool during this heat wave. 

4th of July

For the third I had to work and Chris didn't.  He managed to take his tux pants in to get them altered.  The tux is quite nice and I should post a pic of it sooner or later.  This week was quite nice.  I had another adverse reaction with my allergy shot, but that was the extent of our excitement.  The allergist saved me with epinephrine.  I don't like epi, it really isn't cool.  It also wasn't a good idea since I'm really close to only having to go weekly for a shot.  Now I have to wait a few more weeks for that arrangement. 

This week should be fun -- we've got a soccer game to augment our world cup mania that is wrapping up.  We've been upset with some of the reffing, but overall it has been a good cup.  Let's go for Germany to beat Spain, Netherlands to beat Uruguay, then Germany to beat Netherlands and win it all!  That's what we want to happen since we've got everything else eliminated. 

We're also getting ready for wedding season here.  We've got one next weekend and that starts the craziness.  I've also managed to get slightly sunburned -- but that's what the 4th of July is for. 

Toy Story 3 is also a great movie.  We went and saw it for the 4th.  We didn't really see any fireworks as we had a ton of rain shortly beforehand.  It was kind of sad to see the end of the series.  I can't wait for them to come out on DVD.  It was neat to see parents of people who were kids with the first one taking their little ones to the movie. 

That's about all the time I've got tonight.  I've got to get some rest since we plan on biking a lot this week.  Chris fixed his bike and we did bike yesterday.  We took an adventure through limestone trails.  It wasn't the most fun ever because of the wind, but it was nice to go out with Chris.