A New Year

Well, it is Easter.  It has been a few weeks since I managed to blog anything.  Things will hopefully slow down soon around here and I won't be as bad about blogging.

Two weeks back we had friends from Arkansas come up.  We managed to see the new Science Storms exhibit at the MSI.  It was a good exhibit.  It talked about a lot of neat phenomena that happen regarding weather.  It was opening weekend for the exhibit though so it was quite crowded, we'll go back sometime I'm sure.  A few pictures from the exhibit though.

A sand avalanche simulation.  It created all sorts of really neat looking patterns while talking about the newest methods of studying avalanches. 

Chris playing with something at the exhibit.  It was probably a tornado maker or something similar.

A HUGE tesla coil to simulate lightning.  It only goes off every half hour, but it is really cool.  It is suspended from the ceiling with a little theater below it so one can sit and watch the lightning being created.  It is really really loud when the coil goes off.

While our Arkansas friends were in town we also went to the Field Museum.  We saw the diamond exhibit and the Mammoths and Mastadons exhibit.  The Diamond Exhibit had lots of history about diamonds, how they have been mined, etc.  We even got to see several.  The didn't allow pictures though and didn't have any good pictures for us to take with us.  Some of the pieces in the "vault" though were impressive -- huge diamonds and ones that were ornately set.  The Mammoths exhibit had a lot of about mammoths and mastadons surprisingly enough.  The neatest thing was Lyuba, the intact baby mammoth that was found in 2007.  Here's a picture of her.

The following weekend we went to Minneapolis.  We got to see the Dead Sea Scrolls.  There was a lot of history about them and then even seeing them was impressive.  Something that was such a discovery and has had such an impact on modern history.  It was just neat.  We also played Rock Band and a lot of other games in general.

Then the week we got back from Minneapolis I played for the good friday service at church.  That meant I had to practice and do fun stuff during the week.

We basically just hung out for  Easter.  Having a day just the two of us was really quite nice.  We slept, played some games, talked, etc.  We hope that everyone else had a good Easter and truly realizes the impact the resurrection has had. 

Happy Pi Day!

Yay for pi!  I may attempt to make a pie today.  Actually I'm going to try and do the cinnamon rolls again.  We'll hopefully make cinnamon rolls and not muffins this time.  Though I'm not entirely sure how upset I'd be with the muffins.

Well, we've got a week of school left before spring break.  Not much is new really.

We've gone on a spring cleaning extravaganza this weekend as it is finally warm enough to be called spring here.  We've been above freezing for over a week now!

Not really a lot is up with us.  I went to the doc on Friday and she said that I didn't have the plague, it was probably just allergies.  I asked her, "to what?" and she replied, "everything."  Apparently that was the report the allergist sent her -- that I was an allergic barge.  We will hopefully be starting allergy shots soon to see if that will help.  Maybe with the shots my immune system will stand a fighting chance and stop attacking anything and everything.

The fine art of spreading goo out on dough. 

 

The rolled up cinnamon rolls.  I need to make them tighter next time.  The goo was yummy though. :)

In like a lion

Well, March has started off with a bang.  We've had warmer weather here and it might be spring sometime soon.  This doesn't mean we won't be getting any more snow -- just not snow that will stick or pile up much.  We are forcasted to be in the 40s all of next week.  There may even be a night or two thrown in there that we don't freeze.  If we don't freeze, it will be the first night since November that we've stayed above freezing.  Winter seems to never have come this year -- the east and northeast got all of our snow.  It didn't even get super super cold -- most of the winter we were between 0 and 20.  I guess we'll count our blessings. 

This week at school has been interesting.  I had an exam on Tuesday and a quiz yesterday.  The exam went well -- I managed to get above average so that is good.  I'm also starting to apply for positions whenever I can find something.  I'm really willing to do just about whatever as long as I can use my masters of chem. 

Chris has been great this week as I returned from Tulsa with some nasty cold.  I've felt under the weather all week and haven't gotten to run.  I tried on Tuesday but it wiped me out thoroughly.  Now it is all sunny and warm out (we actually have hit 40 today) and I want to go for a run, but will stay in because I don't want to back track on this road to recovery.  There is always tomorrow. 

Not a lot has happened this week except that we are finally able to see the sun again.  Our days get significantly longer this time of year.  At 630 this morning the sun was up already!  It will be depressing again here in a week or so when daylight savings time starts, but that means summer is on the way. 

Maegan's BDay Blitz

For the last weekend of February I went to Tulsa for a quick visit.  I mainly cooked/baked and hung out with family.  These are some of the better photos I was able to take throughout the weekend.  Most of them are of my neice, Nola Jane.  She's the baby and new.  It was also good to see everyone and be able to talk with everyone.  We even managed to get a family picture (minus Chris) because one of Maegan's friends volunteered to take it.  I think she did well, even if Maegan wanted to make a funny face at the camera.  It was the best of a few different shots taken.  Katie was also in town for a baby shower so it was fun to see the family I typically see at Christmas, especially because of our wicked weather last Christmas meant I didn't get to see them.  I also managed to get a shot of my brother's cooking.  I figured it was one for the books since they don't do that often, and definitely don't cook together in the same kitchen often. 

Volleyball Take 2

Well, we played Friday night.  We lost miserably.  We did have fun though.  The team we lost to ended up winning the whole tournament so we kind of got 3rd place, right? 

Anyway, besides for the volleyball and it snowing a lot right now not much has changed since Thursday.  Well, I take that back.  I did manage to make a chocolate sheet cake today.  It is quite tasty.  I hope that I don't eat it all and can take it to small group on Tuesday.  I'll probably want some cake or brownies to take with me to Tulsa so I may have to bake again on Wednesday, and I'll need to bake a loaf of bread so that I can make a sandwich to take with me on the airplane!  I'm super excited -- the bread is denser than most, but I can make pb&j to take with me places now.  Portable food that doesn't require a microwave is a small miracle in my opinion as most of my food is always left-overs. 

Anyway, more volleyball pictures...

A crazy week so far

So this week has been a crazy week.  It started out Monday with us accidentally turning the alarm off.  When we realized that we had 20 minutes to get ready and get to the train station it got a bit hectic.  Way to start a week.  Anyway, since I have a less stringent schedule about when I have to be at work and we made it to the train station about a minute before the train did, I told Chris to get on the train, I'd just take the next one.  I ended up missing the train, but getting to watch the sunrise.  It was a pretty sunrise with clouds everywhere because we were slated to get snow and stuff.  I saw these ice crystals on the window of a shelter.  I thought they looked like the sun and was able to get the sun in them as it was low enough.  This was sunrise on Monday morning.  The burst pattern isn't one of the ice crystal forms I've seen very often so it was neat that I got to see it this way.

Today I took a biochemistry test.  It reminded me of doing the fact master tests in elementary school.  (For facts masters you had to do the math facts in a set amount of time) We had 13 pages of biochemistry structures to draw in 75 minutes.  I ended up being done in 45 minutes.  This means I did really well or really poorly.  I'm thinking its the first as it was pretty much the exact same test as previous semesters.  And it wasn't like it is possible to substitute that many DNA bases into the problem -- I had a 1 in 4 shot to begin with on getting the same one. 

Tomorrow night are the volleyball semi-finals and finals.  Hopefully we'll win again and be champions!  We can do it if we continue to play like we have the past few weeks.  We have to go in and know we're going to win, and have a LOT of energy.  We've got a lot of people so that helps because we've got sheer numbers on our side.  We'll see though.  Chris is going to go be photographer again so hopefully we'll get some more fun shots that I can post this week.

Baking of cinnamon goo

Well, in traditional weekend form, I'm attempting to make something I've been craving with ingredients that I can eat.  I normally sit down and look at about a dozen recipes, each leaving one of my ingredients out and then make up my own.  For instance, I look at a gluten free recipe, then a yeast free recipe, then one that doesn't involve shortening of any form, and one that doesn't involve a lot of milk, etc. and put something together.  Normally I've done okay, but today I failed spectacularly.  I failed in making cinnamon rolls, but succeeded in making something that right now smells very very yummy.  The dough was too wet to roll so it just kind of gooed up in the middle when I went to roll them.  Thankfully I decided that I wanted to make them in muffin tin, so I'll turn out with cinnamon goo infused muffins.  I do plan on icing them, but I definitely don't think that they are cinnamon rolls. 

Well, they did turn out okay.  They are like a cinnamon crumb cake more or less.  But I can eat it :)  Here are a few pictures after cooking and then after icing. Also, there is a reason that the cinnamon mixture in cinnamon rolls goes on the inside -- if it is on the outside it get burned!  Sugar at 375 for 10 minutes becomes a nice carbon char.  They taste good though! 

This week overall has been interesting.  Tuesday we got about a foot of snow.  Not that unusual except that Wednesday morning we had an earthquake.  It was a 3.8 quake in a suburb fairly close to ours.  It happened about 4 am and I felt it, but since the plows were out trying to get rid of the foot of snow on the roads and in the parking lot, I just assumed one had hit our building or something.  Wednesday morning was one for the books though -- we had the earthquake, we couldn't sleep because of the plows (they make the back-up beeping noise which is not very conducive to sleep), another train on our line hit a car that had slid onto the tracks and slowed us down getting into downtown -- and this was all between 4 and 7 am.  The sun did come out though, and it was a pretty day, but it was a long one for sure. 

School wise things are going.  This Thursday I have my first biochemistry exam.  We'll see how it goes.  I think I'll be okay as long as I don't freak out and remember to do things like count bonds to each atom.