Let me be the first to say Congratulations Dr. Cooper

My defense could not possibly have gone any better. The whole family drove to Dayton and I set up the conference room with goodies. Usually the defendee brings in snacks and drinks for the committee and audience. I brought chocolate covered chocolate chip cookie dough balls, chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter cup cookies, caramel bars, a cheeseball and crackers, and a veggie tray. My advisor thought I spent just as much time baking as preparing for my defense :).

Erik and the girls waited outside while I presented for an hour. I had pretty much memorized my defense so it went pretty well. I did have to look at my notes a few times. Then I had questions. None of which were really hard. By the way, my results were significant as I had a p value of .0143 if anyone actually knows what that means. After the questions, which were not that hard, the committee asked everyone to leave including me. I stood outside with the girls and the rest of the people.

Dr. Raymer called me in and he said, "let me be the first to say congratulations Dr. Cooper". I almost cried. Wow. 8 years and I've finally made it.
Of course I do have a couple of weeks left of editing and more research to do but not as much as I thought.

Then we went out to Red Robin with a few guys from the lab and the girls made a tremendous mess. It's all good.

What a wonderful day!

4 more days!

My defense is in 4 days!!! Right after the defense we are going camping so I don't know if I'll blog about how I did or not (I'm sure you're sitting at the edge of your chair in anticipation). However I'll probably tweet it. You can follow me @gina_m_cooper
My advisor wanted me to do a t-test of my results to determine their significance and I was telling someone in church today that my results were not significant! Then some person standing near us said "at what p-value"? You gotta love a place where random passers by ask about statistical tests.

I also have to post a link to this video of Sarah. She calls flowers "haachis". I'm not sure how she got "haachi" out of flower but that's what she says.

Today on Quiddler I got 66 points and made the word equine. Which I thought was totally awesome but apparently not good enough as the high score was 91.

Our Las Vegas Trip

Las Vegas was so much fun- better than I expected! We arrived on Tuesday night and spent the evening eating $20 ice cream!! from Serendipity while watching the fountains at the Bellagio.

On Wednesday, Erik spent the whole day in the room while I attended the conference. I learned quite a bit at the conference and my mind is full of new ideas! This conference was excellent! On Wednesday night we went to the Tournament of Kings at Excalibur. We ate dinner with our hands (no silverware) and saw an excellent show. We did notice that the knights were wearing chainmail made of cloth. Hmmm....not quite so authentic. Then we got Haagen Daas ice cream.

On Thursday I did my presentation. It went really well. I was one of maybe 3? women at the entire conference. Really...where are all the women geeks??? I know there's more of you out there. I was actually surprised at how well the presentation actually went. After the presentation Erik and I went to see Cirque Du Soleil Ka at the MGM Grand. This was incredible. The acrobatics were amazing and I loved watching them. It took a lot of balance to do what these athletes did.

The best part about Las Vegas was the food though. Wow! We went to the Monte Carlo buffet and the MGM Grand buffet. These weren't normal buffets. In fact, I think I gained 20 pounds just from the three days I was in Las Vegas. I've never eaten so well. While they were expensive, MGM Grand offers an all day buffet for $30 per person. So you eat all day for that price - not too bad actually.

To work off some of our new weight, Erik and I went to play squash today at lifetime. Our membership ends July 31 so we wanted to squeeze one more squash game in. When I'm feeling down because I'm losing or playing poorly, sometimes I'll sing this song in my head. I sang that song in my head prior to tests in college too (don't ask). It seemed to bolster my confidence. Which I needed in college (not in high school - that was easy).

I've included a picture of the Luxor hotel from the bottom (you can see the Transformers logo on it). I didn't like the logo on the hotel - it detracted from the sleek glass beauty. I also included a picture of the front of our hotel - the Monte Carlo. It was beautiful.

In another exciting note - Erik is reading Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson! He wanted to bring a book and I suggested this one. So while he read Mistborn, I held Thomas Covenant in my hand but read over his shoulder (because I like Mistborn more). Finally I gave up and just read his book over his shoulder :). Now we are reading it together at night - yea!!!

Sarah likes to tell me when things are hot (stove, pans, car seat, etc) by saying "hot" and blowing on them. It really is very cute so while making french toast, I had Erik take a video of her telling me that the French toast was hot and blowing on it. Check it out. That French toast was awesome by the way. I made maple bread in the bread maker and then made french toast out of it - absolute yum!!

78 points on Quiddler - really clug should be a word!

I have a date!

Not that kind of date....I will be defending my dissertation on July 30 at 2pm. If you happen to think of me at that time, please say a prayer for me. My final rough draft :) of the dissertation is 203 pages. My advisor wanted me to keep it below 200 but I couldn't think of anything to take out.

We leave on Tuesday for Las Vegas too! I can't wait! I'll be presenting my paper on Thursday but we'll have some time before that to walk around and see the sights. I can't believe it's almost here.

I'll keep you posted. We just got a netbook for me to have when traveling!

Iron Chef Phyllo Dough

Erik totally surprised me with Iron Chef Phyllo dough! I didn't see that one coming. However, it was tied with apples for the best iron chef ever!! Of course - this was also an ode to Erik's favorite foods :). If I would have added bacon and beer it would have beat everything else! I made:

• Caramel fondue with phyllo dough dippers - I made a homemade caramel sauce with brown sugar, heavy cream, corn syrup, butter and vanilla. Then made cinnamon sugar phyllo dough to dip in. Erik thought the phyllo dough as a vehicle for the caramel dip was great!
• Pizza roll ups - I put pepperoni and mozarella cheese with pizza sauce in phyllo dough and rolled it up with fresh basil on top. It was delicious and the lightness of the phyllo dough made the flavor of the pizza shine.
• Phyllo dough encrusted salmon with honey pecan sauce - This was amazing! I knew you could cook salmon in phyllo dough but didn't realize how moist and delicious it would be. Unfortunately I didn't know how long to cook it so I just kept cooking it :). It didn't burn though. I cooked it at 375 for about half an hour and was cooked perfectly. Maybe the phyllo dough seals in the moisture so it doesn't dry out or burn? Whatever - it was awesome!
• Phyllo and berry cream parfaits - I layered raspberries and blueberries with phyllo dough and a cream cheese/whip cream mixture. This was delicious but Erik mentioned that the phyllo dough was a little lost in all the cream and berries. I had to agree.
• Raspberry tart - I made a raspberry tart by arranging raspberries in a little pan with phyllo dough as the crust. Then I melted some sugar and strawberry jam together and poured it on top. Wow. Yum.

This iron chef earned me 16.4 from Erik and 15.4 from me with no dish earning less than an 8/10. I've never scored that high on taste for any of the iron chef competitions!

I had this fabulous idea (in my mind) to reach women at the abortion clinic. I bought 10 $5 Starbucks gift cards to give to the women going in the clinic for just coming to talk to us. I really want to reach these women - it's so hard watching them go in. Anyway, Friday was exciting in that one guy drove up to us. His girlfriend was not there to get an abortion, rather she was getting a DnC after a miscarriage. I gave him a card and some information from the Pregnancy Decision Health Center. Even so - someone came and talked to us which was exciting.

One thing in my life that has built my strong pro-life stance is something my Mother did long ago. My mother refused a DnC after a miscarriage prior to my youngest sister being born. That has had a lasting impact on me that she took such a strong stance on this. I hope to show my girls by my words and actions that unborn babies are important and loved as well.

I did terrible on quiddler with a dismal score of 57 losing the t, r, and l. But I made the word pliers which is slightly higher than insignificant in its importance :).

Red, white and blue cake!

I'm writing again as Erik is at the store buying ingredients for Iron Chef. What will he buy? It is my birthday iron chef so the idea of chocolate as the secret ingredient is one I'm toying with. Another idea is red, white and blue. He could buy strawberries, blueberries, and something white? so that every dish I made had to have all three ingredients in it. I'll keep you updated.

Erik and Jenna made me a red, white and blue birthday cake. The cake was cherry/strawberry and he put blue and white icing between the layers and then covered the whole cake in cherry frosting. It was fabulous! We had dinner with Tim and Jen and then played our new games! The games were great and Tim beat Erik at railroad tycoon!

Our friends Brian and Maureen stopped by and we went to the zoo and Culvers for dinner. We actually let our girls eat ice cream at Culvers and Jenna had a cone. I think the mess traumatized them!

I've also included a picture of my garden. It is HUGE! There are also little tomatoes growing. The whole garden is massive and overflowing its tiny space. You will also note that I took the picture before I mowed the lawn. Since I am now mowing the lawn instead of Erik, I have found great enjoyment in trying to perfectly gauge my row size such that the last strip of grass to mow is the exact width of the mower. It is a difficult feat - one I can only attain through great practice.

I finally got a video of Sarah doing the "gorilla sign". She's such a doll - when she's not writing on our walls, standing on the kitchen table, climbing out of her crib....

This other picture is taken from the inside of our camper. The girls loved the bunk beds and now that Jenna is on top, we might shopping for actual bunk beds and put them in the same room. How exciting!

44 on Quiddler today. That was terrible but I lost the V. It wouldn't let me use the word Venn. Hello? Venn diagrams??