Jenna's experiment

Jenna had to do an experiment for school with a variable. She chose to grow crystals (since she loves rocks and crystals!) at different temperatures. She used a mixture of borax and water and then poured it in canning jars. Her variable was temperature so she put one jar in the refrigerator, one in an ice bath, one at room temperature, and one by the fire. After 5 hours we weighed the crystals and found the refrigerator and ice bath grew the largest crystals. She was very excited about her project and created a fantastic powerpoint. Jenna will present her project on Friday. While Jenna was creating her powerpoint, Sarah also wanted to create a powerpoint and spent hours on powerpoint. She then decided she wants to be a computer programmer.

Jenna's results

Growing crystals by the fireplace

This weekend was Girl Scout weekend for me. Friday Jenna had a girl scout meeting and we created scarfs with finger knitting. She likes finger knitting and is so creative. It is similar to her rainbow loom which she also enjoys working on. On Saturday I went to Girl Scout camp training from 9am-6pm. We learned about all about camping, cooking over a fire, building a fire, tying knots, the flag ceremony, chopping wood, and activities to do with the girls outdoors. It was a blast! I'm so excited to take Jenna's troop camping. This is real camping too, we have a water jug with a clothes pin in it to wash our hands. No fancy camper for us! Sarah's troop went on a scavenger hunt hike on Sunday and had a great time. While the Girl Scouts may get some bad press, our troops are a lot of fun and I think they are learning some good skills. 

Sarah's Daisy troop

My close friend and neighbor, Candi is moving to Indiana. She is the person I can borrow paprika from or who can watch my kids in a pinch. Her son Austin gets along really well with Matthew. In fact, if you ask Matthew who his friends are, the first person he will say is Austin. We will really miss them. My close friends in the neighborhood were Lynn and Candi. My two best friends from our church just left too. Lots of people are leaving. This needs to stop!

I'm back to teaching now too. I have three live lectures this semester as well. So I'll be busy at night. The live lectures start at 8:30pm or 9pm though so I still have plenty of time with my family. I wouldn't change it! Last session I worked on course design and development rather than teaching and I loved that too. I may even start working on mobile development so we can design some courses on mobile apps. That will be awesome!

Sarah has started reading Magic Tree House books. She loves them. Jenna loved Little House on the Prairie at this stage and maybe Sarah will be interested in the Little House books as well but she loves Jack and Annie from the Magic Tree House. I left my Blinding Knife book by Brent Weeks on the couch and Jenna started reading that. I have to be careful or she will read whatever she can get her hands on!

51 points on Quiddler today

Camping in the fall

We had our last camping trip of the season this past weekend and it was a great time.  Fall is the perfect time of year to go camping. You sit by the fire to warm yourself, drink hot cocoa, and enjoy the beautiful colors of the trees.

On Friday we went to Lehner's Pumpkin farm.  We love going to pumpkin farms and all the activities they have. Lehner's had a hayride, corn maze, bouncy houses, train ride, giant pumpkin hamster wheels (Jenna loved this), petting zoo, hay tent, barn with kids play area, pumpkins for sale, and putt putt golf. We had a blast!

Jenna and Nicholas  in the blue chair- they are somewhat bigger now

I took some pictures - notice how the Mast kids are sitting nicely on the hay bales and my kids are rolling around on the hay or whatever Sarah is trying to do....

The hayride at Lehner's farm

 The corn maze was really fun and we took just about every turn until we finally arrived at the entrance.

Outside the corn maze

 Jenna's favorite activity was the orange hamster ball. She would ride it and then get right back in line to ride it again. She rode it maybe 15 times or more. She loved it (she is in the middle ball in the picture). I rode in the giant hamster ball too - it was actually really fun!

Jenna loved the giant hamster balls

 I brought back some Bertie Botts every flavor beans from Harry Potter world for everyone to try. Jenna tried many of the less desirable flavors like vomit, earthworm, rotten egg, grass, and dirt. This is her face when eating earthworm:

Jenna really did NOT like the earthworm jellybean

A walk in the woods

This is the last week of my break and I'm going to enjoy every minute of it!

In other news:

1. My Dad had gall bladder surgery last Friday. It went well and he was able to go to football games this weekend so he was feeling much better. We were scared something was terribly wrong with his liver but it was his gall bladder (which is apparently fine to remove).
2. Joel mentioned his favorite restaurant growing up was Sizzler. While we were in Florida we all went to Sizzler. It was subpar. I'm assuming Joel's tastes have changed since then! We also went to the Rainforest Cafe which is much better than Sizzler.
3. Our book club is reading the Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks. We are up to chapter 31 in the book, but I may have read a little extra (ie, finished the book and the next one in the series, and am now in the middle of the third book in this series).
4. I am also reading the Blinding Knife by Brent Weeks. Obviously I like this author. 
5. McDonalds now has the monopoly game out. We have been going to McDonalds often to get more monopoly pieces. We pretty much have all the common pieces now - just waiting for boardwalk....
6. Jenna is starting a new independent science project for school testing the best temperature for growing crystals. I'm excited for her!
7. We have moved our small group to Sunday evenings and we still serve dinner. I like this time since it frees up our weeknights, but Sundays can also be busy. 
8. I have become more involved in the We Are Cherished ministry at our church. I even went on outreach to help women learn about Jesus. It was so rewarding!
9. 89 points on quiddler today!

Platform 9 3/4

We flew back yesterday from our trip to Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, and Diagon Alley. In preparation for the trip I reread Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire since the theme parks were based off of the 4th book. The parks did not disappoint! Hogwarts and Hogsmeade are at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure park and Diagon Alley is at Universal Studio. We rode the Hogwarts Express between the two parks.  This may sound like a dream come true and the truth is, it was!

Hogsmeade - Jenna was surprised at the fake snow

 We started off at Hogwarts and rode Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. Jenna, me, Joel, and Megan rode it. Sarah and Matthew were not tall enough, Erik gets motion sickness from watching rides, and Missy and Dave walked all around the entire park for fun. I LOVED this ride! Megan and I rode it twice. The line started to get longer (yes we were practically the first people in the park) so we didn't ride it more than twice. The ride told a story complete with whomping willow, dementors, floo powder, and quidditch.

Hogwarts castle

 We rode Flight of the Hippogriff next which was a family friendly roller coaster. Matthew loves roller coasters and later in the day when I asked him what his favorite ride was, he said the roller coaster. I foresee me, Sarah, and Matthew riding a lot of roller coasters in the future.
 Jenna, Megan, Joel and I split off from the rest of the group so we could stay at Hogsmeade and Hogwarts. Erik took Sarah and Matthew to Dr. Seuss world and the Spiderman adventure. Matthew actually posed with Spiderman too. Dr. Seuss world was brightly colored and had several characters from Dr. Seuss. Sarah loved it and wanted to stay there all day!

The Hogwarts Express

Outside the Owl Post

Joel and Megan

Another view of Hogsmeade

 After we split, Joel, Megan, Jenna and I went to Ollivander's wand shop. I had read all about the attractions here at Hogsmeade and knew they usually picked one kid to test for a wand. My plan was to keep going through the line until she was picked. However the first time through, Ollivander picked Jenna! He measured her for a wand then had her try three different wands. She was supposed to hold the wand up and make some flowers bloom but they wilted (obviously that wand was wrong). Next she was supposed to light something with the lumos spell and she ended up making it thunder. Finally he pulled out a wand made of a willow tree. When Jenna held the wand music started playing. This was the wand for her!

When we left the shop we were directed to the gift shop where we could purchase wands and other Harry Potter trinkets. The wand Jenna had was $47. Erik and I agreed that the max they could spend was $30. So she would owe us $17. She was willing to owe us money that's how bad she wanted the wand. Of course, we didn't realize how cool the wand actually was!

Ollivander's wand shop

Jenna performing magic with her wand!

 Jenna's wand was interactive. It came with a map and throughout the Wizarding World she could stand at different spots and move her wand and say magic words and something exciting would happen. She had so much fun with the wand that it was definitely worth it. In fact, she wanted to walk around to all of the magic spots several times. The best one was in Knockturn Alley off of Diagon alley. Here she could use her wand to make a skeleton dance. It wasn't just kids using the wands either. We saw many adults with their magic wands. Next time I might buy one....

Jenna and her wand made of willow

 After the wand shop we went to Honeydukes Sweet shop. We bought pumpkin juice, a chocolate cauldron cake, and a pumpkin tart. Yum! The pumpkin juice was delicious but too sweet to drink the entire bottle. After our snack we met Erik and the little ones at the Three Broomsticks for lunch. They had regular English food like fish and chips and shepherd's pie along with butterbeer! We tried both frozen and regular butterbeer. I liked the frozen butterbeer best.

Honeydukes Sweet shop

Joel and Megan drinking butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks

Butterbeer at Hogsmeade

The outside of Honeydukes

After lunch, Joel, Megan, Jenna and I ventured on the Hogwarts Express to Diagon Alley. The train ride was fantastic! Outside the window you could see Hagrid, Buckbeak, the Knight bus, and other fun sites. When we arrived at Kings Crossing, the area looked like London. Behind a wall (with a graying Leaky Cauldron sign) we traveled to Diagon Alley. Here were many shops straight out of the books including Gringotts with a fire breathing dragon on top. You could feel the heat from the dragon when you were standing near Gringotts.

Jenna and Joel on the Hogwarts Express - no she never let go of that wand, and she is holding a bottle of pumpkin juice

Diagon Alley

 Our favorite store was Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. This is most likely exactly how Fred and George would have designed the joke shop. Megan, who is obviously in house Slytherin really liked Borgin and Burkes. Jenna and I decided we would most likely be in Ravenclaw (she is smart and I like blue).

Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes

The dragon on top of Gringotts

 We had butterbeer ice cream at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. Yum!

Butterbeer ice cream!

 We rode the Hogwarts Express back to Hogsmeade to finish our day. We walked through platform 9 and 10 and with tricks of mirrors you could see people disappearing right where platform 9 3/4 would be. Once we got to Hogsmeade, the line was short at Ollivander's wand shop so Jenna and I went back in for a second trip. Guess who was picked again!!?!! Jenna was picked twice at Ollivander's wand shop AND he picked the same wand for her. She was jumping for joy - that was certainly the best part of her day.

Erik sent me some pictures of the Spiderman adventure and Dr. Seuss world. They had a blast while we were in our magical land.

Matthew and Spiderman - Matthew wanted to pose too!

Sarah and Matthew with Thing 1 and Thing 2

Dr. Seuss World

Missy and Dave walked all through both parks and rode on many rides. Everyone was tired on the ride back home but only Erik fell asleep ;).

Orlando was sunny and beautiful. We flew back to gray and dreary Ohio. Why do we live here again? If it were up to Jenna we would live near Universal and go to the Wizarding World every day!

Our new kitchen!

We have finished our kitchen remodeling project and I'm so pleased with the results. We came under budget yet the kitchen looks fantastic! We went from the cheapest laminate countertops to beautiful granite. We chose Venetian gold granite countertops and they are so beautiful. C&C Granite put our new countertops in. Then we hired a contractor to put in a tile backsplash. The backsplash is just as beautiful as the countertops! We bought the tile at Floor and Decor which had a lot of options (more than Lowes or Home Depot). We also replaced the secretary (who uses a desk in the kitchen?) with more cabinets.

Our kitchen before

 Then Erik sanded and stained all of the cabinets. ALL of the cabinets! It took him about 6 weeks and it looks amazing. He used Brown Mahogany Gel Stain and I'm so impressed with his work. Then we had it painted Interactive Cream from Sherwin Williams. Apparently yellow is not a hip color to paint  your walls - who knew? Instead our colors are black and tan. Erik kind of picked this (I wonder why?).

The secretary in our kitchen before

Our kitchen after

Our sink

 Our kitchen looks updated and I'm happy with the way it turned out. The one thing that everyone notices when they come to our house is the sink. The picture doesn't do it justice. We splurged on a  composite sink that is just one big tub. I had thought about getting the side by side sink but sometimes it is hard to fit a 9x13 pan in it. This sink is so deep - seriously I could take a bath in it! And it is beautiful. I really love our sink!

The non-secretary in our kitchen after

I'm so excited about our new kitchen. We have moved our small group to Sunday nights and now we are meeting every Sunday night. I still make dinner for everyone but now I can make dinner in our fancy new kitchen ;). Last week we had 11 adults and 7 kids at our study. It was a lot to fit in our house. Luckily my 3 quiches lasted for everyone.

I have lots of other projects for our house but one step at a time.

RenFest 2014

My Dad is not feeling well. It looks like he may have to get his gall bladder taken out and he has something wrong with his liver. We are waiting now to find out what is wrong. Hopefully he will be back to perfect health very soon. I don't even know the point of a gall bladder anyway.

Erik got his new computer today. He was SO excited and has spent all day downloading Starcraft and Diablo. He is looking forward to playing with it. We will be playing Warcraft just for testing purposes.

Every year we go to the Renaissance Festival. This year we went with Aaron, Michelle and Vina, and Matt (Bogg - his D&D name) and Allison. The girls have really gotten into the shows. We watched the Mudd show twice and the Kamikaze fireflies three times. We did archery (obviously), walked around the little town, and ate yummy food. The girls wore their ballet costumes from last year. I really need to get them proper medieval dresses. Matthew and Erik wore the Knights Tunics I sewed for them. My one good sewing project. It won't fit Matthew next year. 

Ren Fest 2014

The kids

In other news:

1. On our anniversary (Sept. 6) Erik, his Dad, and I ran a 5K for the 9/11 heros and first responders. It was a race sponsored by his parent's chiropractors so we went too. Erik ran it in 27 minutes, his father was 29 minutes and I was 30:50. BUT I won a medal! I won 3rd place in my age group. Yipee! We are thinking of doing a 15K. I'm not as worried about the distance as I am about the cold since it is in November. Brrrrrrr
2. Our book club has decided to read Brent Weeks The Way of Shadows. I really loved the Black Prism and now am in the Blinding Knife (next book in this series). 
3. I'm in the middle of the second Fablehaven book as well. I really love this series. Jenna is in the next series "The Beyonders". Once she finishes that we are giving her the Icewind Dale trilogy. She needs to know about Drizzt.
4. I've also decided to read the Goblet of Fire again. I need to get my Harry Potter nerd on. Jenna is going to be Hermione for Halloween. Maybe I can be Hagrid or something....
5. We have decided to move our Tuesday night Bible study to Sunday nights. More families can attend on Sunday nights and we will also have the study every Sunday night. I'll still make dinner every week. I hope it will work out well.
6. I've also joined a Thursday Morning Women's Bible study doing a Beth Moore study. It is huge (36 women) and I love it.
7. 95 points on Quiddler today

New Viola Player in town

Jenna and her new Viola

At our elementary school, fourth graders can pick a string instrument. Jenna was beyond excited to play an instrument. We went to the Loft Violin shop (which looked like Ollivanders Wand shop) so Jenna could look at the different instruments before making her choice. We also listened to different string instruments playing on youtube to help her narrow it down. Jenna has decided to play the Viola. I'm excited for her to begin playing in the school orchestra. I've also heard that listening to a beginning violin player is a form of auditory torture. I'm hoping that the viola will be less torturous.  

Austin and Matthew walking home from school

Every day we walk home from school and lately Matthew has become friends with our neighbor Austin. Austin is in 3rd grade and is 8 years old but he plays so well with Matthew, better even than younger kids. If you ask Matthew who is friends are, he will always say "Austin".

On Saturday the kids and I went to the Buckeye  Lake beach with Sunshine and her kids. It was fantastic since there were so few people there and we could play in the water and sand. After about 20 minutes I happened to see a sign that said "WARNING High Toxin levels, etc, etc, etc - Don't swim here stupid!" So our trip to the beach was shortened and instead we went to her house to play in the slip-and-slide. The kids kept talking about poison lake too. Not a good thing.

Lately Erik has had a lot of problems with his desktop. He has had to run chkdsk over and over again and still has problems.

It is affecting his gaming.

This is serious.

So I bought him a new desktop.

SHHHHHH..... It is a surprise. Luckily he will not check here. I bought him an iBuyPower Gamer Paladin F875 with 4 cores intel i7 3.7GHz processor, 256GB SSD + 1TB data drives, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 3GB video card, and AVC liquid cooling (to help his geek cred). I'm so excited for him to get his new computer. Of course this is the opposite of trying to spend less, but I wanted to get him an awesome new gaming computer and alienware is way too expensive.

In other news:

• The Black Prism by Brent Weeks was a fabulous read. It was one of those books that I didn't want to end (since I'm on a list at the library for book 2). I really enjoyed this book.
• Fablehaven book 2 by Brandon Mull. I'm following in Jenna's footsteps and reading more of the Fablehaven series. Jenna has read and reread all these books. I can't keep up with her. 
• I turned in my grades and am now entering my unscheduled session. Yipee!! I love teaching and especially teaching online classes, but it is fantastic to just focus on course development and get caught up on emails, meetings, etc without also teaching tons of courses. This used to be my session off where I would do nothing for 8 weeks but since I'm so involved in the course developments and am on just about every committee I have a ton of other duties too. So it is not actually vacation anymore.
• Erik, Erik's Dad and I are running a 5K on Saturday. Erik runs 2 miles every day and I run about 4 times a week. So it should be a fun run. Saturday is also our 17 year anniversary. So we will run to celebrate. 

Ohio Outdoor Water Woman

This is my third year attending an Ohio Outdoor Woman weekend and I've loved every time! This year the Ohio Outdoor woman weekend was sponsored by the ODNR Division of Watercraft. So it focused mostly on water sports and boating and had no hunting or guns. I love the water and really loved this!

Action shot of me driving the boat

 This year the outdoor adventure weekend was held at Burr Oak Lodge. This was by far, I mean by light years far better than the other places we went. Rather than a huge room with tons of bunk beds for 50+ women, we had a room equivalent to a hotel room that walked out onto a patio for just the four of us. Previous years the food was rubbery hot dots and soggy buns (yummy!) and this year we had fantastic food like barbecued chicken and pasta with meat sauce. And we always got dessert! The accommodations and food far exceeded my expectations.

Susan and I in our orienteering class. Where am I??

 I went with Susan, Nicole, and Virginia. We missed Michelle since she was busy the weekend before at GenCon. I made lots of friends and got to be outdoors and enjoy the beautiful weather with other outdoorsy women.

Me on the power boat

Barbara, Me, and Jen - a watercraft selfie

 On Friday afternoon all four of us did archery. I pretty much always pick archery because I love it. There were several different bows to try and I picked one with more tension. It was easier for me to control since I have tons and tons of upper body strength. After shooting for awhile and practicing we had an archery contest. The bulls eye was 5 points, the red ring around was 4 points and so on. Guess who won?? Yours truly! I had the highest score of all the 10 participants with 23. Right after that I shot even better with 4 out of 5 arrows in the bulls eye. I heard the instructor behind me say "wow". Go Gina..it's your birthday (picture me doing the cabbage patch dance....on second thought...)

Virginia and Nicole in kayaks

 Friday evening we went canoeing until about 10pm. It was a beautiful canoe ride. I was in the canoe with Nicole paddling along just fine until we realized we were backwards. So we gracefully turned around without tipping the boat. It was too dark to get pictures, we even had flashlights on our canoe trip.

Me in a kayak

 Saturday and Sunday mornings they offered yoga at 6am. Normally I do not get up at 6am and normally I do not do yoga, but this was a weekend for new things.  Saturday morning I took a power boating course. So I had an opportunity to drive a boat and dock it as well as learning some knots. This was a lot of fun and made me realize how little I know about boating rules. Before renting a boat I want to take an OBEC course.

This is the view from my kayak

 Saturday afternoon I went kayaking. This was relaxing with beautiful scenery. I learned the proper technique to paddle a kayak by using your core not your shoulders. After two hours of kayaking my shoulders didn't feel tired at all. Apparently I was using my core properly however last I checked I didn't have a six pack. Maybe next time.

Saturday evening a professor from Ohio University came with his telescope to talk a little about astronomy. I got to see Saturn (rings and all!) and he pointed out several constellations. That was very interesting.

Virginia, Nicole, me and Susan doing archery

Susan and Virginia did pretty well

Archery champion!

Even better!

 Sunday morning Susan and I were hoping to take geocaching but they had orienteering instead. This also looked like fun and I'm glad I did this. While I am poor with intuitive directions, I'm good at math and angles so I was able to figure out the direction we should go and orient myself that way. I thought this was very interesting.

The rooms were amazing!

Overall this weekend was fantastic. I loved getting away and trying new things. I'm hoping to do this every year.