Falling leaves

Fall is upon us and with fall comes leaves. Lots and lots of leaves. The girls love to play in the leaves in our backyard so I rake them up only to have them jumped in and scattered all over the backyard.


Fabulous and fun!

I wanted to get a picture of the burning bush by our driveway. It is such a beautiful red but this picture does not capture it. I love to look at it - a burst of color.

Last Thursday we went to a pumpkin patch with a corn maze, real hayride (yes I had hay in my hair!) and animals for the kids to pet. After the hayride we had apple cider and popcorn. I gave the girls the popcorn in the car because we had to leave early since I had to give a final that night. When we got home, I was not prepared for the mess. Apparently it's a bad idea to give little girls popcorn to spread all over the car.


I've been looking forward to the end of this semester. With two new classes I was really stretched but they went really well. Now this semester I'm teaching math and basic computer applications. Much easier!


In other news:

1. We are all SICK! I think I might have the flu. My whole body hurts and my head feels woozy (if that's a word). However we know God is protecting us. Sarah woke up saying "Jesus". Erik asked her questions about Jesus. She said "yes" that Jesus was in her room last night helping her feel better. So cute! Of course when we tried to get a video she didn't cooperate that much. Check it out here.
2. We have had fabulous attendance at our Bible study since I've been making dinner. In fact, one week we ran out of food! This week I'm making 3 meatloafs, mashed potatoes, homemade dinner rolls, and sesame green beans. I hope I have enough.
3. Erik starts his new job Nov. 2. We are both so excited! He is going there (Boston) for a week to train for his new job.
4. The same day he starts his new job, I get to sub a Photoshop class! I'm going to use some of my examples (especially my Fremen eyes picture) to show them the awesome things you can do with Photoshop.
5. Speaking of Fremen, I just started reading Children of Dune by Frank Herbert. I read Dune and Dune Messiah many years ago but hadn't continued the series. I don't know why I didn't continue the series. I love the world of Dune.
6. I also just finished A Merry Heart by Wanda Brunstetter. This book was okay. It was a book about an Amish woman who was jilted in love. It's hard to go from Children of Dune to A Merry Heart. I don't know why I mix genres so much.
7. 46 on Quiddler today. I really have to remember not to use all my U's when a Q might show up.

Fall Festival

On Saturday we went to the Fall Festival and chili cook off at church. There was a "turtle lady" there who had turtles and snakes for kids to pet and watch walk around the church. Sarah tried to climb in the cage with the turtles.

I tried 8 different chilis which was wonderful! I love chili but do not make it often since Erik is not such a fan. I was stuffed! There was a bouncy house and hay ride at the fall festival too. Jenna has also made some good friends. You can see her here with Paige (left) and Kate (right). These girls also come to our Tuesday home group and Jenna really likes them. Jenna spent the entire night holding hands with Paige. I'm so glad she has found some good friends! Towards the end of the evening, our whole family was roasting marshmallows outside by the bonfire, but Jenna and I decided to come in. After about half an hour Erik and Sarah came in and Sarah had a marshmallow in her mouth just as you can see in the picture. I thought it was the same marshmallow (yucky). However, Erik said she ate tons of marshmallows while she was out there. Great. I've won mother of the year this time! Sugar overload.

Joel has requested me to write a list of my favorite programming languages. I'm working on such a list right now. So you can sit on the edge of your seat waiting for my awesome list (yes awesome it will be!)

We are planning on going to the Fabulous Food Show in Cleveland the weekend of Nov. 13-15. I'm so excited about this! Celebrity chefs will be there along with food tasting and cooking demonstrations. This should be completely awesome.

Now you might wonder why I have flexed my photoshop skills again with my picture. My highlights had grown out to the point that half my hair was brown and half was orange, so I decided to color it with Revlon's natural dark brown/black. Well it is mostly black. I am not a big fan of my hair as it is black as night (which apparently helps me fit the role of snow white according to Jenna). However, I noticed that Megan Fox has dark hair/ almost black. So I wanted to see if I looked much like Megan Fox now. My brown eyes may have gotten in the way so I colored them blue. Then my nose was much bigger than hers so I shrunk it a little. What do you think? Am I a spitting image of the Transformers star?

82 points on Quiddler today and I got to make the word "raver". Tonight I also beat Erik at squash - yipee!

Port: A physical interface between a computer and a peripheral device

As I was sitting by the fire on our camping trip, rather than reflecting on the beautiful night or reclining in a prayerful repose, I came up with a new top ten list! Yipee! Just what you wanted to hear!
This top ten list will be sure to interest anyone who has the bad luck to stumble upon it.
I've made a list of my top ten favorite computer ports.

1. Ultra Wide SCSI - yes! Who wouldn't pick this one as number one! At my old job I had an external hard drive that connected with a 1 nanometer cable (not really that short it just seemed like it) to an ultra wide scsi port on my SGI. Awesome stuff.
2. USB - I know this would be most people's favorite port (those people who are actually cool enough to create a list of their favorite ports!). This port is so versatile - I think I might even use it to do my laundry. It can do almost anything! Throw out your floppies and zip drives - USB drives are way better!
3. Firewire - I'm just picking this one because of the name. I've never used firewire, but if I was a port I'd want to be called firewire. Sometimes it's all in the name. For example, I was talking to Erik about Megan Fox. I said that I think everyone thinks she is so pretty because her last name is Fox. Ummm.... yea. I think those are Erik's exact words but his facial expressions told me that sometimes it is not just the name.
4. Ethernet port - This port deserves high recognition. It connects computers together so they can pass data and information (school teacher definition mode). In my computer communications course in grad school we never called it an ethernet cable or a cat-5 cable, always twisted pair wire. I guess I also call adhesive bandages, band-aids. I'm a little crazy like that.
5. DVI - This port just looks cool with its neat set of pins. When we got our first monitor with DVI I thought there was something wrong with it, like some of the pins got eaten. Half eaten ports are always tops in my book.
6. PS/2 - When hooking up my computer in college, I loved the color coded PS/2 ports for my mouse and keyboard. They are also somewhat round and round ports have really gotten the shaft! lately.
7. Video port - Since I connect my laptop to an LCD projector for my lectures, I just have to love the video port. It's nice to be able to project my screen so everyone in the class can see, even when I forget to turn off my outlook updates. Fabulous!
8. Parallel port - I liked being able to attach my printer to my parallel port. Again it has a lot of pins which makes it more attractive than the serial port. And serial ports always make me think of lucky charms.
9. Midi port - This is a musical port that allows computers, synthesizers, and keyboards to communicate. How cool that the computer likes music too! Maybe I can get it hooked on my contemporary Christian station.
10. Serial port - I mentioned earlier that I like parallel ports better than serial ports but it doesn't mean I don't like serial ports! My mouse used to connect with a serial port before the much more awesome PS/2 port.

Well that's my list. I didn't think through all of the possiblities of ports and Erik wouldn't let me put coaxial cable on there (even though that is a totally rockin' port) because he said it didn't count as a computer port. I wonder if there are others that might blur the lines...

75 points on quiddler today and herm is a word!

Monster ball

We went on our last camping trip of the season this weekend. We went to Buckeye Lake for their Monster Ball. On Saturday the girls painted pumpkins and entered them in a contest (they didn't win). We played in the sand and the jumping pillow Buckeye Lake KOA has. While this KOA is expensive we like it quite a bit. So we decided to renew our KOA membership (it gives you a discount on camping).

At 5pm we rode a fire truck and then a wagon. The girls had a great time on both. Then they changed into costumes: Jenna = snow white, Sarah = little red riding hood and trick or treated at the campground. This resulted in a lot of candy and important disucssions as to the order of eating candy. Erik thinks the best candy should be eaten last. I think the best candy should be eaten first and maybe never eat the other candy. I came up with a tier system for candy:

• Tier 1: reeces cups, kit kat, butterfinger, mr. goodbar, nestle crunch (basically yummy chocolate candy bars)
• Tier 2: snickers, milky way, three musketeers (still yummy)
• Tier 3: plain chocolate, milk duds, whoppers (good - not great)
• Tier 4: nerds, tootsie roll lollipops (I guess I'll eat it)
• Tier 5:runts, sweet tarts, tootsie rolls (not tempting at all)
• Tier 6: laffy taffy, dum dums, hard candy, pixie sticks (might get *accidently* thrown away)
• Tier 7: black jelly beans (yuck)
  
  Erik and I had vastly different candy tiers since he likes wonka and all wonka is basically tier 4 and below.

Saturday night we put the girls to bed and sat outside by the fire. We had a nice night talking and relaxing. Sarah was warm when we put her to bed but gave her some tylenol and thought she would be fine.

At 12:30 she woke up screaming and was burning up. It burned me to touch her! I tried to get her to take more tylenol but she threw it up. She threw up milk and everything else too. On Saturday she didn't eat much but she doesn't eat much anyway so we didn't think she was that sick. I ended up being awake with her most of the night calming her.

Then I decided we were leaving in the middle of the night. Since I have the best husband ever, we packed up in the middle of the night and left the campground. At home I just held her and gave her a bath. She cooled down some but is still sick. Keep praying for her.

On the ride home, Erik = awesome father. Erik decided that instead of listening to rock music on the radio, he is going to listen to the River when the girls are in the car with him. SCORE! He wants them to hear and repeat good Christian lyrics. Mwaahahaha....I will soon turn everyone to listening to my contemporary Christian music!

88 points today on quiddler. No bonuses!

Jesus at Ren Fest?

Today we went to the Renaissance Festival and had a fabulous time as usual! Jenna rode several rides and both girls rode ponies. We ate medieval food, watched the Mudd show and jousting, and enjoyed the general atmosphere. When we were at the pirate show, Sarah started saying "Jesus" and doing the sign for Jesus. I've posted a picture of the pirate - I'm not exactly sure he resembles Jesus but apparently Sarah thinks so.

This year the Renaissance Festival had a board game shop. This was new (we don't remember it last year or previous years - yes we go every year!). The shop had the usual catan and carcassone games as well as some new interesting games. We did buy Kids of Catan for Jenna to play. It looks like fun so I'm excited to play with her.

I know you were all sitting on the edge of your seats in anticipation to see how my experiment with the Love Handler turned out. 6 weeks ago I started rubbing this lotion on my belly to tone up my midsection. Well in the 6 weeks I have lost 0.5"! Wow! I was so excited. However I fasted on yesterday and the day before. So I hadn't eaten for 2 days when I measured my belly. So it probably actually didn't work. Then Erik made the comment that it probably only works on people with a little belly fat. Apparently I have too much belly fat for it to work on me :). Today I pigged out at the Ren fest so maybe I regained my 0.5".

On Tuesday at Bible study everyone ate all of my sun dried tomato chicken pasta. This week I'll be making 5 quiches. I hope it will be enough!

75 points on Quiddler today. Apparently "luver" isnt' a word. Who knew?

Iron Chef Battle: Erik vs. Gina

Battle: Erik vs. Gina with sous chefs Missy and Amanda!

This Iron Chef battle was intense considering I have never battled Erik before. It was nonstop action! Missy and Amanda chose the secret ingredient: Cashews! Yum! What a delicious secret ingredient. Who doesn't love cashews? Missy was Erik's sous chef and Amanda was my sous chef. It was so wonderful to have a sous chef to bounce ideas off of and force to chop nuts for you :). In the grueling hour, we made the following dishes.

Erik:

• Cheesey cashew chicken with cashew olives. This dish was an appetizer course. The chicken was breaded in a cashew mixture and fried. The olives were very interesting. Erik made a sweet cashew spread that he put inside the green olives. That was a creative idea.
• Cashew tacos. This was by far the most creative use of the secret ingredient. Erik mixed cashews, refried beans, and taco seasoning to create a protein filling for tacos. Then Erik and Missy created a little taco bar to make your own tacos. The cashew refried bean mixture was actually good.
• Caramel cashew tart. This was a layered phyllo dough pastry with cashews in between each layer drizzled with caramel and baked. As a finish he put ice cream and whip cream on top. While this was good, it was a little burnt.

Gina:

• Cashew fruit salad with honey lemon dressing. This was a light refreshing salad with a sweet dressing. This salad had pineapple, mandarin oranges, strawberries, blueberries, coconut, and cashews of course.
• Trio of nut scallop pasta. This dish had crushed cashews, almonds, and pecans in a light butter sauce. I also added tomatoes and basil for color however they ended up taking the spotlight where the trio of nuts should have shined. This dish was yummy, however I could have made it better without the tomato and basil.
• Cashew Caramel Creme parfaits. When Erik tasted this dish he gave me a look. The look said "you're going to win". This dish was so awesome. I mixed cream cheese, butter, cinnamon and powdered sugar and layered it with cashews, caramel, and crushed snickerdoodles. It was absolutely heavenly.
• Cashew buckeyes. For this dish I combined peanut butter, cashews, butter and powdered sugar (the usual buckeye ingredients) and dipped it in semi-sweet chocolate. Then I sprinkled some cashews on top. Amanda made little graham cracker cashew smores to balance out the plate. This was heavenly to me but after 7 heavy cashew dishes, this one was almost too much.

The score was very close. Out of a total of 40 points (since both Amanda and Missy were scoring us) I earned 32.25and Erik earned 31. I couldn't believe I was victorious! Erik was a tough competitor. This was so much fun and even Missy and Amanda enjoyed themselves.

While Missy and Amanda were here, Missy tapped with Jenna and Sarah (see picture). Missy takes tap dancing so they were able to all tap together. It was so cute.
In other exciting news, we bought a new 7' long dining room table and now we actually have a dining room instead of two playrooms. This table is so massive it takes up the whole dining room. It should be great when we have family over and for our Tuesday night Bible studies. Tomorrow I'm making sun dried tomato chicken pasta. Yum!

Today I did terrible at Quiddler 68 points and lost the z and j. Who likes those letters anyway?

Iron Chef: Pecorino Romano

You would think I would do really well with the secret ingredient of pecorino romano. It is a delicious, salty, rich cheese. But I think I dropped the ball on this one. I was overly ambitious - trying to make a pavlova but it ended up not working.

For iron chef pecorino romano, I made:

• Greek style couscous with a twist. Couscous + 20 month old daughter = disaster. Sarah got into the couscous and it was everywhere. EVERYWHERE. However the dish I made had pecorino romano cheese, tomatoes, and green olives. Which is a twist on the greek olives and feta cheese. At least that was what it was meant to be ;).


• Three cheese pizza. So this was fabulous! I shredded pecorino romano, fresh mozarella, and fresh provolone cheese on top of fresh basil, diced tomatoes, pepperoni and spices. YUM!


• Pecorino romano stuffed chicken. I put chicken in breading and then stuffed it with the cheese. I thought this would be amazing and it was good but not amazing.


• Roasted pear pavlova. So this was a flop. I made a cheese filling and roasted the pears. Then I made a meringue base for the pavlova. The ingredients separately were good but together they really didn't mesh all that well.

Erik and I both rated my iron chef as 14.25 a rather low rating considering the awesomeness of the secret ingredient.

In much more exciting news, Erik got a new job. He won't start the new job for a few weeks but he got a nice raise and will be working from home all the time. Boo-yah! This will result in much less laundry for me to do and I'll be able to see Erik more (which is actually better than doing less laundry). Since I also got a promotion and a fancy raise (I'm a senior professor now!) Erik thinks we will be able to pay the house off much faster. Even though I'd rather keep the same rate and give and spend more!

I just finished reading the Black Unicorn by Terry Brooks and it was fantastic. I'm really liking this series.

Our Bible study season has started again with the church. We will be discussing Twisting the Truth by Andy Stanley. It is a video series. This year for Bible study I've also decided to make dinner every week. I actually really enjoy it and it alleviates the stress of trying to feed families and get to our house in time. So I'm setting up a menu. This is something I enjoy.

68 on Quiddler today and I got to make the word bidden.

"Playing" Bible study

Today I babysat Nicholas for a few hours while Jenny took her other two kids to the Doctor's office. I was playing with Sarah and Jenna and Nicholas were playing Bible study. Ummm.... how many 4 and 5 year olds play Bible study :). It was so awesome to hear them playing Bible study and talking about all the things God made. Jenna and Nicholas were the leaders and me and Sarah were learning about God. It was a very educational study.





Since I got the Starbucks cards to hand out at the clinic I was sure I'd have tons of women coming to me and lots of "saves". No. Every week I come home sad that no women turn around or want to save their baby. It is disheartening but I will keep pressing on. There must be some reason God has me here.

In other news:

1. At night before bed, Erik and I started reading The Reason for God by Tim Keller. It is more of an "intellectual" book (I like putting random words in "quotes") as the author makes logical claims against some of the big skeptical issues with God (eg. what about other religions, why is there pain and suffering, etc). It's a great read!
2. I've also started reading Startide Rising by David Brin. So I can finish my list of combined Hugo and Nebula award winners. It's pretty interesting but when I have a choice, I go back to the Black Unicorn by Terry Brooks. That's a more interesting book and I'm almost finished with it.
3. I've also started reading the Host by Stephenie Meyer the author of the Twilight Series. I've heard mixed reviews on this book but I hope it will be good.
4. Erik and I are planning on doing Iron chef and playing racquetball this weekend - I have the best husband in the world!
5. 83 points on quiddler today and got to make the word "goat". Not really sure if that's news.

Iron Chef Erik: Lemons

On Monday Erik was the Iron Chef with lemons as the secret ingredient. Erik wowed me with his ideas as they were completely different than what I would have done with lemons. Erik made:

• Sweet lemon scallops. Erik cooked the scallops in olive oil and lemon juice and served them in lemon rinds with a sauce made of lemon juice and sugar. I love scallops so this was a big hit for me.


• Fruit salad with lemon. Yum!! Lemon is a fruit but is much more tart than traditional summer fruits. However Erik had the right balance of tartness and sweetness in the fruit salad. He also served the fruit salad in a scooped out watermelon.


• Lemon and sweet pepper sushi. Sushi? Erik? Huh? Yes, Erik bought sushi wrappers when he went to the store which made me curious. He even used jasmine rice that was flavored with lemon and a little sugar. Then put cut lemon rinds with peppers in the middle. Erik had never made sushi before, and this sushi was wonderful. Creative, fun, and delicious!


• Raspberry lemon tart. This tart consisted of phyllo dough baked and layered with lemons, mandarin oranges, and rapsberry jam. Yum! We couldn't get enough of it.
  

Erik rated himself a 16.125 and I rated him a 15.25. Overall it was a fabulous iron chef competition!

I was looking at the family picture we took in Florida and thought something was missing. Yes - a third baby. No I'm not pregnant, but I wanted to see what our family would be like with a third baby. I think our family looks awesome! What? Me? Photoshop? You can't tell can you?

Now that we are members of lifetime again, I met with a personal trainer who calculated my body fat percentage. It was approximately 90%. So she wanted to put me in this class for $500 that meets three times a week at 6am so I can get fit. No thank you. I'll stick with the 90% body fat.

In even more exciting news, my EQ2 character has dueled Erik's several times and he has never beat me! It's like the opposite of when we play squash :). I never thought my paladin would do so well against his awesome wizard.

76 points on quiddler today. yor is not a word. who knew?

09-09-09

Today is 09-09-09 and I feel to the nines today. Today was Jenna's first day of her pre-ballet/tap class. She has never done tap dancing before so I wasn't sure if she'd like it. She loved tap dancing! The shoes make noise - what's not to love? It was also her first day of preschool. Today we moved Jenna to a pre-k class. This class meets 4 times a week M-R in the afternoons. Apparently the class has more academic rigor (as much as preschool can have).

On Saturday, the girls and I drove up to Canton for Amanda's surprise graduation party. She got her Bachelor's degree from Walsh University - Yea! I snapped a picture as she walked in - she was SO surprised! The party was awesome too with chicken parmesan and lasagna - yum. Megan made a delicious cake and we got to see the Canton Vineyard up close.

On Monday a salesman came to our door to sell us Clean and Simple cleaner. Now this salesman was a high pressure salesman and I have trouble saying no to people even when they are very pushy. Not sure what my problem is. Anyway he tried to sell me this product for $224. Umm...no. The product did seem to clean everything well. Finally I gave in and bought one gallon for $75 (the guy would NOT leave!). After he left I told Erik that apparently this stuff is supposed to save us money, at which point Erik told me we usually buy a gallon of 409 at Sams for $10. So I decided to test Clean and Simple on my horrible carpet. As you can see, it did clean the carpet - but $75 worth?? I'm not so sure.

Right now, I'm coordinating the seating for the Pregnancy Decision Health Center banquet in October. It's been quite a task as they are expecting around 800 people. Alan Keyes is the keynote speaker so it should be an interesting event. What I've noticed as I've been registering people for the event is that of all the cities around Columbus, Powell is the most represented (not even counting me since I have to teach that night!). I find this very interesting and happy that my city is pro-life :).

Today I thought I was doing well on Quiddler until I got to this combination of letters (that apparently can make a word): C, R, B, CL, S, X, R, T

What can you make with that?

Shapes!

As Jenna and I were talking about shapes, I realized I hadn't made a list of my favorite shapes. What a huge error on my part! I left you hanging as to if I like a parallelogram or isoceles triangle more! Well the wait is up - here is my list of top 10 favorite shapes.

1. Right triangle. This made the top of my list because of the Pythagorean theorem. a^2+b^2=c^2. That's good stuff. Even better is when you have nice round numbers like 3, 4, and 5 as the lengths of the sides.
2. Circle. The circle is such a perfect shape and provides lots of jokes such as pi r square, no pi are round.
3. Figure 8 (infinity symbol). This has sentimental value to me. At the beginning of our relationship when Erik and I would drive somewhere separately, we would always sign the infinity symbol in the rearview mirror. The infinity symbol to us meant everlasting love.
4. Annulus. This is a circle within a circle and is thus a donut shape. The area for this is equal to pi*(R^2-r^2). I just like donuts.
5. Square. I always felt in life that "it's hip to be square". And have always loved the Heuy Lewis Song - it's pretty much the story of my life.
6. Isosceles trapezoid. This shape has two equal length sides and has a nice line of symmetry down the middle. Also, who doesn't like the name trapezoid.
7. Octagon. A stop sign is in the shape of an octagon so this is a shape we see all the time. It's bright and red and in your face.
8. Ellipse. This is a circle that has been stepped on. Another name for an ellipse is an oval and I think it is a perfectly good name for an ellipse. When Jenna identified an ellipse as an oval in preschool, her teacher marked her wrong (ellipse = oval in the mind of a 4 year old).
9. Isosceles triangle. This triangle has two equal sides. While not nearly as cool as the right triangle, it has a line of symmetry like the isosceles trapezoid, so it's pretty cool in my book.
10. Triquetra. What is this shape you might wonder? The triquetra is a shape that can be best described as a glorified triangle. Check out the link. It was used as an early Christian symbol to represent the Trinity. It is also used in Celtic art quite a bit. I think it is pretty.

Well here is my list of favorite shapes. You can now rest easy that you know this.

In other news:

• I have started a new semester in which I'll be teaching Mon, Thurs, Fri. Who wants to take classes on a Friday night?
• In an attempt to be completely confusing, we've decided to join Lifetime again. I really miss playing squash with Erik. So what if it's a hundred dollars a month (ouch!)
• I'm reading a new book by David Baldacci called The Winner. My Mom reads his novels and I'm enjoying it quite a bit.
• We are planning an Iron Chef competition soon so you can be on the edge of your seat waiting for it.
• Got 77 on Quiddler today. Not a very good score. I really think "denny" is a word.

A Tropical Oasis!

A tropical oasis is the best way to describe the house we stayed at last week in Orlando, Florida. It is a house provided by Missy's company: Hyland Software as a perk to the managers. What an awesome perk!! The house had 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, a Wii, pool table, air hockey, and an outdoor paradise! The pool was connected to a hot tub and the whole thing was enclosed in a screen to keep the massive Florida bugs out. My Mom and Dad, Missy, Me, Erik and the girls all went on this trip.

Erik and I relived our childhoods in the pool with our numerous challenges. We were shocked that the rest of the family did not want to participate! Here is a list of our challenges in the pool:

1. Waterfall challenge - this challenge involved swimming behind the waterfall in the deep end (6') without touching the wall or waterfall. It was actually quite difficult. Erik achieved 96-4 (96 successful attempts and 4 touches) and I went 97-3 so I was the victor.
2. Breath holding challenge - in this challenge, we had to see how many times we could swim the width of the pool before taking a breath. Erik went 6 laps and I only managed 5. So he was the victor.
3. Ball catching challenge - now it is getting exciting! This challenge involves jumping off of the wall and catching a beach ball mid jump and surfacing still holding the ball. This challenge we tied with 10 attempts apiece. We were just too good at that one :).
   
   So we had a blast in the pool. Besides the goofy challenges we went to Sea World ($75 per person! Yikes!) and downtown Disney. At downtown Disney we spent just as much money as Sea World on toys. Even so, Jenna absolutely loves her My Little Pony Build-a-Pony. Here we could stuff as much My Little Pony paraphenalia (crap) as we could into a little box for $18. It was a great deal and I've had more fun playing with it than Jenna has :).

57 on Quiddler today. Apparently myd is not a word??

The PBA Tour!

Jenna started her career as a professional bowler yesterday. Nicholas had his 5th birthday party at a bowling alley and Jenna and Sarah were burning up the lanes (if that's a good thing)! Check out this video of Jenna (PBA here she comes) and Sarah (sort of). As you can see it takes about 20 minutes for the ball to inch its way across the lane. They had a blast and in a few years I hope we can go bowling more often.

It brings back memories of bowling with my Dad who has a bowling average above 200 (his AVERAGE is above 200). He is an awesome bowler - my high game is 216 so obviously I didn't inherit his bowling genes. He will have to teach the girls how to bowl properly.

I snapped a picture of Sarah with the cupcake from the party too. Red frosting...yum.

On a different topic, at times I have students who ruffle my feathers a little. In my math class I have a certain student who is constantly telling me I'm wrong. For example, he was working on a solution to a quadratic equation and insisted that there was no solution. Over and over he insisted. So I came over to see what he was working on (he yells across the room when I'm helping other students). The problem was this = 30r^2-25r-5. I glanced at his equation and saw that there are solutions (-1/6 and 1). Don't even need the quadratic formula for that one. Anyway, he proceeded to tell me that I was completely wrong and this equation was unsolvable. Huh?

Next he told me that he knew a lot about computers - that he could show me so many tricks that would help me out. Okay....I have a PhD in computer science and engineering but am not arrogant enough to assume that others (especially teachers!) would have less computer knowledge than me. And the more you learn the less you realize you actually know. So he had a great "trick" for me. He said that when you switch between applications you could also use "alt-tab". WOW! Now that's a super neat trick that I've been using for the past maybe....20 years?

Of course when I realized that I started programming when I was 10 meaning that I've been working on computers for 24 years I felt old.

Summer is slipping by. That doesn't mean that we don't get the sprinkler out just about every day so Jenna can run through it. She loves it! Well off to rub the Love Handler on my belly!

56 points on Quiddler today because I couldn't make anything with the Q. At least I got clotty which was an awesome word!

Love handles!

Since canceling our Lifetime memberships I have not picked up any other exercising and have thus put on some weight. I need to exercise to keep my weight down as I love sweets so I knew this would happen. Instead of giving up sweets, dieting, or finding a new exercise system, I've decided to use this product called the "Love Handler".

Erik bought me two bottles of "Fabulous Foaming Face Wash" from Bliss as a gift a few months back. With those two bottles came a free bottle of the Love Handler. So I decided to measure my waist and use the love handler every day for 6 weeks (recommended usage) to see if it takes off any inches. I'll keep you updated as to the progress - yes it is in a spreadsheet! I had thought about taking a picture of my belly to see any visual difference from the cream and then realized I almost posted a picture of my belly on the blog.

On a much cuter note. The girls love to talk on the phone or pretend they are talking on the phone. Sarah holds the phone up to her ear and babbles. Jenna pretends she is actually talking too. Erik snapped a picture of the three of us chatting.

66 points today on Quiddler - a rather dismal score!

Cooper's Rock and Science Fiction

Last weekend we went to visit Erik's parents in West Virginia. Erik's grandmother was visiting and I always enjoy talking with her. She is so lively and fun - it's hard to believe she is a Great Grandmother. We went to Cooper's Rock and had a picnic in the woods. The Rock was actually many rocks that overlooked a huge valley covered in beautiful trees with a river flowing at the bottom. Overall we had a fabulous time!

On Sunday morning while brushing Jenna's hair I noticed a tick. This was very odd since Sarah had a tick on July 19. I'm not sure why our kids have both had ticks recently - and not from camping. Those ticks are so nasty. Although Jenna seemed more worried that I was worried than about the tick.


I picked up a new book at the library called The Coming by Joseph Haldeman. I read Forever War and Forever Peace by Joseph Haldeman a few years ago and liked them quite a bit. In fact, a few years ago I decided to read all of the books that had jointly won both the Hugo and Nebula novel awards (awards for Science Fiction and Fantasy writing).

Here is the list of joint winners. The ones that I have read are highlighted. I do plan on reading them all someday but actually the library doesn't have all of them. So I'll have to find some other way to get these books. Probably robbery. That's what I'll have to resort to.

1. Dune by Frank Herbert
2. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin
3. Ringworld by Larry Niven
4. The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov
5. Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
6. The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin
7. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
8. Gateway by Frederick Pohl
9. Dreamsnake by Vonda McIntyre
10. The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke
11. Startide Rising by David Brin
12. Neuromancer by William Gibson
13. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
14. Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card
15. Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
16. Forever Peace by Joseph Haldeman
17. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
18. Paladin of Souls by Louis McMaster Bujold
19. The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon

Many of these books (Dune and Ender's Game) are among my top 10 favorite books ever. While Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead are in the list, Xenophobia is not and I also really liked that book. I have not read American Gods by Neil Gaiman but did read Stardust and liked it quite a bit. So I think pretty soon I'll pick up on this list again and work my way through it.

81 on quiddler today. Quiddler would not let me use the words: hiney, zine, or hoth. This is a travesty!

Fasting

After reading the Lord' prayer on Sunday I skimmed through the section on fasting. I looked up "fasting" in the Bible and saw 24 references to fasting. So what is fasting? Fasting is abstaining from something (often it is food) for a period of time. Moses fasted 40 days, Jesus fasted 40 days. Numerous others throughout history have fasted at certain times. People from Old Testament times and New Testament times fasted. One verse that is worthy of note is "They said to him, "John's disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking." Jesus answered, "Can you make the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast." ~Luke 5:33-34.


This sounds like we should be fasting often since Jesus was taken from us. But how many Christians fast? I know a handful of Christians who fast. Why don't we fast in 21st century America?

Is fasting as important as reading the Bible and prayer? If so, why aren't more people fasting regularly? Catholics are one of the few Christian denominations that encourage fasting during lent. What about the rest of the evangelical denominations? Too many people have called me a closet Catholic that I've given myself the label of Evangelical Catholic :). So why don't more Christians fast?

People don't want to deny themselves anything. If we look at our culture of overindulgence, we notice the desire to fulfill every need and want immediately. Jesus says "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." ~Mattnew 16:24.

Christians are only required to believe for salvation. Jesus says "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." ~John 3:16. If we are only required to believe, then why fast? Why deny ourselves something we enjoy?

People don't want to appear prideful in their relationship with God. Jesus says "When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." ~Matthew 6:16-18. Some may misconstrue this verse to mean that fasting is prideful, but it is the heart God is looking at.

In my experience, I have found fasting to be a delight. I fast when I'm struggling with a specific sin, have a difficult decision to make and am seeking God's guidance, to humble myself before the Lord, or for a cause. I undertook two three day fasts last year and fasted once a week during the 40 days of prayer for the end of abortion. Since becoming a Christian, I have viewed fasting as a vital part of my walk with God. Fasting for me is a joyful experience as it reminds me that Jesus is the bread of life and all the food I need!

47 points on quiddler today. Too many u's!!

Our Cincinnati Adventure!

After my awesome dissertation defense, we went to Cincinnati for a wonderful camping trip. We visited Julie and Randy who we haven't seen in 3 years! In planning the trip, we came up with a huge list of things we could do in Cincinnati: zoo, aquarium, red's game, children's museum, etc, etc.... But we decided to go to a grocery store. It's not just any grocery store. We went to Jungle Jim's. This is a fabulous grocery store!

Jungle Jim's has cheese from all over the world. We sampled and bought lots of cheese. They have hard to find items and candy bars from England we haven't seen for 5 years. We did miss my favorite candy bar: starbar. It was in England and so wonderful but Jungle Jim's didn't have it. We got a dragon fruit (pictured). It's a cross between a kiwi and a pear - pretty yummy.

Besides grocery shopping, Julie and Randy made a great meal for us: steak, corn on the cob, coleslaw, homemade mac and cheese, pineapple gooey cake, chocolate trifle, cantalope, veggies and dip - yummy!

Jenna and Nicholas had a great time jumping in their bouncy house and riding on their riding gator. Nicholas was adept at driving, but Jenna needs some driver's ed. Here's a video of them jumping in the jumpy house. Randy tried to force me in the jumpy house but I got in after which I was pelted with lots of soccer balls.

Jenna kept reminding me that she knows another Nicholas. Yes - Jenna it is possible for two people to have the same name!

Nicholas and Nathaniel also had the coolest toys. How can I get my girls to play with dinosaurs???

79 on quiddler today

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??