Fair Oaks Dairy Adventures!

Janene had a wonderful idea...a day trip to the Fair Oaks Dairy! :-D

And believe me, if Janene ever invites you to go on an adventure with her, say yes! It will always turn out wonderfully :-)

She is like Marry Poppins.

This Dairy is pretty fascinating for a lot of reasons. But, the number one reason why I think its fascinating? It's powered...by cow poop.

How amazing is that?!

You see, this is how it works. They have the cows allowed to move around where ever they want in these long stall building. The cows can leave the building, but there is nice shade and sprayers inside the stalls, so I didn't see any cows out in the pasture place. Anyway, while the cows are getting milked big trucks come and fill up the stalls with clean sand a few times a day so the cows have something nice and soft and clean to lay in. Before they put down the fresh sand, a different kind of truck with these big sprayers go through and they spray all the waste from the stalls. The waste goes into this pond that slopes down to the silo, where all the poop is collected.

There is the poop pond! I couldn't get a good picture of the poop tower/silo.

Anyway, inside the poop tower, the poop is collected and bacteria is used to break down the poop and produce (get this)...methane gas! And then the methane gas is used to power the plants! :-D

One cows poop is another cows...well never mind.

And guess what else?! It cuts down on stinky emissions by 90% !! The dairy barely smelled at all.

Wow.

I was totally impressed.

But, I love diaries. We used to have a dairy by our house in Rio Rancho (sadly, now it is a walmart) and when we would drive by I would wave to the cows and say, "There are our cow friends who give us milk!"

*sigh* I love things that come from milk. Its too bad we currently have a love hate relationship :-(

Anyway, I was so happy to go on a tour of this dairy! It totally made my week, and I keep telling my mom and my sister how I need to take them to this dairy. It's awesome.

It is also pretty cool how they milk the cows.

They have this rotary stall set up, and the cows just walk in and get milked. They said that they liked to be milked, and they don't have to make the cows get onto the milker thing (I am inclined to believe it. When your milk comes in, and there is no way to get rid of it...oww).

If you look in the back of this image, you see there are no people back there putting the cows in to be milked, they are just walking in, and then walking out! It was pretty interesting to watch. The cows were just waiting in line, and one would back out of the stall, and then the rotary table would move over, and another cow would walk into the stall, and then the process would repeat! And while the stall table turned, people would clean the teats and then put the milker things on, and then they would get milked most of the way around the table until they got to the next person that would take the milker things off, and put on moisturizer.

The amount of milk the cows give and the amount of steps the cows take every day is monitored by this amazing collar thing they have hanging around their necks. Its like a glorified cow pedometer. This allowed them to look after the cows health, and tell if the cow is sick, or going to give birth soon, and stuff like that. When the cows are going to have a baby, they take them away to a special barn to watch over them better and help them along. It was really cool.

There are also lots of other fun attractions at the Dairy. There are outside attractions for the kids, including a bouncy-jump place called "Dairy-Air" and a giant bottle of milk fitted with rock climbing holds.

It was kind of cold when we got there, so we didn't participate. There was also a little mini-tractor area for little kids to drive around these tiny tractors. I was pretty jealous.

There is a lot of fun things to do inside also, including trivia games about milk, a milk awareness tour, and a 4-D movie about cows. It was definitely geared towards small children, and very fun. When I left, I had been bombarded by so much milk propaganda I was convinced it was the wonder food and I needed to consume some asap. Clever, clever marketing.

and clever cow illustrations...

Here were are in our cool 3-D glasses, getting ready to watch the movie!

And! there is a birthing barn where you get to watch a baby cow be born. (poor mama cow, that giant baby was inside of her, with hooves! I don't even want to imagine what hooves feel like)

It was amazing to see how quickly the baby cow would get up to walk around after it was born.

You can do it little man!

Quite impressive.

There is also a cafe that serves delicious food, and gives cheese samples. Its a good thing that we are poor college kids right now, or I could probably have purchased my weight in cheese, and that would have ended very, very badly.

I. Love. Cheese.

We had lunch (I had an amazing grilled cheese sandwich), and then (yay!) we had ice cream!

Thanks David and Janene for such a wonderful (and tasty) adventure! :-D It was lots and lots of fun! If anyone is on their way to Chicago and would like to make a really fun pit stop, I highly recommend this dairy. Overall, super fun.

And its not every day you get to support an establishment that is powered by cow poop.

Camping with the family!

I have great childhood memories of family and ward camp outs in the Jemez mountains. I remember rolling up my pant legs and climbing all over the rocks up and down a slimy stream, hopping from rock to rock, with my sisters and our friends. I remember damming up the little creek by our favorite spot to make an adequate lake to float our acorn men (acorns with little faces scratched into them) in their leaf boats. I remember tripping and hitting my knee on a rock and getting a "Z" shaped cut, then looking at the cut while it was still all white and being traumatized when the blood starting coming out really fast. Then my friend told me it was, "like a Zorro slash!", and for some reason I thought that was cool and I tried to make it look like it didn't really hurt. I remember running off and exploring in the woods and finding "secret" places with my friends that we would name weird things that involved our initials. I remember lots and lots of yummy breakfast burritos and hot chocolate. And sausage. And bacon. And pancakes. mmmmm.... And I remember stopping in little shops on the way up to see the lady that made candles and buying honey sticks. Mmmmm... I remember sleeping in a pup tent with my friend and then our siblings taking out the stakes so our tent fell on us and freaking out when we woke up like the world had ended. I remember my dad teaching us how to sleep out under the stars and showing us what a different light pollution made, and the feeling like I could see forever into the stars. And then I remember being really cold and their being bugs. I remember it always being freezing when you woke up in the morning, and you could never sleep in, so you huddled by the fire until you were nice and toasty. (although...my definition of sleeping in requires that I sleep till 11, so waking up with the sun always ruined that for me). I remember the guys in our ward having pine cone wars. I still have no idea why people voluntarily do such things. I remember meeting the best friend of my youth by her sticking stick weed down my shirt. Its strange how you make friends when your little, isn't it? I also remember getting my eye burned really bad from flying ash off a stick that had been stuck in the fire and then waved around. I will always, always, always believe my mom when she says "don't do that, someone could lose an eye" since I almost lost mine. (I got to wear a patch like a pirate when I was in grade school.) That particular camping trip did not last as long as planned.

*sigh* Childhood is a wonderful, magical place. I am so grateful to my parents for making mine so fantastic.

But! This blog is not about past childhood memories, it is about repeating a family camping tradition with all the new members of my family. My aunts and uncle and cousins, my husband and brothers in law, and making new memories :-)

When we visited with my parents, we went camping with my Dads side of the family at one of my aunt Trisha's favorite places. Uncle Devin, Aunt Cathy, Brendon, Brandon, Kiora and her kids, My parents, Iwalani and Remy, Goose, and me and Mark were ALL there!! :-D The only one who could not make it was Alex, and he was missed. The camping trip was a blast while it lasted, even though it got cut short (a big time confusion and mess up with camp reservations and the park ranger and what not, not because someone got hurt, thank goodness).

Here are some pics!

We had three camp "pods" I guess you could say. The Max Evans pod (my dad and his kids), the Trisha Evans pod (with Brendon and Brandon)

and the Cathy Evans pod (but eventually we all congregated there when we got kicked out of the other pods, and we have a really fun big yummy meal and played games into the wee hours of the night and got yelled at by the park ranger for being too loud, and then we got kicked out all together).

There was this nice meadow near our campsite, and in the morning we would see herds of animals passing through. It was a super pretty camp site.

There was also a lake/reservoir thing that we could go and fish at. Here is the goose fishing early in the morning! What a beautiful day! :-D I LOVE THE NM SUNSHINE!! :-D

For the little kids, we could go and fish at the stocked fish hatchery place a little up the rode. We took chio and alex and brendon and let them fish there, it was super fun.

Chio totally loved playing with the live worms we used for bait ("bugs" she called them) and the other jars of bait.

Here she is stacking the bait jars like blocks...

and here she is trying to open the container of worms, with her teeth.

Chio. You are awesome.

I was so excited that the Teek and her kids were able to come. I had no idea they were going to be there. When we drove up to the house, Mark was like, "is that alex playing in the front yard?" and I looked at him incredulously and remarked, "alex....Kiora's kid?....NO! they live in TEXAS, why would they be here?" and thought he was completely insane. Then I was told that I needed to go in to help my Grandma Pauline so I went to the back room, and I started really confusedly at this moving pile covered with a big sheet....until the big sheet flew off to reveal my sister and her two kids!! SURPRISE!!!! :-D

I was completely and wonderfully shocked. :-) Mark mocked me big time for not believing him. It was pretty funny.

We slept there for a few nights, but on the last night we were planning on staying we had to leave early. It was a forced exodus, and in the clean up madness, chio was left to entertain herself by this tree and she decided to bury her hands in the dirt.

Then her eyes got itchy....
...I give you....
RACOON GIRL!!! :-D

He he he...Her mom was really glad she left her daughter with such responsible adults.

Here is chio being tossed by handsome Mark and aunt Goose!

For our feast gathering at Aunt Cathy's pod, I made rolls! In a dutch oven! They were really really nummy. It took a lot of TLC to make those rolls happen, let me tell you. I messed up the first time, and I only brought enough yeast for one try, but I really wanted to make rolls, so the Teek went with me to the little teeny store in the middle of no where, and guess what?! they had YEAST! and honey. So, we got some more honey. You know, to go with the rolls. Very important.

After dinner, my parents left to go home, but we stayed to play Quelf with Brendons family. Oh, my, goodness. It was so much fun. And we were so loud. That game is fun to play with a large group of people, and you don't really have to pay attention since there is no skill involved, so it is a good game to play if you want to catch up with people that you have not seen in a while. What a great idea you had Aunt Cathy and Aunt Trish! :-D

And here is chio, looking adorable and wistful. I wonder if this is a camping trip she is going to remember fondly when she grows up? Ah, the magic of childhood!

The Room: Before and After

All these recent sewing projects are going into the baby room/ guestroom/ craft room- room. Since our duplex has three rooms, one is the master room, one is Mark's office, and the other is...the baby room/ guest room/ craft room -room. "My-room" for short :-)

I cleaned and organized Mark's office first so he would have a nice place to work, and my room kind of got left for last and acted as a catch-all for all the things that didn't have a home yet from the move in the rest of the house...yikes.... :-/

So! Here are some before shots of the room I needed to work with (brace yourselves):

Before:

*shudder*

Man, was that room a disaster!

This was still pretty soon after the move, and we were storing some furniture and odds-and-ends for a friend of ours who was between moves at the end of the semester. I saved this room for last since I needed to wait to organize until all the extra stuff got taken out of the room --it was pretty much full to bursting. I don't even know if these pictures do the clutter justice, it wa s bad. We had so much stuff in that room.

But! I wanted to work on my projects oh-so-much! I just opened up the sewing table and worked on any surface available (generally the floor), which made everything that much more cluttered. Meh. When you get to a certain point or chaos, a little more never hurt, right?

*gasp!*

for shame!

I know, I know....

Poor Mark.

But! Never fear! The After shots are here!:

Ahhhhhh.....

much better :-)

The last image even gives you a much better view of the blanket and the flower design, as well as the window curtain things and the tree thing in the bookshelf.

I could not get the same angle on the images because the after shots were taken with my cell phone (again, sad day for losing the camera) so I tried to take multiple shots. I realize now I never got an angle of the right side of the room. Sorry! The crib is on that side, and the bookshelves.

So! I will now talk a little more about some of the details:

Headboard: when my mommy comes out to visit us in the frigid north in the wintertime, it really bothers her shoulder to be so close to the cold cold wall. We thought that a headboard would help that. So! I found a gigantic cardboard box that was being disposed of and I snatched it up!! Then I cut my shape out, 4 layers deep, and stapled them together with a staple gun...and applied a judicious amount of duct-tape. I then made a headboard sandwich! First I laid out my white fabric (what would end up being the front), then the batting, topped it with the the cardboard, the pulled/wrapped the exposed edges of the fabric (the bottom layer) around to the back of the cardboard (the top layer) and stapled it all into place! Worked great! The front looked really smooth and fluffy and nice, and it is su-per sturdy.

And what, do you ask, did I use for the white fabric? Another white sheet! Yay! I found out it is much more cost effective to use a lower thread count sheet for a large biece of what fabric for the headboard than using cloth yardage. If there is a downside to that...I have not found it yet. I got a nice big area with no seams and was so much cheaper than yardage of fabric. Brilliant idea.

Then! After everything was stapled all nice and tight together, I folded it over to the front and stapled the dimples into the front side of the headboard and then hot glues buttons in place.

***note: While that sentence may have sounded easy...it was anything but. Let me just tell you. My mother can vouch, as she was on the phone/skype with me at the time, and there were DEFINITE hard feelings toward both the staple gun and the headboard during this process. But, let me tell you this little hint that I learned after much duress....lean all your weight on the gun, then pull the trigger like 5 times in a row. If you put enough consecutive staples in, that baby ain't goin' nowhere.

So! The first dimple took like 10 minutes of repeated stapling, and crying, and unkind feelings, and then once I figured that out, the rest of the dimples took like 5 minutes total. Then I hot glued on the buttons to cover the staples and that was it!

It cost less than $10. I like the way that it looks, and with enough cardboard, it is super sturdy, and feels like a legitimate headboard, so I would highly suggest this method to someone else.

Curtains: The sheer underfabric I got at goodwill for a few dollars. I cut it in half, sewed a sleeve along the top, and then just had to slip it into the curtain rod. The top of the curtains I made with the scraps of the fabric from the blanket! They have a flower on them (similar design to the blanet) and they are also top stitched.

Sham pillows: These I made from another white sheet, and they worked out ok. I am not sure how I feel about how ruffly everything is....but its ok for now.

Bookshelf covers: I have a lot of books from school that I want to keep. They definitely don't look like they belong in the room, but I don't have anywhere else to keep them. Maybe this looks a little strange, but I think it looks better than the books. I took a vinyl sheet, cut it to fit inside each of the shelves, and then painted a tree on it. I plan on painting a tree on the canvas I put up to cover the closet (to measure the height of the kids as they grow) and so eventually it is going to match.

The Pillow

Since I showed you all about the blanket, I couldn't help but show you what I did with all the scraps:

Isn't it she so pretty! :-D

Well, the picture isn't that great, courtesy of my cell phone since I lost the camera. Oops :-(

But! Even though it is not that great, I wanted to give you a glimpse of this little gal. I got the idea and instructions from here.

Im glad all the scraps turned into something so fun! :-D

The Blanket

So!

I was SUPER excited about being out of school. For a lot of reasons.

YAY! YAY! YAY!

*sigh* :-)

One of the reasons I was so excited was to work on some lingering projects I had had my eye on.

Let me tell you alllllll about it :-)

So!

Basically.

I wanted to make a blanket.

Specifically, I wanted to make a duvet cover. We bought a big fluffy insert blanket thingy from Ikea and Mark said it was ok if I made a cover for it :-) The spare bed is in the babies room, so we wanted to use a neutral color, and since that is bedroom is in the darkest corner in the house, I wanted to go with a yellow, happy color.

I drew this design:

and after consulting with my wonderful mommy who, by the way, is brilliant and made my life a million times easier when I undertook this project, I used a king sized white sheet, some yellow fabric, and some wonder-under to construct THIS!

isn't it pretty?!? :-D

After putting it on with Wonder under, my mommy also suggested that I do top stitching (also something I had never dabbled into) to make sure that the flower petals stay put.

"hmmmmmm," I said to myself, "top stitching...that sounds difficult"

Luckily, I have a sewing machine manual. (I love reading manuals. They are so helpful!) And look! The manual is teaching us how to sew on little ducks.

Too bad it wasn't a goose or else that would have been AWESOME!

Anyway, it did not turn out to be too difficult, it just took a lot of patience, and a loooooot of thread. Like, a mile.

And when the bobbin runs out and you don't notice so you continue sewing for a long time and then look up and DRAT! its all for NOTHING! ....How exasperating. The other thing that was a little tricky was bunching up the giant blanket under the sewing arm, so it got a little dicey at times.

I loved the overall effect of the top stitching. I used the same color thread as the yellow petals, so while its a subtle effect that defines each petal, when viewed all together it gives the overall design a fantastic texture.

Top stitching = yummy.

So! Once the top was all finished, All I had to do was connect it to the back! And that is where the other other brilliant idea that my mommy had came into play! Have you ever heard of, french seams? I hadn't. Apparently a french seam is "a seam stitched first on the right side and then turned in and stitched on the wrong side so that the raw edges are enclosed in the seam". Que interesante, no?

French seam = magic.

Here it is in all its finished,rumpled, on the bed glory!

.... its kind of hard to take a good picture of it while its on the bed corner, but trust me, its beautiful. :-)

So! Thanks mommy for all your wonderful ideas and support, they were WONDERFUL! :-D

Visiting the Teek!

I can't remember with whom the idea originated, but someone had the brilliant idea to drive back to NM with my family, spend time with them after graduation, and then fly back dome to IN.

And brilliant it was! :-D

On the way back to NM, we stopped to see the Teek and her family.

Teek's husband Alex...makes the BEST meat. Ever. BBQ meat. Delicious meat. Unfortunately for him, that means that every family gathering that he is at...he gets roped into cooking the meat.

And man oh man does he do a wonderful job.

It was lots and lots of fun to visit them on this trip. My parents had brought along their bikes to take chio and alex on bike rides, and kiora had borrowed one of those little caboose wagon things that you attach to the back of bikes for kids to ride along in ,and so we were able to go on some fun bike rides while we were there. What a great idea!

There is this one particularly large hill with a hospital at the top of the hill that is super duper steep on the other side. I was pretty scared when we went down it, and I am an adult, but the kids loved it.

Then we would bike around and look at all the quaint houses, and go to the park on the long way back. You know, the way back that did not involve climbing directly up said steep hill, but meandered back and forth so the slope we never very steep. I liked that plan immensely. My dad was preparing for the long bike ride he was doing for diabetes and with the scouts in his ward, but I was by no means preparing for anything strenuous, so I liked taking the long way. After we biked, my dad would go out again, to train some more. He is amazing.

The park that we stopped at on the way home was really neat. I believe it is where alex plays soccer. There are some nice fields, and then there are these really cool trails that you can bike on that has a lot of greenery around it and these cool little bridges. It was lots of fun!

And, while we were there, we helped repaint the bathroom!

Now, the Teek pretty much begged us not to do it...but we pretty much begged her to do it (me primarily) until it was this embarrassing begging war and finally the Teek relented and let us. Hoo-ray!! :-D , I really like to work on projects. And, my dad replaced the toilet too! :-D However, the down side to this adventure was that we planned on replacing the sink...but we failed. Still really sorry about that the teek :-(

Here are the befores:

and here are the afters!

:-D

Somehow, a series of strange wall papers had been used in their bathroom. Seriously strange wall papers, that clashed with every other thing in the bathroom, including the lovely salmon back splash and tile. We took that down, then we spackled everything, and painted it white. It looked really nice when we were done! Eventually they are going to do white bead board back splashed instead of the salmon, and go with white color scheme. The teek...she is really good at decorating. Lamentably, I don't have any pictures of the rest of her house, but it is super cute.

Anyway! The goose and I did the spackleling and the painting and the wall paper removing. Thanks the goose, for being willing to go along with my plan! It was, a lot of fun doing it with the goose. I don't know if it was the fumes (that we tried to mitigate with he face masks, but I don't think they did any real good) or just that we giggle a lot when we are together, but it was a lot of fun. Poor goosies feet hurt a lot by the end of the day when we were done though, since we had to be barefooted to do it.

Thanks for letting us come and visit the teek! And thanks for letting us rip apart your bathroom! It was a lot of fun! :-D

Graduation!

Da! da da dah, daaaaaaa, daaaaaaaahn. Dah, da da da daaaaaaaaaahn. Dah, da da da daaaaah! duhhhhh! da! da! da! da! dahhhhhhhhn!

*pomp and circumstance for those of you who are wondering*

YES! I DID IT!

It's official! I graduated from college!

So! Since I was in charge of graduating, that means that Mark was on picture duty

....

...

...

...hmmm...

I don't know about you, but I am sensing a total lack of pictures here, aren't you?

;-)

That's ok sweetiepie!

my hair looked funny anyway :-)

But! We did take pictures for the graduation announcements, of which I have a copy that I took a picture of with my cell phone, AAAAAAND, I have a picture of the diploma, which means for sure it is official!

Yay!

:-D

My parents and the goose came out to IN and stayed with us for graduation, and Mark's parents came up for the ceremony also. It was SO NICE to have them there, and to see my daddy! I am pretty sure that was the first time since we got married that my daddy has been able to come out to visit! YAY FOR DADDIES! :-D

To be honest, I don't remember much of graduation day, besides we had to wear the robes, and they made us walk around the fountain, and then we sit in the hall, and then after we go outside and then we took pictures by the clock tower. My mom and Marks mom did bring cameras *cough cough* so we do have photographic evidence that it happened.

I was really glad to have been able to do this. It took a lot of support from my family and from Mark, and a lot of will power. Getting a degree in engineering, really, isn't about being "smart," its about sticking it out. It's about time management. It's about self discipline and going to class and doing your homework and studying even when you would really really rather be doing something else. It's about studying your hardest, giving all you can, and asking the Lord for his help to do what you can't. It's about faith, as much as it's about anything else. Like many scientists, the more I learn in school, the more I glory in God and his creations, and marvel at how little we know. When you get really big (cosmic scale) and when you get really small (microscopic scale) we really have no idea what is going on. Anyone who is worth their salt will admit it.

Anyway, going to school has taught me a lot about myself, about endurance, and about life that I will always be grateful for, and that will help me to be a better mother. I am not naturally a "math" sort of person, so in going into engineering I chose something that I was not naturally gifted at, but it was something I really found interesting and I would not likely ever learn about if I didn't go to school for it.

Like my parents said, "Art and cooking can always be a hobby... calculus, not so much"

I'm really grateful to them for all their advice, and for all their hours of listening to me complain when it got hard, and for giving me encouragement. I can't count the number of times my Dad told me, "Look teda. I graduated. If I can do it, anyone can."

:-)

LOVE YOU ALL! *muah!*

The Lab

You know, as I look back over the pictures of that year, I realized that the activities Mark and I did for that last semester were very very stark. Boy! Were we busy then!

As an overview, I will tell you that it was my senior year, I had a full class load including senior design and neutronics (NUCL 510 for those of you interested. Nader taught it, which was awesome. Intense, but awesome) AND I was a TA for a nuclear materials lab. Being a TA for a lab is a lot of work. Here is a picture of the cover page of the lab manual that I co-authored:

pretty snazzy looking, eh? :-)

a LOT of my time is represented in the 150 odd pages you see there my friends. a LOT of time. So, I felt it was blog worthy. I am pretty proud of it.

Anyway, being a TA was a pretty rewarding experience. I was really different to see school from a teachers perspective. And, I got to participate a lot in the planning and revision of labs, purchasing lab equipment, prepping samples, preparing lecture slides, etc. I really enjoyed it.

The only part I didn't like: grading. Oh, and angry students.

Not so fun.

I also gained a deep love of material science and surface science from this experience, one I am grateful to get to continue in my masters education.

Anyway! Just thought I would let you in on a little of what occupied a lot of my time! Here are some more pictures, for your viewing pleasure:

Tensile Tester. Tres cher.

Rockwell Hardness testers (3 varieties...although we only purchased the ones that look like the tester in the center)

Oh! And, with the help of Mark, I filmed and edited together a little movie on how to mount and polish samples for microscopy. Its pretty cheesy....oh alright, twist my arm a little more and I will share it with you... Ok, ok! You convinced me.

...

RATS!

I could not get it to work out. The file was too big. I guess you will have to spend the rest of your life in anticipation of the video I made for use of future TAs and students on how to use the equipment. I know, I know, but somehow you will get through this.

Hope you enjoyed a little peak into what I have been up to!

Keeping the move a secret

A theme on this blog seems to be cakes, and keeping things a secret.

This will be another instance. (of secrets, not cakes)

Let me preface this story by explaining that we had been talking with my mom about the possibility of moving a long, long time before it happened. I am pretty sure I said something like, "when I graduate, we are going to move to a bigger apartment."

ANYWAY, the point is, when we did finally decide to move, we decided to keep the moving a secret from my mom and dad so that when they came to see us for graduation, it would be this big wonderful surprise, and there would be lots of room for them to stay with us, yadda yadda yadda.

SO!...to facilitate this wonderful surprise, we had to move THE WEEKEND OF FINALS.

In retrospect, not the best choice. So! I take my last test on Friday, and then we wake up bright and early Saturday morning and pick up the truck at 8 and start a'movin!

By that evening, we had moved everything from the apartment. HOWEVER, we did not yet have internet at our new place and I (lamentably) had to finish an assignment for school to graduate (will it never end?!) so I remember being at the empty PVIL appartment, all alone, with a pizza from papa johns (left over from lunch) with my laptop, on the floor...working on stuff. Mark had gone with his dad to pick up some wagons for TREK, and I had to stay at home to work on this assignment.

ANYWAY, the point is, my mom is talking to me on the phone and she asks me:

"so, you wanna skype?"

(obviously, this cannot happen, as I am pretty sure my mom will be curious about the complete lack of anything in our previously crammed apartment. As I did't think she would believe we took a vow of poverty for religious reasons, I had to distract her)

"...uhhh, nope! I need to work on this EE final..."

"oh ok... so what did you do today?"

* awkward silence*

"teda?"

"...i...uh...worked on my assignment...and mark is with his dad right now picking up wagons....hey, mom...i gotta go-love-you-bye!"

*click*

Most of my conversations with my mom had gone sortof like that for the weeks leading up to the move. Eventually, I had to avoid her calls all together or else I would say something bad, or have the suspicious silence. The most notable example went something like this:

"hi teda! so when are you guys moving?!"

*akward silence*

".....uh....moving?....uh...."

*hurried whispers/mouthing to Mark who is on the couch while covering the phone* MY MOM KNOWS ABOUT THE MOVE, WHAT DO I TELL HER?!

mark just laughs

"teda? are you there?"

"yeah mom...im here, uhhh, I am not sure"

"you said you were moving when you graduated, right? so have you thought about when?"

"yeah....nope, not really. Oh, hey mom.....ummm...I have some homework I gotta do, so..... I gotta go, love you bye"

*click*

at this point, mark laughs, shakes his head, and looks at me incredulously. Apparently, I should have said something like "oh, in a few weeks," or "when things settle down"

*sigh*

Mark is pretty clever. That would have been an ever so sneaky thing to say.

Anyway, a little while later my sister the Teek, who I have sworn to secrecy, calls me back

"MOM KNOWS THAT YOU ARE MOVING AND IT IS SO NOT ME WHO TOLD HER!"

apparently my mom had mentioned my moving to the Teek, and the teek had pretty much said she didn't know anything about it and hung up and called me.

My mom. She is clairvoyant.

BUT!! We tried ever so hard to maintain the appearance of secrecy, even going so far as having my little sister drive the last stretch of the journey, and giving her the directions to our real address, so that she could drive up to our new house and we could yell "SURPRISE!!"

It was a noble effort :-)

And, while my mom did suspect that we had moved, she didn't know where, and she didn't know what it was like, so that was like a surprise all on its own. And man-oh-man did keeping it (somewhat) secret take effort!

And so! that is the story of our surprise move!

:-D Thanks for coming to visit Mom, Dad and the Goose! WE LOOOOOOVE YOOOOOOOOU!! :-D *MUAH!*

Moving on out!

So! Mark and I loved the time we spent at PVIL. We loved the view we had of the soccer fields from our window (Mark more so since he would run out and play when he saw people playing pick up games. Ah, how Mark will miss PVIL!). We loved the squirrels and rabbits that scampered around the courtyards. We loved the parks, and the picnics, and the neighbors. We loved the multi-cultural experience that was PVIL. It is pretty cool to walk to campus and see kids from 5 different backgrounds riding bikes together and playing. Its pretty sweet. We loved seeing all the Asian grandparents walking around holding their grandchildren. We loved that it was a 10 minute walk to work, and a bus ride away from campus (ESPECIALLY in the winter, yay for no driving in snow!).

However, we felt as we were trying to have our family grow, that we needed more space. Aaaaaaaand...it was a little strange having the only bathroom in our bedroom, so when we had visitors stay with us, they had to go through our room to use the potty. So, all in all, we decided to move.

WAAAAAAA!

*sniff sniff*

I will just have to be consoled by my washer and dryer, not having to carry groceries up the stairs, and having a kitchen enclosed by four walls to mitigate the problem wafting powdered sugar presented for our electronics.

We love our new place too.

Here is a peak of the place all empty and naked!:

View from the front door looking in.

on the left of the picture, there is a slight hall, with a room on each end, and a hall closet in the middle. In the center of the picture we see the slight hall with the washer and drier (REJOICE!) which leads to the bathroom (pictured) and to the right of the bathroom there is another silght hall which leads to the master bedroom. On the right of the picture we see the front closet door open. Not picture, but to the right of this front room is the kitchen.

View from the washer/drier hallway of the front room looking towards the front door:

...and the entrance to the kitchen as promised! :-D And, our lovely front door. How quaint.

this is the picture from our master bedroom, looking toward the beloved washer and drier. On the back right is the door to the bathroom, and on the front right is the door to our utility closet, which also leads to the backyard (WE HAVE A BACKYARD!) :-D . The utility room is also the space in which we store our bikes when we are not using them. Our bikes do not go outside, and have lived with us in the house ever since we purchased with them. It will be a glorious day when we have a garage, let me just say that.

View of a bedroom, looking in from the door:

All the naked bedrooms look the same, so I will just show you this one. Let it be representative of all the rooms in the house.

So! That is where we are living! Marks Mom and Dad were gracious enough to come up and help us move (THANKS A MILLION!) we really appreciated the help! The missionaries also helped us, and our neighbor Martin. We couldn't have done it without you!