D&D

Since 8th grade I have tried to convince people to teach me how to play Dungeons and Dragons. It's a really old roleplaying game. I think I mentioned it a few posts back. Anyway, we started playing with out neighbors downstairs and it's such a fun game!!!
We've been over to their house maybe 3 times in the last week and a half. (More than the total number of times in the last three years). Tonight we went over and had barbeque with them. Oh it was nice. They did ribs, chicken and steak. We brought a measly salad and helped make the potatoes. I think we got the better end of this deal.
We also went to our first FA 100 event this week.
FA 100 was a required class all the way until last year. New students don't have to take it. Basically it requires students to attend concerts and events around campus for zero credits. There are 7 different categories of events and each student must attend at least one of them. You scan in using your student ID card and you scan out after the event is over. If you show up late or leave early it won't count.
We went to the symphonic orchestra and choir concert. It was very cool. My heart began to ache as they started warming up and by the end of the concert I was dying to add stress to my life next semester by signing up for the band. I miss it so much. Just watching the intensity of the player's faces and the rhythm and difficulty of the music. I wanted to jump on stage and join in.
The choir was just as powerful. The room had some amazing acoustics and I almost died as the last chords reverberated around the room in perfect harmony. It was way cool. Suddenly I'm not dreading the class as much :)
That's pretty much the extent of my excitement for this week.
Jason: It was an awesome week, We went out to the Teton Dam and had shish ka babs there. It was a lot of fun first we setup and Alisabeth enjoyed throwing rocks into the river until she took one too many steps and into the water she went. It was very peaceful and nice to be there with My love and my daughter.
My physics class is a lot of fun, I came so close to finishing the car I am working on, turned out the timing was way off, one mark was at say 3:00 and the other mark at 11:00. So Saturday morning I was working on it and a little piece popped off so I decided to take a break. :( Heavenly Father has been really helping out with us so much, He has made it possible for both Theresa and I to graduate on time. He has blessed Theresa and I with a greater unity this week and our love has deifnetly grown.
Alisabeth is growing so fast and learning new words all the time, her favorite still is "BALL",
This last week has been great!

This week's science fact

Two actually:
1) Did you know that between your veins, arteries, and capilaries you have about 60,000 miles worth of path for your blood to pump through? That's almost 2 and a half times around the entire earth. No wonder your heart works so hard. It sure encourages me to do what I can to make my heart's job easier. . .
2) Your body turns on and off the capilaries (the smallest passageway for blood, many times only large enough for 1 blood cell to pass through at a time). Meaning they they will pass blood for a minute or two and then shut down for a minute or two and then start up again. This has to do with the same idea. Can you imagine how much work it would be for your heart to try to pump blood through all 60,000 miles at the same time?!

And just another fun fact for those of you who are old enough to remember them. The band "They Might Be Giants" has begun doing educational songs. Here are two that you might recognize:

http://www.dave-logan.com/animation/bloodmobile/

and

http://www.rhapsody.com/goto?rcid=tra.11860346&artistId=art.5081

Alisabeth has been having issues with bath time recently because she hates getting water in her face so if I try to rinse off her head she goes ballistic. Basically that means that I am constantly battling to try to get her laid down so I can rinse her hair while she's not freaking out. These are a few shots of her under the bubbles. Once she's down she absolutely loves laying down because she can kick out her feet and play around, but getting her there is like a root canal on a man with a denist phobia.


Memorial Day was beautiful. I defrosted a roast and cut it up, glazed it in barbeque and Jason and I drove back out to the Teton Dam and had shishkabobs and rice. Alisabeth ran around and threw rocks into the water until she stepped a little to far. After that she stayed pretty close to us. The area was absolutely gorgeous (my first time there) and the weather was very cooperative.
After we finished there we went and planted a garden at a friend's house. They cut us off a chunk of ground and we planted corn, squash, zuccinni, peas, carrots, strawberries, potatoes and a tomato plant. I am really excited to see what we get out of it all. The wife is also going to teach me how to jar and can the fruits to make jam when this is over. I'm really hoping to be able to learn some cool skills while I'm out here. We're also working on a box garden over there which is a nice alternative to trying to make the ground work for you. It's probably the method we'll start with when we get down to Tucson.
After we finished there we rushed back home and spent the evening learning Dungeons and Dragons from some friends downstairs. Honestly the rest of the day was just a build up to the main event for me. I was so excited to learn.
I started a druid elf who luckily has an animal friend in the form of a tiger. :) My tiger was stronger than all of the rest of us put together. It was a lot of fun.
For those who don't know what D&D is, it is the original roleplaying game. Before they had computers they had people like me who made up characters and went on adventures killing all the monsters and saving the damsels in distress. One person is a storyteller and pre-writes the adventure and then leads everyone else on a turn by turn adventure. Each character has their own style, race, and profession. You can start with whatever basics are allowed by your character and then you build your character's experience, reputation, and abilities as you have adventures and take out bad guys.

The week was a good one too. We didn't do anything incredibly complex. We had people over a couple of times and enjoyed games and food, which honestly, just can't be beat.
We also caught up with another couple that used to live next door to us but ended up moving when they put restrictions on the size of family allowed in the complex (because of the county restrictions). They're a really neat family and it was nice to get back with them and their kids.
Well, that's our excitement for a while. I hope your week's have been as AMAZING as ours. :)

Repentant

I have heard from several of you that I am in big trouble for not writing for the last two weeks so I have come to atone. :)
Let me explain.
Three weeks ago my imagination began running full tilt and I wasn't able to shut it down. This wasn't very good because sleep and life was effected negatively. Finally I decided that if I wrote it down I would probably be able to get it out of my head. So I began writing my story.
For those of you who don't know I used to be a fiction writer when I was younger, but I never finished a story because I would usually run out of the main "adventure" and then I never got excited about writing an ending.
So I began writing two weeks ago and couldn't help myself. I just had to keep going. I would spend until about 2 am writing and then sleep 5 hours before school the next day (or before Alisa would wake me up). The difference? This story was complete in my head. There was an adventure and there was also an ending. It was an odd feeling. I couldn't stop going back to it!
So Sunday morning at 2 am I finished my first novel.
Just for fun I looked up the normal length of a novel. They can be anywhere from 50 to 80 thousand words. Mine is 74,500.
It's still pretty rough around the edges and not really ready to publish, but I sent a copy to my mom and she seemed to enjoy it so I thought I'd like to post it here so any of you devoted followers could also enjoy the reason I disappeared for a few weeks, but alas, blogspot doesn't have the ability to link to a local file and I'm just not smart enough to figure out how to get it to publish to a webpage right so that a URL link will work.
If any of you know how please let me know :)
So, this is my repentant email. I have two weeks worth of photos for you and a couple of fun stories and I'll put those out in a few more minutes.
Love you all.

This week in pictures.

Can you believe we didn't do anything to coax this picture. Isn't she adorable.

Jason and Alisabeth went on a trip to the remnants of the Teton dam. They had a blast. (So much so that we have an outing scheduled with several neighbors to go back and have a barbeque).


This was at the church softball/barbeque outing on Saturday. She had a blast playing on all the equipment, but her favorite by far was the swing.

Please note that while previewing this clip she was laughing her head off watching herself on the swing. . . that's enjoyment.

These are this weeks food items. On Saturday night we had 5 families over for dinner and I think I finally perfected my rolls. These ones rose about twice the normal size and they were incredibly fluffy and good. (I ate 4 of them for breakfast after church). . . I wonder why I'm still gaining weight. . .
The second picture is of a desert Jason learned to make this week. It is called pavlova. The inside is a meringue and then you add some corn starch so that when it bakes it firms up the outside while the inside stays meringuey. Then he covered it with whip cream and fruit. He said when he put it down on the buffet table it was gone before he could get a piece for himself. :)

And last but not least, this was what my partner and I did for Biology lab last week. . .
What? You can't tell what it is? I thought it was pretty obvious that it was a cell. We even made everything 3-D.
We didn't even win 3rd place though, it was quite depressing.

This weeks biology fact: The epidermis (the outer layer of the skin) is composed of 40 layers on average. It is no thicker than a piece of paper. If you cut yourself and bleed you have cut lower than the epidermis. Also when you are burned or cut, as long as it is not severe enough to damage the hair follicles the cut/burn will heal from both the outer edges and from each hair follicle. Turns out the lining of each hair follicle is the same cell type as the skin so the protective layers can be created from each follicle so that the area heals faster.

Stolen

So we went to go shopping tonight and happened to pull into a parking spot right in front of a green bike. Jason took one look at it and told me he was taking it home. I told him to at least wait and see if it had an owner.
We shopped a bit and came out about 30 minutes later. The bike was still there, so guess what my husband did. He hopped on it, waved good-bye to me and rode home. So we now have 2 bikes sitting on the rack outside.


Okay, so before anyone begins to think negatively of my husband, the last time we went to Tucson he rode his bike down to the school to meet us and left it near one of the outer building. When we got back 2 weeks later it was gone. He searched for it, asked campus police and did what he could, but we never found it. Today we just happened to pull into a parking spot right in front of it. We quickly surveyed it to make sure it was the right one. It had a broken water bottle mount, broken pedals, a busted seat, a little worse than it had been last year, and the same marking, style, handle grips and everything else. So it was ours.
I went in and asked the management (who happen to be friends of ours) if they knew who it "belonged" to, not wanting to take something that had been sold in good faith. They had never seen it before, but knew that it had been dropped there the day before. Jason was outside waiting for the "owner". One of the guys (a huge & tall guy) offered to go sit on it and say it was his. I laughed picturing my husband's face when he saw him.
Anyway when we finished shopping he rode it home. So we have two bikes now. . . again. It's nice. (course his is going to take a nice wad of cash to get back into good repair, but such is life).

"Thunderstorms"

Rexburg currently has a thunderstorm warning for the next couple of days. . . it's embarrassing actually compared to the thunderstorms I remember from my youth. Ah, those were days never to be forgotten. Water half-way up your wheels, thunder and lightening that shook the entire house. Watching as your window slowly splintered and shattered inwards while you freaked out. . . okay maybe that last one was just me, but still, it was great.

We had a really fun and busy week. I was able to substitute for the teacher that I grade for. He had some meetings and stuff to take care of, so I got to teach absolute value equations, basic algebra and numbers and stuff to two different math levels. It was a blast. I really learned a heck of a lot, both about methods of teaching and ways of understanding, and also a little faith lesson. I began to realize that through the school we have teachers and help, but we also have tutors available completely free for those who want the extra help. Several of these students are struggling and need the extra help, and others feel that they are on top of it, and don't need help. I thought of that in terms of my faith. God has provided teachers throughout my life, and then He also gave me a "free" tutor through the Holy Ghost who is constantly and willingly available to help me "pass" life. My responsibility is to seek that help and get my life and mind to a place where I can receive it. I think it's also important to realize that even when I feel like I've got a handle on things, I still need Him in my life.

School went well for me this week too. I built a 3-D model of a cell in Biology, and studied the corruption in the business world in Accounting. (although that wasn't the intentional focus of the class).
All in all I'm loving this semester so far.

Jason also had a good week. He accomplished a lot at the house while maintaining the time to study and prepare for his physics class. So far he seems to be really enjoying it. He tells me all the new tidbits he's learning, and I share all my new BIO information with him. (For instance, did you know that the kangaroo rat doesn't need to drink water. As a bi-product of its cell functions water is produced in enough quantity to supply the little rat's needs. Ah if only my cells were that good :).
Also did you know that when your body kills off a bacteria it breaks it down and uses the proteins and materials just like it would any other food source, so basically, you're eating your enemies.

So here are this weeks winning photos:

The name was inspired. I was trying to think of something out of the ordinary that would attract attention. Jason assured me that it worked as he watched people drive by mouthing the words with a confused expression on their faces :)

This was the fair that Jason went to. He set up his table, was able to get a sign through kinkos, and they were even able to throw together some business cards for him to hand out. It was way fun for him. He was also invited back for another one on the 30th. So far he hasn't seen any results from it, but that's cool. I told him he should still do the second one just to support what she's trying to do and get more people interested.


And of course the obligatory pictured of my little angel. She's so cute. Jason created a stronger bubble compound this week, so the bubble blower does a much better job and she enjoys it much more.

Also as a complete side note, a couple of friends of ours came over and showed us a cool thing called "chaining" I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but supposedly it can tell you the gender of your children and what order they'll come in. We totally busted that theory tonight, however it was really really neat to watch it. You simply hold a chain (like a necklace chain) over the wrist where it meets the hand and watch. My assumption is that due to the electromagnetic field around the body the chain begind to move in a circular motion. After a few seconds it will stop going in circles and will pendulum back and forth (either sideways or in line with the arm) then it will spin again and then go back and forth. Supposedly each time it goes back and forth it is telling you which gender the child will be, and each child is seperated by the circling pattern. When all of your children are accounted for it just stops. So mine stopped at 2 kids the first time, one of each gender and Jason's stopped at 3. . . I asked him to explain, but he didn't have an explanation. . .
We had a lot of fun playing with it none the less. I think it's amazing that there is an actual current flowing around the body and that it can be seen interacting with other objects. It makes interpersonal relationships and the idea that "we just didn't mesh" much more real.