it's been 11 days

Since we left KS. Our leaving was kind of undramatic, likely because we left in two shifts. My parents and I left mid-morning to ensure arriving in time to get keys to the apartment, and Brian and his parents left in the afternoon. This is because packing up our house turned out to be a much bigger project/take way more time than we thought it would, so they stayed behind to continue working on it. In fact, our parents have done tons of work in the house after getting back to KS, which we feel really bad about/grateful for, and we are sure we can never repay them. This new place has been fine so far, but does not (at least yet) feel like home. A few quick notes:

• Moving to a new state is really expensive. Suck.
• Make sure you have your address correctly memorized before changing everything. Suck.
• I got snowed on twice on Sunday. August 16. Kind of cool, but since I'm not big on snow...semi-suck.
• 425 square feet is really, really, really tiny. It is too tiny for two people. Suck.
  
• This school definitely has its differences from Bethel: 1. Today I remembered cheerleaders; 2. Our student government alone manages a $34 million budget, which is how many times the size of Bethel's overall operating budget? (I forgot to ask Brian if he remembers.); 3. A non-dry school is kind of exciting. Case in point: The big and many times repeated selling point of a back-to-school picnic for grad students was, "Beer! Free beer!" Um, yes, I'll take it!
  

i'm 14.

I passed this sign on the way back to work from the press. I turned the car around to go back, pull into the parking lot, and snap this photo. After I was done and circled around by the drive-thru to go out the exit, I saw that that side of the sign had been changed to "half-assed drinks," but in that short amount of time I remembered I'm 28 and did not roll my window down to photograph that part of the prank.

sand hill plums

A few Sundays ago I accompanied Brian on a cicada hunt. That's when temperatures were still over 100, and I was kind of a wuss. The heat sort of knocked me out, and I was not super helpful with the hunting. I was pretty good at being hot in the car. Near the end of the day at a wildlife preserve we went sand hill plum picking and that I really got into. Here is our bounty and me mashing them after cooking them. Whenever we finally have some time, we will make jelly, but for now this beautiful, tasty goodness resides in our freezer.











































I will also note that the next Sunday I went on another cicada hunt and was much more a part of it. I spotted several, and I also netted my first couple! That was exciting. I didn't completely get the hang of netting and trapping them smoothly, but I imagine I will have more chances to get better.

garden update

Here are our pumpkins. It's funny to us how one is really branching out and putting out a lot of tendrils, and the other is not and has no tendrils. These are plants we found coming up volunteer in our compost pile, presumably from a pumpkin we threw in there last fall. We know we won't get to harvest anything from them, but since they were just volunteer, we thought it would be fun to watch them grow.


They sure do put on beautiful flowers.





























A patio tomato. The bird who pooped on it must have been marking its territory because pretty much every one of our larger variety tomatoes gets pecked to death by birds as soon as it is slightly more than orange. Very disappointing for us.





























We have been able to harvest more of our cherry tomatoes, though. This is fun, but the fun is usually over in about 30 seconds since we'll get maybe five ripe at one time and just eat them right away. The plants are kind of comical with how tall and not bushy they are. We believe this is because they do not get adequate sun, but we had to work with what we have and this is the sunniest spot in our very shady yard. It's been fun to check the "garden" daily, and it will be kind of sad to leave these plants behind.

small group picnic

A few weeks ago our small group celebrated the end of the year with a picnic in the park. It was also the final group get together for me and Brian. It's been a good group that I've enjoyed getting together with. We ate some good food and played a variation of bocce ball. Below is the cake I made and also a group shot: Esther, Nate, Mariah, Brian, Paul, Judy, Craig (actually a cross-county cyclist who happened to be camping in the park and who joined us for the evening), Karen, and Ron.

our tree is trying to compete with yours, wiebes

Last night I was sitting on our front porch waiting for a friend to pick me up. I heard a bit of crashing in the branches and leaves above me. Although it was dark and I don't see a lot of squirrel action after dark, I assumed this is what it was. But then I did not hear any further crashing around or scrambling. I investigated and discovered a snake! It was quite a ways up and out (this is in large basswood). I know black rat snakes climb trees, but this was in kind of an unlikely place and plus there was that crashing as if it had fallen to that particular spot. I alerted Brian to come outside to see. He got a flashlight so we could inspect it better. Sadly, it seemed injured along one of its sides. The skin looked whitish and kind of torn where it should have been a dark color. One of Brian's speculations was perhaps it had been captured by a hawk and managed to get free of its clutches, landing in our tree. Crazy!

[In case you missed them, there are another two new posts below this one.]

4th

The extended weekend for the 4th was quite nice. I had a few hours of lazy on Friday but also went to the wellness center and did a bit of work in mom and dad's basement, which mostly made me think of how much work I have to do in our own house. And how much we put it off! Brian got back from a cicada trip in the early evening and we set out on a failed journey for supper. We ended up back home for bierocks, which of course was a nice alternative. On Saturday I didn't do much during the day, but I did take a nap. In the evening we were hosted by Amber and Jeremy for a 4th of July party, and it was a very fun time. Relaxing, beautiful weather, yummy food. Ber and I rocked beanbag (that is, we won by one point). We left to pick up Mark to hit not one, but two town fireworks shows! In our quarterly newsletter we'd seen an advertisement for North Newton's fireworks show, which we thought was just too cute. And it actually exceeded our expectations. Plus, they were incredibly dedicated to keeping the ground show of fountains going the entire time. I really enjoyed our viewing area on the grass between some of the Kidron Bethel duplexes. As soon as that show was over, we headed to the park area in Newton. We found an ok spot, but the show wasn't super. Then, it was off on a quest for roman candles and bees. Three fireworks stands later, we were satisfied with our minimal purchases and went to mom and dad's to light them. Sunday was our first time back to church for in a while; I guess we have been gone a lot! Mom and dad had us over for lunch and then we watched a disc of Arrested Development, which, if I haven't mentioned previously, is hands down the funniest show ever. Brian and I finally went out for his birthday for supper and had steaks.