Sizzlin' Summertime

As the temperatures have risen in Kansas City, our social life has heated up as well. Over the past few weeks we have had several friends come and spend some time hanging out with us.  With having so many friends visiting us, the fun quotient around our apartment jumped drastically.  However, after everyone left, Jules and I (Alex) realized how exhausting it can be to have so much fun and we needed a few days to recuperate.  We also noticed that our living room seems huge without an air mattress on the floor, and it is easier to share a bathroom between the two of us instead of four females.   

Our friend Hillary stayed with us off and on over the course of several weeks when she made some other side trips.  She is taking online classes this summer and thought our apartment was a great place for some solitary confinement so she would actually get her homework done.  After a long week of work (3 ½ days) for Jules, and a week of classes and homework for myself and Hillary, we decided to go out on the town one Saturday evening.  Jules has wanted to eat at a place called the Chartreuse Caboose for a few months, so we finally checked it out.  We pulled into the parking lot at 6:00 on a Saturday night, and it was completely empty—maybe this isn’t the best sign.  The specialty was Philly cheese steaks and the décor was train themed which was pretty interesting.  After dinner we went shopping—this is a given when girls get together.  For dessert we got some frozen custard.  Nothing says summer like getting a cool treat after a hot day. 

For Jules, she was definitely questioning the food quality when she woke up Sunday with nausea and vomiting.  Nothing beats welcoming in a new week with the 24 hour flu.  Thankfully, her dad was wonderful and brought over an emergency supply of nausea meds she has not had to rely on since she was sick with the flu while in Seattle.  The upside to this is that she was able to take a sick day and have another shortened 3-day work week. 

Hillary and Alex have a tradition of going on a bike ride every summer.  We went out to Shawnee Mission Park to ride on one of my favorite trails.  It was an incredible summer evening, and we had an amazing ride.  The trail wasn’t too crowded, and it was a cooler evening.  We saw probably a dozen deer.  Johnson County deer are smaller than normal and don’t seem to mind people at all.  One of the highlights during this ride was seeing two dads out on the trail running with two kids on bikes and another in a stroller.  We thought these dads deserve some big bonus points.  The little girl asked for a drink so the dad squirted a water bottle in her mouth without stopping while she was biking and he was running—this is pretty hard core if you can’t even stop for a water break.  We overheard the dad telling the little girl “Hey, we got to keep rolling”—definitely a dad statement. 

Later on that week, our friend Deloris came while Hillary was staying with us.  To celebrate her arrival, Alex’s last day working at the indoor pool as a lifeguard, and summer in general we headed to Sonic for their summer special of half price shakes after 8pm.  Nothing is better than Sonic shakes and girl chat on a summer evening (it is also an added bonus that none of my friends like eating cherries which topped their shakes, so I got to enjoy multiple cherries on my shake.)

On Friday we attended A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Shakespeare in the Park to celebrate Jules’ birthday.  We packed a picnic of our favorite finger foods— pigs in a blanket, a veggie tray, and some fresh guacamole and chips.  We also felt very sophisticated as we pulled out our wine glasses- that’s right, we even packed some fine china for our picnic—and enjoyed some sparkling pink lemonade.  We took a small break in our picnic to do some people watching, which was pretty entertaining.  Our next course was mini fruit pizzas.  These looked incredible and tasted even better.  The ladies sitting next to us were pretty impressed and even asked for the recipe.  The play was a lot of fun—thankfully this year it was a comedy instead of a history or tragedy like it has been in the past.  During intermission we broke out our final surprise—caramel brownies.  (Side note: In the past the only time Hillary will make these brownies is for a treat after we run a half marathon.  It was very special to eat these brownies without having to go on a 13 mile run first.) 

The next morning we headed out to the Overland Park Arboretum.  We hiked the trails for awhile and tromped around the gardens.  The most threatening animal we saw in the wilderness of the arboretum was a rather large snapping turtle.  We never saw the body, but its head alone made it look menacing.  One parent we saw was cautioning his son about the large “piranhas” in the pond.  After this we couldn’t convince Hillary to stick her toes in the water—probably the large turtle was her reason for declining this invitation. For lunch we enjoyed picnic reruns which was great—there is just something special about eating outdoors, and all food tastes better—even leftovers.

That afternoon we decided to beat the heat with some shopping.  We went to the local thrift stores and set a $5 dollar budget with which everyone had to find an outfit for someone else to wear to dinner that evening.  We discovered the Jules has a real talent for picking out hideous dresses.  We found some great outfits and had several great laughs.  That evening we “dressed up” for our dinner (which happened to be take-out from the BBQ place down the street).  To top off the night, we had a girls’ movie night and watched New in Town and We Bought a Zoo—you have to love movies with guys in flannel and northern accents and anything with Matt Damon (this may be solely Alex’s opinion). 

Alas, all good things must come to an end, even this blog entry. 

Florida Fun (but not in the sun)

For the weekend of June 22^nd-25^th, four girls from Kansas decided to attend the Gospel Coalition Women’s Conference.  The speakers included Tim Keller, John Piper, Nancy Leigh DeMoss, and Carolyn Mahaney, among many other excellent individuals.  We also attended 3 workshops, although there were 19 different ones to choose from.  We were all very pleased to learn that the plenaries and workshops are available to listen to online.  You can even listen in Mandarin Chinese if you please.   

The information that we learned was very deep and instructive for our spiritual walks.  I was not able to attend the first 2 plenaries, so I have enjoyed catching up on those, as well as listening to some of the other workshops.  Keith and Kristyn Getty led us in worship with some rousing modern Celtic hymn arrangements.  Below is a link for one of my favorite songs we sang, which reminded us all what we will one day enjoy:  worshiping our Lord forever, face to face.

After our conference ended at noon on Sunday and some of us enjoyed naps, we decided to take the trolley to Sea World.  We had been enjoying our indoor surroundings while attending the conference since the tropical climate was blessing central Florida with an abundance of rainfall.  This meant we joined the other tourists in Orlando in using rain jackets, umbrellas, and ponchos.  I don’t think I have ever seen so many ponchos at one time.  However, there is only so much protection they can afford.  We discovered that after walking to the trolley stop and waiting in the rain for 20+ minutes, we were damp and cold.  The benefit of visiting Sea World in the rain is that we didn’t have to deal with very many other park attendees in rushing from show to show; we all got to see what we wanted to before  the park closed early due to inclement weather.  

After we got back to our hotel Sunday night, we were excited to enjoy our pizza delivered to the hotel.  No one wanted to venture back out in the pouring rain to get some dinner.  We watched some TV and decided to hit the sack.

Monday morning brought more rain and dashed our plans to see the beach, so we decided to take advantage of the concierge desk.  Note: if you ever need anything while staying in a hotel, the concierge is the best resource in getting directions, maps, discounted tickets, and advice on what to do when you have nothing else you can do b/c of the rain.  We took their advice and decided to take the trolley to an outlet mall.  After being drenched once again, we were relieved when the rain let up for a while so we could dart from store to store in search of bargains.

After our shopping expedition, we returned to the airport for our journey home.  We were excited to literally see some blue sky country, but we were not eagerly anticipating 100+ temps.  Despite experiencing lots of rain, the temps while we were in FL stayed in the 80s.  We never thought we would have to fly to “sunny” Florida to cool down. traveling to “sunny Florida,”

An All-American 4th of July

We enjoy celebrating holidays—even celebrating holidays that are obscure or making our own holidays up.  Basically we are always looking for any excuse to celebrate life.  This is maybe why we enjoy the 4^th of July—Jules likes it because she gets the day off from work and Alex is crazy about fireworks. 

And of course with any holiday there is delicious food involved.  To celebrate the birth of our nation we had an all-American smorgasbord of hot dogs, corn on the cob, baked beans, and root beer floats.  Having root beer floats means we can use the surplus of root beer stowed away in our pantry and pull out our beer stein mugs—after all, presentation is everything. 

Jules, however, deviated away from being patriotic by spending the afternoon watching a British TV series based on some of Charles Dickens work.  Alex was slightly appalled to listen to British accents all afternoon on such an American holiday—it almost seems sacrilegious.  When confronts Jules replied—well if it wasn’t for the British we wouldn’t be celebrating this country anyway.  Alex refrained from working on her quest to learn Spanish throughout the day because that just didn’t seem right. 

That evening we headed to watch the fireworks.  We parked on top of a parking garage so we could see the display.  The fireworks were pretty spectacular, and we even beat all the traffic afterwards due to some “gutsy” driving by Jules (some traffic signs may have been ignored for the sake of efficiency.  Really, why does a no u-turn sign exist when it is not an intersection where it could cause a problem to make a u-turn?  As Jules rambled earlier, “The people behind me probably think I’m driving like an idiot because I am.”  And people wonder why she is so quite; they don’t realize she is preventing all kinds of foolish comments from spilling out. ) We made it back just in time to see a little bit of A Capitol Fourth before heading to bed.  This is a yearly tradition and one of those things on our bucket list to go see in person sometime.  Going once would probably be enough, and then we would be content watching it on our TV sets at home without all the crowds.

How many KU grad students does it take to change a light bulb?

With this story the more appropriate question is how long does it take a grad student to change a light bulb.  The answer is longer than you would think.  One morning Alex and Jules woke up to find the light in the bathroom was burnt out.  (It seems like everything is going wrong with our bathroom lately.)  We had guests coming that evening so thought we should try and get it replaced.  That should be an easy enough task for Alex who had the afternoon off.  We even keep light bulbs on hand.  Of course the burnt out bulb was one of those new compact fluorescent bulbs (my question is why did it burn out if they are suppose to last up to 15 years).  It also didn’t screw into the fixture like normal light bulbs but had two prongs sticking out of the bottom.  (Please notice the complexity of this lighting situation as this story unfolds.)  I headed to the store in search of this unique light bulb.  After searching up and down the light bulb aisle numerous times I had no luck in finding a bulb with the prongy things sticking out.  Next I walked down to the local hardware store to ask professionals about the bulb.  The first guy looked at the bulb in puzzlement and stated that he had never seen anything like that before and then asked one of his co-workers about it.  The co-worker recognized it and knew they had two bulbs of this type in stock.  One of the cool things about these light bulbs (probably the only cool thing in my opinion) is it doesn’t matter if you match the wattages so I chose the higher wattage so our bathroom would be brighter.  I got back to the apartment and balanced precariously on the edge of the sink as I tried to replace the bulb.  The two prongs fit into the holes on the fixture and the bulb would light up but it wasn’t a secure fit so any movement would cause the light to flicker or go off.  I thought about using a rubber band or the handy woman’s secret weapon- duct tape- to get a more secure fit.  Anytime I tried to replace the light fixture cover it would turn off completely and the bulb was actually too big for the cover to fit back on correctly.  This meant another trek out to the hardware store to see if the other light bulb in stock would be the correct fit.  It was smaller but I still couldn’t get a constant connection- I tried putting this bulb in a number of different ways and was feeling very baffled that I couldn’t replace a light bulb by this time.  So I then turned to Google and YouTube.  I felt pretty stupid searching the phrase “how to replace a light bulb”.  I then noticed on the box that the model number of the bulb was listed.  (Sometimes I feel directions printed on boxes are just silly- hopefully you know to remove the pop tart from the wrapper before putting it in the toaster- but directions of how to replace this type of bulb would have been useful.  Instead they just give directions on how to throw the bulb away—I didn’t even know I needed a special technique to throw it away but since it contains mercury you do—just so you know.)  I googled the model number and actually found out more than I ever wanted to know about light bulbs and – drum roll please—how to replace them.  I jumped back up on the sink counter, twisted the bulb in the manner which the instructions gave, and wha-la there was light!  I felt almost as proud as if I had created light from darkness like God did during Creation.  So finally after over an hour and a half and lots of blood, sweat, and tears (literally sweat and blood and tears on the inside) I had finally replaced a light bulb.  Earlier in the week I had shelled out money for tuition and almost wanted a refund because apparently I’m not getting my money’s worth if I am struggling with light bulbs. I guess one thing I have learned to do in grad school is write pages and pages about nothing which means I can write an entire post about basic subject material like changing a light bulb.

Bringing Alaska to Kansas

The past week it has been hot-- really hot.  Triple digits about every day.  I can't tell you how many times this week alone I found myself daydreaming about spending my summer in a cooler locale-- such as Alaska.  I feel in love with Alaskan summers last year when I worked at a Bible camp just north of Juneau for 3 months.  This year I couldn't return to the land of the midnight sun because I have to take summer classes.  However, this past weekend I beat the heat with some really cool gals as we tried to recreate Echo Ranch Bible Camp in Kansas.  Two of my fellow counselors from camp last year happen to be from Kansas.  Since none of us were able to travel back to Alaska, Brittany, Kimberly, and I met up for a mini camp reunion weekend.  Last year throughout the summer we would talk about some of the things we were missing from Kansas-- sunsets and wheat fields-- but this weekend all we talked about was Alaska and camp.

We met up in Lawrence for the weekend (Brittany and Kimberly are both KU fans and I still love them despite of this-- even enough to go to Lawrence which I usually avoid like the plague).  We kicked off the weekend with s'mores.  Kim and I had a trial run with the s'mores before Britt arrived just to make sure they were up to par.  Nothing says camp like eating s'mores and having melted chocolate and marshmallow ooze out all over the place.  We then started watching the highlight videos from each week of camp-- there were 12 videos in all so we paced ourselves and watched a few at a time throughout the weekend.  It was so fun to relive these memories with these girls and also see our campers on the videos who we spent so much time with during the summer.  Throughout the weekend we switched back and forth between Alaskan time and Central time-- Kimberly even still has her watch set to Alaskan time.  So while it was really midnight we pretended it was only 9pm which is the time all the counselors can get on the internet at camp.  We were able to chat online with a few of the counselors we worked with last year and we tried to make everyone jealous that we were having a glorious weekend in Kansas-- it think they were especially jealous of the Kansas part. 

The next morning we got up and Kimberly whipped up some baked oatmeal for breakfast.  I think her sisters thought we were a little strange that we carried on about how excited we were during the hour we waited for it to bake.  Baked oatmeal was a treat a camp-- if you saw it on the menu you counted down the days until it was served all week.  Kimberly nailed it with this batch.  I have made it a couple of times in the past year and it has been good but maybe it is just 10 times better when eating it in the company of fellow Echo Ranchers.  Of course one of my favorite weekend activities in Alaska was hiking so next we headed off into the wilds on a hike.  We headed out to Clinton Lake for our trek.  The first bit of the trail was paved sidewalk but it progressively got more wildernessy until we found ourselves somewhere in the middle of the woods without a trail surrounded by what appeared to be a large amount of poison ivy.  At this point we were wishing we had on hiking pants and knee high boots instead of shorts.  However all of us escaped unscathed.  We meandered down to the water to walk along the beach.  I found a piece of drift wood which made my day-- one of my favorite past times at camp was sitting on some drift wood along the beach.  We also found some dead fish-- just like Alaska.  I will say the dead fish didn't stink to high heaven like they did at camp but there was probably only 5 instead of thousands washed up along the beach.  We found our way back to the trail and continued our leisurely hike.  At camp the guys usually insisted at hiking double time but since there were no guys with us we got to set a much more enjoyable pace which allowed for more chatting and enjoying the surroundings.  We eventually emerged from the woods and walked on the road down to the marina.  Sitting at a picnic table on the edge of the water we watched a few kayakers float by-- we were pretty jealous of them.  Instead of seals, eagles, and whales there was a blue heron. 

Later that afternoon we spent some time just floating around the pool.  The water was warmer than the frigid 40F that the ocean at camp was and we actually got to work on our tans.  As we were floating in the water relaxing it hit me that while it has been a year since we had all been together yet we were able to jump right back in to sharing life together-- this is always a sign of an incredible friendship if you can pick up right where you left off even though you haven't seen each other in ages.  At camp we were a family-- we spent three months living together in close quarters, working together, playing together, and serving together.  Christian community builds this type of strong bond because we are held together in our love for Him.  This summer we are also all sharing the experience of wanting to be in Alaska serving at camp.  Each day a piece of our hearts are at camp-- we are checking Facebook for any updates about activities at camp, if our campers from last year came back for another week of camp, how the staff is doing, thinking about the campers hiking around the cove or if pizza bagels are on the menu for lunch.  My friends and family have heard story after story about Alaska but it is wonderful to share these stories and memories with the people I made them with. 

That evening Kimberly's mom made us supper which was delicious and we sat around the table with several of Kimberly's sisters.  I don't have any sisters so it is always fun to watch how sisters interact with one another.  I can't imagine ever asking one of my brothers if my shoes went with my outfit.  Also we babysat that evening-- after all how could this weekend be complete without us taking care of at least one kid.  Luckily at camp the youngest campers were at least 7 year old while this little girls was 18 months.  I do better with older kids but she was so cute and a lot of fun.  To finish off our weekend we watched the DVD made for all of the counselors which recapped the entire summer-- have I mentioned that there were so many wonderful memories.  We headed out to watch a Kansas sunset since that's something we really missed in Alaska.  However, the sunset was not one of Kansas' best but actually looked like an Alaskan sunset.  We also went out to get some frozen yogurt-- a perfect treat for a summer evening. 

Sunday morning we had baked oatmeal again-- it is one of those foods that is just as good as leftovers as it is the first time around.  We then attended church with Kimberly's family.  To end the weekend by worshiping together was special.  We reminisced about attending church each Sunday in a barn at camp.  I love the fact that no matter where I am in this world or who I am with if two or three are gathered in His name His presences is there.  Kimberly introduced us as her Alaskan friends even though Brittany and I are both native Kansans.  While at times I would love to go back to Alaska for another summer at Echo Ranch I am so thankful that God blessed me with the opportunity last summer to serve Him in a beautiful place with some wonderful people and that I made amazing friendships with these Sisters in Christ. 

A month in pictures- part 3

For the last part of my so-called summer break I (Alex) headed back to my hometown which I always look forward to-- who doesn't love going home?

1. Something in the kitchen

Don't these look good enough to eat?  Nothing beats the bright reds of a bowl full of strawberries.  Many of you probably know how I feel about things in the kitchen in general.  The best part about strawberries is that most of the work is done outside where I enjoy being much more.  I have grown up picking strawberries every May since I was knee high to a grasshopper.  It is just family tradition to pick berries together during the last couple weeks of May.  This year I about missed it though.  Due to the very warm spring my mom started picking strawberries in late April-- this is unheard of.  Luckily I made it home in time to pick the last few berries of the season.  Beyond the experience of picking the berries (I usually eat at least one for every three or four that end up in my bucket), it is also a great opportunity to spend time connecting with others.  I invited one of my friends who just happens to be my neighbor over for the evening and enlisted her to help me pick (that's right I invite people over and put them to work-- maybe I should work on my hostess skills).  We had a great time chatting as we were picking.  Later that evening my mom and I convened around the kitchen to stem and freeze the strawberries.  I have many great memories of the family gathering around with strawberry juice running down our arms as we stay up late into the night to put up our harvest.  Of course in addition to picking strawberries there is the pleasure of eating strawberries.  One of my favorite breakfasts is waffles covered in fresh strawberries and whipped cream-- amazing. 

2. A number

I guess I could say 4 is my favorite number and it is also my favorite lane on the track.  In high school if you had the fastest time coming into the race then you usually started in lane 4.  This probably wasn't my start lane for many races but I remember in grade school when I would go down to the track run I would always pick lane 4-  at the time I didn't realize I was running farther each lap around the track but that didn't matter.

3. Nature

There is just something about a golden field of wheat.  While I was home wheat harvest started-- Memorial day weekend.  Yet again this is unheard but due to the warm spring it ripened up early.  I didn't grow up on a farm or have ever been directly involved in harvest there is still an excitement and anticipation that runs throughout the entire community during wheat harvest.

4. Something historic

I already wrote a blog about my adventure through southeast Kansas but here is a picture from watching the presidential motorcade when President Obama visited Joplin, Mo.

5. Adventure

As usual, I'm always on the lookout for my next adventure.

6. Noon

Throughout this picture challenge I really had no idea how to take a picture to capture "noon".  I just happened to be across the street from this courthouse then the clock struck 12pm.  For some reason this picture reminds me of the movie "Back to the Future".