My boss and I decided today that people who don't do chemistry for a living might be happy...but it isn't very likely.

*grin*

Guess who just got her FOID card???

*grin*

I miss Champaign more than I thought. It was so good to be there this weekend and hang out with so many good friends. I met Gab and Bob and Nic in Goodfield Saturday evening; it was an enjoyable drive down to Chambana. Although I don't know if the guys appreciated our music selection since half of the songs we played have inside jokes or stories between Gab and I attached to them. O well, they wouldn't pick anything.

We met up with Mike and Joanna and spent an hour or so wandering around downtown Champaign taking in the sights and window 'shopping'. There was a really cool Book shop that I want to go check out sometime... Then we went to Perkins and Naz and EZ and Mogs showed up.

I miss Naz! Even though he knows too much about everything and comes over at random hours, he's fun to have around. :) So I'm glad he'll still be next door next year and I'm sure he'll come over to visit Ash a lot.

Erin and Dusty's wedding was great. It was fun to be in Champaign church again! And Erin's dress and her bridesmaids dresses were so cool! So another successful wedding.

After the reception a bunch of us went to Dos Reales for supper (I like DR, but I think somebody needs a new favorite restaurant-either that or someone else should pick ;) ). Kat, Heidi, Gab, and I got there before the guys did and we sat every other seat...it's kind of sad that we have to make a conscious effort to desegregate. :) O well, it was good times and there was a cool rainbow out the window.

And then we came back home and I was very tired and went to bed.
Blessings.

It's Friday!!

I love Friday!

It was a good week. I spent the night with Heidi and got too little sleep. And we didn't even finish the Notebook. We had fun though.

I made some fluffy white polymer in the lab today!!! I was excited. And sorry, since we're still in the developing stages, it will not be possible to process your orders at this time. Plus I would charge you a mint for it so unless you feel like financing my college education, (all you taxpayers are already paying most of my salary) I would advise you check out one of the fine furniture stores in your area.

I'm camping out tonight in Congerville. And tomorrow evening I'm going to Champaign for Erin's wedding. :) My boss was extremely surprised at the number of weddings that I am invited to.

Blessings.

Weddings and Things

This week has been so good. I really, really, really, like my job. :) All I do is watch reactions cook for six hours, and take viscosity measurements every 2 hours, and read a book in between. The annual lab picnic was on Friday. Free lunch and lots of good food. I made apple pie and my boss's little girl loved it. :)

I went to Morton's bible school with Gab Tuesday and Friday night. Friday I dragged my brother along because Bob and Nic and Tim were going to be there. We went to Taryn's afterwards but we didn't stay very late cause I was pretty tired. I miss Gab. I even miss her laughing at me.... hehe.

Mindy got married today. It was a little weird...but fun. Her dress was gorgeous, the food was good, and they're married so I guess it was a success. Most of my memories of Mindy involve father's day at Uncle Roy's pond with her and sometimes AJ and Caleb. And Christmas at the Christian church going every where we weren't supposed to go. :)

I also heard today that Alan Banwart's dad passed away...if you all could keep him and his family in your prayers I'm sure it would be appreciated.

Abs is here for Katelyn and Jordan's wedding tomorrow. :) I think I will be tired of weddings by the end of the summer.

Oooo...and I finally got my hair trimmed. Woot. It's all about the little things..... :)
Blessings.

Bushes and Kansas and Labs, oh my!

I didn't think I was busy this summer, but I kind of am! Although last week my biggest accomplishment was trimming the bushes....and I bribed my cousins with Bible School money to help me. (I gave them money to give at Bible School....I didn't steal it and then bribe them- just to clarify)

And I went to Bern/Sabetha with the Bible Class, it was a good time! Kansas girls are definitely hostesses with the mostesses. :) And they're pretty cool too! So thanks Lindsay, and Maggie, and Anna it was great! The ride home got a little long with so many high schoolers, but I survived.

Monday morning I started my summer job at the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research. Or NCAUR, the USDA Lab, the Ag lab, etc. It has been so much fun so far! I have an office....and a desk...crazyness. It's kind of scary because Dr. Ken keeps giving me jobs and leaving me. And I have to keep a real lab notebook. Yesterday I uninhibited a bottle of Glycidyl Methacrylate.....it says "harmful" right on the bottle. Tomorrow I start running reactions (by myself) trying to turn soybean oil into office chairs. Good stuff. They had a safety fair today and I got a free NCAUR laptop case for playing 'safety poker'. I like my job. :) Still not used to the early mornings though....sigh.

Blessings.

You know you're a chem major...

...when fireflies don't blink, they fluoresce.

Jake's burn story

So...Jake's burn story. He was camping with some of his friends last Saturday night, and they all had to go to ACYF day in Bloomington the next morning. So their host's parents told them they had to be in bed by midnight. I guess they were playing with gas and fire all night, including spearing an empty pop can with a hotdog stick and pouring gas over the campfire to watch the fireball. Very dumb, but they are 17 year old males, and it doesn't surprise me.

Sometime after midnight (willfully disobeying their curfew) they chased a ground hog or something similar into a hole. It had two openings so they decided to smoke it out. Jake, Fred, and Justin were in charge of making the smoke, and Dan was at the other end with a shotgun.

They had some newspaper down in the hole, and they decided that it would light better if it was soaked with gasoline. You would think that anybody with half a brain would not be stupid enough to throw a match down a hole with straight gas at the bottom. Or at least stand a short distance away. But no, all three were right up around the hole and of course it flared up. All three got burnt, one lost all the hair on his arms, but his shaggy hair saved his face. Jake has whisker marks from shutting his eyes.

So then, instead of going into the house and getting medical attention, they decided that they didn't want to get in trouble for being up past midnight and just splashed some lake water on their 2nd degree burns and spent the rest of the night in the woods. They did go up to the shed to get steel brushes to brush the burnt hair out so they didn't have to smell it!?

Jake showed up for ACYF day the next morning and one of the Bible class teachers, who is a Doctor, told him to go back home and keep it cold and moist. He got him some burn cream to put on it too. So he's been sitting around the house watching DVD's on my laptop for a few days. It looks a little bit better now, he still looks like he's wearing war paint. :) Or a butterfly. And he has to wrap his head in bandages before he goes to bed.

Leo

So it was a good weekend. Visiting the Klopfenstein's is always a blast. I went out Friday afternoon and took my sister and Adam and Haley Herman with me, so Shelly and Haley got to talk in the back seat and Adam and I just ignored them. They just put their jet ski's on the river, so I got to ride them and swim...and got a little more tan. Testimonies were great, Abby was pretty funny. :)
Saturday night there were 35 people, all family, who spent the night at Rita's. It was kinda crazy. 10 boys on the floor in the basement, 5 girls in the living room, at least 2 people in every bedroom, 5 people in a camper, and 3 bathrooms. Abby and I were going to sleep on the dock, but we decided that it would be a lot of work to get an air mattress and sleeping bags through the woods. So we slept on the dining room floor. I was glad for my bed last night when we got home.
I set a personal record on the way home, total trip time was 4:40. We beat both Lori and Herb's and Grandpa's carloads home somehow. They both stopped, but Lori's left at least an hour before we did. I also experienced another first- Haley left her book in my car and we saw them on the way home and Matt passed it out the window to them as we drove. And Gab was there! Hehe. I was excited. :)
And Jakey's got second degree burns on his face because he was try to smoke out a rodent with gas and newspaper. *sigh* Males.
Anyway.
Blessings.

water and birthdays and cookies and fire

It's been a fun week. I washed my car and then somehow got involved in a waterfight with my little cousins. It was pretty funny, they haven't quite figured out how to throw water without throwing the entire bucket. I was only wet from the waist down because they can't pour any higher than that. :)
Tuesday night I got to hang out with U of I/Mexico people for J-nelle's birthday party. We went to Feista Ranchero for supper, hung out at the fishbowl, watched Janelle and Amber play bocci ball in the living room and Sarah and I sang random songs. Good times.
Yesterday Heidi and I decided to bake cookies at 9:00 at night. The oven was smoking a little because her mom had spilled butter in the bottom of the oven, but we didn't think anything of it. But when we put the cookies in, it started on fire! There were pretty tall flames leaping out of the oven, and no fire extinguisher, so Heidi put it out with a glass of water. :) We definitely set off the smoke alarm and filled the house with smoke. (Why does this always happen to me?) So we switched to the downstairs oven and made some that weren't charbroiled and took them to Luke's new duplex for a house warming present.
I'm leaving for Abby's baptism in Leo in an hour or so...yay! Aunt Rita's house is going to be full of family! Hopefully their pool isn't freezing. :)
Blessings.