the 20th annual Wyss Family Vacation

Every year since 1987, Grandma and Grandpa have taken the whole family on vacation for a week. We've been a lot of places. Missouri, Michigan, Indiana, Colorado, Kentucky. Some nice resorts, some dives. We've had years where we had plenty of room, and years when the resort overbooked and the boys got to stay in the manager's apartment. Years where we had a lake a boat and jetskis and a pool. It has rained, and stormed, and been beautiful. There was the year Clayton broke his leg. The year that Austin and Neal got mug shots by Junior the cop in Podunk Missouri. And the year there was a car accident right up the rode that half the family responded too. We have a doctor, 3 nurses, and 2 EMT's on staff. Grandma and Pearline make a huge breakfast every morning (if you get up before 10). No one cares if you stay up until 3 am playing Rook, drinking way too much pop, eating junk, and watching movies. But if you try to wake us up before 10- watch out. And almost every year everyone has been there. This year we were missing 7 out of a possible 48 people. Some people need to get their priorities in order. :)

This year was fun as usual. Most of the adults and the little kids were in two nice condos. The guys were in a very 'vintage' cabin right next to the cabin us girls stayed in. They were clean, but definitely circa 1960's. It was great. We were also far enough away from everyone else that we didn't get woken up at crazy early hours of the morning, i.e. before 10. We played rook and watched movies and somehow Abby and I spent an hour lost in Michigan. We were going to go rent the long version of Pride and Prejudice but didn't get directions to town, so we drove around for a while and then realized that neither of us had any ID to rent a movie with anyway. So we went back and played more Rook.

Neal, Austin and I on the very first vacation in 1987. Aren't we sooo cute? And check out Neal's stylin hair cut. :)





1989- we could all fit around 1 table!







1990- The first of many group shots.








1992- Indiana Beach
Hm...Dad isn't in any of these pictures because he had the camera.



2000- the Ozarks











2004- the last time everyone was there for the picture. Someplace in Missouri.

So that's vacation. Blessings.

Leaving...

For Michigan! My fam is already there, but I had to at least stay for Bob's testimony. They all were good. And there were a ton of people at Rassi's afterwards. :) Good times!

I got to bed kind of late.....

Blessings.

Things I've learned in the last few days

• Being at your sibling's testimonies is really weird.
• 5 baptisms means TONS of people will show up!
  (and the Kaebs will turn out- not quite like the Weigands, but still)
• It's a good thing I don't sit by Jakey every Sunday.
• I can sing tenor, bass, and soprano better than him.
• His shoes do not match his tie.
• God is bigger than the boogie man.
• And Matt's farmer tan didn't show.
• No one comes to work on the day before a holiday.
• Getting paid for not going to work is great!
• Spending the afternoon of the 4th laying in the sun by a pool is glorious, but rather painful the next day.
• To much sun makes me sleepy, and not very conducive to a large 4th of July Bash.
• Eureka fireworks....at Aunt Madelyn's....good times.
• Is an up to code septic system too much to ask for?
  
• I might actually have to use Young's modulus at work- I think I might die of shock!

Anyway, next week is the Wyss vacation!! Woot!
Blessings.

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.

stuff

So my life is pretty boring right now. I have been sitting around a lot. :)
Wednesday night Gab and Matt and I went to Tremont to surprise Nic for his birthday. That was pretty fun...specially since I haven't seen Gab in waaay too long. Ok, so it's maybe been only 2 weeks, but still! And there were lots of U of I/ Mexico people there and it was wonderful to see them all again.
I was actually home on a Friday night to go to a Washington YG thing! It was good, but there are a lot of new people so it felt different. A good different, but different none the less.
I might head to the library today...have to check out this Wheel of Time series I keep hearing about. ;) Hm...maybe not today they might be closed. Anyway.
Blessings.

there and back again

So I went to Kansas this past weekend with Matt and Shelly for Scott's graduation. We managed to not get lost or fall asleep. And we made it in about 6.5 hours both ways. Even though on the way home we sat in traffic for a half hour.

We "helped" Aunt Karen get ready for Scott's graduation party. Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Pearline went early Friday morning and pretty much had everything under control. Or at least not quite as chaotic as normal. Grandma took care of the cleaning and food and Grandpa checked everyone's oil and fixed faucets and things. Scott and Matt and I went to Robeks and saw Nate and got smoothies. Good times. We got to go to a Kansas City YG thing and looked at old Christmas cards and played some Rook until late on Saturday night. We left church early to get to the graduation in time- a good thing because Uncle Randy wasn't sure where the arena was so we ended up driving around downtown Kansas City for a while. :) I like KC. People have roses blooming already! I'm so jealous. Blue Valley HS is a lot bigger than Eureka! So graduation took that much longer. But I got to sit by Kim and Brock. And they had Jackstack for supper.

Today I slept in pretty late...whoops. I spent most of the afternoon cleaning the garage so I wasn't totally lazy. It was nasty. And I killed so many spiders and stink bugs. *shudder* It was horrible. And found 3 dead mice in various states of decomposition. Ick. At least it's clean now. And it's summer.

My two ash trees survived the drought last summer! They have leaves!! I'm so excited.

the rest of wednesday

Was actually pretty eventful. The water was off and on all day, hopefully it's on now for good.

I decided to get some exercise after lunch and ride my bike over to Aunt Lori's, see the baby, and give the little girls some of the stuff that I had just cleaned out of my drawers. So since my bike has a perpetual flat tire I took Mom's. I put a little air in the tires because it hasn't been ridden all winter and grabbed a backpack full of 'treasures' for the girls and left. Their house is about 3 miles from ours and I had ridden about two when I heard a bang. It took me a second to realize where it came from and why my front tire was suddenly hissing at me. Thankfully, it happened right in front of Brookside Landscaping, where my lil brother is working this summer. Sooo I just walked it down the hill and left it in the bed of his truck and kept walking to Lori's. I'm sure I looked hilarious with my backpack and rolled up jeans. I looked at the baby and then my uncle gave me a ride home.

When I got home I found out that Mom had invited some of Dad's old buddy's to church and then to our house to surprise him on his birthday. We had to clean quick, but not make it look like the house was clean, and then Jake was supposed to make it look nice while we were at church. And our kitchen is written all over. Anyway, he was surprised and we had lots of cake and as everyone was milling around getting ready to leave, I went to put away the extra silverware. And there was a mouse in the drawer. And I screamed. It was kind of funny...but now we have a mouse in our kitchen- the only one I've ever seen that wasn't carried in by my uncle. Mom's a little nervous about opening the drawers and Dad just dug out a bunch of traps. Good times.

Trogdor is on the wall.

The demon cow and some of his vast arsenal.

Yeah....

None of us are that tall...so we'll never no what we're missing.

The plaster is um, cracking, and its 1941.

The Hobbit, Moby Dick, and the Declaration.

*grin*

Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink

Happy 50th birthday dad!

The water pump is broken. So...no water. Good times. Thank goodness for good neighbors with hot showers. :)

We still don't have wallpaper in the kitchen. And those blank walls are just sooo tempting. So last night Jake (he started it) and I were drawing pictures and writing quotes all over the walls. It's pretty funny stuff. My favorite is below the light switch- "Beauty is just a light switch away." We also have the first line of the Hobbit running across the soffit. I think we should just leave it, call it "Early American Unfinished," and be done. Although the cow-demon and the 'we don't call 911' sign might raise some eyebrows. *grin*

Blessings.

Home

Finals are over! Yay! Now I'm just waiting on grades...ick.

I got a job working for a professor- I'll be in his research group next year and this summer I'll just be doing random things. The best part is that I can do it all from home! So I can work and lay out at the same time....probably not, but technically I could.

Mom and Dad came to Champaign yesterday to help me move back. We tried to look around in the new alumni center. It was very crowded. Then they took me out for lunch and Mom and I went to the mall for a while. We were almost ready to leave for home, but mom wanted to get some stuff for Grandma at Bath and Body works and I was hungry. So she left me and I got in line at Auntie Anne's behind three African American women. I'm standing there, minding my own business when another black lady walked by and yelled several obscenities at the three women standing in front of me. Which they returned....so they are standing about 25 ft apart dropping the B-word and "my sista whipped y'alls butt two months ago" and something about a baby-daddy. (This is the point at which I started slowly backing up out of line...inching closer to the people sitting in the cafe tables in front of Auntie Anne's) They were being very loud and obnoxious and this white guy (40's or 50's) sitting at one of the tables looks right at me and says "make them shut up!" I was slightly shocked since a) I'm a little white chick b) there's no way I'm getting in the middle of that. So then the security guards come, at which point the white guy, with the danger of him getting beat gone, decides to yell at the top of his lungs "Shut the f- up!" Dropped the f-bomb. In the middle of the mall. In front of me. I was too shocked to say anything then but later I wanted to go chew him out, first for not being man enough to do anything without the security guards there and secondly for saying the f-word pretty much in my ear. What kind of a guy does that with ladies present. And little kids all around. Anyway. I got back in line and got my jalepeno pretzel and that was my exciting story for the day.

How to survive finals week

1. Numerous trips to the B.P. for Polar Pops- 32 oz of Dr. Pepper for 59 cents- pure heaven.
2. Dove Milk Chocolate.
3. Random MSN conversations.
4. Dr. Pepper.
5. iTunes.

*sigh* 3 down, 2 to go.

I missed the ACS project, but I hear that my lil brother's video created quite a stir. :)

The calm before the storm

I have four finals this week and they are all going to be pretty hard. Not fun.

I got to go to singing at the home in Washington for the first time in a long time. I was excited to see my kindergarten teacher there...but it was sad when I talked to her, she is pretty much gone and she is so young. And Easter, an older lady that used to come in to Lindy's, is there now because she broke something. She was singing along with every song. And afterwards random Kansas people started showing up including Ned at 5am. :)

I was going to study on Saturday but I ended up cleaning out and putting away and digging in my rose bed. Saturday night was jazz night at the high school. Good times...I miss jazz band. And I got to see a bunch of my little trumpets. They're all grown up now. It's been a long time since I was the trumpet goddess.

And instead of studying Gab and I have been talking to Karen for a loong time. :)
Blessings.

Pie and things

It's been a good last week of class. Now I just have a week of finals to look forward too. Ick.

Monday night our house was invited to Saltshaker for supper. They made lasagna, and it was actually really good! Not that I had any doubts....

Tuesday I forgot about a test and then I made pie and then I felt better. We had a bunch of leftover pie crust from the invite, and mom sent me some rhubarb so I made a strawberry-rhubarb pie. And I had an extra can of peaches and still more crust so I made a peach pie too. Including the pie left over from the invite, we had three pies in the house. I don't like our oven. The dials don't have numbers on them, so we have to guess how hot it is. So I put the pie in for 45 minutes. When I came back to check on them both the living room and the kitchen were pretty much full of smoke. One of them cooked over in the oven and they were both getting a little crispy. *sigh* I never have these problems at home.

Gab wanted to have the guys involved in forgetting the pie in the oven at Wayne and Char's over to eat the extra peach, and then we felt bad just inviting certain people and we had 3 pies so we invited 301, Shaker, 711 and Scott. So at 10pm we had a bunch of guys descend on our house for pie and ice cream. It was amusing- there were a lot of people in our house and the girl to guy ratio was extremely small. I'm so glad it worked out though, definitely a good time and our porch light got changed. :)

So today was the last day of classes. Hooray!! And my last day of work. Not so exciting, I'm going to miss the greenhouse. If I'm not too busy next year I might go back. It was also the last Wednesday night in Champaign for a while. I'm going to miss the church here over the summer. Laura and Heather came to visit Gab, and we went to custard cup after church and then went to hang out with Carissa at the Shaker. And then we came home kind of early, and I'm told we missed a water fight (O darn....haha). But I said I would make an egg casserole for the senior breakfast tomorrow, so I had to go home and do that. :) We didn't have all the ingredients for any one recipe soooo I kinda made up mine own- hope it tastes ok. And Karen and Kat and Gab were definitely dancing to Usher in the kitchen while I made it. Funny stuff!

One more week. Blessings.