We had a fun time at girls' craft night at Karena's house. Everyone completed at least one project, and some a few. This is a group photo we took at the end of the night as we were packing up with our little creations. One of mine has some bad reflection here, but I have a few more photos below that show you a close-up of my projects. Cassie covered some canvases with fabric that she is going to arrange on her wall. Courtney created some throw pillows starting with place mats. Sarah made a picture frame with some corks. Jessie painted wooden letters spelling her name and a picture frame with glittery paint. Karena painted two nice canvases. She's quite talented with the brush. She found things she liked online and recreated them.
This was my first project. I brought one of my old folders from school and cut out the main part. I stapled some scrap fabric with stars on it to a canvas. Then, I glued the Harry Potter picture on top. A slightly nerdy wall decor piece, but I like it.
As I finished the first one, I decided I'd try painting a little on a canvas. I'm not so talented, but I had seen a really cool canvas with some books painted on it while in Texas. This is a much simpler version, but not too shabby.
Been a crafty past couple of weeks. You may remember the crayon art project I worked on last week with Sarah and Cassie and my photo to canvas transfer. I worked on another photo transfer. I used a color photo this time and went for a more distressed look. I didn't paint the gel over the whole flat of the canvas this time. Pretty much how I envisioned it.
Spent much of my afternoon on Saturday transferring some files, final packing ideas, and helping Kyle set up his blog while he is Micronesia. If you are interested in checking out his blog, here is a link: Kyle In Chuuk. As I was helping set his up, I was reminded that I should add the little "follow by e-mail" thing to my blog. On the right hand side, you can type in your e-mail if you want notifications when new posts are made. This is also available on Kyle's blog. He is probably not going to post as much as I did while teaching abroad, but I think his goal is to maybe shoot for once a week for now. We shall see. Here's Kyle with his backpack loaded up. He also filled a huge duffle bag, weighing in at 48 lbs, and took his laptop bag.
We had a nice dinner Thursday night including some steak for them boys. Here you can see some caprice Sarah put together on fresh baguette with tomato, mozzarella, and basil. yummmy.
Here's my plate at dinner including some caprice, green beans, broccoli, fresh kale chips, white potatoes, and sweet potatoes. Mmm. I love me some sweet potatoes. All of it was great. This happened to be Joe's birthday dinner/supper and Kyle's last dinner.
We took some photos outside after dinner. Here's the Eagen family, including the dogs.
This was everyone at dinner including Cassie, myself, and Andy (another M'side swimmer). We took a funny photo, and I think it is hilarious.
We kept trying to get a ladies' picture, but the boys were struggling with my camera. The best one we got was this one where we are all laughing. I enjoy it, though.
We also enjoyed a little angel food cake and leftover homemade ice cream for dessert after while. I had baked the angel food cake around lunch time. Delightful.
We all woke up bright and early and loaded up at 4:30am to take Kyle to the airport. Our good friend Matt, who was Kyle's roommate for several years at Morningside had sent me a message the night before saying he was going to try and meet us at the airport, but I should not tell anyone. It was a nice surprise for the Kyle and his family. Gotta love having good friends like that. Kyle's plane took off at 6am. He flies Omaha to Denver to Honolulu to Guam to Chuuk, Micronesia. Crossing time zones, Kyle will be 13 hours ahead of us here in Central Time.
Went out for girls lunch with Sarah, Cassie, and Nancy at "Egg and I". The only one of us who had been there before was Sarah. Yay for new experiences. Cassie and I shared some french toast and an Athena scramble. After hanging out with the girls for a bit more, I headed East toward Iowa City to visit one of my mentors.
Dr. Rachel Robson was my Microbiology professor at Morningside, and I was so thankful for her challenging us the way she did in class. I learned a lot from her and really enjoyed getting to know her. She was also one of the professors that went along on the Ecuador trip in 2009. She has recently accepted a position teaching at Saba University of Medicine, which is located on a small island of the Netherlands. The island makes up 5 square miles of space in the Caribbean. Apparently this year is the year to go teach on small islands. ;-) Her husband has also taken a position to teach at the school, and they move on August 2nd. I am very excited for the two of them, and their students will be lucky to have them. I wanted to chat with her in person one more time before she left.
Made my way over there and met up at her apartment. One of her current students from Morningside was working with her at the University of Iowa on a research project through a summer program there. It turns out it is actually a further extension of a project myself and a fellow student began working on my sophomore year of college. They've done some cool stuff with the phage therapy research. He was currently over working on their presentation to be delivered on Monday. Quinton became a member of the Biological Honor Society while I was still a student at Morningside and had participated in some SERVE projects.
All three of us headed to a Thai restaurant for dinner, where Robson ordered everything vegetarian style for me. Not only was this Quinton's first Thai experience, but he was getting everything veggie style. My favorite parts included the pad thai and the Thai iced tea. We also had some soup including mushrooms and curry with pineapple. All yummy. Cultural experiences! I may have had some Thai food in the past, but I can't put my finger on exactly where.
Heading on this visit, I knew my brain would be engaged in some intellectually stimulating conversations. That's how it is with Robson. I keep up for the most part, and I always learn something new. Intellectual conversations we sure did have and each minute was fun. Robson also gave me a little tour of the downtown area, where we hung out for a bit.
Woke up around 8am Sunday morning for a little coffee and some Greek yogurt as we had planned to attend service at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon). Robson had met a few guys serving their mission in the area one day, and she told them how she admired what they did. It takes a lot of courage to knock on doors, get doors shut in your face, and try to tell people about your religion. Robson does not affiliate with any denomination, but she finds religious studies very interesting like myself. She had offered to take me, and of course I said yes. From discussions with her, I learned that the LDS church is a bit more progressive than I had pictured. The service was also very interesting. We also attended a little Gospel Principles class afterward. Glad I had the opportunity for this experience. If you are curious to learn more about it, just let me know.
I headed out of town after that and after I got going on the Interstate for a little while, I decided to have a little lunch. I ate at place called the Pine Cone Restaurant, where I enjoyed a few buttermilk pancakes and a couple glasses of ice tea. West I went and circled down around the East side of Des Moines down a road I traveled many times while living in Ankeny my first summer while working at the zoo. The zoo was my destined point in Des Moines. I worked as a summer camp counselor at The Blank Park Zoo the summer of 2011. I really enjoyed that job and had some great experiences. I had been following some updates on construction taking place at the zoo, and I wanted to see the changes.
Pulled in and gave myself a little one hour tour of the zoo. Saw the updated exhibits including the sea lion pool and the rhinos in the African pavilion. Lots of new signage had also gone up over the past few years. Lots of reminiscing as I made my way around the zoo. I also ran into one of my former co-workers, Paige. She also worked as a counselor the summer I did and actually was the camp coordinator this past year. She has been doing some volunteering with the zoo keepers, as well, in hopes of becoming on herself. She is particularly interested in small mammals.
After my zoo visit, I headed to Gray's Lake Park. It's pretty easy to get to, but I didn't need any directions. I may not have een there in 2 years, but my general bearings were still intactI laid out on the beach for about an hour. Then, I decided to go on a run around the lake. I had walked around it in the past and went for the jog this time. Felt good.
Headed back to Omaha after that so I could sleep in my bed after a full weekend. Enjoyed every minute of it and glad I made the trip.
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