Michiana Festivities

This past weekend was the Venetian Festival in St. Joseph, Michigan (about 35 minutes from South Bend). We had heard good things about it and decided to check it out. We went Saturday evening with the Behling's and ended up parking over a mile away from the beach where it was held. As we were walking to the beach, Kevin spotted some LDS missionaries coming out of a house. He mentioned it in passing to us. One of our friends decided she wanted to talk to the missionaries and turned around-- turns out one of the missionaries was her cousin! Small world! Anyways, the Venetian Festival wasn't all it was talked up to be. The beach was beautiful and looked like it belonged in California rather than Michigan, but the actual festival was mostly food stands and a small carnival. Even worse, they made you purchase food tickets for the stands. We ended up standing in line for food tickets and another hour in the food stand lines to pay $7 for a gyro or small portion of barbecue! It was a total rip-off! By the time we got done eating, the sun had set and we only had an hour before the fireworks started. We wandered around the festival but weren't impressed. But the beach was great. We found a nice spot to view the fireworks, and Kevin dug us out a nice little couch in the sand. The fireworks were fantastic! They lit them off the pier over Lake Michigan and had a half an hour show. Next time, we'll just go for the fireworks.

We had an early celebration of Kevin's birthday on Sunday. The Behling's and Janetski's came over, and we played games and had cake and ice cream. Happy birthday, Kevin!! Also, congratulations to Michael and his fiancee! This week is going to be a very eventful week with lots of visitors. I have a friend from BYU coming with his parents and family to spend the night on their way to Maryland. And Kevin's mom and aunt are coming next week. Yeah for visitors! I thought August would be uneventful, but things keep piling on. Kevin's work is very busy with so many people gone on vacations or calling in "sick." He's decided he'd like to get his MBA while here, so he's gearing up for the GMAT. My work is still keeping me busy 24-7. I'm liking it though. And Riley is as cute as ever. He's still growing as fast as ever and keeps us very busy. Hope everyone enjoys what's left of the summer- it's going fast!

Support Drew

Some friends from back home have been going through some very tough times. Their 7 year old son was diagnosed with cancer this past spring. Check out their website for Drew at www.drewsfight.org and help support Drew.

Happy Fourth and Such

Hope everyone had a good Fourth of July. We went to the Transformers movie- it's a good brainless action movie that's enjoyable to nostalgic cartoon and toy fans. We still can't figure out why the Decepticons turn into cool useful military objects like F-16's, tanks, and black hawks while the good guys are objects like sports cars and diesels. Oh well. We had a barbecue with three other couples and enjoyed the night stuffing ourselves and talking. None of us felt like chipping in money to buy personal fireworks, even though you can have all the fun kinds here in Indiana. In fact, the laws here are so loose, that you can buy and use fireworks all year round. And it certainly seems like people around here intend to do just that. At least a month before the Fourth, the fireworks began and are still going on every night. The Fourth was crazy here. It felt and sounded like we were in a war zone. The percussions and sounds of the personal fireworks were strong enough to rattle your bones and light up the sky. The light from the fireworks weren't even dimmed by the thick layer of smoke that filled the street and lasted for two days. It was quite the experience for a girl used to desert bans on fireworks where sparklers were even considered a hazard. All in all, it was a good holiday although I still had to work.

I've been working 6-7 days a week now. My lab work is starting to really heat up and requires me to spend more time there. Growing malaria parasites is a lot like having another pet that you have to feed and check up on daily. It could be worse- our lab tech came in to work on the Fourth too. She only stayed for a few minutes before leaving because she wasn't feeling well. Well, she was nine months pregnant and ended up having the baby at 11:56 pm that day! She's quite the workaholic. She sent out an e-mail from her hospital room at 11:30 pm as the doctor was trying to take her to the delivery room. She kept telling him to wait while she finished the e-mail. Both mom and baby are doing great.

I spent last Tuesday through Friday in Bloomington, IN for some meetings. It was a lot of sitting and listening- 18 hours of it! I must be getting older because half way through the meetings my lower back started to really cramp up, and I had a hard time getting up and down. The meetings were alright, and I had a great time with my labmates. I missed Kevin and Riley, but both seemed fine when I got back. Kevin had taught Riley to shake hands and crawl in the four days I was gone!

Riley is as cute as ever. He's big and can now outrun us both. He's getting a little more headstrong but is still a good dog. He's lost most of his baby teeth. Just a few more to go. More later!