From Tree to Pie

This my friends is determination! Sadly however, the picture is staged and we didn't even keep the apple he grabbed.

So the question is, why are we picking apples? Don't worry it was not some sort of service project, I would have never agreed to that. It is still a little too hot for me and after this past summer I have realized that manual labor is not for me.
The reason that we found ourselves in this apple orchard is because Sterling wanted to make an apple pie and I wanted to eat one. Actually Sterling heard about it twice at school and I heard about it at church thus we figured it must be a place to visit. So last week Saturday right before our weekly grocery shopping trip we went to the orchard to get some apples.

So this is how it works. You grab a bucket, look at the map of what type of apple you want and then you start walking. Easy enough, or so you would think. Now come the complications.

When it comes to types of apples I like, there is one and it is Gala. Sterling on the other hand likes certain varieties more than others but is at least willing to try others. As you can see then, our picking agendas were different. I was "only" interested in going to the rows of Gala apples while Sterling was open to roaming the orchard looking for any apple that looked edible. It is not that easy though, apples have certain periods of time when they are ripe for the pickin'. For apple novices like ourselves how were we supposed to know?

Well the apple experts were thinking ahead and labeled each of the rows with the name of the apple and when that type of apple is ripe. So think of how I felt when we read the first sign which said that Gala apples are best in the beginning of September. Did the word devastated come to mind because it should have. I didn't want to act like a two year old and throw a fit but that is exactly what was going on inside my head. The fact that I don't really like apples to begin with caused me to be a little more upset when the only kind I do like was out of season. Don't worry though, the fact that I was devastated was unnoticed by Sterling and he simply proceeded to the next type of apple that was ripe.

We walked around gathering apples (now I say gathering because we didn't actually pick a single apple from a tree, all of our apples were gathered from the ground) for about 45 minutes before we were satisfied with our pickings. Out of the 15 apples that we bought I believe that only one of them was a Gala which is fine because even though I can't remember what type of apples we ended up picking I do remember that Sterling made a dang good apple pie.

What's in Nebraska?

So you might ask what is in Nebraska and we would respond...nothing, absolutely nothing. In fact it is quite similar to Iowa there is corn, corn, and oh did we mention corn. However this past weekend we were in Nebraska visiting my brother and his family.

While we were in town Sterling became both a Cornhuskers fan and a gangster as you will see in the following pictures.

The main reason that we went to Nebraska is because we aren't sure how often we will see our families and therefore anytime is a good time. For any of you who know my brother you also know that he loves sports and he loves ESPN. Since Nebraska was playing USC, ESPN was there for the morning show and of course he wanted to be there. It was then convenient that one of his friends lives there and that we were able to visit for the weekend.

Generally for us weekends consist of sleeping in, cleaning house, doing the grocery shopping and then whatever else we can think of to fill up the rest of our day. This weekend was a little different. We arrived in Lincoln late Friday night and early Saturday morning Sterling, Waleryan and Judd were on there way to the stadium for the live ESPN game day show. Judd and Waleryan claimed that one couldn't actually go to the stadium without wearing the school colors and so they supplied Sterling with a nice red shirt just so he could fit in.

Well Waleryan and Judd weren't the only ones that wanted to dress up Sterling. Kaili and Keona love Uncle Sterling and generally want his attention whenever he is around. Kaili's new thing is to play pretend. Picture Sterling sitting on a coffee table with Kaili as she sings "Row Row Row Your Boat" and pretends to row. And only seconds later they were pretending they were "Daddy" and both Kaili and Sterling took turns putting on Waleryan's vest and hat. Here is what I was able to capture. Kaili evidently thinks her dad to be normal, while Sterling seems to think Waleryan is a gangster.

It was freezing in Nebraska and luckily I was able to stay at the house with the mothers and the children while the dads went out to play. Kaili discovered the fun of the camera and I was thus forced to pose for a picture with every toy in the toy box. I was not alone in the photo shoot; she also recruited Deena and Kellianne but both have asked for their pictures to be kept in a confidential file called "the garbage." In fact I believe that I can quote Deena as saying, "If you put me on your blog I will kill you."

Kaili turned out to be quite the photographer after about five pictures. It took some time for her to realize that she couldn't put her hand over the lens but as soon as she learned that, there was no turning back. The best picture in her portfolio at this time happens to be this picture of me and the rabbit. Many of the other pictures, though artistic in nature, did not compare.

Updates

Up to this point Sterling has had four different clients and unfortunately I cannot remember the details for every client but the few that I can remember I will relate. One of his first clients was an elderly lady that was having some problems with her hearing aids, they just weren't working as well as they used to. Upon further inspection Sterling found that the ear wax that was once in her ear was now lodged in the hearing aid causing a decrease in proper hearing aid function. He said he had to remove which sounds absolutely disgusting to me. I hate removing my own ear wax and I definitely don't want to be dealing with somebody else's. Apparently the appointment was fine and both the clinician and client were satisfied.

The only other client I can remember was a man that had a significant hearing loss in one of his ears and had to wear an outside the ear hearing aid. He prefers to not wear the hearing aid in social settings and would like to get an in the ear hearing aid for that reason. Due to the extent of hearing loss in that ear an in the ear hearing aid is not the best option but as Sterling said, "you kind of have to give the client what he/she wants." So to make a long story short, the hearing evaluation lasted about two hours after which the man was frustrated because all he really wanted was to go to the clinic and be fit for new hearing aids. However he was not so frustrated that he denied a return appoint to be fit for the type of hearing aids that he wants.

As for me, the first two weeks of work have come and gone. The first week of work was mostly paperwork and training while the second week was actually work. So for all of you that are interested in what I actually do, let me explain. First picture a bunch of geeks in lab coats playing with chemistry and DNA bases and you will have a fine picture of my work environment. I work four days a week, ten hours a day in a lab creating and testing synthetic strands of DNA which are used for research. Some common uses for oligos (short strands of DNA) include diagnostic tests for genetic diseases, like breast cancer or cystic fibrosis, diagnostic tests for infectious diseases, like Hepatitis or AIDS, research to discover new drugs or treatments for a variety of diseases and producing safer and more plentiful agricultural products.

That's all of the excitement in our lives, it's not that exciting but it is our life.

Pursuit of Knowledge

If you are wondering what I do all day, glance at the picture to the right and be enlightened. I do homework all day at school, and sadly at home too. Yes, my life is unfortunately that boring. We still have no friends here; we are not sure if it is because we are antisocial or if people just think we are weird. Probably a bit of both.


This week is going to be a big week for me at school. I have my first two clients coming in on Tuesday, and I begin my research for my assistantship. Life is only going to become busier.
Cylynn has her first day of work tomorrow. She is a little nervous, I don't know why. She is going to do great. She has a job for Integrated DNA Technologies (IDT) doing mass spectrometry. If you want to know what that means don't ask me cause I have no idea. We are excited. It will be a great job as it is in her field of bioengineering and the benefits are wonderful. The job is a wonderful blessing for us; she is going to be making some buco bucks. She's my sugar mama.


This week's big news is a trip to the Nauvoo Temple. On Friday we drove to Illinois to the temple. We were assigned to be part of the cleaning crew that night. We made it down in time to be part of the final endowment session, and then helped clean afterwards. It is wonderful to be this close to so much of the church history and to have the Nauvoo temple as our temple. It was special being inside that temple and imagining all the sacrifices of those early saints.

Enjoy the crooked picture of the temple and the Joseph and Hyrum statues. Remember to pray for Cylynn as she starts her new job and for me as I see my first clients. We will let you know how it goes.

Maquoketa Cave Excursion

Let us take you on a journey to one of Iowa's most unique state parks. Inside this park there are caves, limestone outcroppings and rugged bluffs which provide opportunities for visitors to explore geological formations created thousands of years ago. If you plan on going into any of the caves; two flashlights, old clothes, shoes and a helmet are required.

WELCOME TO

So how do you say the name of the park, don't worry we were wondering the same thing. The name of the park is pronounced ma-ko-ka-ta not ma-kwo-kee-ta which is how we were initially pronouncing it. Luckily one of Sterling's peers was kind enough to correct his pronunciation and we can now share this bit of knowledge with you.
We must admit that we are deeply indebted to this peer of Sterling's for he also informed us that many of the caves double as a popular habitat for the BROWN RECLUSE! There is a chance that this information saved Sterling's life for in our attempt to create a "Kodak Moment," Sterling encountered not one, but two of these flesh eating arachnids. However I did manage to capture the following picture as Sterling did his best to vacate the premises.

Classic Sterling moment and for any of you who know the terminology he "bumbled" his way out of there quite gracefully.


(Sterling takes over as narrator)

Okay so the truth is there are in fact brown recluses in many of the caves but I didn't actually hit his head on that protrusion while trying to avoid a deathly spider bite. However you must concede that the bit of spice makes our story more engaging.

We did follow the counsel of carrying a flashlight, wearing old clothes and shoes but sadly I grew out of my helmet in fifth grade. It would have been useful in a couple of different instances not only for myself but also for Cylynn. Shining the flashlight on the ground to ensure proper footing takes precedence and your head pays the price; those stalactites (or stalagmites) can be a bugger.


We found the most intriguing cave the park has to offer masquerading a large rabbit hole. Cylynn and I had to climb approximately 15 feet straight down into the ground. The hole then flattens and opens into a large room. The best thing about the caves was how cold it was inside them compared to the exhaustingly hot day outside. Inside most of the caves we took advantage of the cold atmosphere to relax and cool down, but Cylynn had a different idea inside this most intriguing cave below the ground. We were not two minutes inside the large room before she instigated a vicious game of king of the mountain, and I most unfortunately admit that she won the battle.

We had a lot of fun at these caves. It was wonderful to step out of our mundane lives and enjoy the beauty of the earth God created for us. We hiked around in the trees for a few hours relishing the time together without a care in the world.

Tune in next week for a trip to the Nauvoo temple.