In these days, a man who says a thing cannot be done is quite apt to be interrupted by some idiot doing it. –Hubbard

If you aren’t already aware, it’s MOLE DAY!!!  October 23rd is the day all scientists celebrate the number 6.02 x 10^23.  This number is also known as Avogadro’s Constant and represents the number of particles necessary to convert from the atomic mass on the Periodic Table of Elements (which is measured in atomic mass units) to a the same number of grams.  Basically, it’s the number that makes it easy to tell how much of your ingredients to add to a chemical reaction. 

This being such an important number, we celebrate from 6:02 in the morning to 6:02 at night on 10/23……get it?  For my students in science, we celebrated mole day in the normal fashion.  We had mole snacks like guacaMOLE, aniMOLE crackers, and LeMOLEade to drink.  We played lots of fun games related to a science, and even listened to music about chemistry.  (Check out ”The Element Song” by Tom Lehrer onYoutube.  There are some great animations there to go along with the song. ) 

We had a fun day!  Here are some pictures of my students.  They all made Mole Day Cards to give to someone.  Here they are making their cards.

And here are a few more of the kids holding up their cards to show them off.   

Here’s some pictures of some fun games we played.  We did one called “World’s Most Smartest Brain.”  Basically, they had to work as a team to answer scientific questions one word at a time.  It’s actually a lot like the game “3-headed Broadway Star” on “Whose Line is it Anyway?” except with a science twist.  Here’s a couple of the most smartest brains.

Anyway, we had a lovely day.  I hope you had a marvelous Mole Day too!

Well, I guess there’s a size limit on how big a post can be, and I just exceeded mine.  I only got to December of 07 too….

In January, I went back to work in Macomb, and David went back to work at Fort Sill.  He finally came home to stay in the middle of February, and we started looking for a house.

After much looking and debating about what we really wanted in a house, we decided to buy our beautiful home in Macomb.  Some of our good friends from church, Ross and Amy, mentioned one that was for sale by owner just a few houses down from them.  We bought it in April and have been thrilled with it ever since.  We do joke about it being a bit too large for us, though.  However, we do tend to operate on that principal that if it’s not almost overkill, it’s too small…….

Here’s our beautiful home!

Acutally, this is just David's shop

THIS is our home....

Can you tell we are proud of the shop?  We also have a huge back yard!  Here’s a picture of that.

Lots of nice back yard to mow

Sweet baby Dorsey

Taking a nap in in May

Taking a nap in September

56 pounds of pure puppy

Oh, I almost forgot!  I also changed jobs!  I’m now teaching high school science in Bushnell, Illinois.  Mole day is coming soon.  I’ll try to post some pictures of that

Ok, I’m going to try to do better now.  I’ll post more often than once a year…….probably.

Ok…..that was a longer break from blogging than I had intended to take.  In the last year, we have done a number of pretty amazing things.  I could probably also use that as an excuse for not having written, but I won’t.  I’ll try to document in pictures and fill you in on what has happened.

Back in August of 2007, we got a nice truck for David.  We tend to operate on the idea that if it’s not almost overkill, it’s probably not big enough.  We looked at several and decided on a Ford F250 diesel with a manual transmission.  It’s an absolute monster of a truck, but it really fits David well.  We consider it a total gift from God.  Here’s David with his beautiful truck.

David and his truck

After that, David went of to Fort Sill, Oklahoma and I stayed back in Macomb for a couple months until I could join him in October 2007.  Upon arriving there, I discovered that life is radically different on a military base.  Someone has to give you permission to do everything, and there are a lot of rules that they don’t tell you when you get there. You have to ask permission to join a line at the grocery store.  You have to ask permission to go on to the base, and often to leave it.  No one ever speeds on post, because the MP’s will pull you over for going 1 mile over the speed limit.  Everything starts 10 minutes early, including the civilian yoga classes.  Here’s an example of an interesting rule at Fort Sill: You must yield to howitzers….see…..

Howitzer Crossing

Also, after 1 month there, they changed some rules and forgot to tell us about it until after we had accrued a huge bill for living where they told us we’d be living for free.  We had the option of moving off base into a slum or living in free housing on base.  There was a reason this particular housing was free on base.  We drove up to see it and were greeted by a sign on the door that declared that this place had been condemned, but we were welcomed to live there for free.

We found feces on the floor in the dining room, no electricity in part of the room we were going to live in, the shower didn’t work, and so we decided to move in.  Not long after, we caught fleas from the place and had to take care of that.  We got a ton of work orders and I spent about 28 hours cleaning the place from top to bottom, and it ended up working out.

Only a year later, and we’re laughing about it now.  As much as I hated that place, it’s still better than some of the housing in other parts of the world.  I mean, there weren’t any chickens or anything in the living room.  Anyway, here’s a couple pictures of our hovel in Oklahoma.

Our Kitchen... notice no oven... and our rubbermaid dining table

It was definitely a learning experience, even if I didn’t enjoy it that much.

Here are some cute pictures of David and his group shooting howitzers.

Lt. David Putnam

Hold your ears....there's going to be a big boom!

Hello everybody, I finally finished wiring for the new ceiling fan in the living room.  It really makes the room nice.