Happy Halloween

Fang and Errol got sent to the groomer today, which involved getting a bath, a major haircut, some nail trimming, and other horrifying things that they don't want to talk about. They were then attacked by cute Halloween themed bandannas, and made to pose for pictures. As you can see, they are not amused.



Happy Halloween!

Weekend with various family members

Jeff's parents came to visit us last weekend, and my grandparents also came to Wichita for the weekend and stayed with Matthew and Joella. We all got together on Saturday. We started the day at Karg Art Glass Gallery in Kechi (just north of Wichita). My grandparents had been wanting to see the place for some time, so we agreed to meet up with everyone there. Joella and I found cute jellyfish Christmas ornaments and each bought one for our trees. We all went for lunch at On the Border, then took our little convoy over to check out a couple of really nice houses that were featured in our fall Parade of Homes. After that each party went back to their respective abodes for a while to start making dinner. We all gathered back at our house for dinner and to watch the KU/Texas A&M football game. Matthew's an A&M alum (boo).

Before dinner, Dr. Joella removed Jeff's stitches from his knee injury, to the great delight of the parents and grandparents (and the photographer, who was quite thrilled with the free medical services).


We then sat down for a dinner of leg of lamb, green beans, fresh banana bread, garlic bread with sun-dried tomato dip, parmesan and romano risotto, and apple crisp and ice cream for dessert. It was nice to have everyone together for the day. Oh, and KU won the game. Go Hawks! 8 and 0!


On Sunday, we did the usual - went to church, then hung out around home in the afternoon. Jeff and I winterized the lawn, and his parents wandered around the neighborhood for a while. They took us out for dinner at Bonefish Grill that night. They headed home on Monday morning.

Rockin' the Gratin

We made some Potatoes au Gratin a while back, and I just now loaded the pictures onto the computer. Yum yum yum! I think we'll have to make it again soon. So simple - just white potatoes, sliced thin, layered with shredded Gruyere, and soaked in cream.

Newsboys Go Tour

We just got home from the Newsboys concert. It was awesome! I've been to two other Newsboys concerts - one in high school at a big festival in Nebraska, and one in Kansas City during college. They were both lots of fun, but the Newsboys really put on an amazing show with tons of special effects and a really cool light show for this tour. Definitely check them out if they come to your area anytime soon! On a side note, this was Jeff's first "real" rock concert, and he's happy to report that he survived. He did think it was a little loud. He's requested that his next concert experience take place at a more "reasonable volume". Yes, that's an Office Space reference...

Sleepytime

It's just not right to go more than a month without posting some puppy pics, so here they are! In honor of the approaching fall and winter months, shorter days, and general increase in sleepiness, we bring you Slumber Pups...

Trauma Center

Last night turned out to be not quite what we expected. We normally go to church on Wednesday nights for dinner at 5:30, then classes at 6:30. So, we proceeded to do that as usual, but there was a huge thunderstorm passing over when we got to church. Jeff, being the gentleman, offered to drop me off under the portico and then go park. He dropped me off and I waited there for him to come in. Apparently he decided to make a run for it through the deluge rather than use the umbrella in the car to keep dry. So, he ran through the rain (as I watched incredulously) and arrived under the portico, hit the dry pavement, and wiped out due to the lack of sole traction from his dress shoes that he wore that day. He slid into a park bench and cut open a big gash right under his knee. So, after getting a nurse from the church to check out the cut, we headed over to the urgent care center in the middle of town. We actually only had to spend a little over an hour there, which was nice. I was expecting to be there for several hours, based on stories from co-workers who had been there for similar injuries. Anyway, they took some x-rays of his hand, which was a bit sore from the fall, and then got him stitched up (6 stitches), showed us the x-rays and let us go. The x-rays were a bit surreal, because they used a little tablet computer to show them on. It was the first time I'd seen x-rays that weren't life sized. Jeff has pretty big hands, and when they showed the x-ray pictures, it looked like a child's hand because of the size of the screen. Everything turned out to be fine with his hand. It's just going to be sore for a while. Anyway, we rounded out the night with a trip to the pharmacy to pick up prescriptions and supplies for recovery, then a quick stop to pick up some Subway for dinner at 8:00, then back home to make cold compresses and watch a couple episodes of Mr. Bean.

AIAA Meeting

We went to a local AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) meeting last night. We don't normally go to these, but this one sounded interesting. The purpose of the meeting was to present the annual AIAA Aircraft Design Award to one of our former college professors, Dr. Jan Roskam. It's a pretty big award that's normally given out at the world conference that happens once a year, but as he was unable to make it to the conference this year, they arranged to give it to him at our local Wichita chapter. Past recipients include Ben Rich (Lockheed Skunk Works) and Burt Rutan (Scaled Composites), so he's in some pretty famous company now. Anyway, he gave a lecture titled, "Recent Aircraft Design Lessons... Learned?" which was interesting. He tells "war stories" which are descriptions of accidents and near misses that could or should have been prevented with better design, and that's what this lecture was about. He went over ten recent accidents/incidents and what should have been done in the original design to prevent them, or in some cases, what we can learn from the mistake. It was a bit odd to sit through another lecture from an old teacher though - I felt like we had to pay extra special attention, sit up straight, stuff like that. You know, try to be the good student again.

When we were in school, this guy was our most feared professor. He would do things like return our tests with pink slips (i.e. drop slips) attached to them if we didn't do well on the test; a not so subtle hint that we should either shape up or drop out of aerospace engineering. We had to write five reports that averaged a couple hundred pages a piece for one of his classes. One of our classmates was so nervous before one of our tests that he threw up when the test was handed out. Anyway, he was certainly intimidating, but he was also a really good teacher, and he handed out the type of practical information that has helped us most in our careers. I'm glad we had him as a teacher, because it seems that those of us who have been through his classes are a bit more aware of all the issues and things that need to be checked in a new airplane design than some other engineers we've worked with that went through different schools that focused more on theory than practical design.

Rock Chalk

This is a couple of days late, but I can't help but note:

KU - A whopping 30!

KSU - A measly little 24.

And we stomped them at home! Bwah hah hah! (That's my evil laugh.)

On the market

We put my mom's house on the market for sale this week. It's both a relief to finally have it listed and a sad time because it's the end of our family's story in that house. My grandparents built it in 1959, and it's been occupied by various members of our family ever since. My mom lived in it the longest, and all four of us kids grew up there. There are so many memories in that place. Our realtor has been a big help in getting it ready. She's awesome - she actually lived in the house next door to my mom's when we were growing up, so she knows all of us kids and has made everything easier on us. Anyway, here's a link to the listing, if you want to see pictures of it before it goes away. We're hoping it will sell quickly, but who knows with the market as bad as it is right now.