- This past weekend was popular for graduations. We attended a celebratory BBQ for our sister-in-law Bethany (I can't remember the name we made up for her on the blog-- too many aliases to remember). She graduated from the PA (physician's assistant) at Wichita State. We drove to Wichita for the day, did a little shopping, ate wonderful food, Arthur became friends with Arnold's friend from England, and we didn't have to sit through a graduation ceremony.
- On the way home from Wichita we stopped in Newton to do a few hiking/nature trails. It included several native tree species we worked on identifying as well as a large garden plot I perused at the Mennonite Heritage Museum. (Please don't be too jealous of our fun on a Saturday afternoon.) We then stopped at the Breakbasket for the German Buffet. We had verenika and ham gravy, German sausage, chicken borscht, zwieback, German potato salad, sauerkraut, and bohne beroggi. Arthur is more adventurous with food than I am but I did try a little bit of everything. I figured German food wasn't too exotic for me. Bohne beroggi is an "endangered" recipe. When googling it about 75% of the links are related to Mennonites in central Kansas. It is a dessert that is a pastry filled with a mixture of sweetened pinto beans covered in a glaze-- it was really pretty good. The Breadbasket is another restaurant on the top 35 small-town eateries in Kansas (only 29 more to go). And while I didn't do any of the cooking I think it should count as our culture eating experience for the month.
- The Grand Canyon denied us for the umpteenth time. For over a year and a half we have been trying to make reservations to hike at the Grand Canyon and yet again we didn't win the lottery. I did actually get a park ranger on the phone after 7 calls over 2 days. The National Park Service should jump into the 21st century and get an answering machine. I did get some tips for the next time we apply so we are keeping our fingers crossed.
- In other hiking news one of our projects this week has been trying to find Arthur a sleeping bag. At 6'6" a normal sleeping bag barely gets to his arm pits which just won't work on a backpacking trip. The problem with backpacking is it also has to be light and pack down small so bigger sleeping bags that fit this bill are hard to come by. We did find an extra long version that is suppose to fit up to 7' so we are keeping our fingers crossed (lots of finger crossing with hiking and camping) that this will fit and he won't feel like a stuffed sausage.
- For our weekly movie night Arthur picked a film in keeping with graduation weekend. It is called PhD The Movie. It is a comedy based on the struggles of life as a grad student-- working in labs and never seeing the light of day, being a TA for undergrad classes, endless hours of work on a thesis, etc. I lived the grad student life a little but thank goodness is wasn't like getting a PhD. Hopefully watching this discourages us from considering further formal academic pursuits as we enjoy paychecks and free time.
- My garden is officially in for the year. I decided to put all my plants out in front of our house this year which means I will have to make the squash and tomatoes behave since they can't take over everything. My blueberry patch, all of 2 blueberry plants, is in full swing from being overwintered in my parents' garage. Mildred, my geranium, is also back in the sunlight after the winter under the grow lights in the basement.
As you can tell if rambling on about sleeping bags and a geranium plant is all I have to talk about it was a slow week. We will try to stir up more activity in the future. Omnia Vincit Amor.
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