Happy Christmas!

Merry Christmas to everyone! I hope your Christmas was as joyful as ours. We had a great celebration today with my parents, sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew. It's great to see the kids getting older and expressing themselves more clearly. We did our usual meal / Christmas story / presents routine. And then since the weather is so nice, "us girls" went out and watched my niece try out her new bike. There are pictures here.
The drive from Iowa wasn't too bad. I brought Sheba with me and she's always a great traveler. We drove to Peoria, IL on Monday evening and then the rest of the way on Tuesday. Tuesday's weather was pretty bad: strong winds, snows, sleet and rain. I was relieved to make it safely to my parents' place.
It's much warmer here than it has been in Ames. Yesterday was warm enough to take Sheba for a long walk without a coat. Tomorrow it's supposed to be up to 60F, but rainy. I'm trying to enjoy the warmth while I'm here. We'll probably head back to Ames on Sunday afternoon or Monday.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you!

Merry Christmas!

I might as well do my Thanksgiving and Christmas posts all in one day.
Hopefully all of my readers have plans to celebrate the holidays with loved ones. On Monday I'll be driving to Kentucky to celebrate with my own family. The weather is a concern, but driving allows me to take Sheba with me and I don't have to worry about paying additional checked luggage fees for presents. I'll be coming back to Iowa next Monday or Tuesday and then heading up to Minneapolis to spend New Year's with a friend from LA who is visiting with her family in Minnesota. Yesterday I managed to do all of my shopping and wrapping in one day. And I did it all withOUT going to Wal Mart! Woo hoo!
I am relieved to have made it through my first semester in my new job. It's been a bit overwhelming at times, and I spent a larger proportion of time on my class than I had planned (at the expense of writing proposals and papers on my postdoc research), but it was a relief just to get through. My students were a great group and I hope to work with some of them again in the future. Next semester I'll be teaching a graduate-level course that is within my specialty. It should be an interesting contrast to the entry-level course that I taught this semester.
Adjusting to the weather here in Iowa has been a challenge. On Thursday night we had 5 inches of snow. I considered just leaving my car in the carport until the snow melted, but that would probably mean waiting until March. So I shoveled the snow - very good exercise. And not only do we have a lot of snow, but it is also VERY cold. Today (Sunday) it is supposed to be below zero, with the windchill hovering between -30 and -20F. Ick! Luckily, I can spend most of the day bundled up inside. The best investment I've made so far is a new down comforter - it keeps me very warm at night. Sheba is having a very hard time with the cold. She doesn't like it AT ALL and we've also curtailed our daily walks, so she has a lot of pent-up energy. An unexpected benefit of the cold has been that my cat now cuddles up on my lap every evening. Such a treat. Here is a view of the icicles on my front window. More winter photos here. Just a few more months until Spring....

Thanksgiving

Late Happy Thanksgiving to all of my readers! Hopefully you all were able to spend time with family and/or friends. I was very pleased to have the opportunity to celebrate with my family again this year. We had a great get-together at my parents house in Lexington. Per our usual tradition, my brother-in-law did a superb job cooking the turkey. We had about 20 in attendance and it was a nice mixture of my paternal and maternal relatives. The food was great and we had fun watching the kids play, as well as playing some games ourselves; Farkle was especially successful. There are some Thanksgiving pictures here.
I also had the opportunity to spend some time catching up with the friend who taught me how to play Farkle. Bea and I made a trek down to Mammoth Cave National Park. Mammoth Cave is a very large underground cave system that is also held as a National Park. Both of us had been several times as young children, but had not been back for years. We took one of the shorter tours and had a fun time. We tried taking some pictures, but were not very successful. The photos are posted here.
The tour had some interesting points. First of all, it was very exciting when they turned out the lights. Pitch black, no longer how long you wait for your eyes to adjust. Second is the fact that Mammoth Cave is still being explored. They have mapped out over 300 miles of tunnels, but are nowhere near completion. This mapping process is complicated by the fact that it takes about 12 hours to get to the uncharted region of the cave in order to start new mapping. 12 hours - that's just to get there! Factor in some exploration time and another 12 hours to hike out, and that's no small task. I don't think I would be able to do it. But the tour was great and I would love to go back for a longer tour sometime in the future.
Overall, it was a great Thanksgiving trip. When I got back to the Des Moines airport, winter had officially begun in Iowa and has not let up yet. Here's an image of my car at the airport: