Spring, at last

Spring has finally arrived here in Ames. There is still a little bit of snow hanging around in a few shady spots, but for the most part the days are getting warmer (up to 70 a few times), the birds are out in force and bits of green are starting to poke out of the ground. I can't wait for the trees to start budding.
This past week was Spring Break at ISU. The break from preparing lecture notes and managing undergraduate researchers was nice. I was able to spend a lot of time thinking about projects, getting caught up on ordering and paperwork and working in the lab with my graduate student. Still, it's sad that classes start back tomorrow and I didn't accomplish anywhere near as much as I had hoped.
Yesterday I finally saw my first in-theatre movie here in Ames. One of my book club friends and I saw "Duplicity" and then got some Thai food for dinner. We had a great time. A strange thing happened though - we arrived at the theatre about 20 minutes early to make sure we got good seats. We were sitting there chatting during all of the pre-trailer commercials and some grumpy old man actually asked us to "take the conversation outside" because he couldn't hear the commercials. It was quite a shock and I had to fight the urge to apologize after the movie for distracting him from the Coke commercials.
I've been dog-sitting for my neighbor for the past week and have had a lot of fun (heh heh) "walking" two 75-lb dogs. Sometimes it feels more like driving a team of horses. One evening we went to the local woods and all three of us got sooooo muddy. That's a great spot for them though because I can take their leashes off and let them run. We all had a great time, despite the mud.
I'm still taking the stained glass class and we are well into our second project, a window hanging using the "coppper foil" method. There are progress pictures here.
I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying spring wherever you are.