Hey all,

So we are officially bad picture takers and bloggers, but you might have known that already. We have been trying to get out to do things on the weekend, but it is getting increasingly harder in proportion to Leah's homework. We have done some interesting things in the past few weeks which might be noteworthy.

After coming back with quite a few apples from cranes, we thought it was in the best interest of some of the apples that they should be coated in caramel. It was a fun thing to do on a cloudy friday night.


For the past three Sundays we have been going to Brookfield CRC. We really like it and feel at home there. Last week we went to their church picnic (a huge pot luck in the parking lot) and Leah ran into someone that she went to Calvin with, who also took speech path/went to Marquette. And this week we met a lot of people our age, including a friend from Holland Christian and her husband, and someone that was in Leah's physics class (and whose sister was my sister-in-law's co-worker) and her husband that was in my chem 103 class. I think we won dutch bingo that week. Hopefully now we'll have a social life.

A few weeks ago after church, we went to a county park west of Milwaukee called Naga-Waukee Park. It is a pretty huge park with a lot of nature trails, open space and trees. It's also on Nagawicka Lake, which was pretty cool. Here is a picture that I stole from their website.



We had a nice relaxing time eating our picnic lunch in the shade and walking the trails. Too bad it was 85 degrees and we didn't have our suits!

Now that I am officially trained and know what I'm actually doing, I can tell you that I have a job doing science demonstrations for elementary schools in the greater Milwaukee area. The company is called Mad Science (madscience.org); it's an international company based in Canada, but is quite extensive in the United States. Basically, we give free assemblies to schools and then the kids can sign up for an after school program, which the parents pay for (after much begging and pleading from said children). They also do birthday parties and anything that has a big group of kids.

On Saturday, I went up to Oshkosh with 3 other mad scientists to the Midwest regional boyscout jamboree. Imagine 7,000 boy scouts and dads camping in tents on the most massive lawn imaginable, and then throw in some random attractions like paintball, guitar hero, and Mad Science, to name a few. It turned out to be pretty fun. I got to play with dry ice for 7 hours and got paid for it!

This week I start teaching the after school programs. So far I have observed and assisted other people doing it, but haven't done it myself without anyone else there. But I think if I can handle Honduran kids, I'll be fine.

On a side note, have you ever had Haagen-Dazs Mayan Chocolate ice cream? It's our favorite, nothing else comes close. I like it because it tastes like a frozen version of my mom's hot cocoa when I was a kid. So I found a piece-of-cake recipe on the internet to make Mayan chocolate fudge. It turned out pretty good!

Mayan Fudge

1 12 oz. bag of semi sweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup sweetened condensed milk
3/4 cup nuts of any kind (very optional)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (calls for 1/2 tsp, but it was pretty spicy)

Line 8X8 pan with wax paper
Mix chips and milk together, nuke for 1 min, stir, nuke for another min.
Mix spices and very optional nuts in thoroughly (if it starts cooling, nuke 30 sec.)
Pour into pan, chill in fridge for 30 min.

and this is what you'll get (I opted for no nuts)


We are thinking that we will come to Holland sometime in October, but we don't know when yet. Hopefully we'll see some of you soon! Next time we'll try to post some pictures of us instead of food.