before we leave

• the zoo
• the Beach (museum, that is)
• the insect zoo
• our hill (i.e. where we started dating and where Ian proposed)
• Tuttle Creek
• Konza
• Tallgrass Brewing Company
• So Long Saloon
• Daylight Donuts (The east coast has Dunkin' Donuts, which are, in my opinion, inferior to Daylight Donuts in donut quality. Of course, Amish donuts win all.)
• The Chef
  
• Call Hall
• Tad's Sno Cones
• Grandma's

Any other recommendations? We don't want to leave wishing we hadn't forgotten something. Leave a comment with your suggestions, and I'll add to this post as needed. Since I'm finished working at the end of May, we have all of June to pack up and complete our list of lasts as residents. sigh.

a Saturday morning at Konza

One Saturday morning in late March, Ian took me on a surprise trip to Konza — my first. I've been out and about the Flint Hills before, but never on the official Konza trail. We decided on the medium-length option and enjoyed God's creation — beautiful views of the prairie and even a few turkey and deer.

the wild turkey.

I really like this photo of Ian.

the deer — they're behind the trees.

burning.

I love my husband.

Ian's first (K-State) baseball game

After five years at K-State, you think Ian, a huge sports fan, would have been to a K-State baseball game, which offers free admission with student ID. Not the case. So exactly one week and one day before he graduated, we went to the baseball game against Texas A&M. While a top-15 team, they didn't play at that caliber during this particular game, but it was still fun. And I can say I've been to about 20 times more K-State baseball games than Ian. Which is fun.

We turned it into a marathon date night — after the game we caught the late show of Star Trek. Not the greatest movie ever made, but it definitely ranks high in entertainment value. Lots of solar flare, but great shots, engaging story line, good acting, and they've got Leonard Nimoy. You don't have to be a Trekkie to enjoy it, but if you've watched any of the shows/movies, you'll get the little bits they threw in for fans. I admit it. I'm a nerd and geek. (Yes, different according to Ben and Storm, who have awarded me geek AND nerd points during my tenure here at the office.)

Live long and prosper.

graduation week for master Ian

Last week was a race to the finish, but Ian is finally graduated with a Master's of Landscape Architecture, hooray! Tuesday he gave his master's defense, and our parents (both sets) and lots of friends and family were there to watch. He did a great job of presenting his project, which turned out great. It involved printing a book — go figure that I'm the one with the creative writing degree and Ian gets a book published first. (love you!) He was busy the rest of the week prepping the electronic version of the book for submission to the grad school and getting ready for graduation. He, Fox, Katie, and Lindsey went together for their graduation reception and had it in studio, which needed lots of cleaning. Friday evening was a department reception followed by a family dinner.

The graduation ceremony he attended was Saturday morning. He technically graduated Friday afternoon with the grad school, but the college provided all the non-bac master's students the option of graduating with the college, which all of them chose to do.

After graduation, the reception in studio went really well, and it meant so much to us to see everyone there! (And if you couldn't make it, we understand and still love you, don't worry!) Katie, Fox, and Ian took pictures around campus after graduation which turned out great.

That evening and Sunday we got to spend more quality time with family — trying to get as much of that in as possible before we leave.

Speaking of moving on, we still don't have more than a "we're optimistic we can hire you in August" from Boston, but we have the family trip to the Philippines to look forward to, and we know we'll end up just where God wants us. My last day at work is next Friday, but we'll be in town through most of June, and they've promised me a staff birthday lunch at a date of my choosing, so it's not quite the end of office fun. For examples of said office fun, see Fig. A below, and my "a week in the office" post.

Fig. A — Ryan providing Josh paint ideas for his office which didn't HAVE to be painted, and must now be painted before the carpet goes down tomorrow, which is before Josh will be back to see said paint ideas.

Menu Plan Monday: May 11-17

It's Menu Plan Monday, hosted by I'm an Organizing Junkie. Ian and I fell off the menu planning wagon for a couple weeks as we finished up semester things (it would have been most helpful during the past two weeks, but c'est la vie). At any rate, we're back with a vengeance!

Monday: pot stickers and rice noodles

Tuesday: chicken marsala

Wednesday: wafflewiches

Thursday: dinner with Grandma Marilyn and CAPD class of 2009 reception

Friday: Department of Landscape Architecture reception followed by family dinner

Saturday: graduation

Sunday: family still in town for lunch, roast beef sandwiches for dinner?

breakfasts: cereal, oatmeal

lunches: leftovers, sandwiches, yogurt, fruit, chips

a foray into beauty pageantry

photo from @bworcester via twitpic

Anna? Beauty pageants? What? Yeah, I know.

This weekend at church we concluded the Surfing the "'Inner"net sermon series with "YouTube — What does your life look like?" Ben and Storm created fun short video clips for most of the weeks, each with a humorous take on the Web site inspiration for the sermon. For this past week, of course that involved making staff-reenacted spoofs of some YouTube viral videos. Anna was selected for the Miss Teen USA 2007 - South Carolina answers a question. I borrowed Courtney's prom dress, threw on my old prom jewelry and applied three times the amount of makeup I'd normally wear when dressing up. And boy was it fun! Storm did the video editing, and it turned out pretty good!

Mine wasn't the only one though. Ian faked a dentist-induced high for David After Dentist, David donned a white lab coat for Will It Blend? — iPhone, and Josh got his groove on for Numa Numa Guy. What can I say, we're a talented church staff. Don't believe me? Check it out!

• Ian After Dentist
• Miss UCC answers a question
• Numa Numa Josh
• Will It Blend? — David's iPhone
• homage to Pomplamoose VideoSongs (The instruments were live on stage, and this only includes the Reason track Ben created for "Jesus Saves." Imagine a full band playing the song.)

Anna: literary rock star!

A team going to South Africa for a summer project spoke at last week's Perspectives class. They are starting a t-shirt printing shop (print:relief) in a slum to create jobs — a major need there. To raise funds, they sponsored a "literary rock concert" and at Perspectives, gave information on how to audition. I'm not big on performing, but thought if I was going to make a fool of myself, it was for a good cause! I auditioned Thursday night and found out Friday morning I was in the lineup.

That evening, I showed up to the Dusty Bookshelf and met some of the other literary rock stars — they are amazing and I got to experience some pretty talented work. I read my poem "The Way the Sky Would Like to Touch the Snow." I can't explain how nervous I felt, but Ian and Ren informed me the audience couldn't tell. I didn't end up placing, but that's okay because I got compliments and applause, and that's all an aspiring writer really needs — affirmation. At least until the bills come, hah!

At any rate, listening to some of the other writers really inspired me to get back into writing on a regular basis. I know it's been on my to-do list, but I now have a vision as to what I can write and how to make what I write great. After my creative writing classes, I almost felt like a writer had to cross some sort of "inappropriate" boundary to be considered serious writing. One, I don't want to write about most of that, and two, we learned your best work is writing what you know, and I've never been homeless, done drugs, seen drugs, had a one-night stand, etc., nor am I willing to do any of the above. Enter Devree, married 20-something. She read two romantic poems (she won in poetry and she deserved it) which were beautiful, not cheesy or mushy, and all around quality writing without being graphically erotic or uncomfortable. I am eternally grateful to her for sharing her talent.

So I've dusted off my moleskine. Look out world, here I come!