A Pop of Color & Love

Some of the new landscaping on campus is looking great. I think this bush is called a Service Berry. I wonder if the berries will remain through winter after the leaves have fallen off?

 A view of our new student Center. It's a beautiful fall day; wish I were outside instead of inside. But I did get some sunshine and chatted on the phone with my mom - nothin' better than the warmth of two mom's (mother nature, and my one and only, awesome mom).



September B-Days

I have two co-workers who have Sept. b-days as well. Since Todd is always gone with his class during my b-day week, I figured, "screw it, I'm throwin' a party." My beautifu friend, Signe, was my partner in crime. She made a decadent chocolate cake and delicious pina coladas. We had lots of delicious munchies and plenty of beverages.

 Our youngest party participant was Sidney, she also enjoyed the chocolate.



Saving the World - One Student at a Time

Last week we hosted our College Achievement Program (CAP) kick-off dinner. CAP is a progam where we offer intrusive assistance to students to get them off to a great start and in the long run, graduate with a college degree. This is my wonderful co-worker, Jasmine, the coordinator of CAP.

 You can't have a kick-off without food. Cheese enchiladas and chicken fajitas with all the fixin's.

Nice group shot of our first and second year students.

Beautiful Eau Claire

 So lucky to live in a beautiful place. Got an early start on Saturday and hit the Farmer's Market at Pheonix Park. Didn't take long to buy just a few things so dumped the veggies in the car and started walking along the trail. 

A view of the river and bridge.

 Love this bridge.

 

Awesome Colleagues

Whether you want to call it luck, good fortune or the stars aligning, it simply boils down to this: I work with an awesome bunch of people! These are some of my co-workers and we had fun posing for a group shot back in August.

More Living Critters

 Biology is cool!

If you care to know what these are and why they are neat.
This critter was not labeled, but let simply say, it was a BIG lizard. Good golly - I'd certainly freak out if I came across this in my house.

Critters

 Sorry for the lack of posts last week; the beginning of the semester is always crazy and there wasn't much going on outside of work. I felt like I was simply in survival mode. I did however, visit the Biology Department which has two very large fish tanks. Here's some of the critters in one of them.

Close-up; this fish isn't as scary or ugly as it looks.

 Mother nature creates such beautiful colors.

Fun in the Sun

 Each year, the local swimming pool gets ready to shut down for the season, but before that, they bring down the chlorine level and there's a fundraiser for the off-leash dog park. We try to go every year and it's fun taking international students so they can see what us crazy Americans do for our furry family members.

I never have to tell Misty what to do, she goes right in, after those tennis balls.

 Here she is, back for a treat after retrieving the ball.

Here's Aleksandra tossing one out to Misty.

Cheerios....breakfast of champions!

 Beautiful Aleksandra enjoying her Cheerios. It's the simple things in life that make one smile. She used to eat this in her home country but they stopped selling it there. It's been 2 yrs. since she's had her favorite cereal. When she saw it at Target, I told her, "yes, you may absolutely have Cheerios!"

 No surprise here, I had to take them blueberry picking. Hmmm, beginning to think the farm should give me a cut for bringing so many people there.

 Kodai came to UWEC in January so this is his first summer here.

 We were having fun, but it was short lived due to the oppressive heat wave and humidity that was upon us. If there was any doubt that summer was coming to an end, watch out, mother nature is not happy.

International Students

 We've hosted several international students and this year we have a new one. Meet Aleksandra from Belgrad, Serbia. Here she is eating her first, artery clogging, American burger.

 Meet Kodai, he's from Japan and completed his Associates degree in Honolulu at Kapiolani Community College. We aren't his "official" host family, but that's okay.

After lunch we visited our friends, Steve and Signe because they adopted two kittens. But more than that, Steve is from Serbia and wanted to welcome Aleksandra. Here she is playing with Suzi and coincidentally she was wearing the purrrrfect t-shirt.

Sami found it amusing to play with Kodai's shoe laces.

Knee Surgery - Part 4

 Hey, let's see some leg.

 Three little incisions.

 A pimped out cooler thing.

Supposed to fill the cryo-cuff with cold water to help the swelling. Are we having fun yet? Perhaps when you take the prescription pain killers the fun begins?

Knee Surgery - Part 3

 In recovery - he doesn't look so bad.

He was hungry because he couldn't eat after midnight the night before. Coffee and a donut - not bad. While he was in recovery I had to pick up the dogs from day care. I took them home, fed them and was just about to leave the house to return to the hospital when a huge storm came through. There was a warning for possible golf ball size hail and damaging winds, then the electricity went out. Wasn't sure how I was going to get the car out of the garage.

The rain lets up a bit so I try to open the garage door on my own, but kept getting interrupted by phone calls.  A friend called the wrong number b/c my number was next to someone else she was trying to call in her contact list, the nurse at the hospital called to tell me Todd was ready to go. I asked her to tell him he should order more donuts and watch another movie. Todd calls wondering why I'm not there. PEOPLE...... PLEASE, if you would just STOP calling me, perhaps I could get this  %^*(#@  garage door open and return to the hospital. After hoisting the garage door open (on my own, thank you very much, good thing I lost weight and built up some muscle) I had to prop it open with a ladder and luckily it was high enough for me to drive the car out. Geez, we rely on electricity so much and take it for granted, plus did I mention my phone started to run out of power by this time. Here's the impatient patient finally at home.

Knee Surgery - Part 2

...... and he's off to surgery. Head net, violet hospital gown, socks with rubber grippies = new fashion statement. Then the wait. I got some reading done, checked e-mail since I took the day off from work, checked the all-important Facebook. The surgery didn't take too long, only about an hour. The prep took way longer.