Friday, November 25, 2011
The Un-Traditional Thanksgiving
Sunday, October 02, 2011
Family Traditions
Monday, September 05, 2011
Me & My 96,000 Friends
For the first time ever, me and my 96,000+ closest friends enjoyed Penn State's first football game of the 2011 season together "inside" Beaver Stadium in State College, Pennsylvania. On Saturday, Sept. 3, Penn State played Indiana State. It was the first game Richard and I attended since moving to Pennsylvania. What a spectacle it was to have so many people in one place. And these were just my friends who decided to come into the stadium. That doesn't count all of the tailgaters outside the stadium.
After trying to describe how massive Beaver Stadium is, someone once asked me the following question: "Is Beaver Stadium bigger than Lavell Edwards Stadium?" (Lavell Edwards Stadium is located at the campus of my other alma mater, which is the Brigham Young University Cougars in Provo, Utah.) Well, the answer to this question is, "YES!" Now, let’s think about this a minute. To give all of you BYU Cougars some perspective, a sell-out crowd at Lavell Edwards Stadium is around 63,000+ people. Beaver Stadium, was not sold out for the Indiana State game; in fact, there were thousands of empty seats. So, for a football game at Beaver Stadium that was clearly not at a capacity seating versus a football game in Provo at capacity seating, Beaver Stadium was accommodating 33,000 more people on Saturday alone than Lavell Edwards Stadium can seat.
For the last few years Beaver Stadium has been the largest stadium (measured by seating capacity) in the United States because Michigan State's football stadium was not up to code. Now, in the U.S., Beaver Stadium is the second largest, with Michigan State being the only larger stadium. If you look at the size of these stadiums from a global perspective, Wikipedia indicates the May Day Stadium in Korea and the Salt Lake Stadium in India (not Utah) are the only larger football stadiums. Even if these wiki statistics are not 100% accurate, at least they give you some perspective on the seating capacity and the grandiose nature of Beaver Stadium.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
New Experiences
I felt my first earthquake this afternoon. Apparently there was a 5.8/5.9 quake down in Virginia (about six hours away) and we felt it here in Central Pennsylvania sometime before 2 p.m. (around 1:50 p.m.). It was kind of odd to see everything move. It's just not something you expect in State College. A life-time Pennsylvania resident that works with Richard doesn't ever recall an earthquake here.
Apparently the quake spurred some fires in Bellefonte. We were both in State College today, so we figured if our house was included in the fires we were at least up-to-date on our house insurance. :) But I'm sure our house is fine, we don't live in the older part of Bellefonte where I can definitely foresee some fire issues. I just hope all of our food storage (mostly Richard's canning) is on the shelf and it didn't fall over. Our shelf isn't secured to a wall.
Another odd thing happened on Sunday. A big rainstorm came in during church--okay, so that's not odd, it rains all the time making everything green and lush. The room we were in has a big glass wall. The lightning and thunder that came with the storm were right on top of our building and delivered some serious rain. During the storm, which lasted the whole R.S. lesson, it was hard to hear the teacher, and I was on the second row. In fact, the rain was so heavy that at one point it was raining horizontally instead of vertically. At another point there was so much rain coming off one portion of the roof it looked like a waterfall. I wondered if a tornado could be coming, so I was careful to watch what was happening outside, while of course listening to the lesson. During this time I also figured out an evacuation plan for the women, just on case I noticed anything too hairy outside (not that I could really see farther than half of a football field) or feel things shake. But I was comforted because I figured out a plan of action. Well, the storm passed and cleared up within a half hour after church. By that evening it was sunny and beautiful again. Then I heard that there was actually a tornado warning in State College earlier that afternoon. Huh, we don't really get tornados in Central Pennsylvania--too many mountains, or at least that what the locals call them. Good thing I came up with an evacuation plan, just on case. :)
We had a thunder storm on Friday that rumbled through the sky for almost an entire hour and a half before it started dropping rain. I've never seen--I mean heard--anything like that either.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Spring Break - Cake Pops
This year spring break was the second week of March. As a graduate student that week doesn't mean much, other than the fact that I don't teach. However, this year for spring break I rewarded myself with learning something new. Richard obviously had to work, but besides that it was a big week for m
aple syrup harvesting, so taking off and going anywhere was really out of the question. In addition, Richard got a migraine that week, so he had to take a sick day. I made the most of the situation and took him to one of our favorite areas in Amish country (a countryside where a lot of our favorite Amish shops are located) to look around a market for some cake decorating supplies. The reason I needed cake decorating supplies was so that my friend (Megan) and I could make cake pops. During Thanksgiving Megan and I perused through Bakerella's website and decided that we needed to try our hand at Bakerella's specialty, cake pops. I love chocolate cake, so the thought of a ball of cake dipped in chocolate sounded positively yummy. And to top it off Bakerella's cake pops are adorable.
As anyone who knows me can attest--particularly my husband--I don't exactly delight in exploring the culinary arts. But as Richard figured out, cake pops are a cute edible craft, they don't fall into the "cooking" category; they fall into the "craft" category.
Megan and I decided that for our first attempt we would choose a particularly easy cake pop design and try our hand at chicks and bees. We figured they were both yellow and they looked a lot easier than some of the other culinary creations Bakerella tries. In addition, they are both springy.
Despite our attempt at choosing a particularly “easy” creation, the chicks and bees took a lot of time, which made us wonder how much time it really takes to make some of the other creations. But the time we spent on these little edible treats was well worth it.
I made the cake on Thursday morning (March 10) so it would be cool by the time Megan arrived. Once she was arrived we destroyed the cake and mixed it with cream cheese frosting. It made a gooey mixture. Next, we made the cake into balls, dipped our lollipop sticks into melted chocolate, and then stuck the sticks into the cake balls. Then we put everything into the freezer to firm up, not freeze. (Tip: We found that when the balls are too soft it's harder to roll them in chocolate; the sticks and the balls separate from one another if they are not firm enough.) After the chocolate cools then it’s time to paint fa
ces and attach the appropriate candy pieces to your culinary creation.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Graduation
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
What a Gray Day Looks Like
Describing what a gray day looks like in Pennsylvania, specifically State College/Bellefonte, is a little hard to describe. Today, around 4:30, after I finished teaching my class, I decided to take a few pictures of what PA looks like on a gray day. In reality, I just wanted to take pictures of Old Main, the building featured in these photographs, but I figured that these pictures also showcase what it's like not to see the sun. Having multiple days like this (and potentially weeks) sure makes you grateful for every time you see the sun. But with all the snow on the ground, I think Old Main looks pretty cool.
FYI: These photos were not tinted or modified in any way. This is really what a gray day looks like in State College. You'll notice that the sky looks like dirty snow and there are not really any defined clouds, just a nice gray covering. It's pretty interesting.