Estufas!

I recently returned from Guatemala, and this trip was a new experience for me. I've done a number of different types of service work in Guatemala, but this was my first time helping to build safe stoves for the people in the Quetzaltenango area. 

Just to give you a quick explanation -- many Guatemalan families cook over open-flame stoves in their homes. This creates serious health problems due to smoke inhalation, smoke and ash in people's eyes, and accidental fires. There is also a problem with deforestation throughout Guatemala, and open flame cooking doesn't help the matter since it requires a considerable amount of wood. The stoves that we helped to build have space for an enclosed flame and a chimney so that smoke is carried out of the home safely.

Here's a picture of one of our final products: 

The wood would be inserted through a small opening which is on the left side of the picture above. The smoke then exits through the aluminum chimney.


We divided into teams and worked directly in the families' homes to build the stoves. The stoves are built in three stages. Below is a photo of my team working on stage three:

Part of stage three involves cutting a hole in the existing roofing (in this case corrugated metal) in order to install the chimney. By the end of the week, our whole team had helped complete a total of 12 stoves!

This is Dona Luisa, our safe stove coordinator for the week. Dona Luisa lives in the Buena Vista community, where we worked part of the time. She helps teach volunteers how to build the stoves correctly and oversees their work. She was awesome!!!!

Rachel, our new Timmy High School Outreach Coordinator, is a serious tree-hugger (peace and tree hugs!@), and she was beyond excited to find out that one morning we were starting off the day by volunteering for the Pop-Wuj reforestation project before resuming our stove work!

We were told by the directors that in Mayan culture you talk to the plant, and you tell Mother Earth that you are giving the plant back to her. Our group took that a step further by naming just about every tree we planted and singing to them. The boys were singing Ke$ha and Lady Gaga. I don't know if Ke$ha will really help the trees grow, but hopefully it didn't hurt anything too badly.

And, of course, it wouldn't be a trip to Guatemala without lots of wonderful photos of cute kids!! 

You know you're in TN when....

After Mike's graduation, we took a week off and headed to Tennessee. We decided that you know you are in Tennessee when....

1. The local high school hosts a bass tournament to raise money for their band.  

2. You drive over Stinking Creek to get to "town" (aka...the only place nearby with a Walmart).

3. The gas station across the street from the Walmart has a sign for "Crack Your Teeth Cold Beer." I have to say, I think the one-toothed smiley face is a very classy touch.  

While we were there, we saw so many deer! It was really neat. 

We also enjoyed around 20 hours out on the boat. We had such a relaxing time! It was definitely hard to come back home. 

Graduation Fiesta Weekend

While graduation lasted only a couple of hours, the celebration lasted all weekend for Mike! We headed with his family to Brown County to celebrate, stopping first at a local Mexican restaurant. (Nothing says "Happy Graduation" like a delicious fajita dinner!)

Mike's loving brother, Dave, convinced the waiters and waitresses to sing "Happy Graduation" to Mike while, of course, forcing him to wear this ridiculous sombrero. Isn't Dave so sweet!?!

Will seemed to really enjoy the cake! 

After dinner, Mike and I went with his parents to stay in a cabin in Brown County. It was really nice, and the cabin stay came with passes to the indoor water park, which was a big hit!

Here's our attempt to get a family photo in an indoor water park!

Then, it was time to check out the water slide! Benjamin, Jack and Anna all took turns going down (and alternated which adult they invited to join them). 

Weeeeee!

Benjamin did such a good job swimming by himself with his pool noodle....while Collin decided to take a little nap. 

I would like to point out that while Mike spent the last three years reading all about laws and regulations, he seemed pretty quick to ignore the rule posted right behind his head here. (In case you can't read it in the photo, it says, "Please do not block jets." And, in case you can't tell, that's exactly what Mike is doing.)

On Sunday, we enjoyed a delicious Mother's Day brunch. Such a fun weekend, and a great way to celebrate Mike's graduation and Mother's Day! 

Before they left, the big kids gave Uncle Mike some really big bear hugs!!! (He's a pretty popular guy!)

Mike's Graduation

Mike's third and final graduation! (High school, undergrad, and now law school!) Let's hope this one sticks, so that we can both be done with school FOR-EV-ER (please read with Sandlot-style pronunciation)!

Mike had a LOT of family there to cheer him on!

Official proof that law school really is over! (YAY!)

Of course, we needed lots of pictures with the grad after the big ceremony. 

Benjamin decided he'd like to try on Mike's hat, but I think the foreshadowing was a bit to much for his momma! 

The happy grad! (And I'm so happy for both of us that law school is finished!)

Congratulations, Mike!!!! We're ALL so proud of you!

puffy sleeves and plaid pants

 Napoleon Dynamite, eat your heart out! Tacky fun was had by all at the Funlist Tacky Prom. This is an annual event hosted by our church...and we had a blast!

Can you believe that someone gave up this stunning dress (please note the net-like puffy sleeves) and left it to hang on a rack at Goodwill! Such a tragedy. But at least now this lovely ensemble has a good home (in my closet).haha.

I think that making your MySpace face while attending Tacky Prom brings the tackiness to a whole new level, really.

 Mike got to meet Yoda. While he was a bit smaller than we expected, I'd say they had an instant connection.

 Mike popping balloons with his butt...because that's how responsible grown-ups clean up after a big tacky prom! 

Smarty Pants

Mike's recent victory at the Intellectual Property Moot Court was recognized by his firm: http://www.uspatent.com/2011/04/woodard-emhardt-law-clerk-reaches-national-ip-moot-court-competition/. 
And, if you can't tell, I'm pretty proud of him! I have to admit I disliked the fact that he had to leave town for the competition, but I was oh-so-impressed that he won the regional competition as a member of the first team from Indiana University's law school to ever compete in this IP moot court competition. 


So, please join me in congratulating my wonderful, smarty pants hubs! TQM.

Sorry, not-so-thief-y neighbor!

As some of you may recall, a few months ago Mike posted a very angry message to our unknown thief of a neighbor as his Facebook status. Mike had purchased me the Mario Kart game for Wii for my birthday. I was in Guatemala when the package was supposed to arrive. UPS said it came. It didn't. So, Mike called Amazon to report it as stolen. Amazon sent another package free-of-charge. UPS said it came. It didn't. (Sensing a trend?)


So, Mike called Amazon. He filed a second stolen report and then called UPS. Amazon agreed to mail him a third game, and UPS agreed to hold the package so Mike could pick it up. After theft report number two, Mike got rather enraged and posted his anger on Facebook. But, my birthday gift arrived on time, and all was right with the world. (And Peach on the standard bike DOMINATED Moo Moo Meadows!)


Then, Mike's computer crashed. HP sent him a box via UPS to safely mail in his crashed laptop. The EMPTY BOX never arrived. 


Who steals an empty box!??!!


We were convinced that we had some sort of bizarre thief in our neighborhood. So, we had all packages forwarded to me at work. Annoying, but no big deal.


Last week Mike's computer crashed again. (That's another frustrating part of the story!) In order to avoid someone stealing the empty box, we had it shipped to my work. As soon as I got home, Mike ran to the other side of town to drop off his laptop at UPS. 


Because Mike had to run all over town, we were running late to Bible Study. Just as we finished up dinner, someone rang our doorbell. (The last time someone rang our doorbell unannounced, I got yelled at for parking in someone's unofficial "spot," so needless to say the doorbell put us on edge.)


I answered the door and saw a man who introduced himself as our neighbor. In his hands were opened boxes from Amazon and one empty box from HP. 


Our address ends in 88. Our neighbor is in 68. Apparently, UPS can't tell the difference. 


Our neighbor explained that the packages arrived several months ago and he kept meaning to call Amazon to tell them there must be an error in their system. But, he forgot. Then, that day, his wife noticed that the packages were not addressed to them at all. He felt bad, so he brought them right over. 


We just stared at him.


You could see all the rage from Mike's previous assumption that someone was stealing from us well up in his face. We really were thankful (somewhere deep inside), but we looked evil. The presence of those boxes reminded us of every GPS-tracked-package plan, satellite surveillance device  and SWAT team strategy we had envisioned for dealing with our pillaging neighbors. 


I think our neighbor got scared because he handed me the packages quickly and scurried away. 


Mike and I just stared at each other. Then we stared at the boxes. Then one of us asked, "Ummm....so what do we do with three Mario Kart games?" haha. 


Don't worry, we returned them to Amazon. And, we're going to write a thank you letter to our neighbor. 


(Also, if you want to watch Peach kick some Toad butt, come over any time!)

The Ugly Mice Saga

Once upon a time, Mike wanted a wireless computer mouse. It seemed like a simple enough request, so he ordered one from Logitech when there was a Spoofee deal. It arrived promptly, but Mike soon discovered that it didn't work. He called Logitech and mailed them back the mouse. No problem.

A few days later, this came in the mail:

Now, some of you may consider this an upgrade from the all black version that Mike had originally ordered. Mike would disagree. He wanted black, not blue with some squiggly pattern. 

Call #2 to Logitech, and return #2 for Mike. 

A few days later, this came in the mail:

For those of you who find THIS to be an upgrade from all black, I question your taste. Not only is this NOT solid black, but it is significantly WORSE than the previous screw up. 

Call #3 to Logitech and return #3 for Mike. 

Today, Mike's solid black, non-Gothic wireless mouse finally arrived. He also got to keep mouse #1 and mouse #3. So, we now have three mice. Two of them work. And one of those two is really, really, really ugly. 

(Do people actually like having rock star-Gothic wireless mice? Really!?!? I just don't see the appeal.) 

(Also, yes, this is the most interesting thing that has happened lately. haha. So, that's why you're getting to read a post about our mouse purchase. Also, I thought it was funny.)

Cincy fun!

Last week was Mike's Spring Break, and we decided to go on a nice little romantic getaway. So, what romantic location did we choose? Cincinatti,of course! haha. What could be more romantic than Ohio!?! Okay, so Cincy isn't exactly romantic per se, but we had a fantastic mini-vacation.

First romantic stop on our mini-vacation was a lovely, quiet dinner, just the two of us. So, of course we chose something fancy and elegant. Haha. Or not. In true Kathy and Mike form - we chose the only Mexican restaurant in sight - El Nopal!

The waiter was giving Mike a hard time for not finishing his fajitis, so we told him Mike was saving the leftovers for lunch the next day. For some reason, the waiter found that funny and decided to write it on the box for Mike (or maybe he lives in a home where you have to claim your leftovers. I definitely know the feeling!) 

According to our waiter, the alternate spelling for "please" is apparently "pliss". Nice. Also, the pluralization of the word "thanks" is actually completely unnecessary when you think about it. He really may be on to something.

Here we are....on our way!

 We had reservations at a hotel near our final destination and we weren't really sure what to expect. It was fantastic! We were incredibly impressed!

Our final destination for the trip was the Creation Museum. We had heard so many great things about the museum, so I was very excited to check it out. 

Unfortunately, I think this picture argues the opposite of what the museum intended. I find it quite easy to see the resemblance here. What do you think?

 

One of our favorite parts of the museum was the Petting Zoo! I have this thing about touching animals. Basically, the thing is, I don't do it. Ever. I'll touch cats and dogs, and that is pretty much it. I like to look at other animals, but I'm not touching voluntarily. Mike, however, was pumped! As soon as we walked into the petting zoo, Mike looked at me with little puppy dog eyes and pleaded for a quarter so he could buy food to feed the animals. 

We soon discovered that the animals are quite discriminatory. If you don't have food - they're not interested. You could try to pet them until you were blue in the face, but if you didn't have food, they wanted NOTHING to do with you. 

Below you can see Mike feeding the Zonkeys! I was a big fan of these Donkey - Zebra hybrids (but absolutely never a big enough fan to touch ANY of these creatures). hehe.

Then, there was this fellow. This big guy confirmed the zillion and one reasons why I don't like to touch animals. He stuck his big ole head through the fence, and ate out of Mike's hand......

...and then Mike's hand looked like this! No joke - it took him about six washes to get that sticky thick saliva off his hand. 

Sick. 

Overall, we had a great time and really enjoyed just getting away for a couple of days.