10 Quick Takes for the 4th

Happy 4th of July! Happy Independence Day! Since you all have been wondering, here's a quick update on what has been happening with us:

1. We survived being apart for almost 2 weeks. This was a first for us as previously we'd only been apart for a week. What was unusual was Scott was the one gone this time.

2. Scott survived 2 weeks of intensive graduate courses in St. Louis. He took 9 doctoral credits in a mere 10 days. Granted, he spent the whole month prior to class reading 100+ pages of course books each day, and he still has 60 pages of final papers to write, but he's survived so far.

3. In addition to studying, he managed to find large chunks of time to spend with our Godson and his family who live near there. What a great privilege to be able to nurture that relationship.

4. We're getting new internet service! Yes, this is exciting. We're finally ditching our slow connection and going with a local broadband company. This means we'll not only save a bunch of money each month, but our speeds should hopefully be much faster. That equates to more blogging and picture uploading.

5. We're planning to buy 1/4 of a cow. Scott is thrilled I've finally given in to his desire for more meat at a reasonable price.

6. We're buying a 7 cu. ft. chest freezer this week for our 1/4 of a cow.

7. We purchased clearance vegetable plants and are trying to grow new veggies for the first time in our garden. For a whopping $3 we got 6 brussel sprout plants, 6 califlower, and 6 cabbage plants. We'll see how they turnout. Right now we have zucchini, tomato, pepper, eggplant, basil, and parsley growing well.

8. I have 2 weeks left of summer classes and then I'm on vacation for 5 weeks. This summer has been the least stressful of all summer teaching due to the extremely small class sizes. I have 7 students in 1 class and 1 student in the other. I have 8 students total in 2 classes! That has never happened before, but I sure enjoy how quickly I can grade papers.

9. In 2 1/2 weeks the first of our company arrives, followed immediately by the second group, and then a week later the third group arrives. I'm looking forward to all of the visits and it's a nice change from our usual traveling.

10. Today marks 2 years of blogging! Happy blog-o-versary to us.

Happy Birthday, America!