the pre-super bowl days

the story of the week has been lacey's birthday, and i must say that it's been fun being the roommate of a birthday girl. it was all i could do not to give lace her presents early, though, so i took to decorating them whenever the temptation hit. i got her the ever-coveted buddha bowl, which turned out to be a bit difficult to track down in state college. i must admit that i didn't understand all of the many uses of the buddha bowl, but am acquiring at least a working knowledge from the birthday girl. i also got lacey a t-shirt in support of the emphatic love that she and matt developed for siena college (as they played against ohio state) in last year's ncaa tournaments. the big-ticket items were the wii that lacey got from ryan (yup, there is a wii in this house now :) and the obligatory cookie cake. yay and yum, respectively. if we ever get things hooked up and figured out, i will be anticipating playing via the internet with my and matt's families at some point!!

there were a few activities that occurred in the days leading up to lacey's birthday that i wanted to report on. first, lacey embraced her lb transport coozie and is adorable with it, as would be expected. the other is that i learned the joys of baked almonds (which was actually the activity occurring the night of that lacey/coozie picture. if you look closely you can see them in the background on the right side). it turns out that you can just boil almonds, let them dry overnight, pop them out of their (no longer papery) coverings, and then bake them in the oven. with no additional salts or seasonings, they are phenomenal. AND apparently filled with all sorts of health benefits. so, yay! (oh, and yum, again! this is working out nicely).

the only bad news to emerge over the last few days is that i am having the hardest time recruiting families to be in my dissertation study. i actually think that one of my families sneakily hung up on me this weekend thinking that they were under the cover of the answering machine having already picked up. nope. notsomuch. but sadly, despite your rudeness, i will still be eternally grateful if you brought in your child and let me record their brain waves. thanks.

on the plus side in work related news, the professor that i'm writing my postdoctoral grant with appears to have hired mary anne as his lab manager. i think this is an obvious good sign.

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh - and did i mention that the birthday girl hit the red pin with a big old strike to win a free game? shocking, right? ryan and i thought so, too:

this weekend is our super bowl party (stop by if you're in the neighborhood), next weekend my $10 trip to como (thanks Northwest/Delta!), the following weekend is our developmental area interview weekend, and after that i think i'll be madly preparing for conference stuff :) so, hopefully i can remember to get some new batteries for my camera and have a lot of pictures to share!!