The Noehren's

Well, it's that time of year again, where 2 bushels of apples meet their fate and become mushed into applesauce.  I have to say that I equally dread and look forward to this day each year.  I typically hate canning, until it's done, and then I love having so much freshly made things in our pantry.  Haha.  It's complicated.    My parents come over and help out and we actually get it done pretty quickly.  The kids peal/core/slice with the peelers, my parents slice and cut out bad parts.  Brian washes the apples and makes the applesauce.  I peel any bad apples by hand that can't go on the peeler.  My mom puts the applesauce in the jars and I steam them in the steamer.  Then we all help clean up the mess.  I had to hand wash the floor twice to get the stickiness off!   And wha-la!  Applesauce for another year!  

The 2015 BioMotion Lab Halloween Party was a success!  It's always fun to get everyone together and let them know how much we appreciate all they do to keep the lab running smoothly.  I loved everyone's costumes and their creative pumpkins.   Jasper and Marieke and their cute kids are working in Brian's lab for 4 months and are here on a Fulbright Scholarship from the Netherlands.  Jasper has a similar job to Brian's in the Netherlands, so he is here doing a cultural exchange and trying out some new research ideas.  We have really enjoyed getting to know them and host them in America.  Pretty much everything they have told us about the Netherlands is amazing and makes us want to live there!  It is definitely on the list of places to visit someday.  In true American fashion, we dressed them all up in crazy costumes and they carved 3 pumpkins!!   Big Grant (below) had the best costume!  He was a cereal ...

We had big plans to go backpacking over Fall Break, and had our bags packed, when the weather decided to turn chilly and rain.  Boo.  So, instead, we decided to check out the fun things others have told us about in Cincinnati, which is only 1.5 hours away.   First stop was this super cool old train station that is now 3 museums.  We checked them all out and the cool train observation deck in the back and had a great time.  Phone Booths?  What is that?  Next, we went to Findlay Market thinking we would grab lunch, but ended up grabbing amazing Belgian waffles instead.  They just melted in your mouth without anything on them.  So, so good.  Maybe even better than the ones I had in Belgium.  Gasp!    Then we headed down to the river to play on this new, fun, playground.  It was chilly, but I'm glad we stopped! We crossed over to the Kentucky side of the river and ate at this German res...

This September the kids and I drove over to Washington DC with my parents to help send off my niece McCaela to her mission to New Mexico.  We stopped along the way at this beautiful overlook in West Virginia.  It was so beautiful!  When I think of WV, I think of rhododendrons the size of trees and beautiful overlooks like this.  It was nice to swing through my home state.   Even though we used to live only an hour away from DC when we were in Delaware, the kids hardly remember all the times we went, so we decided to spend a morning seeing the sites.       Here is where my dad used to work for the Department of Labor on Constitution Boulevard for a few years in the 60's after finishing his Ph.D. in Albany and before my parents headed 3 hours west to West Virginia University.  American History Smithsonian   Natural History Smithsonian butterfly incubator.  Air and Space Smithsonian...