well this was a crazy week. my cousin/sister finally came home from korea for a short visit before moving away AGAIN (something i plan to do eventually too) and we had a family get together! On my dad's side of my family, I have 13 aunts and uncles, my dad was the eldest, here are some of his siblings and their kids (far right is a cousin not an aunt). my aunts and cousins are legendary hotties around here.

 a lot of fun was had

 haha this is my aunt diving for the ball before it rolled into the wine bottle. she failed. the lid was screwed on anyway

some chatting about my cousin's experience in korea, specifically how old some of the standing buildings are there, my uncle's knowledge impressed me

 i bought a salad tupperware with a little dressing holder thing in the lid that u can slide open to release the dressing and i use it for cereal haha

 It was a loooong week of this

 And staring at this. But I'm finally done! Now to write my thesis....

 taken for an elvis freak friend, and some fassbender below, just for me......obsessed with fassbender

 Not only did my cousin come home, but my nephew and my mom and damien and i had a sleepover and i haven't seen my nephew in a year! i accidentally referred to him as ten and he said AUNTY i'M 11 ! Sorry kid, i guess it just seemed like no time had passed when he walked in the door. he was taller though.

 And as silly and fun as ever

 Damien even got to get up for a bit and play with him

 He doesn't look it here but he was very sick all week and is still not at full health today. He had a fever for roughly 4 days off and on. Very stuffed up and coughing. Poor guy.

 He is so quiet and just wants to be close to me when he's sick. His clinginess when sick, my experiment, my family visitors, and trying to spend time with Evan made me completely neglect my blog, not that I have any readers waiting for my next post aha.

 He had some back to normal hours in every sick day

 Mmmmmm berry season

And of course I fit in some Michael J Fox!

 garden protection! it wont stop raining every other day so it will all wash away soon. egg shells, cayenne pepper and the home made pesticide i made earlier and froze in batches. i broke that spray bottle...need a better way to deliver the pesticide than dollar store spray bottles that clog easily...

 my radishes wilted for about 2 days after i loved them but look much better now

 my zucchini that didn't move is a lot larger

 tomatoes in pots are getting taller

 my sad little successful patch of spinach, i planted more spinach seeds...waiting!

 cilantro takes sooo long to germinate and sprout! finally just coming up now

 egg shells and cayenne pepper, take that slugs! i have never actually seen more than one slug and it was being eaten by a pile of ants..so i'm not sure what is putting holes in my radish leaves and ate two of my 3 cucumber plants

the colour of rust

 i want to try to find chia seeds, black rice and amaranth...i love carbs and i need healthier versions other than white rice..kinda tired of quinoa too

 Nurse Jackie is so airbrushed I almost didn't recognize her...sheesh...that's not necessary..she's still an attractive woman with a few lines on her face.

My mother brought me this...with good intentions...but I did not drink it...took a sip..it was completely bitter, not sure if she ordered it wrong or...

I did ten minutes of the first Insanity dvd and then rode my exercise bike for another 15 tonight! Felt great. Need to get up early and pack a lunch AND dinner for I will be at my experiment all day and then have class 4-7pm. Hope I will have the energy to ride the bike for a bit again tomorrow! Chatting with a friend got me motivated again. Having a workout buddy is sooooooo important....for me anyway. I think tomorrow I will do some strength training with Jillian and the bike. Battling some mosquitos in my livingroom and then bedtime for me!

oh right i graduated

 man this already feels like so long ago and i just finished in april

 evan's jalapeno plant has more flowers

 Tried to get a photo from below

 New buds on my green peppers

 My sea of herbs

 The one tomato plant I kep inside. Evan isnt convinced we will have tomatoes and wants to go buy a plant..I will humour him

 Okra! (makes me think of Austin powers sayin "OP-RAH" in one of the three movies...man i need to watch those!

 The peppers I planted sprung up a bit more...I want to climatize these and plant a few outside..even if i get nothing from them

 I think I've been watching too much Mad Men..this caught my eye at Winners hahaha

 Star anise looks like an insect when its covered in sauce...

 A tofu, rice, onion, and pea stir fry in hoisin and soy sauce I made yesterday

 That's my radishes spread out....here they were more bunched together. I just used a small hand garden shovel and dug as deep as I could around the plants to uproot them gently then laid them out on the ground beside me until it looked like the ones remaining were far enough apart, then i made some new rows with the pulled ones using the shovel to stab and move the earth and with the shovel still in the ground, slid the roots down alongside the shovel then gently pulled the shovel back out and the dirt just fell into place around the radish, then i patted down the soil and moved on. I just hope they make it. There was already a thickened radishy area on quite a few of the roots.

 I am going to plant more herbs on the deck in pots and hope they fare better. I have no luck with cilantro

 I had 3 zucchini in the same spot, I spread them out and potted one for my mom. I hope the rabbits around her house don't eat it on her

 He was less than impressed that my attention was on the garden for a few minutes

 A lot of my spinach didn't make it...the root at the soil surface was very very thin and either broke or just wouldn't hold up the plant anymore. I don't think this was from a pest, but I doubt the wind coud cause it either....not sure.

 Hahaha, sometimes 2 year olds can surprise you. I came around the corner from turning the hose on and he was already watering the garden for me!

 Then he was very upset when the water stopped but we explained to him that the plants can drink too much and get sick.

Then he allowed us to take him in and give him a bath

taylor swift won't get out of my head.....

 Stressful past few days (what else is new)...my experiment was delayed again!!! We decided we need to collect MORE quantitative data than simply qualitative to prove our experiment works, and I decided we needed a camera to do so, so I ordered a night vision one for 60 bucks that my mother in law is currently across the river (we are separated from the United States - Michigan, by the St. Mary's River) collecting. I will be spending a few hours figuring out how to work that and then I have an education banquet tonight where I will be receiving a jacket with the logo of our reserve on it for graduating from my college program in May.

 watching cats play relieves stress

 Then we had a family dinner and Damien got his cousin over to play with. They played surprisingly well for toddlers!

 haha

 I still need to give my mother one of these plants and maybe just move another to a different area of the garden

 It's been thunderstorming and extrmemly windy the last few days. I'm not sure if thats why my spinach has all fallen over and become limp. If it wasn't that then it was insects. I mostly see ants in my garden though, which are eating the other insects and slugs and yes they crawl on my plants but I never see them chewing on them...

 A bunch more carrots popped up..a little too close together, going to have to space them out

 My tomato plants are looking better! I can't believe it!

 They actually look green now instead of white. I kept pinching off the white, bleached leaves at the stem and the new growth kept coming in and they made it!

 Definitely need to space out my radishes too! Hopefully I can do this tonight or tomorrow

Having fun with strange korean emoticons on the chat App I use to talk to my cousin on the other side of the world. Cat paw pads emoticon!

Amost thought I was going to have to drop my Stats class because my academic advisor put me in classes I didn't actually need but I decided to stay in them since stats is required for pretty much all undergrad science programs anyways and I want to get my Masters and don't want to be lacking requirements for that. Time to work on Assignment 2!