Joshy's Birthday!

Okay, so Josh's birthday was a couple of weeks ago, but I finally got the pictures. Joshua turned 24 on 10/13 and had a great time celebrating! My parents came up for Friday and Saturday and we did fun stuff exploring a little bit of Dallas. On Friday night we went up in Reunion tower and looked at all the lights of Dallas. It was really neat up there.The pictures out the windows didn't really turn out great for posting, so you will just have to imagine it...or come to Dallas and we'll take you! =)
(Oh, I forgot to mention that we went to this piano bar in the West End Marketplace before reunion tower, but that ended up being kind of a joke of an experience.)

On Saturday we visited some museums and walked around the Arts District.


Here are my parents sitting on a cool bench in the sculpture garden at the Dallas Museum of Art.




I'm not really sure what Josh is looking at in this picture.


















Later we went back to the West End marketplace for lunch and walking around. It's a fun area. Anyways, we had a great time celebrating Josh. And now he's 24!

A peek into the land of statistics...

A professor asked his research students to rate (anonymously) how well they liked statistics.
The results were:
Males Females
5.25 4.37
s 6.57 7.55
n 12 31
a. State the research hypothesis
b. State the null hypothesis
c. Compute the standard error of difference
d. Compute t
e. Determine critical value (α=0.01)
f. Compare
g. Decide
h. Translate into English

A sample mean on an attitude scale equals 3.3 with a standard deviation of 0.5. There
were 16 people tested in the group. Test the hypothesis: “The group will score significantly
higher than 3.0 on attitude X.” (Use =0.01)
A. State the statistical hypothesis.
B. Compute the proper statistic to answer the question. (con't)
C. Test the statistic with the appropriate table.
D. State your conclusion.
E. Establish a 99% confidence interval about the sample mean. (Careful here...)

AHHH! I just want to counsel people! I don't want to crunch numbers! *sigh* I will trust there is benefit in me spending precious time punching numbers into a calculator...

Better get back to work...

S'mores?

So Thursday night, after a great dinner of barbecued chicken (grilled to perfection by Joshua the chef), I was really wanting something sweet. Actually, cookies to be exact, which we didn't have. Then I found a bag of marshmallows in the pantry and realized that with the coals still being hot, we could probably make s'mores...without chocolate or grahams...so just marshmallows. Undeterred, I put on a long-sleeved pullover (because it was a bit chilly) and ran outside.
However, my adventurous dessert plans did have the desired result.

The marshmallows had spent too many nights in the pantry and were unacceptably tough. We tried to toast them, but to no avail.


We had fun with the attempt, though!

Then afterwards, my thoughtful husband made us brownies.
Yumm, that hit the spot.


I tried to capture the moment with a spontaneous photo of the two of us.Unfortunately, Joshua looked drugged in just about every one I took, so I'll spare you the rest!

Yawn from the land of studying

Excuse my yawning. It's almost 10pm and I'm waiting for Joshua to call to say that he's on his way home from his mid-term. Tomorrow his project is due in his architecture class, so we've had some long studying-and-project-building days.
My workload isn't terrible this week, but I have several projects hanging over my head that need to be done sometime. I just can't seem to get motivated at 9:30pm. I'm not a late night person. So instead I try to come up with other things I need to do that don't require much concentration. Usually that involves checking up on other blogs (not a very good use of time sometimes!), writing overdue emails, or organizing things for the next day.
Tonight, however, I picked up a book that I hadn't read in a while. Reviving Ophelia is a book about counseling adolescent girls. It is very engaging - even for those who are not aspiring to be counselors - and gives a very intimate look at the struggles girls face (such as eating disorders, cutting addictions, drugs, and other family struggles). I highly recommend it to anyone who has any sort of contact with adolescent girls.
Well, I just got the call. Joshua is on his way home. Time to look like I've been productive! =)

Peace out!

A visitor!

Joshua's sister Laurie came to visit us last weekend! Yay! We had a great time dragging her around to different activities. She got to help us help some friends of ours load up a moving van, then we watch part of the tu game at our pastor's house. Then we went to their aunt's house for dinner with Aunt Jerry, cousin Camille, her husband Matt and their daughter Jordan. The food was delicious and Jordan is a hoot! I mean it! We had so much fun with her!
Yes, folks, that is Jordan's pink bow in Josh's hair!

Jordan has a cousin also named Josh (I guess we are her 2nd cousins?) so she calls my Josh "big Josh." It was so funny to hear all night "Big Josh" this and "Big Josh come here" and stuff.

Yay for family! Thanks for visiting us, Laurie!

Fun with cameras

So when it's just the two of you, taking pictures that you are both in gets kind of tricky. Joshua has gotten pretty good at the "hold it out with one arm" approach, but you don't get much of the background that way. The auto-delay is the way to go if you have a place to set the camera. Of course, that too can be tricky...

Here we had set the auto-delay but didn't quite make it to the bench on time!
We were trying to take some nice black&whites at the Kimbell Museum in Fort Worth.










But every now and then you get a nice shot.












Thanks for joining us for "Fun with Cameras" starring the Seefeldts. Stay tuned for more adventures!