I'm training for a 5K!!!

I have never been a runner! But I thought it would be a great Young Women's project to get in shape enough to run a 5K...by the end of the summer.

So I started this week. I found online the Couch-to-5K program, being the major couch potato I am. The first day I was dying after the first minute. But I made it my goal and I am going to stick to it! So this Monday I set out again to go running. Those in Champaign may remember that Monday was a little cold, but I was determined to go. So I bundled up in Tom's big old fatty sweatshirt, tied up the hood, and set off. Immediately it started to rain, but I was not going to let that stop me. Then it started to rain harder. The wind was blowing at my face so strong but I told myself I was going to keep going! I was cold and wet but I was going to make my goal! And then it started to hail! I really wanted to give up then but I couldn't, I was actually prideful now. I was going to be the dumb girl running in the hail, and proud of it! So I kept running. I was going to be tough. Nothing was going to stop me. I was not going to die no matter how much I felt my heart was going to explode. But then a bird pooped on me! I want everyone out there to know that I finished my run that day, with bird doodoo on my shoulder! I am so proud!

KEN LEE!!!!

Don't you just LOVE Bulgarians?

Prague...Probably the most beautiful city in Europe

Well, we are FINALLY posting all our pictures from our Europe trip!! We went to Vienna and Prague over New Year's. It was amazing (even if it was a little cold)! We've posted our favorite pictures here, but all of them are posted in our Web album later (look for the link in our forthcoming Vienna post).

Standing at the entrance to the Karlov Most (Charles Bridge) looking across the Vltava River to Prague Castle. The bridge is in Mission Impossible, so you might recognize it.

Probably?

Trdelnik, also known as Trdlo. Probably the best treat you'll find in Prague! They roll the dough into a long thin rope then wrap it around these big metal cylinders and roll it in sugar then cook it over the coals until the outside is crispy and the inside is warm and then they roll it in the sugar again and then give you a piece of it - it is warm and delicious! It was especially nice on those cold December days!

Mmmmm.....Trdelnik!

Prague by night..a view of Prague Castle across the river, with the Charles Bridge also visible. Prague Castle is the largest castle in Europe. We know you are thinking that Versailles is larger, but as our tour guide was SO adamant in pointing out, Versailles is a palace, not a castle. Seriously, though, Prague Castle once had a moat and they have towers for guards. Click on the picture for a much larger and better view of this beautiful picture.

This is the entrance to Karlov Most. The legend goes that King Charles himself laid the first stone for the bridge in 1357 on the 9th of July at 5:31 AM, so it's a huge palindrome (135797531). He is definitely the most popular monarch they have - our tour guide talked about him A LOT.

On the bridge is a spot where it is rumored one of the kings threw a priest off to his death for not telling the king whether the king's wife had confessed infidelity. Nowadays it is popular among tourists to touch a spot on the bridge (see Tom below!) where the priest was thrown off, supposedly granting one's wish. The only problem is, it's not the actual spot where the priest was thrown off! Our tour guide showed us the actual spot, but it is much less popular.

This is the other side of the bridge which opens on to a beautiful little street. Prague seemed to have a lot of these, but they are common in most European cities.

This is a view from the bridge of a cute side street with Christmas lights.

We found Becca's FAVORITE European grocery store, Billa! We got bread, cheese, and juice for dinner and ate in our hotel. We had a hard time paying because they overcharged for the bread because they didn't understand us (we don't really speak Czech, just in case you hadn't noticed!).

Probably the best fried cheese Becca will ever eat! Fried cheese is a popular meal for college students because it's so cheap! And it's safe for Becca because she's picky! Mmmmmm.....cheese.

Prague has a Jewish quarter and we got a picture of this clock tower that has both a normal clock and a Hebrew clock. Seeing the two right next to each other is pretty cool. We wanted to go back to the Jewish quarter but didn't get a chance. They have a cemetery adjoining a synagogue where all the names of the Czech Holocaust victims are engraved on the wall. The cemetery is very small but it is 12 (?) layers deep because they didn't have space to spread out. I guess we'll have to see that on our next trip to Prague...dare to dream!







This is the cathedral inside the walls of Prague Castle. It was started in the middle ages but wasn't actually finished until Bohemia (the old name for the Czech/Slovak region) gained independence in the early 20th century. We just missed the last tour of the day, so we didn't get to go inside. Again, next time....

This is Wenceslas Square which occupies a central location and has been the scene of many political protests and other major events in Prague's history. Shown here is a statue of "Good King Wenceslas" who was actually a Duke and not a king (ironically, they don't have that song in the Czech Republic). The building in the background is the Czech National Museum. In the 1970s (?) when Czechoslovakia was attempting to free themselves from Communism, the Soviet Army rolled into Wenceslas Square and started firing on this building because they thought it was the Parliament building, but, no, it's just a museum. Incidentally, Prague has also been the scene of several famous defenestrations which typically arose due to political disagreements and we all know the best way to handle such a situation is to throw the other guy out of a window (?!). Anyway, moving on....

This is the Opera House where Mozart's Don Giovanni was premiered. "Amadeus" was also filmed here.

This is the Old Town Square which is one of the most popular tourist destinations. This time of year they had Christmas markets out with crafts and yummy food. We had lots of Klobasa and Trdelnik. So good! The building shown with the two towers represents Adam and Eve - the right hand tower is slightly larger than the other.

This is the astronomical clock. Probably the most famous attraction in Prague. It chimes every hour and it has lots of moving parts and figures. You can read all about the different parts and see lots of close up pictures here. This is Becca's favorite thing about Prague. At first, Tom was not that impressed because he was expecting more. But it is really cool once you learn about what all the pieces mean. So go read about it! It's not a great picture because the thing is so huge!

A view of Prague by night, taken from the wall of Prague Castle. It is such a beautiful city, and we recommend that you visit!

Good times!

We visited Tom's parents and extended family in Georgia for Christmas. It was a very fun, relaxing visit, highlighted by all our cute nieces and nephews. Tom's sister Allyson has 2 girls, Savannah and Lizzie, and 1 boy, Joseph, while Tom's other sister has two, Elanor and Johnny. Here are a few snapshots of our fun times:

Becca with Elanor, while Elanor opens her dinosaur DVD. Elanor calls herself "a girl scientist" because she likes dinosaurs and rocks more than just about anything.

Elanor thanking Tom for the DVD


All the nieces and nephews (and we even got them all to look at the camera!)


Johnny doing what he does best - posing for the camera!



This is the ULTIMATE game of Settlers of Catan! We used 3 boxes of Settlers, 2 Cities and Knights, 1 Seafarers, and a German expansion that came with lots of extras. We had 10 people playing with 5 teams of 2 players each. As you can see it filled our entire kitchen table! It was awesome!


This is Savannah playing with Becky's dog. Sooooo cute!

That cat sure was getting old

Are you happy, Julie? No more cat!

Badonkadonk

Happy Friday everyone! I just saw this Amazon page linked on a friend's blog. Be sure to check out the customer reviews . Enjoy!

The light at the end of the Ph.D. tunnel....

Most of you know that I (Tom) am an MD/PhD student in the Department of Chemistry and Medical Scholars Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I passed some major milestones in my PhD. career the last few weeks. On Oct. 23 - Mole Day - our paper was finally published (web version) in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. You can see the abstract here. Here's our nifty abstract image:

The white discs have chemicals that we are testing for anti-fungal activity (see below)

I'm not allowed to post the pdf, otherwise I would. But if you are on campus of an educational or research institution, you can probably view the pdf here. Basically, we we work with an antifungal drug called amphotericin B that is used clinically for severe fungal infections. However, it is quite toxic to the kidneys. We chemically "amputated" part of the molecule that is supposed to be critical for the drug to work. Surprisingly, it was still able to kill fungus cells. This result has potential implications for designing a less toxic drug and also suggests that the drug doesn't necessarily work the way everyone thought it did for the last 40 years. So, it's pretty exciting for us! (even if you find it painfully boring....) Here's a picture of me with my advisor, Marty Burke, and my colleague Dan Palacios (an older, more entertaining picture of Dan can be found here - keep hitting refresh until he comes up!):

Dan has some killer hair.

In other news, I had my "prelim" exam which is basically the equivalent of defending a master's thesis, although I don't formally get a master's in my program. I defended my research in front of 4 faculty members and they asked me all sorts of questions for an hour and a half and I passed. Which means that I now have grad school "tenure" for the rest of the PhD process (i.e. they can't kick me out!). So I'm officially a Ph.D. candidate. It's definitely a load off, but it was kind of anticlimactic. Dan also recently passed his prelim, and another group member, Eric Gillis, also just published a paper. My advisor was so happy about all of this that he took us all out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse and then we went back to his house for drinks (I had sparkling cider...everyone else did not).

It's a great day at the Round Barn Farm!!

For our first anniversary Tom surprised Becca with a trip to two places neither of us had ever been - Wisconsin and Minnesota! Our first night, we drove from Champaign up to Madison, Wisconsin, where we tried to check into our reserved hotel but they had overbooked because of a motorcycling convention - there were bikes everywhere! It was 11 pm and raining, and they had to send us to another hotel! We eventually found our new hotel and checked into our room which had VERY comfortable pillows!! Tom had barely slept in 48 hours because he had been working on a proposal to try and get funding from the National Institutes of Health, so it was very nice to have a restful night together! Unfortunately, due to our late arrival, we didn't get to see any of Madison as we had originally planned. But we got totally free accommodations, so we weren't complaining too much!

The next day it was off to Red Wing, Minnesota where we stayed at a Bed and Breakfast called the Round Barn Farm. Here's a picture of the outside:

It's a great day at the round barn farm! (that was there official greeting!!)

This house was built in 2002 using a house plan from the 1800s. It was very cozy - it felt old but looked new. Our room was called the Hearts and Flowers Suite and it had an absolutely amazingly luxurious bed - one of those feather ones that you sink right into but still has enough support. It was a very comfortable place to stay!! There were hearts and flowers all over the walls and the tub was huge heart-shaped, two person whirlpool tub!! It was amazing. Becca is now in love with bubble baths.

The sitting room had comfy chairs, a piano, and a puzzle that we spent a lot of time on. The barn is historic because there are very few original round barns still standing. Robin and Elaine Kleffman, the innkeepers, have refurbished this one and they have wedding receptions and other celebrations inside. It was pretty neat! Robin and Elaine are good Christian folk and it was a delight getting to know them and staying in their Bed and Breakfast.

The breakfasts at this place are decadent! First off, the dining room itself is very impressive. Our first morning we had homebaked sourdough bread and a fruit cup with the fruit doused in vanilla mint syrup made with the mint they grow in their garden. They make all their bread in an outdoor brick oven. The main course was french toast (also homebaked bread) covered in strawberries with a homemade custard syrup. And for dessert (yes, we said dessert!) we had cheescake with a homemade chocolate ganache!!!! Who has dessert for breakfast? Um, that would be us (and everybody else that stays there)!

The second day's breakfast was just as fantastic - they had an oatmeal bread that was amazing and the main course was eggs benedict on their homemade english muffin toast with a, you guessed it, homemade citrus hollandaise sauce!! For dessert they had homemade cherry vanilla ice cream. Wow. We pretty much only had to eat two meals a day while we were there.

This was a Bavarian antique piece that they had in their dining room. I don't even want to know how much it cost....

This is the view from the bluff behind the round barn farm.

While in Minnesota we toured the historic downtown Red Wing area and went to lots of antique shops, ceramic shops, and bakeries. We discovered that the stacker shelves that we had just inherited from University of Illinois were worth upwards of $500.. We also went to Minneapolis where we went on a roller coaster at the Mall of America and then we went to this crazy Asian/Mexican fusion restaurant called Chino Latino. It was loud with crazy lighting and we saw a siamese twin (?) - it was like seeing one person with two heads.

Overall, the trip was very fun and relaxing. On the way home we drove along the banks of the Mississippi River (along the Wisconsin side), an area that William Cullen Bryant said "ought to be visited in the summer by every poet and painter in the land." We also saw the schoolhouse where Laura Ingalls Wilder went to school in Pepin, Wisconsin (she was born in what is now called "Little House Wayside" near Pepin).

We didn't get any better pictures than this, unfortunately.

We got some Wisconsin cheese and bratwurst on the way as well. The cheese was fabulous. While in Wisconsin, we discovered that they still have Piggly Wiggly grocery stores!!!! Here's a picture to prove it:

Sparta, Wisconsin (incidentally, Wisconsin has over 90 Piggly Wiggly stores!)

All in all it was a fantastic little trip!!

Rendezvous in old Nauvoo

We went to Nauvoo this summer to see sites, go to the temple, and see the Nauvoo pageant. It was a fun day! It was Becca's first time visiting Nauvoo. This is a picture of the view of the temple from Parley Street, which was the street the Saints used as they left Nauvoo. We got to go to the temple and had lots of fun seeing the Church sites. We saw the grave of Joseph, Hyrum, and Emma Smith (picture below - sorry it's not a good one).


This is the Mississippi River. It doesn't look like much from this picture, but we were glad to see it after driving down a dirt road for miles (thanks to Mapquest - but hey it got us there!). And below is a picture of us smooching on the banks fo the Mississippi.

Also down there is a picture of Becca with our friends Drew and Aubrey Dokos who were there with us that day. We had fun with them! They got married a month before us and were in the single's ward with us and are in our ward now. The picture is in front of a statue of Joesph and Hyrum at the end of Parley Street where they also have a memorial with all the names of the people who died while crossing the plains.

We saw the Nauvoo pageant which was amazing and very touching. Before the pageant starts they have this big pioneer festival thing with log sawing, square dancing, stick pulling and all sorts of other activities. The cast of the pageant are all walking around in period dress talking to people. It was quite fun (even if Tom and Drew didn't get to saw a log because the line was too long!!) We got home at like 3 AM before 11 AM church, but it was well worth it!

Drew, Aubrey, and Becca

Tom's Beard

Fun pictures of Tom with his beard!! Enjoy!

As promised - a picture of Tom's beard. He grew it out for a month while Becca was (mostly) out of town. Becca didn't like it, and Tom wasn't too crazy about it either. But it was a fun experiment!

We had this big ugly bush right by our front door, and one day when Tom's advisor was out of town he came home early and cut it down to size and dug around it and ripped it out. It's kinda hard to tell, but there's a big hole in front of him in the picture. We filled it in and our yard looks much better now.

When we took the beard off, we took pictures at various stages....

Yeah, I look pretty creepy.....