"Bethany, Meet NJ. NJ, Meet Bethany."

Imagine it: Five strange looking characters hanging around the Continental security checkpoint in Newark Airport. One young male was enjoying doughnut holes and a water bottle. A middle aged gentleman was explaining to his fellows why he had insisted upon carrying a luggage cart up the escalator. A middle aged woman stood with a cookbook and spiral notebook attempting to plan a menu. A young, almost 20ish female offered meal suggestions, and another young female sat on the floor reading The Assassins attempting to not eat any more doughnut holes. Such the security guards saw at 11:30 PM on the 15th of June, 2011. Why did the Carlsons, for such were the five characters, sit this way around the Continental secruity checkpoint in Newark Airport on the night of 15th of June, 2011?

They were expecting a visitor.
Yes, we have just had two amazingly brilliant two weeks with Bethany Hammermaster, one of the famous cousins living in Washington State. The two weeks consisted of running a garage sale, setting up a pool, and getting sick. Okay, that's not all of what the two weeks consisted of. Since a blow by blow retelling of the two weeks could be rather long and, especially for you all, a little painful, I'm simply going to pick a few of the highlights from her visit.
1. I loved introducing her to all of our friends out here. Our friends and our cousins have both had to listen to my rapturous rants about the other, and so I was delighted to finally have my two "worlds" meet.
2. We went into New York City twice during her visit, and during the first one, we visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I already love the museum, but this time, my enjoyment was compounded with the fact that Bethany was wandering the rooms with me. The two of us stood in front of painting numerous times and said to one another, "Can you believe that it's really a painting? It looks like a picture!" ...and with the help of Julie and several security persons, we successfully found a Rembrandt.

















3. The second time we went into the City, Bethany, Julie, and I took on the metropolis by ourselves and tried to look like we knew what we were doing. Acting thus, we confidently walked onto the express Subway and laughed our heads off as our stops flew by. (For those of you who don't know: Express subways don't stop at each and every stop. They pick you up at one stop and whiz you to a far-away stop. If you want to stop at every station and get off at the station you were hoping too, Bethany, Julie, and I would suggest making sure you are getting onto the LOCAL subway.) We also confidently wandered a bit more than we normally do, but the entire trip was a success: We found Ground Zero, Trinity Church, Balto, and Alice in Wonderland (Another statue in Central Park). One highlight within this highlight was the fact that we discovered Alexander Hamilton's grave. Despite of what you might think of Hamilton, I consider him a genius, so was THRILLED to find his grave. And, throughout the day, most importantly, we created memories.

4. On one Thursday, Julie was going to take her friend, Becca, out for the morning. Bethany and I went along to spend time with Becca, and for something different, spent the morning at the mall.

5. Another highlight was learning how to waltz. I've had it explained to me several times, and Julie and I have tried to figure it out from closely watching waltzing in movies, but to no avail. Now Julie, Andrew, and I all know how.




Obviously, we made many more than five memories or had more than five highlights of our time together. But these are "a few of my favorite things."Even though Bethany left last Wednesday, the events have not ended over here.

Thursday was Julie's 20th birthday, and in celebration we went swimming with friends and attended the stupendous performance of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream by the Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey.

This weekend is filled with VBS prep, packing for Boy Scout camp (Andrew), packing for the Family Conference (Julie and me), and the other every day activities!

What's Been Going On?

The snow is gone; ice has melted; School is finishing...and the blog has been neglected. The last few posts on this blog have consisted of running, and lots of snow, and sabotaging of research projects. Let me tell you now about what been happening recently ...or at least catch you up on the last month or so.
May 10th, almost an exact month ago, was our annual co-op presentation night. For the third year, my friend Bethany and I organized it. I always look forward to this night, and this year was no exception! As the second to last day of co-op, I also had my last day of Writing V, one of my favorite, if not my favorite, class this year. This was no ordinary class meeting...we dressed up (or attempted to dress up) as Roman citizens, headed outside, and snapped several pictures, formal class pictures and otherwise. I would post the final class picture, but I haven't yet gotten it from the photographer. ....but we did have fun in the glorious sunshine. King Arthur and the Knights of the Square Table of Opposition (Formal Logic) also successfully killed the fallacious dragon that had kidnapped the fair damsels in distress.

That Friday, after a week that seemed to never end, full of studying and tests, JULIE FINISHED HER SECOND YEAR OF SCHOOL!!!!! Three cheers for Julie!
...We hope the long week didn't
cause mental damage.



The next Tuesday (May 17), CO-OP FINISHED!!!!! We were all very excited about the lightening of our school loads. The last hour of co-op was especially fun as I and my fellow thespians performed the Shakespeare scenes we've been rehearsing since January.

The scenes were (Sorry the pictures aren't great quality...no flashes were allowed.)

Two Gentlemen of Verona (starring Emily Maynard and MeiLing Roberts)

Othello (starring Andrew Fischer and Mattie van der Swaagh)

As You Like It (starring Mr. van der Swaagh, John Gross,
and Emma Smith, and Lindsay Tamuzza)

and Macbeth (starring Bethany Seiter and Sheryl Carlson)

The next couple weeks were taken up with the non-co-op school and choir! Four practices and two performances later, the NJHSA choir had acquired a new plaque from the Rutgers Choir Festival to add to its collection and had learned a medley of Les Miserables songs in record time!

We enjoyed Memorial day at the town parade where the Boy Scout troop marched and at a co-op family's house for dinner.
This Sunday (the 5th) to Tuesday (the 7th) we enjoyed the company of good friends from Texas, the Simpsons...

or at least some of them. On Monday, we enjoyed traveling into the city and seeing the progress of the rebuilding of the World Trade Center.
I hadn't know how much progress they had made, so it was slightly shocking to see how far they had progressed! This building, according to plan, will be double the height it is now. We also enjoyed touring St. Paul's Chapel (the church which has withstood the NYC fire of 1776 and 9/11) and Trinity Church (to those of you who know and love National Treasure I, you'll understand my excitement of seeing inside the church! ....Also for the NT fans, notice the Picture of Wall Street and Broadway)

We also rode the Staten Island Ferry, from where Daniel Simpson took the amazing pictures of the Statue of Liberty. We also enjoyed seeing Wall Street and stopping at Starbucks. (For any of you who like Starbucks' fun drinks, I would recommend their Mocha Coconut Frappachino.....Yummmm.) The Simpsons spent Tuesday at our house recouping before heading down to Washington D.C.

The youngest Simpson, Hannah, and I really enjoyed getting to know one another. On Monday night and Tuesday morning, she contentedly sat on a swivel chair listening to Adventures in Odyssey on my mp3 player, keeping me company while I worked through the last two chapters of economics. Hannah reminded me quite distinctly of me as a little girl...all the way down to the love of Asiago cheese bagels.

And now...the summer has come. All of us at 38 Washburn Road are greatly looking forward to all of the different activities planned for the summer: next week Bethany Hammermaster is flying out for a couple weeks, a family conference (that Julie and I are going to), Boy Scout camp (which Julie and I are NOT going to), Grammie (or Mom) McCormick flying out, VBS, Pastoral Modules, and a grand finale to the summer with a trip to Seattle for the marriage of Emily Watts to Danny Villa! Stay Tuned! We'll try to keep you posted.

Note: Great pictures from NYC were taken by Daniel Simpson, Presentation Night pictures were taken by Mattie van der Swaagh, and Shakespeare scene pictures taken by Sharon Seiter

My Teaching Video

For education class, our final project was to compile the videos that we had filmed of ourselves over the semester and make a video showing our "journey" towards better teaching. I thought I'd share it with you all. Enjoy.
A better quality version is available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP0NJKgbrRM

A Spark of Humor

I am working on a research project (not paper) about the Nestorians in China. I have to create an annotated bibliography, and was reading through William of Rubric's account of the Nestorians in Mongolian China, when Sheryl sabatoged my computer and wrote my annotation for me. I thought you all might enjoy it too:

William of Rubrick’s Source on These Horrible People

Translated by someone who knew no Chinese, this source is written by William of Rubrick’s based on the observations of his second cousin’s great aunt, who visited the Nestorians personally. Rubrick heard first hand from the second cousin’s best friend, who heard it from the second cousin, who heard it from his mom, who heard it from her mom, who heard it from her sister. Rubrick’s second cousin’s great aunt flatly contradicts that the Nestorians were really in Persia at all (They jumped immediately to China), and did not want to make any converts…that’s why there were not many made. This was for several reasons: 1)They knew no one would want to listen to their beliefs. 2)They didn’t really believe the beliefs themselves and 3)They were infamously terrible rhetoricians and couldn’t present their case for their lives. Rubick goes on to relate how the Nestorians had been planning on working on their rhetoric, but had been unable to find and secure a copy of Aristotle’s Rhetoric.

This was for two reasons: 1)The printing press was not yet invented, and the monks at the local monastery would not lend their one copy to those whom they considered heretics, and 2)They looked in the wrong section of the public monastery library, since they had forgotten that Aristotle’s teacher was Plato. Therefore, they were looking directly after Socrates, and since Plato wrote so much for Socrates, they couldn’t get through all of Socrates books before the library closed. If they had more time however, they could possibly have, after working through the writings of Socrates and Plato, eventually gotten to the Aristotle section. However, even if they had, they would not have been able to check it out. This is for two reasons: 1)The monks, as was aforementioned, would not lend their one handwritten copy of Aristotle’s Rhetoric to heretics and 2)They had forgotten their library cards as well as having an already over due book.

Well, she probably doesn’t have a future in historiography, but maybe she should become a comedian!

Ice-Encased New Jersey

Hi Everyone! Yep, It's me again and this time I am not focusing on the few ice spikes (see below) we have in the front of the house, but the ice encased yard we have. Yes, everything is covered in ice. Pictures speak a thousands words, so instead of trying to explain, here's some pictures:

Now for a couple of the bushes and dogwood tree:

Now to finish, a shot of the wintery and icy yard and a shot of the tree. The sheen on the branches on the tree are sheets of ice.

As normally happens when we have this icy land, it only ever stays for a little bit. It's turned to rain and the ice has started to melt.

...AND MORE SNOW...WITH ICICLES!

If you either are living on the East Coast, or are following the weather on the East Coast, you know that NJ has been hit again, and again, and (guess what?) again with snow. It's been rather strange, and a great winter. We've had snow on the ground for over a month now, and about every week there's a new snowstorm that cancels something...today it's co-op. Therefore, I decided to use some of the extra time writing a blog and sharing some of the pictures that I took from the storm last Wednesday into Thursday. Wednesday's storm started morning and throughout the day became worse and worse, eventually canceling prayer meeting. Thursday morning it had pretty much stopped snowing, but the roads were pretty bad for the morning. Thankfully, Andrew and I were still able to have our dress rehearsal for our choir concert, which was on Saturday night (amidst light snow fall!)

Explanation to the the pictures above: The first is our back porch engulfed in snow, some of it from previous storms. The second is our front porch's view into the winter wonderland, and the third is of one of my favorite sights and I hope I can paint some day: the fresh snow on the trees.

I've discovered that this snow storm, and the days following it, were PERFECT conditions for icicles. We don't normally get icicles, but we, along with about everyone else on our street and neighborhood, received those growing spikes off of our roof. It's been warming up just above freezing during the day, which lets snow from the roof melt, making the icicles grow and dripping all the water onto our front step. Then, as the afternoon wares on, it dips below freezing again, and we have our own little ice skating rink...literally on our front step! The next day, once it's melted a little, Andrew normally gets out there and breaks it up, just in time for the cycle to start over again. Anyway, I found icicles the perfect photography objects:
Here's a shot of the front of the house's icicles.

I wish the camera had behaved and focused on the front icicle, but I still thought that it was a cool picture.

These two are two loners above the back porch. (Notice the snow still on the tree branches behind them...one of the most BEAUTIFUL parts of snow storms!)


I know I gave you the sensation of being among the icicles, but here's one from behind the icicles looking out.


Now for some more close ups (both on the front porch):
I love the design of the second one! God truly is an artist!

And for some reason, I took this one. Don't ask me why...I'll tell you anyway: I thought it was gorgeous and slightly ironic to have this icicle and the bright blue sky above it.

So there's an update on the weather and icicles in NJ. All the inhabitants of the snow engulfed house are doing well...one has been traveling the world (Daddy) and is now getting an unexpected visit to the family in Seattle as his flight into snow-ridden Newark was canceled. The rest of us are keeping busy with school and other such activities. I hope that you, my gentle readers, are doing well too! (Sorry. I've been waiting to call someone my gentle reader for a long time.)

WE GOT SNOW!

Well, we've been waiting for awhile, (at least it feels like awhile) but we finally got our first big snowstorm! It's really hard to measure how much we really have, because of the fierce wind that has accompanied the snow. On our deck we have about 3 feet, in our yard and driveway about 16-20 inches, by the tree in the front yard, 2 inches, and on the far right side of the house, no snow at all! That should give you all a bit of an idea on the amount of wind we had and the drifting that occurred! The falling of snow ended about 9 AM on Monday, I'd say, but the wind was at it almost all day long, and boy was it fierce! We kids experienced this wind for a short period of time, when we went out to take some pictures, but we were not able to stand the cold for long! ...well, I should say, we girls were not able to stand it for long, because Andrew and Daddy went outside again to shovel the driveway.

This first picture is on Sunday night, and is of our backdoor window...the wind has blown the snow into a very cool design!

This next picture is of the window over our sink: Another specimen of the wind!

Just thought you all might like a picture of the actual snow falling...
This demonstrates one of my favorite features on my camera! (I've had it for almost two years, and I'm still finding fun features!) It's called the Night Landscape setting, and I think it slows the shutter speed down, so that the picture isn't blurry, but there isn't a flash...Sorry...I digress.

Still on Sunday night: this is the ruler showing that we have 15 inches...there was some drifting already, but it wasn't as much as later.

This is the view on our porch that we woke up to on Monday morning. I don't know if you can really see the amount of snow from this picture, but on the porch there was a TON of snow! Our picnic table is in the middle, and the snow has almost completely engulfed it!

This is just another shot of the snow... This time from our front window.

Now we're out in it to take some more pictures! This one is Julie running...If you didn't know that already.

...and this is me, not running in the snow.

This isn't a great picture of Andrew, but it shows that he was having a great time taking pictures of the snow itself.

Andrew was so kind as to take this picture of Julie and me together...you don't want to see the ones we tried by ourselves...yeah, they were all pretty disastrously funny.

So if you weren't able to really experience the snow, I hope the pictures were able to give you a small taste of it!