Ack- we haven't posted in such a long time.  It's been a pretty busy couple of weeks, I suppose.  Since our last post, I visited both the St. Paul and Duluth campuses of the U of MN, and got to spend a little bit of time with Carolyn and CR.  The time spent on the campuses was busy but very informative; I talked with loads of people, all of whom had different and interesting perspectives on the program to which I'm applying- the Water Resource Science MS/PhD program.  Then I flew to Madison (yes, I flew from Minneapolis to Madison- it was ridiculous- I could have driven there in the same amount of time).  I spent two days touring the campus and meeting with people in the Center for Limnology.  I also got to catch up on some Olympics and eat out at tasty restaurants.

[T- during this time, Gothic had a big snowstorm, so I skied back from bringing Jessica to town in quite a blizzard, and then had a lot of shoveling to do.  It was very light snow, so even with snowshoes everyone was sinking into the snow quite deeply.  It looked as if John and I had shoveled trails everywhere, but it was just that we made trenches in the snow wherever we went.  I had to dig the weather instruments out of their snowpiles, we got so much snowfall.  I was tired most of the time she was gone, from all the shoveling - even snowshoeing and skiing was extremely tiring.  The cabin was very quiet without her there, and I can't say that I cared for it!]

After this whirlwind trip, I relaxed and slept a lot for three days before Thayer and I took our trip to Oklahoma University (in Norman).  We had a wonderful time touring the campus, meeting with current grad students and other prospective grad students, and best of all, we visited the OU Biological Station on Lake Texoma!  Also, the weather was wonderful- 50's and sunny the entire time- although we're informed that it's not always like that in Oklahoma.  All in all, we got lots of useful information for choosing programs (which must done by April 15).

[T - the trip was very fun, and Rich, the grad student who housed us, did an awesome job.  He was really nice and really gave us a great feel for OU and Norman.  However, We don't want to say too much about our campus visits and what we think since the blog is public and we haven't made official decisions yet]

So we're back in Gothic, recuperating from our busy trips.  The weather here has been relatively warm (mid-30's) and mostly sunny.  We've been getting intermittent dustings of snow, but nothing to compare to the massive amount of snow that was dumped on Gothic while I was in Minnesota.  Most of that snow has compacted now, and the skiing and snowshoeing are, in general, pretty great.  We're looking forward to some warmer and sunnier weather that's headed our way this weekend, although winter won't be over for us for quite some time.

[T - we looked around for our porcupine, but he was nowhere to be found.  We saw our fox yesterday though - we were on the porch and he came around the corner of the house and was very surprised to see us.  He eyed us suspiciously for a moment, and then trotted away, keeping an eye on us.  He is definitely not the fox that lives down across the road by John, because we have seen that fox follow people really closely.  We suspect feeding has been involved.]

I've been making more progress on my red sweater.  It was originally intended as a project for the Ravelympics- meaning that I was supposed to complete it in the duration of the winter olympics.  I failed at that (I blame my week-long trip to the Midwest), but I did make a good start on the sweater.  So far, I've completed the back and one of the front pieces.

Yesterday, Thayer made oatmeal bread.  It turned out extra delicious and very pretty, in my opinion.

[T - I didn't make it all, Jessica kneaded it for me, because she's much better at it.  It was a noble sacrifice on her part, because the oatmeal dough is a very naughty sticky dough and we don't have a mixer or even a paddle scraper to facilitate the process]