Palouse Falls is a beautiful national park about an hour from college. I'd never really heard of it, but Janelle invited me to come along with a bunch of friends Saturday afternoon and we explored the place until about 9pm. Based on the surroundings, I never would have guess such a large body of water existed!

The weekend was a perfect break from the stress of college life and now I'm facing a mere week of classes before finals! The weekend ended on a happy note with a tasty meal I cooked up, delicious choclate smoothy drinks that Janelle made for us, and the slapstick comedy Fun with Dick and Jane. I am truly grateful for the time I get to spend with awesome friends!

Me, Janette, and Nate inside the hills - the three of us decided to take the more adventurous (and significantly shorter) way back to the cars after exploring Palouse Falls.

It was a great weekend and we ended up hanging out at Janette's place quite a bit - (mostly eating and napping). Her family is really welcoming - I had a great time playing tennis with her dad and I've been dancing with her mum a couple times in the past months. It was so nice to get out of the dorms for a while and enjoy a real house with a real family ;)

A rather large marmot I encountered at Palouse Falls. He looked a little hungry so I fed him this grahm cracker. Looks at that mouth though! Reminds me of Tim's ominous warning: "death awaits you all with nasty, big, pointy teeth" - fortunately it was a marmot and not a rabbit.

A small group of friends went up to a hill overlooking Walla Walla and we all sat in the wheat fields to enjoy a sunset. Quite a cold evening, but the clouds, stars, and city lights were beautiful! I was having fun with my camera and thought this one was particularly interesting.

Meet Nate. He's quirky, authentic, deep, spontaneous, considerate, hilarious, thoughtful, a great listener, insightful, and fun. All around, a great guy!

Yesterday marked the 1 year anniversary for me and Michelle! It seems like so long and so short at the same time... I get to be with her again in a mere 33 days :) I LOVE YOU!!

In other news, I'm sick and behind on homework. But in spite of that I managed to have a terrific afternoon playing ultimate frisbee and eating out on the lawn. It is truly beautiful out here and I'm soaking it all in.

This past weekend was amazing!! I studied hard all week (yes, even Friday afternoon) and was able to release ALL the stress for at least a solid 36 hours! I went to the history club vespers at the Emmerson's house and enjoyed some tasty food as well as the fire and company of great friends! Afterwards, went back to Jen's appartment and reposed for a few hours - talking about various things and most of all, just enjoying time to relax. I don't know if it was the couch, the appartment, Jen, my feverishly busy week, or a combination of them, but it was the most relaxed I've been since I started school this year.

Saturday morning, I headed out to South Forks with the group in the picture above (from left to right: Eric, Jay, Joe, Melody, Lichelle, Dave, Steph, Kent, Dezra, Cody, ..., and Becky). We had a lovely time hiking up the trail a ways, eating loads of great food, detonating cans of root beer, playing capture the flag, throwing water-baloons, etc. When we got back in the evening, I had the opportunity to go swing dancing! I have very limited experience with any kind of dancing, and without a partner/group I was almost inclined not to go... BUT, I'm so glad I did! I learned some basics with several kind (and patient) females - and even if I hadn't, the music alone was worth it! I'm really looking forward to my next opportunity for dancing (watch out Michelle!)

After dancing, I spent a great evening swapping music and pictures with Jen and fell asleep on one of the couches (that llama llama llama blanket is so ridiculously comfy!). Egg and cheese mcmuffin/biscuit/sandwhich things the next morning which were super tasty and then, the homework fun began.

A few days of insane homework, a nasty throat cold, and here I am! 4 weeks till exams are over and I head back home. I'm suffering from mild college burnout at the moment, but I'll make it! (Big thanks to all my awesome friends, family, and girlfriend for supporting me and keeping me sane!)

Chem lab - one of my more interesting classes... It's the only class (so far) where we actually get to burn or melt things. I believe in the picture above, I am in the middle of a freezing point depression experiment - analyzing the temperature dropping with different concentrations of solvent.

In the lab I just got out of (qualatative cation analysis), I truly felt like a chemist! I had my lab book with experimental plans, data collection/analysis, and then combining previous weeks of work into a decision tree, I was able to easily identify the 4 aqueous cation solutions that Prof. Lee handed out today. It was really pretty cool - a few drops of NH3, a litmus paper test, a few drops of Na3Fe(CN)6, a flame test... and presto - the unknown is now known!