Why I sunburn...

If there were any questions about why I sunburn so easily....please consult my DNA.

I asked my parents for a DNA test for Christmas...as did a ton of other people.  It took a bit longer than the 4-6 weeks because of how many people sent in tests after Christmas.  But I finally got my results.  I was hoping for a fun surprise but it was pretty much what I thought...I am really fair skinned.

It's fascinating.  I want my whole family to have theirs done because two siblings won't have exactly the same DNA.  You get half from your dad and half from your mom.  So there may be something that you didn't inherit that your sibling did.

See this article for more info http://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask166:

"You get 50% of your genes from your mom and 50% of your genes from your dad.

Essentially you have two copies of each gene -- one copy from your mom and one copy from your dad. Here is the strange part, the copy that you get from your mom may or not be the same copy that your sibling gets from your mom.

Remember each of your parents has two copies of most of their genes too. When the egg or sperm that made you got made, only one copy of each gene was put in.

The copy that gets put in is chosen randomly through a process called meiosis. What this means is that you have a 50% chance of getting one of their two copies.

That probability doesn't seem impressive until you consider that you have around 25,000 genes. Throw in a 50% chance of getting one copy versus your sibling getting another copy and that makes meiosis a serious gene scrambler.

So, because of this scrambling you and your siblings are 50% genetically identical and are not 100% biochemically identical."

3D Printing

Ethan has a technology/design class that is really cool.  He got to do a 3D printing of an object of his choice.  He chose a chess pawn.  I got a text in the middle of the day from him asking me to measure a pawn and send the height and width to him.  I did and a few days later he brought this home...

He is doing really well in the class.  His teacher told me at parent teacher conferences that Ethan is teaching him things about the design programs they are learning in class.  I told the teacher that he gets that from me because I majored in graphic design.  Finally!  Something good my genes passed on to Ethan! 😀

T-shirt t-shirt

Ethan needed a shirt to do a silk screen on for one of his classes.  He grabbed an old pajama shirt and went with it.  He did a silk screen t-shirt on his t-shirt.  Hahaha!!  It turned out great.  They have a completely different silk screening technique from when I went to college and did silk screening.  It's so much easier now.

Looking good!

Dance season

It's that time of year...half-time show season.  Courtney has performed a few times.  They have been mixing it up this year.  Courtney is on the Jr. All Starzz team and also the 6-12th team.  The first performance was just the Jr. All Starzz.  The next performance was just the 6-12th team.  The last performance was everyone. This makes it a bit tough because she has one costume for Jr. All Starzz and another one for the 6-12th class.  So she climbs under the bleachers and changes clothes in the 3 minutes between her dances.  It has worked so far but she is a bit stressed each time she has to change.

This is their 6-12th dance.

Here are the videos of both dances:

She won!

We play a family game on Sunday and Bryan usually chooses one that has a map.  This isn't the favorite of the kids but when we vote they are always outvoted (parents votes count for 2 each while kid votes only count for 1 each, that's fair, right?!).

This particular Sunday, Courtney won!!!  She was so excited because she "never, ever wins!"  We had to take a picture for posterity.

Progress

We have been very slowly making progress on the remodeling.  Here is the new door in the hallway.  Eventually, the plan is to make this a toilet room but we are going to work on the downstairs before doing that.

This is the view from inside the doorway just before we put the door on.

This is after we hung the door.

We have a couple of coats of mud on the joints.  We need to do another coat, texturize and then paint.  It's coming along.

Magic Popcorn Box

I bet you don't have one of these...

It may look like a plain old Quarter Oats, Flavor Variety box of instant oatmeal but it is really the "magic popcorn box!"  Yup, most nights at around 8 p.m., microwave popcorn will magically appear inside this box.  Just ask the kids!  They will look in the box at 7:45 and there won't be any popcorn.  When they check it at 8:15...BAM...popcorn!  The kids can't figure it out.  They watch Bryan and I like hawks but it still remains a mystery.

Yup, our house is magic.