On Monday morning I woke up and found a bruise on my left wrist. I have no clue what happened... but it was quite large. My arm didn't hurt at all either.
We got into the facility on and started setting up Monday morning. It's been 7 and a half years since I've been here, and this is where I did my first radiation test back in college! It was pretty cool to be back. I went and showed the medical room to the new people. Patients with eye cancer come sit in that chair and get the beam line centered on their eye. I won't pretend to understand the medical science behind this, but with all the radiation testing I've done I don't know if I could sit there...
Back at home Winry and Brooke were being best friends and having cuddle time together. Winry has been really attached to Brooke lately. This past week Brooke went over to a friends house, and when Winry realized that just Brooke was staying she started crying and saying "Brooke! Brooke!" It's great that they're best friends! Speaking of being best friends, there was also some hard core dancing going on this past week!
Back at the beam we were setting everything up for testing. Protons make the things they hit radioactive, which then results in radiation going everywhere, so we were putting special plastic bricks all over the place to try to protect our other electronics!
Brooke started wanting to cook more with Monica, and she has a kids cook book. So this past week Brooke picked a few recipes and they made tacos! Everyone loved them! They even made extra, and we're going to have them again sometime soon. Also, tonight Brooke is making moussaka. We've never had moussaka before, but that's what she picked!
After dinner they went for a walk around the neighborhood, and Brooke and Winry held hands while they walked!
The beam trip was pretty nice as far as beam trips go. The lab is open 8 to 5, so no overnight runs or crazy hours this time. That was nice because it was easy to get my runs in each morning, and while I did work longer than normal, it was more of a typical work schedule and I was able to call the girls in the morning and at night. I got a picture in the facility control room. The beam was built in the 60s, and has basically stayed unchanged since then! You might be able to tell.
On Friday, when we finished our final testing, we were offered a facility tour. They shut down the beam completely and opened up an 8ish foot thick door into the cyclotron. In we went, and there were some pretty cool electronics in there. Part of the beam was rebuilt last year because they had some o-rings that started to leak. After they rebuilt the beam it took them months to figure out how to get the beam running again properly because the electric fields inside are so huge and sensitive to change that when they unplugged some cables to fix the o-rings nothing worked the same, and the beam was down for about a year in total between making the fix and re-figuring out how to run the beam line! Pretty cool stuff.
Looks like Brooke and Winry slept in mine and Monica's bed on Friday night. I'm not sure where Monica slept... I actually ended up coming home Friday night. Originally I was going to return in the middle of the day Saturday, but there was a mix-up with our hotel rooms and we were only booked rooms through Friday. UC Davis semester starts next Monday, so it was easier to get a return flight Friday night than to find a hotel room, so back we came. I ended up getting home around 12:30 am!
The girls were very happy to have me home on Saturday, and Winry just had to be with me when she woke up at 5:30. Monica tried to let me sleep, but I offered to come sleep on the couch to appease Winry. I did get to sleep some more, but Winry did spend a lot of time climbing on me and sharing my blanket. I bought the girls books while I was on my trip, and I left them out on the table. Winry brought them over for me to read to her while I was trying to sleep. I got up for the day at 8, and a little later I took both of the kids running. While the temperature wasn't really that hot on Saturday it was VERY HOT on my run, as the middle of the day was quite warmer than running first thing in the morning. I made it through though, and Winry took her nap in the stroller.
Before we went running, the snow clothes made their way out. We opened the windows that morning, and it was in the 40s or something, and so I got a little cold. The next thing I knew everyone was ready for winter!
After our run we had lunch, and I made the kids mac and cheese! No wonder why they wanted me to come home so much! Winry was worried about her's being hot, so she was blowing on it at every bite!
We watched the BYU football game, and Winry spent most of the day sitting on my lap. Brooke spent a good deal of time cuddling next to me as well. I think I might have been missed slightly while I was gone. Shortly after we left to go running, Monica left for lunch with her friends and ended up getting home around the end of the football game. I think it was good for her to get a break after flying solo with the kids for the past week.
Brooke has started to learn to draw animals, and this past week she even drew one all on her own! She drew a bear on her whiteboard! She was so excited they even turned it around to make sure Winry didn't erase it before I got home to see it.
I've still been a little tired from my trip today, so hopefully I'm feeling better tomorrow. It was a pretty good trip, and we were able to get everything done we needed to, and everyone survived at home! As I'm finishing up writing this, Brooke is sitting next to me practicing her songs for the primary program next week! This will be her first time!! Also, you're invited to come if you'd like! Sorry for the late notice! Brooke invited our next door neighbor this past week the day she moved to Colorado Springs and she said she'd come! So we're excited to see her there.
No comments:
Post a Comment