Thanksgiving '08

This year the whole family came to our house for thanksgiving. I made pumpkin pies, stuffing and turkey. My mom made other food and various relatives brought things as well. It was a good night, but there's just too many people in our family. It's crazy when everyone gets together! There are so many little kids running around and making a mess! But it was good.

My brothers (Vasiliy and Jacob) and I

Jacob! He's so adorable! He loves watching Barbie and the Diamond Castle so we turned it on and got the kids to sit still for a little bit. Some adults watched it with the kids as well. I personally love the movie and I bought the DVD and now Jacob watches it all the time and keeps bugging me to buy him the princess' from the movie. He's so cute!

My cousin Lidia

My mom, her mom and I

Me, mom, maternal grandma, paternal grandma. . . both grandmas live with us and both of my grandpas died

My cousin Yuriy, Lidia's brother

The guys were in my room most of the night playing computer games!

My cousin Alex, his wife Vita and their younger son Rayel

I like these family gatherings. Before, I used to hate them because of all the noise and the kids running around, but I got used to it now. I still like quiet time, but once in a while craziness is ok.

Wedding 11-23-08 - Vasiliy and Svetlana

One of my good friends, Vasiliy, got married last Sunday. My family and I went to his wedding; my parents know his parents from Ukraine and they also know the bride's family as well. I know the bride, but not too well, I know her older sister better. It was a good wedding, lots of people, good food, good music. I like the dark blue color, it's a really nice shade of blue!




Vasiliy (my brother) and I with the bride and groom, the groom's name is also Vasiliy.

The wedding cakes. . . I like the chocolate doves with their names!

Vasya and Sveta!

My cousin, Alina, my mom and I

ME! I think I look good in red. I got tired of always wearing black or dark colored dresses. . . and my shoes match! They're really comfortable and pretty.

My bro!

Die Fledermaus Opera - Johann Strauss

In the beginning of November, the PLU Opera singers and the University Symphony Orchestra we part of the production of Johann Strauss' opera "Die Fledermaus" (The Bat).
Here are some pictures from the show. I could not take pictures of the actors because I was too busy playing. I didn't even get to see the whole performance because as you probably have guessed. . . I was playing! Anyway, the opera was performed 4 nights with two sets of cast members that performed 2 nights each. The orchestra played all four nights, except some people who could not make one of the performances (like me!)

Opening night! I got ready and my hair just looked so good! I had to take a picture!

Me once again with my amazing hair! Opening night!

Eric, siting there, doing nothing. . .

Luke. . . those 1st violins. . . .


During intermission. . . The Russian prince and the butler pouring "champagne" (sparkling cider). . . The prince was played by a girl in both casts, but this actress was hilarious! They were so funny out in the lobby I really wished I had a video camera!

Mom and Natasha, my cousin, they came to the performance on Saturday night.

Natasha and I

Eric, me and Luke. The guys look really good in black! We went to the mall the night before opening night to get black shirts for them and I got myself a skirt at the same time! :)


Dr.Lytle (chemistry professor), me, Lauren (oboe), Ana (Eric's stand partner), Eric, some guy I don't know the name of, and Luke

Mole Day Eve

This week is National Chemistry Week in honor of Mole Day tomorrow (10-23). One mole of a substance is 6.02 x 10^23 particles of that substance. So one mole of water would be 6.02 x 10^23 molecules of water which, as it turns out, is 18.0g of water. This can be figured out using the periodic table of elements using the atomic mass of any of the elements. The atomic mass tells us that one mole of that element is that many grams. So for oxygen it's 16.0g and for hydrogen it's 1.0g, but there are 2 hydrogens in water, so we multiply 1.0g x 2 and add 16.0g to get 18.0g in one mole of water. AMAZING!
In honor of National chemistry week and Mole Day, the PLU Chemistry Club put on "Mole Day Eve" for the PLU students and anyone who wanted to come. There was liquid nitrogen ice cream, other desserts (but who can top liquid nitrogen ice cream?) and of course . . . DEMOS! There were some stations set up for hands-on demos, but the professors also did cool (dangerous!) demos. I forgot my camera, but I did take pictures on my phone. They're not as good quality as from a camera, but you'll get the main point.

This is taken from the top of the stairs. People enjoying desserts!

That's how liquid nitrogen ice cream is made!

Liquid nitrogen everyone! It has to be stored in a special container because it's so cold. When you pour it out, it evaporates because it's boiling point is below room temperature, so the fog you are seeing is actually water vapor condensing because of the coldness of the liquid nitrogen.


Liquid nitrogen! Really you don't eat the nitrogen, you only use it to get the ice cream really cold. And the "ice cream" is milk, sugar, half-and-half and sometimes oreo cookies.

The finished product!

They put dry ice into the punch to keep it cold. The fog creates a nice effect!


Fluorescent stuff! The yellow on the sides is made with dish soap and flourenol, the blue is made with quinine and the center tube is a mix of the two. There's a fluorescent lamp that's shining on them to make them glow.


Fog! Creepy! We filled a lot of the sinks with hot water and added dry ice and viola!


Glow-in-the-dark Gak! It's made using glue, water and somethings else, plus fluorenol to make it glow in the dark. Kind of home made putty.


Ooblek! Made using starch and water! It's really cool and fun to play in! It's a liquid and a solid at the same time! Crazy! If you hit it or use force, it acts like a solid, but if you slowly work with it, it acts as a liquid. You can slowly sink your fingers in it, but if you try to pull them out really quickly, it's really hard! This happens because the starch molecules are kind of like fibers and the water molecules can ease them around something when you work slowly with it, but if you hit it, the starch molecules push out the water and become like a solid.



Elephant Toothpaste . . . coming out of a pumpkin! It's pretty cool. I think there's dish soap, hydrogen peroxide (30%) and IKI is the catalyst that starts the whole thing going. hydrogen peroxide decomposes to hydrogen and oxygen gas and makes the dish soap bubble.


The Screaming Gummy Bear! Some sort of inorganis solid was melted with a blow torch and a gummy bear was dropped into the melted substance. There was this sound (presumably the gummy bear screaming) and the purplish light and a lot of smoke! Hopefully we didn't set of the fire alarm! (We didn't)


Tinkerbell! Magnesium metal was put on a sheet of dry ice and lit with propane. It was then covered with another sheet of dry ice and the result was this really powerful light and it just went at it! It was really cool!

There were a few other demos, but it was hard to take a picture, because they were instantaneous. It was a really fun night!

Lycophytes, Horsetails, Ferns

There is something I forgot to mention in my post about the seedless vascular plants. So I am dedicating this post to the phylum Lycophyta because they are cool!
By the Carboniferous (which was over 300 million years ago) lycophytes, horsetails and ferns existed as small - herbaceous plants, or as giant woody trees with diameters of over 2m and heights over 40m! These giant plants thrived in warm, moist swamps and they created the giant forests of the Carboniferous period. They probably led to their own extinction because such huge forests reduced the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (carbon dioxide is a green house gas that is partly responsible for Global Warming). In modern times we have Global Warming because there is too much carbon dioxide, since the giant plants decreased the carbon dioxide levels, they created GLOBAL COOLING! But, the giant woody lycophytes, horsetails and ferns became extinct in the cooler and drier environment.
Isn't that just amazing?!!!!!

These are modern, small lycophytes. . . . . . . . . . . . .

And these are the giant forests of the Carboniferous period!

Calla Lily

In my last blog about angiosperms, I forgot to add one very important flower . . . Calla Lily! It's Makara's (my best friend) favorite flower and I have been reminded of the fact. So here is a whole post dedicated to calla lily!
The genus Zantedeschia has twenty-eight species of plants and they come in a variety of colors. Here, I only have 3 represented. Zantedeschia species are very poisonous - all parts of the plant are toxic! They are even capable of killing livestock and children!
However, the calla lily is very beautiful and shows up in many paintings; they show up very often in Diego Rivera's paintings. Can you believe that in some parts of the world they are regarded as a weed?! It's a perfect wedding bouquet flower!












Nature is amazing! I mean look at the symmetry and the perfect whorls!