Make Way for the Dairy Princess!

I am so sorry that I'm a terrible blogger. It's been a while! Though if you have facebook, you should check out my last album--it basically includes everything but this weekend. I will take a moment, though, to tell you about the Dairy Princess Festival in Canton. I haven't really felt as immersed in the "North Country" culture as I did today. For an introduction, let me just post this photo:

This was rural, upstate New York at its best. I have never seen so many tractors in one place at one time. I was fascinated by their idea of a parade: anything that's big, noisy, and has a large engine should definitely line up and drive down the street. One poor little boy, cosy in his stroller in front of me, was scared by the honking and sirens of the big trucks. Let's just say that he was rather traumatized for a large majority of the parade. Poor kid! But he got lots of candy, so that's good!

We also stopped into a folk art store on the way to the festival, and the eclectic blend held therein was nothing short of fascinating. All of my mental powers are stumped when I consider reasons that someone would really spend a rather hefty amount of money on the handmade pin cushions and tree fungus carvings that the store had to offer. Yes, you read that correctly, Tree fungus. Though I will say that one of the fungi had a very intricate carving of a chipmonk, and I was briefly tempted until I 1.) pictured my stuffed bag on the way up here and 2.) saw the $38.00 price tag. Eek! Furthermore, the artisians at the festival itself were intruguing as well. Most tents had a collection of yard-sale/ flee market toys, maybe some oddly real looking baby dolls (which, if we're honest with ourselves, are actually creepier looking than they are cute), and some hand-made purses that look similar to the one I made in 7th grade during the sweltering month of July out of pure boredom. Wow.

This being said, there were some wonderful aspects of this festival. Firstly, I got to try maple cotton candy. And when they say "maple" up here, they're darn serious. They literally go into their back yard, tap into the trees, collect the sap, and boil it at home. So that was delicious! There were also tons of cow themed floats on the parade that made me chortle. "Got milk" was paired with other slogans multiple times. For example:

I mean, that is one way to go about it...

There was also a pin with calves to pet. Cowlets, as I would like to call them, are actually really darn cute. They have precious moments eyes. I'm not joking.

Anyway, by far the coolest part of the festival was the fountain. Take a look at this fountain, and you will immediately see why and also probably agree with me.

Is that not the coolest thing? They had tons of rubber duckies swimming around in it! In the top picture, one of my apartment mates, Bianca, my friend Yamiary and I are basking in the gloriousness that is the fountain. I was glad that it had the same effect on them--they were just as excited as I was!

Here's one last picture from the festival...this little girl was just adorable. I couldn't help sneaking a photo. :)

Lastly, I thought I would share this picture of my friend Yamiary and the delicious dinner she made us Friday night. I can't for the life of me remember what the main dish was called, but I'll post it when I do. Yamiary is a fabulous friend. She's always full of joy and kind words. She is from Puerto Rico and is in the process of learning English. It has truly been a joy to help her learn how to say things correctly. Though sometimes we end up going back and forth, because I want her to teach me spanish, too! So the new rule is: if I tell her how to say something correctly in English, she has to tell me how to say it in Spanish. It's great. We're also converse buddies: she has a pair of grey converses that are my size, and I have my black ones here. And I got to introduce her to squirrels, groundhogs, and chocolate chip pancakes, as of this morning. (my only regret about that is that I didn't have real maple syrup to serve. It's really expensive!) Anyway, it's people like her that are making this summer fun.

Thank you for reading all of that! Maybe someday soon I'll actually post about the science that I've been doing. After all, that is what I do for 40 hours a week!

Thanks for praying. I would love prayers about:

1. That I'll get to know people here and that Christ's love would just burst out of me. Most people here are atheists or even anti-religious, so it's quite a different atmosphere than I'm accustomed to. It's proving to be a challenge to really live out what I believe, but it's a wonderful opportunity to just love people who are almost entirely different than me. So pray for a strengthening of my faith, please!

2. That I would persevere in work: 8 hours in a windowless lab, mostly putting in data and analyzing it on the computer, is more grueling than I had imagined. We're not actually going out on the boat as much as I though we would, and many of my lab activities involve repeating the same process, which involves plenty of test tubes, up to 70 times. And I really have never spent SO much time staring at the computer.

3. That I would live for the Lord and not for myself or my comfort.

Thank you so much! I hope your weekend is going well!