A Fabulous Week (July 15th~ July 20th)

      This is a week without dear Lindsey (OH~~~), but we have  guest instructors dear Susan, Mary, Sherrie, and Cheryl! So the week is still absolutely fabulous :-)

On Monday and Tuesday, Susan gave us a lecture on prisons.  

         We learned an important program in Decatur Women Prison called "Moms and Babies," which let the infants live with their mothers on a unit on which each mother has her own room, with access to large day rooms decorated with colorful murals. In this special space, the offenders can learn to be good mothers. The program has a zero recidivism rate meaning none of the offenders who have been part of this program have returned to prison!

However, taking pictures is prohibited in the prison neither outside the building, so it is a pity that we cannot post any photos about our visiting :-( 

But we have a time exposure we made with Susan in the classroom~

Thank you so much to Susan and Claude for treating us to dinner in El Toro!

We all tried our first Mexican dish and had good appetites :-)

On Wednesday and Thursday, it is Mary that was in charge of our class in the afternoon!

A speaker from Family Service gave us a speech, introducing their programs today including support, Senior Resource Center, and the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program.

 Thank you to Mary for delicious sweet cookies!

Crisis Nursery

       The environment of the Nursery is pretty nice and suitable for children. It has rooms for playing, taking a nap, holding activities related to any age-appropriate development, interacting with free snacks, and learning arts. 

        It even has a beautiful backyard which consists of different gardens is quite confidential and can protect children from dangerous situations and suspicious characters~

      Finishing out visit, before going to our next stop, Mary has mentioned there is  a ''Special Treat" for us, but she just refused to disclose the secret!

      As it turned out,  it is Cream&Flutter in that we could spend a really great afternoon, talking about what we've learned from Crisis Nursery and having yummy tasty delectable toothsome palatable Cup Cake at the same time~ ( using so many adjectives to describe how surprised and impressed we were!)

Sherrie and Cheryl also made our Friday to the full!

      On the morning, we paid a visit to Veterinarian Technical Hospital, learning more about a really special filed of social work--- Veterinary Social Work! 

       There is only one social worker in this animal hospital, which seems to us working  in this relatively cool setting. The social worker Cheryl shared informed and detailed contents about her work, such as facing grief in death-denying society, respecting human-animal bound, conducting Pet Safety Program, and still many other things. We're all impressed by her sharing and learned more about how to deal with grief.

Football Stadium

        It is really kind and generous of Mr. Magic that he invited us to the VIP box. It costs $48000 per year!!! It is truly a pity that there was no ball game during the summer time; otherwise, we all hope for seeing a real game in person~

We have a good time at Football Stadium! We took picture "on our side," meaning that the seats here are the home seats of  U of I!!!

 Adjusting our emotions, the next stop is Mount Hope Cemetery. 

The graveyard can be separated into several different parts; some is for Muslin, some is for Jewish, and another is free for the poor.

The next trip is what we've planned (like collecting coupons) and expected for nearly 

three weeks--- we have dinner in Steak'n Shake!!! 

Actually, one of the reasons we went to Steak'n Shake is to celebrate Sarah's birthday!!!
It was Sarah's first birthday that she could not stay with her family, but thanks to those nice and sweet peers/roommates, the night was fascinating~

We had a mixed to celebrate Sarah's turning 21.

Saturday
       In the morning, we went to Farmer Market  to experience the life of Americans. We think that the market is quite similar to our Taiwanese traditional daytime market, selling vegetables, fresh meat, and many different kinds of groceries.  

We can only saw these scenes in the movies before!

       In the afternoon, Ching-Hsuan, Meng-Jung, Emily and his husband drove us to participate in County Fair. It is also a good chance for us to experience a regular American style of countryside and pastoral life.  Emily recommended us some must-try food like donutburgers, deep dried candy bars, and lemonade.

We appreciate dear Emily&her husband and other PhD seniors for inviting us and giving us a ride to this characteristic event of the U.S. :-)

Donutburger

Deep Fried Candy Bar 
In the fried crust bread is a Snickers chocolate bar! Pleasantly sweeeeeeet~

We took a photo with a huge corn sculpture together~ Actually, taking pictures is the only activity we dare do in the fair, since we all too terrified riding any amusement facilities!!

       The huge corn sculpture seems more peaceful and more attractive to us :-P

See~What a big smile on our face~

 Leaving the fair, we went to a famous store jarling's  for its great custard cup. Today is a hot summer day , so it is really neat to have custard in the right season~
We all think its lemon flavor is the best!!!

The day has not come to the end!!! Dr. Chi-Fang's family invited us and other Taiwanese PhD students to have dinner together in Golden Harbor. 

        At the table, we chatted in Chinese freely, enjoyed traditional Taiwanese meals, and shared memories at our home; therefore, there was some moments that we felt like we are just in Taiwan!

It is really a fabulous week, isn't it? ;-) (blinking eyes)