Weeks 7-8 - Texas Tech, Final Presentation and the Market

Texas Tech University

Carolyn Greene

Hello ya'll!  This post is reallllyyy late (like three weeks late - eep!) but it's been such a busy few weeks since I left Texas that I just couldn't find time, or even a reliable internet connection for that matter, to actually sit down and write about my last two weeks.  Now that I'm home, and have a free day before my busy week starts up again, I'm hunkering down and working on all the things that I had put on the back burner since the last month of the internship.

Post-presensation photo with the one and only Alan!

Last time, I said the girls and I were getting ready for our final presentation.  In short, we did great!  Everything went so smoothly, and I think our ideas were well received by all parties involved.  We had a delicious lunch afterwards, by Top Tier catering themselves, and then had the rest of the day to ourselves.  I caught up on some sleep, and made sure I got a good dinner that night.  We knew we needed a little R&R after our stressful prior week to recuperate for our busy two weeks at the Market!

Tuesday through Friday had us buzzing like bees at the Market.  We had a projected 1500 or so campers expected that week, and the only way to describe the experience is that.  It. Was. Crazy!  In all the years I've done food service, I don't think I've ever served so many people in such a short period of time!  The kids came in waves, and it was almost constant movement for the entire duration of the shift.  I definitely learned a lot about handling high volume that week!

We all got to try our hands at different stations all around the unit.  Most of the time, I was either serving at the Carvery, which was the main line, but I also served at the Taco station, and had a night or two plating fruit.  Some days I fronted, which meant I kept the front of the unit in order, or looked over the dining hall while   At the end of week 8, we got to meet with the main manager, Jessie, who talked to us about the managerial side of food service,  That was an informative meeting,  and I had the chance to ask all the burning questions I had about topics like employee training, production, and ordering and storage.

During week 8, we were at the Market again, but the counts for those few days were much lower than week 7, having no more than 250 people a day.  I got the chance to ride Zamboni, our motorized floor cleaning contraption, which was a lot of fun!

On Wednesday morning or week 8, I went to my last crossfit class at Paladin.  It was such a pleasure and honor to be able to train with all the folks that morning!  I just wish I had more time with Crossfit Paladin - the environment was so welcoming, and it definitely had started to feel like a family!  I'll be back one day!

To end our time at Texas Tech, us girls had to go out with a bang.  With the help of Dee, the head of recruitment in Hospitality, we turned Alan's office into the Batcave!  As we were working on Alan's office, we had the brilliant idea to also do Dee's office too.  The results were spectacular and we had so much fun with it!  This is the goodbye Alan never saw coming!

Alan's office - The Batcave!

Dee's office - aka Robin's office

Friday was our last official day of the internship.  We had a short debriefing session with Alan, Dee, and Cape, and reflected on our two months with Hospitality.  Those two months were such a blessing, and I would not have traded the experience for anything.  The people I've met, fellow interns and the Hospitality staff, were such wonderful, embracing people, and I'm so glad I have this chance to meet them.  I'm so excited to see where these experiences take me going into my last year of my undergraduate career!

Texas Tech: Week 7-8 and Travel Back to Ohio!

Hey y'all! This is my last blog post pertaining to the NACUFS Internship.  This has been such a great experience as we finished the last two weeks as TTU.  As I said in the last blog post, the interns and myself were giving our Capstone Project Presentation.  Our audience were quiet impressed with what we delivered to them.  With all of our brains working together, we developed a great presentation.  I was involved with producing a poster for our event that we produced for the Gluten-Friendly Facility.  Carolyn developed table tents, Megan made the training manual, and Emily produced the TV ads.  We all came together for our recipes and brainstorm of different activities in the opening event.

Last Photo together in the Office

Poster for the Welcome Event!

Throughout Week 7 & 8, all of us were at a dining hall on campus called The Market.  We served over 1200 campers at TTU.  During these weeks, the interns and I started to pack our things for our travels back at home as well as making our mark on campus which ranges from running in the rain and decoration Alan and Dee's offices.

Alan's (Batman's) Office

Dee's (Robin's Office)

Running in the Rain

Last Time seeing the Matador

It was very tough to say goodbye to everyone at the office and other people we worked with.  Although more importantly, it was tough to say goodbye to my fellow interns/roommates.  We already agreed that a reunion is in place in the upcoming years.

Our Last Night Together

Our Last Time Parked in a Row

It was time to head back home to the Buckeye State.  However, my parents and I decided to stop at a few places: Tulsa and St. Louis.  We stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel and visited Toby Keith's I Love This Bar Restaurant.  In St. Louis, we toured The Arch, Riverside Cruise, and Anheuser-Busch Brewery.  I actually went inside The Arch and took some pictures of St. Louis and toured the brewery.  Yes I did see and touched the horses.

The Arch

Clock Tower at the Brewery

St. Louis Skyline from the River Cruise

 After we toured around St. Louis, it was time to finish the travel to Ohio.  I got back home at midnight on Tuesday morning.  I can't wait until school starts to tell the younger dietetics students in my department about this experience at Texas Tech.  It was great sharing my experiences and time at Texas Tech.  Now there is only a month left until I go back to my senior year in college.

Goodbye TTU & West Village!

 Safe Travels Back Home Everyone!

Sun's Up, Gun's Up!

-Emma Regula

Texas Tech: Week 6 through the end!

Week 6

Though this was not our last week, it was the climax of our internship. We used everything we learned this summer from our experience in the dining hall and our time with several parts of the Hospitality department to complete our Capstone Project presentation.

Title Presentation Slide

Overview of Objectives Slide

This week, we finished the project's four main parts: our gluten free recipes, the design of a welcome event for the new gluten-friendly dining facility, developent of a marketing campaign, and the creation of a gluten-free foodservice training manual. 

One of the TV ads I designed for around campus

Everyone in the office was helpful when we had questions. We helped each other by critiquing designs, writing, and presentation lines. Fortunately, we all have different strengths and backgrounds. Carolyn's art school experience got us through our marketing campaign designs. Megan had written a training manual before. Emma is pretty much a gluten-free expert. I love presentations. Combined, we were able to handle each part of the project confidently. This was a good learning experience all around. We did everything we could to make this project one to be proud of.

After Presenting

These last two weeks will be spent in the dining hall working. Hopefully we will get to learn more about foodservice management.

Weeks 5 and 6 - But most importantly, Turnpike Troubadours @ 4th on Broadway

Texas Tech University

Carolyn Greene

I'm two weeks behind, but better late than never!  It's be a busy couple of weeks, and our project is finally about to come to an end with our final presentation tomorrow.  I just can't believe that the bulk of this internship is basically over!  We have two more weeks left, but we'll be doing our second food service rotation at the Market, so the hectic part concluded on Friday, when we finalized our presentation slides and all the material for it.  All that's left is to present it to Hospitality's admin, and then we'll be done!

For week 5, most of our work day consisted of brainstorming ideas for our final project.  Emma and I were in Marketing for the first three days of the week.  We had a second day working the resource fair during RRO's, but we also got the chance to talk to all the different specialists within the department, and we were able to get a little inspiration for how to go about marketing the capstone event.  These three days were laid back and informal, but we learned so much about how the department markets and plans all its events!  We had plenty to take away to apply to our project in the following week.

As I mentioned in my last post, I said I would be hanging out with Sports Nutrition and the Texas Tech football team.  I went in twice that week, on Tuesday and Wednesday, and got to see how sports nutrition is actively involved with the athlete's health.  On Tuesday, not much happened, but I handed out pre-made recovery smoothies to the incoming freshman athletes after their lift sessions.  I came in an hour earlier at 6am on Wednesday and actually helped make the smoothies for the athletes.  One of the smoothies we made was a weight gain shake that added up to a whopping 908 calories per serving!!  

One of the things I have to constantly remind myself of is that the conventional concepts and teachings of dietetics does not really apply to sports nutrition.  Nutrition in athletics is all about fueling an athlete for performance, and sometimes, proper fuel means an athlete needs to eat 6000 calories a day to meet a weight goal.  Changing mentality is definitely hard, but it's such a cool perspective to look into!  I'm so thankful for Dayna, the sports dietitian here, and Jenny, the sports dietitian back home at Virginia Tech for showing me around and letting me get involved in this part of dietetics!

For Thursday and Friday of week 5, we all had a rotation with Top Tier Catering.  For Thursday, we met with all the different staff members who helped run catering, and we saw how bookings were made, and how client demands were met.  On the second day, the associate director of Top Tier gave us a tour of the catering facilities.  We'd been hearing about the different venues all around campus for weeks, such as the Frazier and Merket, but we had never actually been in the locations in person, so it was really neat seeing what all the fuss was about! 

Frazier Alumni Pavilion

McKenzie-Merket Alumni Center

  

That night, we all went out to the First Friday Art Trail again.  Kayla, someone we'd met in Hospitality, introduced us to Crusty's Wood Fired Pizza, which was served out of a street truck.  It was delicious, which says a lot because I'm not a huge pizza person!  It was so fun getting to hang out with everyone, while checking out the local art and music scene!

This piece is actually a super tiny room in a box!

Week 6 started off with a real bang, since Monday was the 4th of July!  The night before, I went out with Nick and V to see a live show again.  This time, the Dirty River Boys and the Turnpike Troubadours performed for 4th on Broadway, which was a street dance held the night before the 4th of July in Downtown Lubbock.  I'd never heard of either group until only a few weeks ago, and I can honestly say that I really enjoyed the show!  They're both on Spotify, so give them a listen!  On the actual 4th of July, Kayla invited us to a cookout, where we had great BBQ and got to see a fireworks display!  The weekend was just so fun overall - probably one of the most memorable Independence Day's I've ever had!

Turnpike Troubadour at 4th on Broadway!

The rest of the week was crunch time.  We spent every day in the office putting together the last of our project.  Since I have InDesign from when I went to design school, I was in charge of the table tents and social media graphics.  I always think that my old major is of no help for dietetics, but it always comes in handy when I least expect it!  Over all, we were so productive last week.  Almost everything was done by the time we left on Thursday, and the finishing touches were added Friday morning before we met with Alan to go over our presentation.  The kinks were worked out during our practice runs, and now we're eager to show off what we've done for the last six weeks to the department!

To end the week, Emma, Megan, and I bought tickets to see Pirates of Penzance in McKenzie Park at the Moonlight Musical Amphitheater.  I admit, I went in with rather low expectations, since I'd gotten used to Broadway shows from when I lived in New York City.  I was so happy that the group went above and beyond what I had expected!  The musical was about a young pirate who leaves his pirate ship to go off and be his own person, with the intent of finding himself a bride from civil society, but realizes he is still contractually obligated to stay with the crew.  The whole story was ridiculous, but it was a comedy so I guess a quirky plot line is appropriate in this situation!  We all had a blast, and I'm so glad we decided to go on the spur of the moment!

One of the closing scenes of Pirates of Penzance!

So that concludes the recounting of the last two weeks.  Tomorrow is the presentation, and then we'll be wrapping up the internship with two weeks at the Market.  Stay tuned to hear about how our presentation goes!

Week 6 at Texas Tech! - Last Week in the Office!

Hey y'all! We are finished with Week 6 of our internship which means only two more weeks left at Texas Tech! I can't hardly believe it! This summer has gone by so fast and this experience has been awesome!  This was also our last week in the office in the Wiggins Complex.  This week we spent all of our time working on our project presentation that will be presented on Monday!  I am very happy and proud of what we all did for this project for making the Hulen/Clement Dining Hall a Gluten Friendly facility!  I am beyond excited to present our project to the people we worked close with from these 6 weeks at Texas Tech.  While we were working on our presentation in the office, Chef Dewey and our friend, Kayla, were having a "food" photo shoot.  Of course, Chef Dewey gave us both of the plates of the dish for all of us, including Kayla, as a pre-lunch.  Also this is also apparently the lunch we are going to have after the presentation!

Fancy Breaded Chicken with Angle Hair & Broccoli with a Butter Sauce! Yum!!

That is all that we did this week! We have gone through our presentation multiple times with ourselves and Alan.  Of course, the first couple of times it was very rough, but we are going to do a great job presenting our project and what we imagine this new facility to be like.

Friday night, Emily, Megan, and myself stayed in and have a girls movie night.  Saturday night, Megan, Carolyn, and myself went out to dinner at the Cotton Patch Cafe.  This restaurant is like a local Texas Roadhouse or Steakhouse.  After dinner, we went out to the Lubbock Moonlight Musicals at Mackenzie Park Outdoor Theater.  The show that was playing was called The Pirates of Penzance.  This musical was very funny and it is a great show for the entire family to go to!

Cotton Patch Cafe - I wanted steak!

Outdoor Theater!

The General, his daughters, & Pirates

First Scene!

Enjoy the pictures of the musical! That is all that happened this week and weekend.  On Monday we are going to be presenting our project and working at the Market for the rest of the week!  Wish us the best of luck on our presentation!  That is all!  Have a Greet Week everyone and I will be back with you on next week's adventures and experiences!

Peace & Love!

Sun's Up, Gun's Up!

-Emma Regula

Beautiful Mackenzie Park!

Week 5: Happy 4th of July!

Hey y'all!

Not much happened this week.  Carolyn and I were with the Marketing Department Monday through Wednesday.  During this rotation, we went over to Red Raider Orientation to shadow Dee with her presentation and did some tabling at the Resource Fair.  The fair allowed parents and students to come up to the Hospitality Table to ask questions about dining halls and the services of the department.  We also got the opportunity to talk with other people withing the department where they gave us a run down of their position and what they do in and out of work.  This also gave us the opportunity to ask questions about our capstone project.  Our capstone project entails us to convert a dining hall, Hulen/Clement, to a Gluten Friendly facility.  As a group, we have to come up with 8 different recipes, training manual, and produce an exploration event for the facility.  We are presenting the project next Monday, so it is crunch time!

Red Raider Orientation @ Resource Fair

On Thursday and Friday, all of us were together once again in the catering department.  This rotation was like the Marketing rotation.  We went around the department shadowing and listening to people about their job descriptions.  On Friday, the assistant director, Colby, took us around the catering kitchen downstairs and different venues that are catered through Top Tier Catering at Tech.

One of the Venues

University Chapel

This weekend as all of you know was 4th of July weekend.  One of our coworkers, Kayla, invited us over to a BBQ at a friend's house.  We kicked backed, relaxed and enjoyed delicious homemade food along with great conversations and fireworks!  I tell you, Texas people do 4th of July better!

Fireworks!

That is all my friends! Week 5 is now in the books and there is only three weeks left of my journey at Tech!  This week we will be working on our capstone project and get our presentation ready to go by Monday.  Happy 4th of July everyone!

Wheat Harvest Time Back in Ohio

Emily and I after Cycling Class

Peace and Love

Sun's Up, Gun's Up

-Emma Regula

Texas Tech- Weeks 4&5 (Catering, Training, Marketing, and Dietetics)

Week 4

At the start of this week, the dietitian Mindy assigned us with a “Week in a Glance” project, similar to what we dietetic students have done during class. The project is essentially creating a week day menu for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and even snacks (but not beverages).

The parameters for my “Week in a Glance” were as follows:

1. for the TTU Student Union Building

2. Vegetarian Diet

3. (self-imposed) 1600-1800 calorie days.

I was surprised it took almost two full work days to complete. First I had to go through the online menu and nutrition facts for every dining concept in the SUB and look for vegetarian options. I then started arranging the ideas for different meals. The final part was to sum the calories, macros, and fiber for each meal and day.

Mindy helped by taking me to the Student Union Building on Tuesday so I could see in person what I’ve been planning. I realized I had more snack options and also could better understand what the concepts have to sell.

Mindy had all four of us interns complete the project for different locations that week. She says she is interested in distributing our Week in a Glances to her clients, especially the ones living on campus, who want meal ideas.

Since I’m not vegetarian, this was a good challenge. I do appreciate non-meat protein sources because I don’t buy much meat while I live on campus, both here at TTU and at Auburn (my school). I’m pleased with my 1600-1800 calorie days reaching more than 60g of protein.

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The second part of the week was with Marketing. Megan and I spent one morning visiting different marketing employees, learning about what they do for the department. We also spent two days working at the Red Raider Orientation, talking with incoming freshmen and their parents about how TTU meal plans operate. I love working with freshmen at my university; I felt right at home.

When we weren't with someone from Marketing, Megan and I had time to think about our Captsone project.

Our Capstone project is in two parts. First, we worked on developing or modifying gluten free recipes that the new gluten-free facility will make this fall. Second, we will create an opening event for the venue. “The sky’s the limit!” says our superviser.

A few weeks ago, I didn’t appreciate why we had started working on the Capstone project so early. Now I understand. That would have been too much work for the week we have set aside to work on the project. As of right now, we feel pretty confident about our progress.

Week 5

This week, Megan and I worked with training and catering. Training has great Title Nine and Clery Act videos. Catering was neat to see because I knew so little about it. We learned about the whole process. They showed us how they enter their event information into their catering software and interact with the clients. We also looked into how the financial side of catering works.

We had a very detailed tour of the massive catering kitchen. In the end, we were driven around to different catering sites (some were preparing to host events that afternoon!).

All in all, the catering staff was modest about their jobs, but the numbers they mentioned for their events just in the last two months were staggering.

Next week, we will be 100% working on our Capstone Project! Our presentation is July 11th!

Week 4 - Training, Bowling, and a Whole Lotta Macro Counting

Texas Tech University

Carolyn Greene

We've past the halfway mark, and I can't believe how quickly everything is passing!  I'm starting to think a little bit about my drive back home to Virginia, and it's just so crazy to think that I'll be driving cross country again in less than a month!  For now though, I'll try not to think too much about everything I need to do in the future, and focus on the present and the experiences I've been so fortunate to have since arriving here.

We had two different, short rotations last week.  Emma and I were in training for the first half of the week, while Emily and Megan were working with Mindy in the office.  For the second half of the week, Emma and I switched back to the office and worked with Mindy, and Emily and Megan were in a Marketing rotation with Dee and Alan.

Chef Dewey gave us some leftover meat samples,
so of course I made some tacos for dinner

During training, Emma and I met Jeff Caperton, otherwise known as "Cape".  Since there was not too much to do in the office, he kept us entertained with videos of oscillating fans and aquariums of fish on the projector screen.  Playing around aside, we actually filmed a few more clips about gluten-friendly food choices and Celiac's Disease with Evan from training.  Once again, I was a nervous wreck through the whole filming process, but all things just take practice, right?

Cape's birthday was actually on our first day of training, so we celebrated by joining the Hospitality management staff for lunch at the Cast Iron Grill, which is known for its home style, southern food, and hand crafted pies.  I ordered a grilled chicken dish with mashed potatoes, green beans, and a roll.  It was delicious!  I would love to go back to try more of the menu soon.

Emily and Megan, on the other hand, helped Mindy with building a "Week in a Glance" menus for different dining units around campus.  This project had them looking at the nutritionals for various dining locations, and then make a "Smart Choices" menu with a healthy, balanced meal schedule someone could try to emulate.  By hospitality standards, Smart Choices means any food item that is less than 400 calories, and less than 30% calories from fat.  Emma and I switched over to working with Mindy on Thursday, and got to work on the Week in a Glance menus as well.  For my dining location, I chose Sam's Place at Murray, which has multiple Build Your Own concept stations, including an Asian Wok, a "Mexican" station, a sandwich line, and a grill.  I had an entire excel spreadsheet with every day of the week, with a section from breakfast, lunch, and dinner, calculating out all the macronutrients, fiber, and calorie counts for all the meals and days.  As someone who loves excel spreadsheets, I was basically in heaven for those two days.

While Emma and I were working in the office with Mindy, Emily and Megan were doing more Red Raider Orientation (RRO) work, this time with Hospitality in the Student Union Building (SUB).  We got to try it out ourselves this morning (6/27), and I had a great time talking to parents and new students and educating them about how dining plans work, and what their options are on campus!

On Thursday night, a friend of ours from our food service rotation at Bledsoe-Gordon, Nick, invited us out to cosmic bowling.  However, due to a bowling tournament that evening, it turned out to be just regular bowling, which was still fun regardless!  I learned that all I have going for me is brute strength and zero aiming ability - I think I finished last in every game we played, even though my bowling ball had quite a bit of speed behind it.

I also checked out Crossfit Paladin, one of the local boxes in the area.  Having been active in my Crossfit community back in Blacksburg, I had really missed that camaraderie derived from mutual suffering and hard work, so getting back into high intensity workouts was so refreshing!

Fun Fact: Lubbock is the birthplace of rock legend Buddy Holly.  As a result, the music scene here is very much alive and well.  Many local bars and venues host a wide array of well known, and less known, artists.  Nick invited me out to hang out with him and his friend V at a small show at the Blue Light Live in the Depot District.  I didn't know what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised by how good the artists were.  As far as I know, the live music scene in Blacksburg is almost nonexistent, or at least so small that you rarely hear about it, so I'm really loving these different forms of entertainment here!

Okay, that's all I have for week four (plus a few days)!  I'll be up bright and early tomorrow; I contacted the resident sports dietitian a few weeks ago, and she's been allowing me to shadow her in the mornings before work.  I love love love sports nutrition, so this is a great chance for me to witness this niche in person.  I'll post more on that another time!

See you next week!

Texas Tech Week Four

Hi Everyone!

     I am officially half way through my internship here at Texas Tech (don't remind me). I feel like I am just getting used to the hot temperatures and dry air here; even though my hair disagrees. Here is what happened in week four!

(sorry in advance for the lack of pictures, it was mostly office work this week)

At the Office:

     This week I got to spend Monday and Tuesday with Mindy and Wednesday, Thursday, Friday with Alan and Dee. With Mindy I got to finish up my "Week in a Glance" project where I outlined a week of meals at The Market that are all under 1500 calories. The goal of the "Week in a Glance" project will be to make these menu outlines available to students looking for certain meal parameters. I also got to go on rounds with Mindy! We got to see more of the back food service operations and taste some of the juices that are made at Smart Choices in the Student Union Building. 

     With Alan and Dee, Emily and I got to table at Red Raider Orientation and also a prospective student orientation as well. Tabling was so much fun because we got to interact directly with admitted and prospective students to inform them why hospitality services at Texas Tech is so awesome! We got to start the event planning aspect of the capstone project which we are all very excited about! Being able to talk with all of the staff in the marketing department has helped so much with beginning to plan this project out.

Next Week:

     Next week Emily and I will be going through some more employee training and working in the catering department too! Stay tuned for updates on Sunday! 

Rainbows, Cheerleaders, & Juicing - Texas Tech Weeks 2-3

Hello from TTU!

Double Rainbow after Work

Week two was in a dining hall on campus, the Market. The Market is open as a buffet for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Megan and I worked for the breakfast-lunch shift most days; once we were there for the lunch-dinner shift. I do have experience working in campus dining venues from one of my dietetics classes last fall, but working at the Market is another ball game. Most of our shift was spent serving. Several hundred people would come for each meal, mostly being junior high campers and Texas Tech athletes.

What I learned:
-Cheerleaders love bacon.

-Since mashed potatoes are made in a bowl the size of a cement mixer, they are scooped out with frying pans.

-How to make the pudding desserts

-Salad bars have a LOT of ice underneath them.

-The managers don’t think twice about jumping in to help anywhere needed during a shift.

-Baking soda extinguishes grease fires.

-Many people have strong opinions about purple vs. green grapes.

-TTU Football players are notably polite.

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Week three was the most exciting and diverse week so far since it was packed with learning experiences. All four of us interns were back with the dietitian Mindy and the head chef.

On Monday, we learned how juicing works. We spent a whole afternoon in the test kitchen adjoining our office (hence my business casual attire in the picture below). We were given free reign over an impressive amount of produce (including jalapeno, because.. Texas) for testing juice recipes. Our assignment was to create two recipes that differ from ones already used on campus, but we succeeded in making four! I have to say, ginger is a nice touch to the juices. Now I’m curious if the jalapenos had potential in a recipe after all.

At first, we were a bit nervous around the juicing machine. I kept expecting pieces of apple to fly at me like shrapnel. Once I realized I could trust the juicing machine, I had fun experimenting. We interns did crash after work because of all of the sugar we had to drink in the name of research.

The next day, we did something I’ve always wanted to do- film a nutrition video. The topic was sugar sweetened beverages. After we four interns decided on what to say, we went to the dining venue in the Honors dorm to film. I love public speaking, but I still got butterflies thinking about having a microphone attached to my collar with a real camera and lights facing me while people were walking around, buying their lunches.

After a few tries, I had said my lines well enough. Hopefully when I see the finished video, I’ll still be happy with everything. I added a communication minor two years ago because I would like to do videos and presentations like this professionally. This was an exciting first experience with film.

Tuesday night, Megan and I worked at a Red Raider (freshmen) Orientation event at the campus gym. We had a table with a quick activity for students to learn about how much sugar and fat are in some of their common food items. Then we told them how the dietitian on campus is available for free consultations (and how big of a deal that is). Talking about nutrition/food is what I love to do; the two hours flew by.

The last part of week two that I’ll highlight is Friday’s Health and Safety Fair! We accompanied the dietitian to the annual outdoor fair to talk about nutrition and distribute handouts. The fair was for the maintenance and facility staff. Everyone was friendly and quick to joke around about the toy desserts we had on the table. “Oh, that’s the good stuff, right? Where can I get some of that?” The main challenge was that there were so many people that we couldn’t give everyone much time at our table. Everyone did get to take some fruit though!

I am surprised at how quickly the weeks are passing. Texas is keeping us busy. Below are a couple fun pictures from after work.

We found the mascot on a mission. 

Weekend Trip to Palo Duro Canyon (the 2nd largest in the US!)