Corey's Graduation

Saturday we headed back to the home land for my brother's college graduation. He is finishing up his Bachelors degree in Sport and Rec Management from Marian University (formerly Marian College- unrelated to the one in Indy for those who are wondering). He played baseball there for his first 4 years and did a half victory lap to finish up a few credits. For someone who really didn't like school ever or put much effort into school, he has really grown up and is now even looking at graduate schools. He wants to be like his big sister and work in athletics but he thinks he's going to make way more money than me because he was a student-athlete. Clearly he is not ready for the real world.... Anyway, I am so proud of him and look forward to helping him with grad school, jobs or both! It was fun having our parents together and doing things as a family. The ceremony itself was very small so only my mom, dad, Karl and I got to go. The gym was about the size of an elementary school with a whole 6 rows of bleachers. Corey was on stage to present his class gift and get his diploma (er- empty folder since they don't get mailed until mid January) but most of my pictures didn't turn out very well. Here are the important shots from the day.

Way to go Corey!

Thanksgiving Recap

With the craziness of the last few weeks, I forgot to add some photos from the weekend in Wisconsin for Thanksgiving. It was a pretty relaxing trip and by far the longest amount of time I have spent at home in quite a long time. I was able to catch up with some old friends on Wednesday, eat two meals (one with each side of the family) on Thursday, spend some time with my brother on Friday, watch Boilermaker volleyball beat the badgers on Saturday and drive back home with the rest of the midwest on Sunday. Ella wasn't as good as she usually is in the car but there really isn't much we can do to help that. She enjoys playing with everyone when we get there and is dead tired when we get home, its the ride there and back with her all over the back seat thats a pain. It had been a while since Karl made the trip with me so he was happy to see everyone too. Here are some of the more exciting moments of the trip:

Karl and dad frying up the turkeys at grandma and grandpas. Only a small fire, nothing major.








The completed birds, one of which we never even cut into!








Corey and Karl beating on Grady... poor baby! Sucks to be the little one doesn't it?









Catching up with my long-lost roommate Stefanie in Madison. She is an IronWoman!








Sara celebrating her strike/showing off her sweet bowling shoes at the Badger Bowl in Madison.

The Calm Before the Storm

I wish you could all see Mackey Arena right now. With tomorrow's highly anticipated match up against Duke, the Paint Crew students were allowed to camp out starting today at noon for the 600 lower bowl seats. The seats are general admission and the university has given them permission to do this for four games this season, today being the first. We expected a sort of mad-house with maybe 30 or 40 groups but at noon there were 138 groups! Its been snowing most of the day and at this time of night, there are tents of all shapes and sizes on the tarmac of the arena just outside the student entrance. There only needs to be one member of the group present at all times (a group can be up to 10 students) but it seems that the majority of the students are toughing it out together. I am still at work at 9:52pm and the electronic board outside Mackey says 23.4 degrees and there are students playing football, doing homework, and sleeping outside my door. Its quite a sight! These few pictures cant really capture it... plus I was shivering so they are a little blurry. I will try to get some better ones in the daylight tomorrow but I wanted to share with you how far the Paint Crew has come since the good old days of the Gene Pool. For any sports fan, this is as good as it gets! Tune in tomorrow night at 9pm (eastern) on ESPN for whats sure to be an awesome game with lots of love for the Paint Crew for Dickey V. He should arrive tomorrow afternoon so hopefully he spends some time with the kids and gives a little nod to our students and not just the dukies all the time!