Emily's College Graduation

May 21, 2011 we headed to Sioux City early in the morning, got to Briar Cliff, loaded her, her boyfriend, Justin and their caps and gowns into our van and off to the Orpheum Theater for commencement, college style! The Orpheum is a beautiful building and Briar Cliff staff did a wonderful job with the ceremony.
Emily and Erin - sisters by chance. I'm still so grateful for Briar Cliff for matching these two up their freshman year. They roomed together for all four and each one became part of the other's life and heart. Better yet, they know how lucky they were to get along so well. I know they will be forever friends.

Emily getting her diploma from President Bev Wharton.

Emily's roommate, Erin, singing the National Anthem before the ceremony.

Senior Prom

Macy and her boyfriend, Kyle. A beautiful couple, her in a long red dress and him in his army uniform. Naturally they made the front page of the Plaindealer!
Friends Cora Lee and Brandon

and friends Cory and Gretchen

Rough days ahead

there are rough days ahead for me because of this beautiful young lady. She's strong, stubborn, courageous, funny, talented and just plain amazing. Her favorite term to describe herself lately is "awesomeness" and she's right. She's going to be graduating in three weeks and I know how fast time will fly and she'll be moving out. Moving away from me and that makes me sad. This is the time in my life (with a high school graduate) that I get to be selfish and not want to let her go. That I get to tell her that I will miss her a lot and I don't know what I'll do without her. Not to make her feel guilty - it won't work anyway - but just as stating a fact. The last couple of years have been wrought with worries and fears about her future and because we were on that journey together I feel so much more confident in how she will handle the curve balls that life throws at you. There was a pretty awesome person in our lives through that rough stuff that is completely responsible for helping us get rid of the crap and helped us focus on productive ways to live with each other. Thank you is pretty lame but without her we'd be in so much trouble. As sad as I am about letting her go, I'm just as excited to see what comes next for her. It's going to be good. I can tell. Love you, Macy!

Daniel and the customary dinosaur picture!
Usually we see this science museum employee do the cryogenics demo but this time we got the fire guy. Very cool.

He did bubbles too.

And more fire. It was really inspiring.

And Lori and Jeff. Fun for Daniel and fun for me! She did a great job driving in the snow and slippery crap on the way up and a great job of not falling asleep on the drive home! Thanks, Lori!

Science Museum Sleep Over

There was talk in Daniel's boy scout troop of the annual "Sleeping with the Dinosaurs" at the Science Museum of Minnesota. We had gone the last two years and had a great time. Daniel and I discovered that we could go again even though he wasn't in Cub Scouts anymore - we just had to pay our own way. No problem! We had so much fun that we decided to go anyway! It was a pretty good sized group this year and luckily Lori offered to drive. We did get just a little bit lost but we blame the event that was going on at the Excel center and the confusing parking attendant.
The King Tut exhibit had just opened at the museum and I paid the extra fee so Daniel and I could go in. It was very cool - the science museum does an amazing job with those types of exhibits and we were glad we went. Of course Daniel was in a rush to get to the next room in the exhibit but I made him slow down and read each and every card that was there. Lots of gold and amazing workmanship in the jewelry. Very fine beads and gold threads. The carvings in the wood and the gold were so intrique - hard to believe they did this without the aid of modern technology.

Of course, no cameras were allowed into the exhibit so I had to settle for pictures on the outside. And no, Daniel isn't taller than I am. I must be standing in a hole. :-)

Doing some weaving.

Doing an egyptian puzzle.

This is what winter looks like

Yet another snow fall and another round of strong winds predicted and we spent the entire day yesterday encased in a snow globe. (well said, Deb!) The snow that was falling was steady and beautiful. Falling straight down - huge flakes and never ending. They were predicting that the winds would come up but it never did so the snow that fell just sat where it landed. As I looked to the north last night out my office window, all I saw was white. Huge mounds of white. I noticed that the propane tank disappeared and there appeared to be a large mountain on the other side of the driveway from there. So much snow. It will be a very wet spring - again. Just like last year. We only hope that it starts melting a little at a time so the earth has a chance to soak it in instead of puddling and creating rivers and lakes where they shouldn't be. Hoping that spring comes soon!

My propane tank is under there.
This is the great snow mound north of the driveway. I don't remember seeing such a huge mound. Big pile, yes, before John got the big snowblower out and only was using the loader tracter to create big piles. But this is the largest mound I've ever seen!

This was the house railing last night.