Introducing... us!

We got married yesterday! Great people, very pretty, and good fun- we couldn't have asked for anything more! Thanks to everyone who made it :)

Pictures and stories to follow after the honeymoon.

Sad but true

This one is for Katie.

It's funny if you work in the hospital. It's probably funnier if you work in the ER.

Back back to Culver days...

Ok, I'll give this a try again. Without prompting in the form of pointed questions from friends, I really struggle with general updates. I find that amusing since the original purpose of this blog was to get away from mass emails and giving recent life details over and over again to friends. A bit impersonal? Probably. More efficient? Yes. So for now I'm ok with erring on the side of efficiency. Don't take it personally, dear friends! And so without further ado and in no particular order, here we go!

My class reunion was this past weekend at Culver. Now, for those of you who aren't aware, I went to four high schools, none of which hold overly fond memories (though not really because of the actual schools). While I probably wouldn't feel compelled to attend these sorts of reunions anyway, the moving around certainly didn't motivate me any further! But even so, I went to some of the activities since I happened to be in the area anyway. It was truly a serendipitous weekend. I learned a few important things. First of all, high school is crummy for the vast majority of people. Now, I knew this already, but while it's neither better nor worse than the "average high school," Culver is still a different animal that allows for different Unless you've been there, you can't validate others. So in a sense, this was the first time they were validated in that sort of meaningful way as an adult. Although this paints a depressing picture, I don't mean for that. Culver was a good experience and is a good school. I was just a really troubled teen.

I also began to really understand that by this point in our lives, the three year difference between you as a freshman and "them" as seniors isn't really much at all anymore- we're all adults and it's more or less a level playing field. Suddenly I realized that I'm not limited to "ninety-nine, the last of our kind." The other people who made up my life as a high schooler are available to foster friendships with.  It's, well, neat. I'm not saying that suddenly I feel like a full-fledged adult (really, who ever actually does?) or that I gained deep friendships. But I did connect with a few people in a way meaningful to me.

In various ways, the concept that Culver is an inescapable part of our lives kept coming up over the weekend. Just seeing somebody on an escalator on the opposite side of the world or in your little corner of the state, you have a connection. That's not unique to Culver by any means, and admittedly my association was two-fold and brief, but a sense of belonging is something I often struggled with growing up. I see that for better or worse, I have it with Culver. It's... novel and fascinating.

I'll admit I feel cheesy and perhaps a bit overly sentimental and lame even expressing this, but this weekend caught me off-guard. And I had a good time. And Lake Maxinkuckee is pretty.

Color me confused

Has anybody else noticed that coloring books have nearly ceased to exist? Sure, there's the occasional mandala and pattern style ones, but the rest seem to have gone the way of the dinosaur. Thinking maybe they're all printable online these days, I did a search... and came up with very few results.

I don't understand this.

Her morning elegance

It's a little weird, but I couldn't stop watching it.

A distant relative of Pepe Le Pew

"She's a labraskoodle!" says Mom.

Lab, poodle, and, well, you know. Let's just say The Beast has some, um, heavier than air nervous ticks.

Headed south

"A baby's butt has more hair than your tires had tread!"

I can't believe he used that as a comparison. I'm pretty sure the car repair man just made that up off the top of his head, but then again maybe I've just been out of the loop for too long. Either way, it's not one of my favorites.

But she's all good to go now! She's packed and loaded up, so here we go...

More importantly, here comes Peleke. I just wish he could hurry (and I know he does too).

FYI

Add to the list- The Beast likes tomatoes and pepperoncini. 

That is all.

Mirror, mirror on the wall

Or on the floor, guess it doesn't really matter.

Feeling slightly nomadic of late

I'm heading back down to Florida this Wednesday for a week (I feel like I just got back to Indiana!). I'm excited because Peleke has been gone and pretty much out of communication except for some email and two brief online chats. Actually, I take that back. Phone conversations over three hours are not at all uncommon (once we even talked just shy of six hours- a quarter of a day). So brief is a relative term here. Even so, those two were less than an hour. It kills me.

I'm excited. Indiana has been gorgeous the past few weeks, so I'll miss the spring, but I can't wait to give Peleke a huge kiss and a hug. Actually, lots of big kisses and hugs.

Apply QID as ordered

Call me what you will (unoriginal, etc) but who doesn't love a good Chuck Norris joke?

Only in America

My parents are renovating and got a new toilet for the bathroom. As my mom and I wandered the isles of Home Depot, I was amused by some of the advertising.

It flushes golf balls, people. They demonstrate flushing power by flushing golf balls. We flushed whole bagels down the toilets in college, but that was to prove a point. I swear that the dorm toilets had enough flushing power to create a suction that would suck me down to the bowls of the building (pun most definitely intended). So that was to show a valid safety concern. This is just boasting.

The disappearing dog

The other two beasts in the house, Chuck'n'Rudy, use dog doors here. As you can see, Gazza is a little big for them.

Do you think that stopped her, though? Of course not.

I kid you not. The dog does contortions. 

Moooove over Fido

Beast, we're not in Seattle anymore!

So wrong

so, so wrong... but also funny!

From May 2009

Awesome!

This unusual video shows a MiL Hind Helicopter in flight at a Russian air show. What makes it amazing is that the speed of the camera and the rotors are almost precisely synchronized, making it look like the helicopter has no visible means of support.

King of the... junkyard

For those of you who think I should cut The Beast's fauxhawk, it could be worse:

For all my Chicago friends

Why didn't we think of this??

Oh, maybe because we didn't have garages. Details, details...