Congrats to the Graduate!

Well, for all of you who know my little sister, Emily, she has finally graduated from college!!Friday, June 13th, Emily got to walk down the aisle for her college graduation from Arts Institute International with a bachelors of Science in Advertising! As you can see, she makes a cute graduate!! My parents, Joe and I and his mother Donna, and Em's boyfriend, Kyle were all lucky to attend this magnificent event. It was held at the St. Thomas church on the St. Thomas Minneapolis Campus in downtown Minneapolis. It was a beautiful afternoon for a wondrous day! Here is a cute picture of the new Graduate! Now all we have to do is help here find a job! So if any of you know of anyone in the Twin Cities looking to hire someone with an advertising degree, please let me know so I can share the news with her!

Here is a picture of the two of us together! It's hard to believe the two of us are actually related! But I must say I do love her dearly!

Here is a great family photo since the wedding! We really don't have too many of these so they are precious and worth while.

After the graduation, Emily had the decision on where we would go for dinner. Since we were in downtown Minneapolis and it was just at the start of rush hour, no one really wanted to drive anywhere. So we settled on eating at The News Room, which was only two blocks from the Hilton hotel our parents were staying at. Aren't we all just cute!





One side of the table was Joe, myself, and our dad!








The other side was Donna, Emily, and our mom!

After eating, we headed back to my parents hotel room for cake made by my grandfather. If you can remember, he was the one who made our wedding cake, as well as most of the other ones I may have brought up to school with me. ( Sorry, no picture of the cake! Oops!) After saying our good-byes, Joe, Donna and I headed down to Bloomington toward our hotel. The reason why Donna was with us, she was flying out of Minneapolis to St. Thomas for two weeks!! Lucky her! She asked us to take her car home instead of leaving it down at a Park-and-Fly. Mike, Donna's husband, will be driving down to the cities to fly out on Thursday and the car'll be left at that point! Anyways, she in the sun and having fun, of course!

Over the rest of the weekend, Joe and I stayed down there till Sunday, hung out with the family and the new grad, did some shopping at the Mall of America, traveled over to Golf USA, and just relaxed. It was a nice little get-a-way from Duluth. Sunday, we drove back up to Superior, stopping in North Branch and did a bit more shopping, not that we really needed to buy anything else, but we stopped, as well as my parents. After a brief stop there, we headed up to Hinckley, had lunch at Tobeys, bought two caramel rolls, and made the rest of the trip to our home. Upon getting back, we ran inside, stopped in the bathroom (I really have a tiny bladder!!), and then headed back over the bridge the Miller Hill Mall to Gordons to have my ring checked out. I was informed down at a Gordon's in MOA my diamond was loose and needed to get checked out. So stopping up here made sense! Upon talking to the associate working there, he informed us this wasn't something they could get fixed!! So right now, I am ringless, and not happy about that. But that's another story to talk about another time! I must say I miss that ring. All in all, it really was a great weekend. Congrats again to Emily! The whole world is at your fingertips! I love you!

And of course, I had to add one of Joe and I, just so y'all can see our smiling faces!!

The 10-Year HS Class Reunion

The other day, I received notice about my upcoming high school class reunion. I can't believe it has already been 10 years since I left the little town of Washburn and ventured out into the big unknown. Well, I started looking back at the times I had during high school and realized, yet again, I need not go down that road. I hated almost every moment I had during that time frame. I was teased often, more so because I was better at sports than some of the guys in my class. I wasn't necessarily part of the "in crowd" so I more often than not, got left out of things and was very rarely invited to events or parties. (Hmm, this is sounding more and more like my time in college and post-college times.) I guess I felt school was more important than drinking, drugs, and getting into trouble, something my parents instilled in me, "You have to get a good education to make it far in this world." I'm glad I had a family that pushed me to be the best I could be and to do whatever I wanted to do. (Otherwise, I probably would have given up on being a Physical Therapist after the second time I didn't pass my boards exam and I'd still be working at hell, I mean Sam's Club.) I should say thank you to all of those who have helped me to get to where I am today. If it wasn't for y'all, I'm sure I'd be a whole different person. Our friends are the ones to get us through those hard times and make sure we still have our head above the water to breathe.

As for the reunion, I'm not too sure this is something I really want to do. I feel obligated to attend because of the time Kristen is putting into everything to set it all up. But honestly, I'm not sure if I'm ready to travel down that road again. When I graduated, I wanted to get as far away from some of them that I could. Some people made my life a living hell. There are couple of people I'd like to see though. I have discussed with a fellow classmate, Travis, that we'd drink together, and this time I wouldn't throw up on his shoes like I did the first time we drank together. (The first time I actually drank during HS was a our graduation, so I held out for a long time, all things considered.) There are many things that have always bothered me: many of my classmates never left Washburn, and still live there, either working in the grocery store or not making it is life with many children hanging on their arms. Some have done wonders for them and have their own businesses. To me, I just don't understand why they didn't want to try bigger and better things than little ol' Washburn. But other than these little things, I'm not even sure if many people are going to attend because a fellow HS classmate is getting married that weekend as well. I'm not invited, thank goodness, but I know she is still good friends with a lot of others from our class. So who knows who'll show up either venue.

I'm thinking the appropriate thing to do is attend. I do have things to hang in front of others and of course that include: my great and wonderful husband; my good health after losing 36 pounds and a breast reduction; a great job working as physical therapist; and the ability to say I've made something of myself and have moved on from the small town and ventured out in life to try something new. No matter what happens or what people may think, I can honestly say I am finally happy with myself and am glad as to where I am in life. Granted, we haven't taken the "baby" road yet, but that's to come shortly. So I guess going in with a positive attitude is what will have to be done, and be happy for others choices as to where they are in their lives as well. So if any of you gal's have any hints of making it through the night sober, please feel free to chime in any time! Otherwise, it's looking like my parents are going to be picking us up again at the bar. Its a good thing they'll be around, cause I think I won't be sober enough to drive. Oh well!