Another day... Another hike....

We aren't really being "girls," the wind was fierce on this peak but we made it! Having a great time- in Springdale Utah now- getting ready to hike in Zion National before heading back to Vegas.. Loved the Hendricks Co Festival Pix......

Not the Smokies....definitely not the spa....

Pix from top to bottom: Em and Kyle hanging out with "Sparky" the firedog; Kyle crawling through the bouncy farm; Kyle jumping in the bouncy house; Katie climbing the rock wall.

The kids and I had a busy day hanging around Avon...no spa for me..... First, Katie was in the Avon Heritage Festival Parade while Em and Kyle raked in the candy. Then, we went to the Festival at the park. As you can see the kids had lots of fun! Kyle is now passed out in the car. I'm not sure he will even wake up before "bedtime"!

Life in the West.

Here is what my morning was like with my friends Christy, Sarah and Michelle- and the whole hiking crew. Not quite as daring as the Harley Boys in Tennessee but we spa girls are roughing it in Utah.... Having a great time... 6 mile hike this morning and another tomorrow...

smokies bike ride

riding on the cherehalo skyway thry the smokie mountains on thjs thursday, timmy, me, bruce and spence. headed out to maybe north carolina friday and spend the nite somewhere and back to knoxville sat nite then back to florida -- one mile up and a bit chilly

I have internet!

It's been an exhausting week, and here's a rundown of the highlights for all who may be interested (and a few supplemental photos, if all goes according to plan):

Classes start Monday, and this entire week was "Orientation". That meant math placement exams on Monday (I passed both calculus AND algebra -- hooray!) followed by a delightful two-hour cruise on Lake Michigan featuring all the free wine, beer, and hors d'ouevres we could consume.

Pictured here to the right are Angie, Joh, Meg, me and Leslie on the cruise. And below (I think) are me, James, Clement, John, Christine, Leslie and Meredith.

Tuesday and Wednesday featured a lot of really boring, but required, lectures about things like not cheating and not harassing members of minority groups or the opposite sex. We kept ourselves going by staying out incredibly too late socializing with each other and playing cards. Here you see John, Julie, Nikolas and Christine playing cards in Christine's apartment. No one but John knew how to play Euchre -- can you believe it?

Then Thursday and Friday we were split into groups of thirty for the Dean's Challenge. Each group had to come up with a proposal for how to use the plot of land slated for the Olympic Village in the city's 2016 Olympic bid (assuming we lost out on the Olympics), with particular regard to the public and affordable housing shortages. Twenty-four hours is not really enough time to do something like this at all, particularly with 30 people to work with, but we managed to pull something quite impressive together by Friday afternoon. Then, we lost. But only because the faculty judges' rubric was completely (and erroneously) out of sync with our conception.

To make up for giving up huge amounts of work we could not possible know how to do, Thursday evening we were treated to the taping of Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me! at the Chase Auditorium in downtown Chicago. I was sore afterwards for laughing so hard. I got my photo with Carl Kasell and Peter Sagal afterwards, too. If you have no idea what I'm talking about it's because you don't listen to NPR enough.

Like I said, the week was exhausting, but a whole lot of fun, too. I'm hoping to feel a little less stressed out when classes begin, just because I'll have more discretion with my time than I have had so far. Speaking of which, I'll be taking microeconomics, advanced statistical methods and political economy. In other words, lots of problem sets. So, maybe not on the less stress idea. But one can hope.

I'm glad to see everyone down in Bloomington living it up, and wish I could make it down sometime.

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My apartment:

Some random other shots of friends, school and the city:

from Promontory Point

Harper Library

John and me from the Aquarium downtown

David (Jersey Dave, or JD for short), John, Nikolas and Zi Chaing at the Renegade Art Fair.

IU TAKES A DIVE..BUT THE TAILGATE GOES ON

A Few More IU Football Pics

Thanks to everyone who came yesterday. What a perfect day for football! Plan on another early game next Saturday when the Fighting Illini visit. Hope to see you there!

IU Wins #3 and Hannah Celebrates #24

Fun at the Stadium..... Great steak at Zagrebs..... Happy Birthday, Hannah

florida lifestyle

sorry about no fish pics, will try to get out soon, hope Joe R. will understand

Free to a Good Home

I have three lovely children who are free to a good home Friday night. You can have one, two, or three of them. It's your choice! Two of the three are housebroken.
I can make arrangements to deliver them and pick them up on Saturday (or late Friday night). Please let me know if this sounds appealing to you!

Laura's blog

You can also read about Laura's adventures at: willialm.blogspot.com

Just because

Because no one has posted in a while, I'm taking it upon myself to fill you in on the delights of my life. :-)
I had a pretty good weekend watching movies with Jen, Nate, Jeff, and Jake but the highlight of my weekend was visiting with Pops and Tutu at Mort and Lisa's house. Greg, Sarah, and I drove up there on Saturday in hurricane type rain (it took us close to two hours to get there!) and then we went the wrong direction for 20 minutes. Thank God mom called us when she did or we would have ended up in downtown Indy! Sarah made a delicious graham cracker pie and Mort made a wonderful Chinese dinner, chopsticks and all! The food was great, but the company was even better. Thanks to Mort and Lisa for making all of us feel right at home!
On Sunday we finally had our Irwin Union Pool Party that I've been planning for the past 3 weeks. It was a smash hit and guests seemed to really have enjoyed themselves. Smokin' Jacks catered the event and we had swimming, basketball, capture the flag, water balloon toss, pool, Foosball, and air hockey. I think we are thinking of doing another event with kids at the Wonderlab and possibly even a tailgate tent at one of the games (a little competition for David... :-P).
Speaking of David's tailgate... I hope to see you all there on Saturday! Two tailgates in a row for me so it'll be worth noting! haha.

Update on Laura (posted by Moderator Carrie)

As I was "moderating" the posts on the MASHED POTATOES site, I discovered this entry that was never officially posted. With Lisa's permission, I am posting Laura's update. There must have been some computer issue at The Regenstein Library.

Hey, family!

I'm here in The Regenstein Library skipping some career building workshop and waiting on my study group. We're going over the algebra test all of us failed last week so we can (hopefully) pass it in two weeks when it's given again. Boy, do I love grad school.

But seriously, I actually do. Everyone in my class (about 120) is very friendly and, as noted above, several of us have already formed a study group. Some highlights so far have been the city-wide scavenger hunt we had to complete on Tuesday and the pot-luck suppers second years are hosting for small groups of us newbies.

Hyde Park is great -- a few of my friends saw Barack Obama the other day, and there seems to be a good selection of coffee shops and ethnic restaurants. There are at least three REALLY GREAT bookstores, too, which has already proven to be rather threatening to my carefully laid-out budget. Sigh.

So, anyway, I thought I would share a few pictures (of my apartment, the city, from the scavenger hunt) while I had internet access and nothing else to do. I love being able to see what everyone else is up to, even if the tailgating photos instill a bit of jealousy.

2007 IU Football Season

Tailgating season is here! Everyone enjoyed the beautiful weather and getting together with family and friends. The next game is September 15th; come on out and celebrate the Hoosiers AND Hannah's birthday!

PHS Homecoming

The annual Orange Bowl, a long-standing contest between rivals Springs Valley and Paoli, was held on Friday night. This year the Blackhawks came out the victors, with a 19-6 win over the Rams. While there were a few exciting moments in football play, we were really there to see Megan, the junior Homecoming princess. She and her escort were announced and took the field during the coronation of the 2007 PHS Homecoming king and queen (seniors). We were very proud of her and she was thrilled that she made it across the football field in her heels without stumbling! Yea, Megan!

Good and getting better

Today was an interesting one and had some downs- and then some ups... but according to Tutu (who wants me to post this), things are getting better. Hoosiers are ahead and sounds like the Foster-Owens 1st tailgate of the season was fun! Hope the Foster girls enjoyed soccer in Dayton and we are looking forward to seeing pictures from Paoli's junior princess soon!

From Tutu (and Angela)