Vegas

OK, you all get to finally hear about my trip to Las Vegas.  Haha...you thought I might forget didn't you?  No worries.  You will hear all about it! 

I arrived Thursday evening just in time to have a late supper and hit the slot machines for awhile.  Everyone else had arrived earlier that day and spent time at the pool so everyone was tired, especially with the two hour time change.  I took the following picture up in the room I was sharing with my sister (we had one of those always fun rooms that connected to the room my two cousins were sharing).  Cell phone pictures never do justice but it is still nice.  That giant wheel was not there the last time I was in Vegas two years ago.  We didn't ride but it continually moves at a slow rate so riders can enjoy the views from an enclosed pod that holds up to 40 people.  Yes, it is huge up close. We walked under it.  If you are willing to shell out more cash you can get a pod with a fully operational portable bar in it. 

We were staying at Bally's, which you can see is in the picture.  It shows how huge these hotels are.  Bally's used to have a rather run down and dated walkway with fountains and landscaping that was kind of a waste of space and in the last two years it has turned into a fun outdoor shopping area which made the walk to the strip mush more enjoyable. 

On the first morning it was my grandma's 84th birthday.  She is still full of the energy required to walk around in Vegas.  At the airport TSA allows people older than 75 to keep their shoes on during the security check and when she walked through without removing her shoes they chased her down because they thought she was under 75.  WRONG! 

We young ladies were heading out shopping. 

That night we ate at the warm weather tourist hot spot "Carlos and Charlie's" and they had a balloon artist circulating.  We got them to make an "84" hat to bring to my grandma in the casino and a "30" for a college friend, my sister's former roommate, who joined us on Friday to celebrate her birthday.  Then she made one for everyone else too.  Can you tell what mine is?

 

It's a striped cat...duh!

 

The rest of these are not in any particular order. 

 

Here is a different view of the wheel.  The street you see here used to be the location of the old Imperial Palace casino, which my grandparents used to visit and which many ND residents recognize as the casino owned by Ralph Engelstad.  A new hotel and shopping complex called The Linq is there now.  They also weren't here two years ago!  I can't believe how much changed in two years!

Here is the atrium at the Bellagio, which is filled with lavish plants and themed decorations which change throughout the year.  Currently, it is done in an ocean theme.  It was hard to get a good picture because there are people everywhere!  I don't want to know how many European and Asian tourists will be seeing my pregnant physique in the background of their vacation photos. 

And speaking of...

Here I am, the most sought after woman at the pool at Bally's, hiding out in the shade with my book and water. 

Here is another shot in The Linq alley.

My cousin and I.

 

It rained twice when we were there!  It was very strange.  On Sunday we were at the pool and some clouds rolled in and raindrops started falling and there was even some thunder and lightening so the pool had to close. Don't worry lifeguards, I was one of you, I understand. There is nothing more thrilling than an unexpected weather break for a lifeguard and I bet those in Vegas get one approximately never. 

 

More Bellagio ocean.

On Monday we all headed to the airport at different times and I headed to the airport last with my newly 30 year old friend Kari.  I was leaving at 2:00 and she at 4:00.  As I was sitting at the gate a look of dismay came over all the people staring at their phones as we all received a message from our Allegiant app at the same time.  The flight was delayed...until 9:00 PM!  So I would be leaving Las Vegas at 9, arriving in Minot around 1 AM and then driving to Bismarck and arriving home at 3 in the morning just in time for Justin to leave for a 5 am flight for work.  Ugh I was irritated.  I went and found Kari at her gate in another wing of the airport and just when we were about to part ways so she could go to her gate the even worse news came...flight CANCELLED.  I got back to my gate as fast as I could to be the last in line of several hundred people to get a hotel voucher and flight information for the next morning.  This of course caused endless irritation and upheaval back at home.   There was a flight to Billings, MT that was cancelled also and Justin found an article in the Billings newspaper about it this week which made it sound like the passengers were lucky to be "stranded in paradise".  Well, I saw them and I can say that none of us were happy about this.  Although I do love paying $4.00 for more airport bottles of water and soda and spending $12 for fast food meals, I and everyone else was ready to get back to regular life. 

I found my suitcase randomly circling on a carousel that said "Chicago" down in the baggage claim, got on the shuttle and headed to the hotel for the night which was a strange place near the Strip called the Alexis Park.  It was kind of like a Mexican resort. 

 

I thought it seemed OK until I found my room which didn't face the pool but was on the ground level of one of the buildings facing a parking lot and a chain link fence.  I don't like to live in fear but it was a bit unsettling!

 

Here is a map I found in the room.  You can see The Strip and the Alexis Park near the bottom right across from Hard Rock.  It could have been worse but it wasn't very much fun being in a non-casino hotel in Vegas.  The next morning I was happy to assemble a presentable outfit (the ONE TIME I manage not to excessively over pack is the time I wish I had more!) and get back to the airport.  I stopped on the way home and picked up Ben and Tessa, who were with a friend's mom who graciously took care of them at the last minute so Justin could go on his work trip.  I brought Ben a novelty tourist paperweight shaped like an airplane that is clear with little stars and dice and playing cards floating in it.  He played with something similar and a friend's house and loved it so I was glad I found one.  Tessa got a flamingo from the Flamingo hotel. She likes it! 

 

While I was gone they were kept busy by a visit from my dad.  They did all the essential summer activities around town, including the zoo, amusement park and swimming. 

Ben and Grandpa in the tiger observation dome. 

I think they were having fun?

 

Ferris wheel with Grandpa.

Super slide!

 

Museum! 

 

Until we meet again Vegas...I will look forward to the time I can visit you non pregnant!  I was last time I visited too! 

Baseball Ben

I am finally back from Vegas, which ended up being a long story, but as I was about to create a post I saw the pictures from right before I left and thought I better post about them first.  On Thursday morning before I left Ben had his first morning of baseball!  He is playing "Itty Bitty" baseball at the Y.  They have month long sessions of various sports for ages 3-5 who are too young for most organized sports.  I believe the Legion related t-ball that kids played in my hometown and that my brother used to coach is for kids already in Kindergarten but I can't remember.  He knows what baseball is when he sees it and he has a glove and a t-ball set and he loves to throw things but that is about the extent of it.  He was still excited though. 

After a rousing game of "Red Light, Green Light", which he has never played before (and which is an awesome game...why haven't I thought to play that?) the kids practiced stepping and throwing to the coaches (teenagers and college students).  It was mostly chaos.  There were five year olds mixed with three year olds and you can definitely tell the difference when it comes to focus and listening skills with each passing year. 

Then the good part that all the kids had been waiting for came.  The buckets of bats came out and they got to take turns at the tees.  Fortunately, Ben got to be in the first group of batters.  If he hadn't been he would have been off trying to climb over the pile of tractor tires the Y keeps out there for personal training sessions. 

 

Tomorrow is the second session of baseball.  I feel like I have entered the gateway to years of kids activities.  I wonder what the future will hold? 

Great Strides

On Saturday we headed to SD to walk in the Great Strides walk which benefits Cystic Fibrosis.  We walked in honor of our nephew who is Ben's age.  I was glad to finally make it for the first time because it is the third walk!  Justin and Ben made it two years ago and last year we missed it.   After thinking about it I think this is the first time I have done a walk like this since I was really young and my town had a bike-a-thon for diabetes.  During the years that happened, me and my brother and sister all won the kids division during our qualifying years and we all won a red Radio Flyer wagon.  So we had three Radio Flyers when I was a kid! 

 

The route for the walk was three miles.  I think I am in good shape because I go to the gym and everything but apparently my regimen isn't very tough because I got sore from this walk.  I will blame it on the extra weight of pregnancy.  Yep, that's why. When I was studying abroad my classmates and I didn't have any cars and our school was a mile from our dorm so we walked at least two miles a day and almost always more because we did other things besides go to school.  My legs were hard as rocks when I got home from that trip.  Maybe I should consider becoming a mall walker.  They get teased but I think they are on to something. 

 

The walk was a festive occasion.  There was a short downpour that left everyone kind of wet but the wind dried us off pretty quick.  There were lots of kids strolling along with the group and to my relief ours were happy to ride and not run all over like maniacs. 

 

 

After the walk we all hung out in the park.  As you can see the sun came out. 

 

The older kids rode their bikes along the route and Tessa was really interested in "riding" her cousin's bike after we were done. 



Hopefully we can make it again next year! 

We drove home that afternoon and on Sunday we continued with our landscaping project.  On Friday before we left for South Dakota I went to Justin's co-worker's house to obtain some new day lilies for our yard.  We had some at our old house and they seem to be un-killable which is good.  We (Justin) planted them in the flower beds around the house. 

This is the side of the house before, with scraggly and unattractive bushes and lots of volunteer sapling bushes along the foundation. 

 

Here is the after photo. 

 

 

Those are lilies.  They don't look very happy but hopefully they will make it through the summer.  The woman who gave them to us said they might not look very healthy this year and most likely they won't bloom but they should be nice for next summer. 

 

 

Here is the front of the house which I shared last week with newly planted lilies.  I really wish they would bloom this year since we received a fun variety in addition to the very common yellow flowers. 

Disclaimer:  These following photos are from the internet, not our yard.  That is why they are all wacky sizes.  I tried to fix it but I couldn't.  This one is called "Root Beer". 



This one is called "Strutter's Ball".



This one is called "James Marsh".




And my favorite, "Kitten's Paw"!



There are 11 different types so no two will be the same. 

It has been really hot today and yesterday (real hot, 90's, not the 75 that feels hot after ND spring) and I am glad to say that the planters of annuals are still looking healthy after 1.5 weeks.  I'm still nervous but

Irises

When I posted about our recent yard work and spring flower planting a few days ago I left out my favorite flowers in the yard right now.  Those would be the irises.  We had some fabulous solid purple irises in front of our old house and we tried to move part of one over here in a pot but it didn't survive the winter.  Last summer we obtained some new plants from Justin's botanist coworker.  We never saw their blooms but we knew what colors were in the mix and planted them in the order we wanted. 

 

We have purple and white bi-color,

 

light purple,

 

and, my favorite!  I am in love with these!

 

 

Yellow! 

 

 

We weren't sure if they would bloom this year either but they did!  Next year there will be many flowers.  They are so tall already. 

 

 

They are up to Ben's waist!  I don't know how it is possible that both my children seem oblivious to the pain of crawling and walking around barefoot on beds of rock.  It's very strange. 

Flowers 2015

This weekend I finally as able to plant the flowers that have been hanging around our deck and kitchen for almost one month now.  Unlike the long gone days of this day being fun and relaxing, I quickly threw the pots together as fast as I could while Ben flung soil all over the place with the little hand shovel, which I had to fight over with him constantly while Tessa was napping in the afternoon.

The highlight of the afternoon was when I was dumping last years soil out of the pots in to a big plastic tub to mix and blend with some new soil.  On the third pot (out of many, so this could have been worse) I overturned the pot to discover that I had dumped out a fully functioning ant colony, complete with swollen pregnant looking ants, eggs, and thousands of worker ants who seemed very panicked over what had just happened.  Eeek.  It was really gross and I didn't use any of that soil after that but it was also very interesting.  Those ants picked up and moved their eggs so fast.  I don't know what I should do with the tub now.  I feel bad dumping it in the dumpster because I don't want to wreck their colony again but also...I don't want an ant colony in my yard in a tub. 

So here are some of the finished pots.  There are more shade oriented pots that were already moved in front of the house where it is shady.  Get a good look now, because last year 90% of what I planted was dead within two weeks and then I bought some fillers and they died too.  It could have been the heat of the deck but these have all been living out there for weeks in the sun and are healthier than ever. It could have been the soil, which we took from a field, and it could have been the fertilizer we put in the soil.  This year I used no fertilizer besides what is already in the new potting soil so I really hope this all doesn't end up being a waste.  I felt like an idiot for killing marigolds and geraniums because no one does that.  They are very hard to screw up. 
 

 

This one is my favorite.  I have a feeling that sweet potato vine will end up taking over the whole thing.  That little hand in the corner is reaching out to touch a cactus.  Right after the photo he did indeed touch it and get pricked.  Lesson learned, child. 

Meanwhile, in front of the house, Justin was working on his own landscaping project. 

This is the before picture with scrubby looking bushes.  He took out all the rocks in the front, added new plastic and hung some trellis to hide the exposed opening. 

 

Here it is after!  There will soon be some new plants in there. 

 

In the backyard he added some new native grasses. 

These are little bluestems.  They were placed in front of the big bluestems that we added last summer.

 

I can't wait to see how they look in as the summer passes!

 

Last night we went to a carnival and Ben was tall enough to ride on some of the little kid rides by himself!  Justin rode with him on this spinning dinosaur one.

 

He went on this mini "tower of terror" inspired ride.  He looked pretty terrified but he didn't cry!

 

He flew a helicopter,

 

and went on a hot air balloon. 

 

Tessa rode the carousel with me holding her on the whole time.  She liked it.  She kept saying "wheeee" during the ride. 

It's A...

Yesterday was the big half-way point that is eagerly anticipated during the early months of pregnancy.  It was ultrasound day!  I know some ladies get multiple early ultrasounds either due to complications or their history or based on the policies of their insurance providers or doctors.  I don't know what those companies are or where those doctors are because I've never had one before 20 weeks.  There is always some anxiety that accompanies an ultrasound because I have read and followed many families on social media who have faced serious health issues and birth defects that were revealed at the ultrasound and I know people in personally as well.  Also, there can be what they call "soft markers" which may indicate chromosomal issues and I have known people who have had these appear in ultrasounds although the baby almost always turns out fine.  But anyway, this stuff has always existed but now I feel like I see it all over the internet so I can't help but worry and I know I'm not alone in feeling this way. 

A friend watched Ben and Tessa for us yesterday morning, which made the whole experience more enjoyable and relaxing than it would have been with them in the room by far.  I started to relax as I saw the fully formed little baby moving around, yawning and clenching it's fists and doing other baby things. The doctor confirmed that everything was fine and I don't even have to have a repeat ultrasound in a month or two like I did with the others.  They were both positioned in a way that was made it hard to see certain organs. 

And, of course the big question...did we find out?  No!  We didn't!  We are not keeping it a secret or anything like that.  We decided to save the surprise for the birth.  This child won't be getting a nursery of their own and we already have plenty of girl and boy items so we will wait for the big moment in October.  It was hard to look away but I think it will be worth it.

 

When she was printing some still shots the ultrasound technician asked if our older kids understood what was happening and would be interested in the pictures.  I wasn't sure but she printed out an extra still of a foot.  I didn't know if Ben would get it but I was wrong.  He gets it alright. 

 

He has been carrying these around the house talking about the "baby in your tummy that is still growing and the doctor will help it get out!" nonstop.  Last night I took him shopping for new sandals and he had to bring the foot picture with in the car. 

 

Here are a few summer fun bonus photos that I have been meaning to share this week.

 

I have been thinking about getting a water table for awhile.  Ben loves to stand at the sink and pour water between cups and he loves those "water augers" that I posted about a few weeks ago and Tessa loves to play in the bathtub so I know they would like it.  Also, they have hundreds of good reviews online regardless of which brand you look at.  I found a good deal at Kohl's and it came on Wednesday when Tessa was napping.  We had to set it up right away and it was very popular and did what I hoped it would do, which is entertain them for more than five minutes and keep them from trying to run down the hill into the street. It also doesn't involve digging in empty flower pots from last year. 

 

Of course, Ben was sitting in it almost right away.  I don't understand this.  Whenever we fill a wading pool, which is a huge pain to do, he has always spent most of the time running around and throwing rocks and other debris from around the yard in it.  But he plopped down on this thing in no time. 

Tessa likes it too. 

 

Last night when Ben and I were shopping Justin took her out to play and it still had water in it from earlier in the afternoon and when I came home she was soaking wet down to her shoes and quite happy about it.

Graduation

This weekend I attended a few graduation parties in my hometown.  One of them was for the youngest boy in the family I used to babysit for as a teenager and college student.  He was barely out of diapers when I started watching him which means it was many years ago and really has made me ponder the passage of time! 

 

High school graduation day at home, and in many small towns, is a festive day.  The ceremony is always on Sunday afternoon, and everyone usually has their graduation parties after on the same day.  Every year it is the same.  As the students line up outside the school to be congratulated, moms and helpful aunts and friends take off as fast as they can to beat their guests home and set out the food and drinks.  Everyone else mingles around for about twenty minutes in order to give those moms time to get their parties ready and plans out their party visiting strategy since everyone usually has multiple places to visit and they often fan out in all directions from town.  You want to make sure to be efficient by making a route and you want get to a house where you might want to hang out with the family for awhile last! 

 

I remember my graduation day with vivid details which came back to me this weekend.  I think it was because the day was warm and summery and quite similar to the day I graduated. 

 

 

Mostly I had a huge grin on my face the whole time.  I was nostalgic because that is my nature but I was also very excited about college and moving on.  Our graduation was late in the afternoon because a classmate's father was the superintendent of a school in another town who had graduation the same afternoon as we did.  As a result, parties were still happening late into the evening.  At around 9 p.m. the people who wanted to finish their night at our house were happily settled into chairs on the lawn and the screen porch with their beverages of choice and the school principal, who was friends with my parents, was wiped out after an exhausting day of making the graduation party rounds (my class had 28 kids so he probably visited at least 20 houses that afternoon) and decided to kick back in the living room in my dad's recliner.  I'll never forget coming downstairs from changing into my "party clothes" (which for the outdoor party I was heading to was jeans and a sweatshirt) and going to say goodbye to my cousins and finding him there and joking around for a few minutes. 

 

Yes, I had 28 people in my class which is shockingly small to some but was actually a very large class for my school.  I thought of my class this spring after reading the following article in Agweek, the agriculture publication produced by the Fargo and Grand Forks newspapers.  I used to read through it when I lived at home and my parents still had the newspaper delivered with our mail every day.  I would pretty much read anything that was in front of me on the table and Agweek often was.  There were lifestyle columns in addition to the technical farming stuff and they were usually very relatable like this one. 

 

http://www.agweek.com/event/article/id/25652/group/Life/

 

This article, called "A Special Circle", says just what I want to say regarding the majority of my school years beginning in second grade.  I am not saying that I long for high school days or that I shed many tears when I left high school because I didn't.  But the connection between my circle of 28 will always exist as it does between many other small circles of all ages that exist out there in America. 

 

I graduated 5th or 6th (I honestly don't remember which!) out of my class, which earned me a spot speaking at our honors night the week before graduation.  I had a quick speech referencing the song "Forever Young" which my mom also referenced in her Valedictorian speech back in 1975.  I was inspired by it after seeing it used in a commercial with baby animals branching out from their mommy animals and I don't even think I have a copy of it!  I think I would have found it while cleaning my old room but I haven't yet.  It referenced having courage ("be courageous, and be brave, and in your heart you will always stay...forever yoooooung"...)  The courage spoke of that day couldn't even scratch the surface of the courage required to live an adult life.  Here we are, 14 years after that honors night, and long past the stage in life where we thought that the major hurdle in life to overcome was going to college and ending up with a job at the end of it.  Who could have imagined the adult things we would face as the years passed.  No one thought, back in 2001, that in 2014 one who sat there in our circle would have a baby with a congenital birth defect who would die at two months old and the rest of us would be struggling over the words to write to her in a sympathy card along with a donation to the Ronald McDonald House.  But who knows.  If she had a class of 400 instead of 28 maybe she wouldn't have received any cards from those old classmates.  Or maybe she would receive the same amount, just a tiny percentage of the people who walked the school halls with her. 

 

Occasionally when I was younger my dad would come inside in the middle of the day and change into church clothes and when asked what he was doing, the answer usually was that he was going to a funeral of someone because their son or daughter was in his class.  Those years will come for us as will the unthinkable years when we lose classmates and it's been 30 or 35 or more years and as we reunite to tell the same silly stories and call each other dumb old nicknames there will be people missing and we will be planting trees or something in memory of them.  And then 40 or 50 years will have passed and the class will consist of a small group of 68 year old grandparents riding on a float in the 4th of July parade, reminiscing about our juvenile teenage antics back in the 90s and 2000s.  I hope I can be there for that!

 



 

 

17th of May Letdown

*Edit edit!  Justin just pointed out to me that I said we had a septic tank issue...I meant sump pump issue.  So that means we had some water in the basement not what would come out of a septic tank!  Big difference!  How's this for a preview?

I had a few posting ideas for the weekend but it all went awry.  In the early hours of Sunday morning I woke up feeling that horrible feeling...like I was going to throw up.  I told myself NO this is not happening.  But it happened...and it happened several more times.  Then I spent the rest of Sunday half asleep while trying to guard my abdominal area from children and cats and Tessa's constant board book assault.  Although by Sunday evening my illness was tapering off I still feel kind of odd today.  And Justin suffered all night Sunday and all of yesterday.  I have no idea where this came from.  I hadn't been sick like that since childhood.  Fortunately, it looks like Ben and Tessa are going to be spared.  THANK GOD because we all know toddlers don't understand the sensation leading up to vomiting all over and the necessity of getting to a toilet or garbage can lined with a plastic bag. 

What I would have posted about is my annual Norway trip reminiscence since it was the 17th of May of Sunday.  I saw in in person in Oslo in 2006 and will never forget it even though I was extremely jet lagged and disoriented. 



I have shared this photo before but it is the sea of umbrellas and people crowding Karl Johan Gate, a major pedestrian street in Oslo, that leads to the Royal Palace.  The palace was right behind me when I took the picture.  It's been nine years and I still remember so many details of that day.  Next year will me ten years since that trip so I will save a major post for then.  Mark your calendars!  Haha...

On Saturday the MOPS group I belong to had a large rummage sale so of course while working at the sale I acquired a few treasures for myself and the kids.  For myself I chose these two old watering cans, which were still waiting to be chosen during the last afternoon hour of the sale. 

 

I like them because they have a cool vintage feel to them. The yellow one is really cool.  I should have known that they would become the new objects of Ben's affection.  I let him play with them in the bathtub that night, and he named them his "water augers".  Get it?  Like augers on a combine?  He's pretty clever. 

 

The weekend weather was horrific.  It was even worse than last weekend, which I didn't think was possible.  Had the temperature dropped ten degrees we would have been stranded in a multi-day "Little House on the Prairie" style blizzard.  But instead we just had 3 inches of rain which washed out a lot of soil from behind the rock wall in the backyard and caused a septic tank overflow situation in our utility room which I noticed when Allan tracked muddy paw prints around the house. 

 

 

Ben can't wait to get into those dirt piles! 

 

OK, I have to go thoroughly sanitize the bathrooms now! 

10 Year Anniversary

The ten year high school reunion is a huge "thing" in American culture.  There are movies about it (I love Romy and Michelle!) makeover shows dedicated to it and weight loss efforts directed toward it.  Some people love to shun it, saying they don't care what anyone from high school is doing.  Other people, although it kind of is a stereotype and I don't know anyone who is really this way, want to go to show off how good they look or how rich they are.  I went to mine as most people from small classes do because small town reunions are rarely the fancy ballroom parties with hundreds of people present that are depicted in movies.  They are just fun!  And my generation has social media, so now we know what everyone else is doing and what they look like which takes away the pressure

There is another ten year milestone that no one ever speaks of, even though, arguably, it is a much bigger, costlier, more challenging deal. Today marks ten years since I graduated from college.   I suppose a college graduation milestone isn't as recognized because who is in your "class" is not as defined and a friend or classmate that you are close with might not graduate with you.  I figured out the day when May rolled around and I realized that it is 2015, and I graduated in 2005. I looked at an old 2005 calendar online and yes indeed, it was a Friday the 13th that my roommate's boyfriend (now husband) dropped us off outside the dome for our ceremony.  It was a disappointingly cold day, in the 40s, and we didn't want to bring coats because there was no where to put them so we wrapped our robes around our sundresses like coats and bolted for the door. Inside was a sea of strangers and friends in black robes who we whispered with and waved to during the several hours long ceremony.  Cell phone technology was not what it is today, so there were no pictures or online updates from the floor like there would be today, ten years later. 

Here is the professional photo that was taken right after exiting the stage (I think, I don't really remember!) which I purchased a small package of even though they were way overpriced.  I'm glad I did though because I want future generations to remember that I ever looked like this.  There aren't enough cosmetics in the world to replicate the youthful look of a real 22 year old, that is for sure.

 

Sigh, these photos bring up many thoughts about the directions I went from that day on.  I often wonder what I could have and should have done instead of what I did do but those thoughts can make a person plunge into dark places and I don't have time for reflection these days.  Just since writing this post I've been interrupted five times by Ben wanting candy, (I hid it and said it was gone even though I was eating some and he stared at my mouth full of chocolate for a few extra seconds...I think he knew!) juice, for me to turn on Curious George, for another snack after he was denied the candy and to ask me to clean up his Duplos that he dumped everywhere (I didn't help). 

 

During my younger college years, each semester was highlighted by the delightful phenomenon of graduation parties at the Holiday Inn.  The Holiday Inn in Fargo has a huge poolside and party area surrounded by rooms and for some reason they had no problem with people reserving rooms and wheeling in kegs each December and May.  People packed the place and mingled around as kids in swimming suits ran through the chaos.  I knew where RM and I had to have our party and another KD friend of ours also had her party there and there was a room of AGRs (Justin's friends and our neighbors) that also had a room there and we got the front desk to move our rooms all next to each other the week before graduation.  The receptionist gave a half-a$$ed lecture about how these rooms were not supposed to be used for huge parties and drinking even though she knew they would be and did what I wanted anyway without a fight. 

 

 

There is the date on the cake, May 13, 2005!  That dress I have on was a size that will never be seen in my house again, except maybe in my kids' drawers with a "T" after it.  The bottom picture is in front of KD, where so many other graduates have posed through the years.  The composite photos with our faces on them have probably been long demoted to the dorm hallways but part of that house will always be with me! 

 

So, on this boring date of Wednesday the 13th, 2015, as I sit with my damp post afternoon shower hair, trying to do my computer related business and leisure tasks between constant questions and pestering from a three year old, that I remember that day.  I don't know where my robe even is.  My sister wore it and then I think it was lost in the sorority community pool of special occasion garb and costumes. I paid the overpriced Jostens fee for the benefit of many.  I do have that medal, however. It was for an honor society I was in.  Maybe I will wear it around the house for the rest of the day, like a weirdo.  I have to point out that I only missed cum laude by one tenth of a point and after all the finals were calculated I think I did indeed have a 3.5 gpa.  SO CLOSE to having a gold honors medal like Ashley!  My 400 level classes were nothing to brag about in the difficulty department, let me tell you.  I didn't care enough to look into if I could have it added afterwards or if it did get added afterwards because I was going to law school so who cares, right?  Maybe I will look at my transcript later if I can remember how to find it.  I bet the old website is obsolete anyway. 

 

Update:  I just looked it up and honors are awarded based on gpa at the time of commencement:

 

Recognition in the commencement program is based on coursework that is completed and graded at the time of the ceremony. Courses that are in progress and not yet accessible online (via Campus Connection) are not included.