If there’s one thing I’ve learned being married to my wife for close to 5 years, if I don’t take pictures she’ll disown me. And now she’s making me blog. Yup. {He knows me so well :)}
So if you haven’t gathered, the conference was in Chicago at the McCormick Place Conference Center. They fed us breakfast.
Then we got to stand in line to go to the Keynote address.
I didn’t mention that last week hubby was gone ALL. WEEK. LONG. This is the first time we’ve been separated more than a couple nights since we’ve been married. Crazy I know! And really this year is the first time we’ve been separated more than over night before too. I’m soooooo not digging this feeling of being a single parent and have a new found respect for them! This was finals week for me so I was kind of stressed because of that. whew! I’m still waiting on one grade too…. ugh!
Anyway I’m living vicariously through hubby’s trips. So this week he went to Chicago for a week for the Microsoft Ignite. I have no idea what that is so I plan on making him guest post and tell you and me about it 🙂
I did start his trip off with a picture of him and baby girl before he left though!
So now I’m going to turn it over to hubby!
My flight left Springfield around 4pm on Sunday so that I could get to Chicago at a fairly decent hour. The flight is around an hour and five minutes or so that’s what they told us on the system. Once we got to Chicago O’Hare we registered for the conference so that 25,000 people weren’t trying to check in on Monday morning.
We had enough people from work going that they rented limo’s to take us from the airport to the hotel versus making us have to ride the El. Our hotel was the Inn of Chicago. The night we got there it was raining so I didn’t get wifey a picture of the outside of the hotel. But I made sure to get her a picture of the inside of my room before I messed it up.
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| My Cinco de Mayo celebration after class. Yes I’m using a clothes basket as a table. |
Are you thinking… Well Duh? I would be but I know why I titled that that way… neener neener neener. Oh fine I’ll share…
Last night was my last night of classes for the semester. Booyah! Now technically I have a final to turn in and a final project to turn in due by 10am on Friday but otherwise… no more classes for the spring semester. I’m doing a happy dance if you can’t tell.
But my summer isn’t going to be all butterflies and kittens. Nope Nope Nope. Instead I get to read 50+ish books. So I’m going to show you my reading list so you can keep me accountable, deal?
First round of comps come this fall. I’m scared!
American:
Nature:
- #207 (#214): I taste a liquor never brewed –
- #320 (#258): There’s a certain Slant of Light
- #359 (#328): A Bird came down the Walk –
- #905 (#861): Split the Lark – and you’ll find the Music
Death, Immortality, Religion:
- #124 (#216): Safe in their Alabaster Chambers –
- #236 (#324): Some keep the Sabbath going to Church
- #202 (#185): “Faith” is a fine invention
Mind, Soul, and Self:
- #620 (#435): Much Madness is divinest Sense –
- #339 (#241): I like a look of Agony,
- #598 (#632): The Brain – is wider than the Sky –
- #312 (#252): I can wade Grief –
British Literature: Core List
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| Buffalo and his brother… Long story |
Lately I have been going through old photos and scanning them in to my computer. Wow, how did we survive before digital? I swear!
Anyway I scanned in photos a couple weeks ago from my trip to Washington D.C. with FFA the summer before my junior year of high school. Now this story could be about all the complete strangers I met because I met a lot. We all left friends but this is about one stranger I met in particular.
My aunt and uncle live in southern Oklahoma and at the time had a set of twin boys that were working for them. My aunt had told the one brother about me and possibly even showed him a picture, I can’t remember. Anyway then she told me about him. She said he was cute and we were the same age.
When she found out he was attending the Washington Leadership Conference and so was I, she checked with each of us as to what week (there are multiple weeks). Turns out we were going the same week. My aunt told us that we should look each other up.
Saturday morning I was going garage saling with my sister in law and mother in law. It was the city wide garage sale. So I set my alarm for 6:15am to get up. They were supposed to be here around 6:30-7. At 6:40 Tbug came in waking her dad up telling him someone was here. My alarm never went off so I jumped out of bed, quickly got dressed and headed out the door. Then I realized why my alarm didn’t go off… I grabbed one that was stored on my phone for week days only. Alarm 1, Nicole 0. Woops.
Oh well, we went out to check out the deals. I left Abug, Tbug and hubby to fend for themselves. They got up and went to the dive shop, then went to the Guard arena/shack because there was an AYRA rodeo Saturday.
While I was out shopping with my MIL and SIL I realized that I didn’t take a house key with me. Luckily my MIL had my house key with her or I’d have been sol. Wow, lots of initials here. Once we were done, we grabbed lunch and they dropped me back off at the house. Then I headed to the AYRA Rodeo.
When I got there hubby was on the tractor disking up the arena.
Dean and Jared were grilling burgers and dogs (hotdogs).
Abug was in the shack. The shack is actually the cook shack but we all call it the guard shack… Abug found herself a horse to ride in the shack.
I was teasing the guys that I had to take pictures of them working to prove that they in fact did work :). Lee looks a bit scared of Pokey. Lee said he didn’t realize there was a camera involved until he looked at Pokey.
We start them young here. It was a great learning opportunity for Tbug to learn how to count change back. We had to help her a few times but otherwise she did awesome!
213/365 – April Fool’s Day. It wasn’t supposed to rain today
214/365 – I hate severe weather! This was during a Tornado Warning at 9:15pm. Yes that’s PM… I caught this picture out the window when lightening flashed… And no I’m not crazy enough to check this stuff out if there’s threat! Just clarifying.
Normally on the first day of the month I post that I’ve still been plugging away at my project 365. And just so we’re clear I have been! But today warranted a different post… like what I was up to yesterday!
What was I up to yesterday you ask? Well writing a paper that was due at 9am this morning. No that’s not blog worthy! What is… the fact that I got my paper done. Oh wait, no!!!
What’s blog worthy is the fact that I was invited and got to attend the Chiefs Draft Party! Score!!
Danielle and I drove up together to meet the rest of our crew. She had to leave after work and I had a paper to write. That came first!! So when we got there we parked in BFE. People thought we were joking but when we got there there was a Royals game last night and we wound up in Royals parking because they ran out of room in the Draft parking. Yup, we were in BFE :).
As we were walking in we got to stop and meet Suzie and WarPaint. I got Abug a signed photo and of course got my picture with them. Although I joked that I couldn’t be in a picture with her because she was prettier than I am.. lol.
Then we took off walking to the Training Complex. We even got to walk down on the practice fields. One is grass, the other is bouncy turf stuff. I felt like I could run across there and do a cartwheel because it was so bouncy. Don’t worry I didn’t try.
So Dan and Grady are Red Coaters. Dan told Danielle to let him know when we got there. I went to give them my ticket to go in and it wouldn’t scan. I just about had a heart attack, then another Red Coater came up and said I wasn’t allowed in unless I had $75 to buy a ticket. I about croaked. Well we wound up with 3 tickets because one of our group wasn’t able to come so Danielle went to give me the other ticket and they scanned hers. Hers scanned. The Red Coater lady started laughing, Dan came out of the shadows and laughed and they let me through. I was about in tears, partially because I’ve never been here and I was nervous and then my ticket didn’t scan and we drove 2 1/2 hours and and and and.
So at the Draft Party there’s all the food you want all the time. When we got there it was 6ish pm and I was hungry so it worked out!
This picture in multiple forms wound up on facebook. Nice huh?
So halfway through eating Dan and Grady point out one of the Red Coaters and said I needed to meet him so Dan and I went and tracked him down. He was one of the original secret service for President John F. Kennedy. They told me every story you hear from him is different, I heard about him and Sean Connery. Sean Connery was filming one of the James Bond movies and Ray told him that he was the original James Bond. Okay, seriously how cool is that?!?! This is Ray Zachobich (please don’t quote me on this spelling:)) And the flag on his lapel is what they wear at the White House. I’d sure like to hear more about that!
So Tbug is on a competitive cheer team. The KC Cheerleaders had a poster of all of them that they were signing so I got a copy and went around and got signatures for Tbug. They were all sooooooo nice. Asking if this was my first Draft party which it was and commenting on my belt/buckle. And then telling me I needed to eat to keep my energy up and strength. ha!
Dan and I walked a complete circle around the complex getting different cheerleader autographs for Tbug and we ran into Will Shields. He played 14 seasons for the KC Chiefs. In 2012 he was inducted into the KC Chiefs Hall of Fame and in 2015 it was announced that he was inducted to the NFL Hall of Fame.
So then while we were walking around, Dan knows all the Red Coaters and get this… So the Arizona Cardinals recently re-did their practice locker rooms and they were going to throw out all the old lockers but one locker is kept in honor of former player Pat Tillman. Tillman played for the Cardinals in 98-01 before he enlisted in the US Army following the 9/11 attacks. He served in Afghanistan and 3 years after enlisting he was killed in the line of duty. So the Cardinals are keeping his locker in honor of him and his service. How awesome is that?
So then…. I was going to wear my jersey but instead decided to wear hubby’s shirt I got him for Christmas. There was the possibility that we might go to the Royals game afterwards (we didn’t) so I had on a blue tank top under the Chiefs shirt. One of our group, Drake was in line to get his jersey signed so I took my shirt off and threw it at him and asked him to have it signed.
Dan thought it would be funny to put on facebook that he and I were on a mission to find cookies for Danielle and me (we were), we didn’t find any (we hadn’t yet) so when I took off my shirt we found some (oddly enough just after I took my shirt off I found cookies. but remember I had a tank top on under the shirt!)
Hehe 🙂
My coke got taken away while I was off gallivanting so I came back and got another one. I got one that said share with a superstar. Heck yeah I’m a superstar!
Then Grady asked if I got my picture with the Super Bowl trophy. Well no…. where’s that. Ha they had a huge sign and I didn’t even pay attention so off I went again :).
And while we were waiting…
And our first round draft pick, Marcus Peters from Washington. And then it was all over and we packed up and headed home. At 11:55pm when I got home I submitted my paper that was due at 9am this morning :).
