Well, the truck is packed, and my room is dark and empty except for the mattress I'm sleeping on tonight, which will be thrown in the truck just before we leave at 8:00 tomorrow morning (technically today, but who's counting?). I'm a little sad to be leaving home -- walking my dogs today before my sister took them to the kennel was a little emotional. This move is a little farther and substantially more permanent than going to Xavier. But my dominant feelings right now are ones of excitement to be starting a new adventure.
Next time I post, it will be from the Mill City in the Land of Lakes! :D
Love you all!
Aug 9, 2008
Aug 5, 2008
Really Long Post about Loosely Connected Things
My excuse for not posting is that I'm boring. I guess I have to allow a fairly long time to pass in order to collect enough noteworthy things to post about. I expect that to change soon, though.
Fourth of July in Fort Wayne
As the section heading suggests, I spent the weekend of Independence Day with Alicia and her family. I got up there on Thursday (the 3rd, wow, this seems so long ago...), and on Friday, we went with her family to her uncle's lake house on one of Northern Indiana's many nice lakes. This is a tradition for her family and some of their cousins' families to spend the Fourth at the lake house. And it is also the site of the Earnest-Lenehan family Olympics.
Now, the Earnest-Lenehan Olympics are a big deal, at least to Alicia's dad, especially now that the prize is a squirrel. I'm sure you all remember her dad and the squirrels, and Sammy, the ceramic squirrel that sits on the dashboard to see his relatives. Well, Sammy has a girlfriend now, Susie, who had been won by the Lenehans last year. So if the Earnests lost again, I believe that Sammy would have been lost. Tragic.
Anyway, the Olympics consist of five events between the families, and each event is best-of-three. The events vary, but basketball is always one of them. The Earnests have lost basketball for five straight years, so of course, Alicia's dad has been working on recruiting me for this game for almost a year. Of course, I have to help protect the Earnest family honor, so I had my game face on. I wasn't about to lose Sammy.
The games were hard fought, but they really had no answer for my size, and with a lot of scoring help from Alicia's brother, we won the best-of-three contest in two games. So the Earnests (with a little help) finally broke the basketball losing streak! Melinda won the running race for the Earnests before the Lenehans won chess and bocce. Alicia and Kaylin won the clinching Euchre game, though, so Sammy was saved!
In between the Olympic events, we rode in the boat on the lake, went tubing, and rode the jet ski. I'm sure our ride on the jet ski provided a pretty funny image: me holding onto Alicia for dear life as she guns the jet ski up to 50+ mph. All the while, I'm thinking that there's no way that Alicia's big enough to keep me out of the water if I start to fall, but we made it without me falling off.
Afterwards, we headed back to Fort Wayne for the fireworks. Let me provide you with some insight about how the Earnest family works: Alicia's dad is driving, and her mom is telling him which way to go. He goes a different way, while Kaylin and Melinda discuss where they watched the fireworks last year, and where they should go this year. For whatever reason, they both have strong opinions on this, and are helpfully yelling their suggestions from the back of the van. Meanwhile, Alicia is trying to guide the discussion so that we end up close to where her friends are sitting. And her dad drives his own way.
Alicia turns to me and says, "Welcome to 'the Earnest family goes to the fireworks.'" And I say, "Welcome to 'the Earnest family goes anywhere.'" Apparently, it's an unwritten rule that whoever sits in the passenger seat has to offer a route to wherever they're going, and the driver has to go a different way. It's pretty funny to sit back and watch it all unfold, and not worry how we're gonna get there.
The rest of the weekend was fun, pretty chill. We had a picnic in the park, got ice cream, and watched movies.
(Wow, when I sit down to write these, they end up being really long.)
Alicia comes to the Nap
Don't know if I've said this before, but "Naptown" and "the Nap" are nicknames for Indianapolis. It used to be derrogatory, saying the city was boring, but now it is embraced at least by people I know. If you hear someone call it "Indy," they're probably from out of town. Anyway...
The next weekend, Alicia was able to come down to visit me in Naptown. It was nice to see her for the third weekend in a row, especially since I hadn't seen her for most of June. Our weekend here was less eventful, but still fun. On Saturday, we went downtown with my sister. We ate lunch at an Indian buffet (always delicious), and then walked to Monument Circle:
(Note Alicia's tiptoes.) Now, the Monument is an Indianapolis landmark, right in the middle of downtown, and gives us one of our nicknames, the Circle City. If you pay a dollar, you can go up in the top and look out the observation deck. Despite living here our whole lives, Haley and I have never been up there, and of course Alicia hasn't either, so today was the day. And boy were we excited!
After a pleasant elevator ride with a man with claustrophobia and altophobia and his annoying wife, we climbed the 43 remaining stairs to the observation deck, which was like a sauna. The view of downtown was nice, and Alicia was particularly excited to get a good view of the new Colts stadium, but damn, it was HOT. We made our way back down and cooled off with some ice cream.
Lest you think I have no life outside Alicia ;)
Alicia told you about my cousin's wedding in her last post. Speaking of which, I don't particularly remember being tipsy on that phone call, but I guess I probably was. I didn't have all that much to drink, but I'm sure dancing has a similar effect on me. Oh, and L.Dot, I can commiserate with you about how everybody attacks you with "Don't Stop Believin," because now everybody attacks me with "Livin on a Prayer," which I hate with almost as strong a passion as you hate the Journey song. And I must report that my 8-year-old cousin Dylan's second-favorite song is Soulja Boy. Don't know if he can do the dance though.
Okay, after that rambling paragraph, time to get back on topic. After the wedding, many of the O'Connor clan made the trek from Chicago to Michigan's West Coast, per family tradition. For many years, some of my extended family has rented a house near the beach in the area of St. Joseph, Michigan, and the rest of the family is welcome to come up and enjoy the beach and whatever else for part or all of that week. So Haley and I went with one of our aunts and stayed for a few nights.
It was fun, and also a little bit crazy with the number of people there, including one clan of my cousins that consists of five little kids that enjoy yelling and beating each other up. We went to the pool with them one night, and everybody went to the beach on the next two days. The beach was fun, although it was nerve-wracking at times trying to keep track of the little kids as they jump around in the waves of Lake Michigan. The waves were especially big on the first day, and somehow I ended up being the only adult in the water with the four kids (10, 8, and 5-year-old twins) right when we got there. As I tried to keep them together and above water, someone decided to help me out by throwing a football in my eye. I was too distracted to even flinch, so it got me pretty good. Didn't lose any kids, though, which is the good thing. I also introduced the twins to the concept that, on the beach, trash=toys, something that I am quite proud of.
Minnesota, here I come!
As of right now, my moving day is about four days away, which is scary and exciting at the same time, as I'm sure you all can understand. I've started packing what I can. We're loading up the truck on Friday and making the 10-hour drive on Saturday. My parents and sister are going to stay to help me get moved in and settled, and then stay an extra day to hang out. I start orientation on the 18th, and class/work on September 2nd. I will definitely keep you posted on how that goes.
In other news, I got a new cell phone, complete with a new number in the Minneapolis area code: 612-751-1979. It's much better than my old phone, in that I can actually afford to talk to people on it for more than 3 minutes at a time! This is good, because I have resolved to keep in better contact with friends via phone (especially you guys). So I will be calling you guys soon. And please call me. I'm awkward on the phone (I still leave Alicia awkward voice mails. In fact, I think I left her an awkward one tonight) but I'm not going to let that stop me . :) So that's about it about the phone. Free nights and weekends, free verizon in-network, woot!
Oh, and to let you know: Alicia moved to Minneapolis on Sunday, and her orientation with her program seems to be going well so far.
Shout outs appear to be in style these days:
L.Dot: already shouted you out above, but your job sounds cool. Tell Katie and Scott that I said hi, and that I will be sending them emails like I've been intending to do for the longest time. (I feel like if I say that more publicly, it'll help me remember to actually do it, lol. Now I better get on that.)
Kate: That IM convo we were having got cut off, but I hope the rest of your Ghana trip is good, and hope to hear more later.
Mike: How's life as a bank teller? And how's it living with your brother's family in the house still? Oh, and thanks for Griffey. Hopefully he can get to the World Series with my White Sox. :)
Alicia: See you in Minnesota!
Fourth of July in Fort Wayne
As the section heading suggests, I spent the weekend of Independence Day with Alicia and her family. I got up there on Thursday (the 3rd, wow, this seems so long ago...), and on Friday, we went with her family to her uncle's lake house on one of Northern Indiana's many nice lakes. This is a tradition for her family and some of their cousins' families to spend the Fourth at the lake house. And it is also the site of the Earnest-Lenehan family Olympics.
Now, the Earnest-Lenehan Olympics are a big deal, at least to Alicia's dad, especially now that the prize is a squirrel. I'm sure you all remember her dad and the squirrels, and Sammy, the ceramic squirrel that sits on the dashboard to see his relatives. Well, Sammy has a girlfriend now, Susie, who had been won by the Lenehans last year. So if the Earnests lost again, I believe that Sammy would have been lost. Tragic.
Anyway, the Olympics consist of five events between the families, and each event is best-of-three. The events vary, but basketball is always one of them. The Earnests have lost basketball for five straight years, so of course, Alicia's dad has been working on recruiting me for this game for almost a year. Of course, I have to help protect the Earnest family honor, so I had my game face on. I wasn't about to lose Sammy.
The games were hard fought, but they really had no answer for my size, and with a lot of scoring help from Alicia's brother, we won the best-of-three contest in two games. So the Earnests (with a little help) finally broke the basketball losing streak! Melinda won the running race for the Earnests before the Lenehans won chess and bocce. Alicia and Kaylin won the clinching Euchre game, though, so Sammy was saved!
In between the Olympic events, we rode in the boat on the lake, went tubing, and rode the jet ski. I'm sure our ride on the jet ski provided a pretty funny image: me holding onto Alicia for dear life as she guns the jet ski up to 50+ mph. All the while, I'm thinking that there's no way that Alicia's big enough to keep me out of the water if I start to fall, but we made it without me falling off.
Afterwards, we headed back to Fort Wayne for the fireworks. Let me provide you with some insight about how the Earnest family works: Alicia's dad is driving, and her mom is telling him which way to go. He goes a different way, while Kaylin and Melinda discuss where they watched the fireworks last year, and where they should go this year. For whatever reason, they both have strong opinions on this, and are helpfully yelling their suggestions from the back of the van. Meanwhile, Alicia is trying to guide the discussion so that we end up close to where her friends are sitting. And her dad drives his own way.
Alicia turns to me and says, "Welcome to 'the Earnest family goes to the fireworks.'" And I say, "Welcome to 'the Earnest family goes anywhere.'" Apparently, it's an unwritten rule that whoever sits in the passenger seat has to offer a route to wherever they're going, and the driver has to go a different way. It's pretty funny to sit back and watch it all unfold, and not worry how we're gonna get there.
The rest of the weekend was fun, pretty chill. We had a picnic in the park, got ice cream, and watched movies.
(Wow, when I sit down to write these, they end up being really long.)
Alicia comes to the Nap
Don't know if I've said this before, but "Naptown" and "the Nap" are nicknames for Indianapolis. It used to be derrogatory, saying the city was boring, but now it is embraced at least by people I know. If you hear someone call it "Indy," they're probably from out of town. Anyway...
The next weekend, Alicia was able to come down to visit me in Naptown. It was nice to see her for the third weekend in a row, especially since I hadn't seen her for most of June. Our weekend here was less eventful, but still fun. On Saturday, we went downtown with my sister. We ate lunch at an Indian buffet (always delicious), and then walked to Monument Circle:
(Note Alicia's tiptoes.) Now, the Monument is an Indianapolis landmark, right in the middle of downtown, and gives us one of our nicknames, the Circle City. If you pay a dollar, you can go up in the top and look out the observation deck. Despite living here our whole lives, Haley and I have never been up there, and of course Alicia hasn't either, so today was the day. And boy were we excited!
After a pleasant elevator ride with a man with claustrophobia and altophobia and his annoying wife, we climbed the 43 remaining stairs to the observation deck, which was like a sauna. The view of downtown was nice, and Alicia was particularly excited to get a good view of the new Colts stadium, but damn, it was HOT. We made our way back down and cooled off with some ice cream.Lest you think I have no life outside Alicia ;)
Alicia told you about my cousin's wedding in her last post. Speaking of which, I don't particularly remember being tipsy on that phone call, but I guess I probably was. I didn't have all that much to drink, but I'm sure dancing has a similar effect on me. Oh, and L.Dot, I can commiserate with you about how everybody attacks you with "Don't Stop Believin," because now everybody attacks me with "Livin on a Prayer," which I hate with almost as strong a passion as you hate the Journey song. And I must report that my 8-year-old cousin Dylan's second-favorite song is Soulja Boy. Don't know if he can do the dance though.
Okay, after that rambling paragraph, time to get back on topic. After the wedding, many of the O'Connor clan made the trek from Chicago to Michigan's West Coast, per family tradition. For many years, some of my extended family has rented a house near the beach in the area of St. Joseph, Michigan, and the rest of the family is welcome to come up and enjoy the beach and whatever else for part or all of that week. So Haley and I went with one of our aunts and stayed for a few nights.
It was fun, and also a little bit crazy with the number of people there, including one clan of my cousins that consists of five little kids that enjoy yelling and beating each other up. We went to the pool with them one night, and everybody went to the beach on the next two days. The beach was fun, although it was nerve-wracking at times trying to keep track of the little kids as they jump around in the waves of Lake Michigan. The waves were especially big on the first day, and somehow I ended up being the only adult in the water with the four kids (10, 8, and 5-year-old twins) right when we got there. As I tried to keep them together and above water, someone decided to help me out by throwing a football in my eye. I was too distracted to even flinch, so it got me pretty good. Didn't lose any kids, though, which is the good thing. I also introduced the twins to the concept that, on the beach, trash=toys, something that I am quite proud of.
Minnesota, here I come!
As of right now, my moving day is about four days away, which is scary and exciting at the same time, as I'm sure you all can understand. I've started packing what I can. We're loading up the truck on Friday and making the 10-hour drive on Saturday. My parents and sister are going to stay to help me get moved in and settled, and then stay an extra day to hang out. I start orientation on the 18th, and class/work on September 2nd. I will definitely keep you posted on how that goes.
In other news, I got a new cell phone, complete with a new number in the Minneapolis area code: 612-751-1979. It's much better than my old phone, in that I can actually afford to talk to people on it for more than 3 minutes at a time! This is good, because I have resolved to keep in better contact with friends via phone (especially you guys). So I will be calling you guys soon. And please call me. I'm awkward on the phone (I still leave Alicia awkward voice mails. In fact, I think I left her an awkward one tonight) but I'm not going to let that stop me . :) So that's about it about the phone. Free nights and weekends, free verizon in-network, woot!
Oh, and to let you know: Alicia moved to Minneapolis on Sunday, and her orientation with her program seems to be going well so far.
Shout outs appear to be in style these days:
L.Dot: already shouted you out above, but your job sounds cool. Tell Katie and Scott that I said hi, and that I will be sending them emails like I've been intending to do for the longest time. (I feel like if I say that more publicly, it'll help me remember to actually do it, lol. Now I better get on that.)
Kate: That IM convo we were having got cut off, but I hope the rest of your Ghana trip is good, and hope to hear more later.
Mike: How's life as a bank teller? And how's it living with your brother's family in the house still? Oh, and thanks for Griffey. Hopefully he can get to the World Series with my White Sox. :)
Alicia: See you in Minnesota!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)