Hannah's Report Card

Hannah received her first report card of the third grade yesterday. As usual she did very well and received very high marks in almost all areas. The only thing she got marked down on were the incredibly hard scholastic areas of organization, following directions, and paying attention. I guess she can't have it all, right?

She received exceptionally high marks in science which really impressed me since I'm not a science person myself.

Partied out

In the last three days I have had three parties. Sunday was Jake's "kid" party with his friends. Monday night was the company holiday party that I was in charge of. Last night was Jake's "family" party with my parents who were in town, Link's parents, and Link's brother and his family. Three days. Three parties. I'm done.

The company holiday party was a huge success. It involved lots of crazy hours at the office leading up to it but it was definitely worth it. It's nice to be able to do something for our employees during this time of year and even though I don't get much of a budget I'm always able to pull something off to just say "thank you for all your hard work."

Now it's a race to see if I can get everything else done before I start on my winter break. I'm only in the office four days this week (I took off yesterday for Jake's birthday) and then I'm in three days next week before I'm done until January 4th.

Thank God. I need a break.

Jake's birthday party

Jake 5th birthday party was today. We had it at the local "sports bubble" and he and his friends got to run around and play soccer and then play in the "zig zag" zone which is a huge play center with slides, climbing walls, nets, etc. The kids had a blast. I took a bunch of pictures and planned on posting them tonight but I can't seem to find my card reader for my camera. I'll have to post them later this week.

Tomorrow is the holiday party that I've been planning for the past few weeks so tomorrow will be a crazy day and you probably won't be hearing from me.

Wish me luck....

Windfall

I just got an email from our mortgage company thanking us for making a payment of $88,847.23. Umm....you're welcome? I don't know who paid it but it certainly wasn't us. Should be interesting getting to the bottom of this one.

Change

Today I received the latest issue of the Gustavus Quarterly which is the alumni magazine from my alma mater. There is an article at the beginning of the magazine about the renovations to the Anderson Social Science Center. It doesn't sound like they're tearing the whole thing down and replacing it but they are making serious renovations to it.

In my four years as a History major (with minors in Women's Studies and Sociology) I spent a LOT of time in the Social Sciences building. I loved that building. It was incredibly quirky and if you weren't familiar with the building you could get quite lost in there. If I'm not mistaken it had once been a library and therefore certain staircases only went to certain areas of the building (i.e. the "stacks" or storage areas of the former library). You might think it would be easy to take any staircase and go to any floor but it didn't work that way.

I'm sad to see that they are making changes to the building and that some of the quirkiness might be disappearing. On the other hand it was one of the older buildings on campus and definitely in need of an update.

A lot of the school has changed since I graduated there 10 years ago. In March 1998, when I was a junior, a terrible tornado went through the town of St. Peter and wreaked incredible damage to the school. The damage from the tornado resulted in the school building a fancy new student union, cafeteria and even some new dorms. It's weird to see so much of the school change but I certainly don't expect life to stand still either.

Life moves on but I enjoy taking out my memories of college and brushing them off now and then. I'm not living in the past, but gosh darn it, I don't want things to change either. I have great memories of that place and I'm proud the school continues to develop and grow and change, but....

Can't I have it both ways?

They've done it now

My parents have four grandchildren. Three of them are boys and one is a girl. Since Hannah is the only granddaughter they often refer to her as their "favorite granddaughter". Well that came back to bite them in the butt tonight when Jake asked Grandpa, "Am I your favorite grandson?"

Oops.

Lincoln tried to save it by saying Jake was their favorite grandson "East of the Mississippi. East of the Rockies for that matter."

I am my own worst enemy

This week has been absolutely insane with one 10 hour work day and three 12+ hour days. About 75% of what I've been doing this week has to do with our holiday party next Monday. You would think that it shouldn't take that much time to plan a holiday party but it really comes down to the details. Could I get away with doing half the stuff I do and still have a successful party? Definitely. But would I have done my best? No.

I enjoy the party planning. I enjoy dealing with the little details that turn a regular party into a great party. So I may bitch and moan about what a hellish week it has been but in the end, I'm going to (hopefully) be very proud of how it all turns out on Monday night.