The countdown begins...

Mike has had a countdown until when we leave for Scotland for months now. Mine started today. We still had money left on a couple of different gift cards so we decided to check into one more larger suitcase. I found this one on sale. Its spectacular. It will definitely be easy to pick out AND it comes with all sorts of fun bags inside it. Now, I am finally excited to pack... I just have to remember I still have 26 more days until we leave, so I cannot pack up too much stuff into the suitcase!

A New Sister!

Well, after 23 years of waiting, I finally got a little sister. The weekend started with the Rehearsal Dinner. Which meant that at 5:30 that morning Uncle Jim, Mom, and I were out in the backyard grappling with a 130-pound pig, trying to get it on to the roaster. I am sure that it was quite the sight, but thankfully no one was there to witness that occasion. It wasn't so bad until I shined the light on the pig. BIG mistake. In my opinion, it was not worth it, but James and Stacey, and everyone else, thought it was tasty.

The Wedding was beautiful. And the Reception was great. A big group of us had to sabotage the car. We filled it with various inflatable animals and balls, including a 7-foot alligator, golf wiffle balls, little pink pigs, fake money for the Honeymoon, about 250 balloons and a Cosmo with tips for the Honeymoon. We shut all the doors and cracked one window so that we could stuff the car with even more balloons. It was great! James was smarter than Mike and I though, and took a pin from his boutonniere and popped all the balloons. Becky has some great pictures of it. If you click on the 'Flicker' link to the left I have some more. Thanks Lynn for helping me with that!!

Niagara

This past weekend Mike and I and a couple of friends headed to Niagara for a friend's wedding. After a LONG drive and an inquisition from the Canadian border patrol, we finally arrived at the hotel. Neither Mike nor I had been to the falls for quite some time, so it was fun to see them again. We did the "Journey Behind the Falls" tour, which was really neat.
The wedding was beautiful. It was at Niagara-on-the-Lake and you could even see Toronto across the lake. They were able to rent out a gazebo right on the lake and have a violinist for the music. It was very pretty. It was in a public park and we were amazed by the amount of people that would stop and watch the ceremony. Many stayed for the whole thing and there were even people video taping it. Shannon even and two girls ask to have their pictures taken with her.

Mystery Flower

Does anyone know the name of this flower?? They were all over around the falls and they are so pretty.

Hammy

Well, 53 days until Mike and I head for Scotland. I seems like we have been packing all summer long and yet we still have more stuff to pack. At least we have a HUGE storage unit.
I am sad to say that our hamster, Hammy, died yesterday. His little eye infection had all cleared up and we changed his bedding to hamster friendly stuff (apparently cedar and pine bedding is deadly to them). He was doing great! We found out that he LOVED apples. He would go nuts over them. But, Mike came home from work last night and he had ceased living. So, we had a small hamster funeral over here last night.

Fun at The Bird

Lately, I have been making Mike watch the TV show According to Jim with me. I love the show. We were hanging out with friends last Saturday night at The Bird and who should walk into the place, but Larry Joe Campbell who is hilarious on the show. Well, Mike and I couldn't agree on whether it really was him or not, so he went up there and started talking to him, and lo and behold it was him. Apparently he graduated from CMU in 1992 and was back for a benefit. But he came over and introduced himself AND I got an autograph, but I had forgotten the camera at home. Never again will that happen.

Stupid people and bears

Well, the wedding came and went without a hitch. We had a great time at the wedding and then at the reception. And the honeymoon was great fun. We went to Tennessee right near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We drove a couple of the auto tours and hiked to Abrams Falls. It was beautiful, but when they say 'moderately strenuous', they mean it. We hiked up and down some very large hills in high 90 degree weather. But, at least the falls were really pretty. On the same day we were able to witness really daft people harassing bears. I don't think that people realize that even though it is a National Park, the bears are WILD. They are not pets. There were three scared baby cubs up in a tree and a harassed looking mama bear stalking around the bottom of the tree and people were still leaning over the very small fence with their kids and grandmas to take pictures. And they wonder why the bears attack...

This girl that Mike works with in the History Department gave us a hamster (with cage, bedding, food, and wooden house) for free because she couldn't take it home. Instead of dropping off the hamster, Dulce, when we were home, she decided to drop off Dulce when we would be at work and just put him in the backyard. Well, I guess that after you get a Master's Degree you forget that the Earth actually rotates and that the sun moves throughout the day because by the time that we got home at 5:15pm, the animal had been in the sun for about 4 hours. The poor thing was all swollen, sweaty and everything in the cage was hot. It felt like a scene off from Animal Planet where they rescue abused animals. Surprisingly enough, Dulce survived. Although he now has an eye infection, but Mike is sure that we don't have to pay a vet bill to fix him and he will just get better... we'll see.
He doesn't do much, unless its 2 am. But I like him.

Well, here I am at graduation day.. Finally. I was in the ceremony that was the shortest (thank goodness because it still seemed too long.) And my future Mother-in-law was able to give me my fake diploma, which was really neat.
We survived our first pre-marital counseling session last night too. It was surprisingly not bad. We have a Reverend that is very laid back so the meeting consisted of us talking about his dog, his travels around the world and ours, and a little bit about the ceremony. No personality or compatibility testing! Mike was very excited.

Well... after my long 19 year stint as a student, I am finally entering the "real world" this weekend. Granted, I am graduating with a degree and won't be using it for a while, but such is life. Either way, I am excited to FINALLY be done with college (at least for a short while.)