Birthday Boy

Braden's birthday was Aug. 20th but it worked out better to celebrate on the first KSU game day and he didn't know the difference.  There was a houseful of people to celebrate with him and he performed well for not understanding what was going on.  The two and three year olds who were there certainly knew what it was all about so it won't take long.  Like usual, he got many toys and I can well remember the feeling after birthdays and Christmases of where in the world are we going to put this stuff.  He finished off his big day by going to the game and spending the first quarter with us, the second quarter with his Bowles grandparents, and the last half with his parents. 

Happy Birthday, Braden! 

EcoKat

I finally read a little this morning about the controversy with KSU and EcoKat.  According to Pres. Schulz on FB this was the intent.

"EcoCat was always meant to be a fun, local, way to communicate creatively about energy savings. It was never meant to be "national". We rolled it out 12 days ago - and things just took off. We aren't going to do anything which will put K-State in an embarrassing position."

I guess some KC stations really had fun with the super-hero looking woman and even suggested she would replace Willie.  Twitter was blown up with all sorts of tweets. 

Why did they not take a picture of me?  I dutifully recyle paper, plastic, cans, glass, cardboard, and aluminum.  However, I'm not sure the average college student will seriously be into recycling or turning off lights. 

It took two hours after the introduction for it to be all over the social media.  Now that says something about the speed of communication today.

Reunion

The 35th reunion of Skyline's class of 1976 was last weekend.  Not sure how it has been 35 years, but do the math.  Out of 33 graduating seniors, we had 16 attend.  Six have died from various things which seems like too many.  We met at Lemon's Park in Pratt and had hamburgers and hotdogs cooked by Joe Berry and everyone else brought a side dish. 

It wasn't the best idea to do the playground picture to actually see people.  Oh well.

Cindy and Brenda

Leisa, Cindy, and I

Cindy, Leisa, Yvonne, Me, Leah, Brenda, Sheryl (Tami was there.  Don't know why she didn't make it into the girl picture.)

Bob, Me, Tami, Cindy

Leisa, Yvonne, Cindy, Leah, Brenda

I figured we would meet at 3, eat at 5, and be done at 7.  However, after it got dark, several of us went to Club d'Est downtown and shared more memories and laughs.  When we graduated from high school, it was the tradition to go on a senior trip.  The boys wanted to go somewhere and just stay and boat and fish.  So we went to some place for that in Austin and it was a dump with the horses and boats down river about 20 miles.  We left a day early and went to Dallas/Fort Worth.  We had two couples as sponsors and I think probably 25 or so of us ended up going.  The smartest thing we did was hire a chartered bus rather than driving it in a school bus.  We talked about where we ate, and we couldn't even remember anything except McDonalds.  Bless our sponsors!  What a great way to finish the years together.  

KSU Senior

I told Abby this would count as her first day of school picture even though it was about two weeks before school started.  She and several of her friends have moved into a house rather than the sorority, Alpha Delta Pi, which is pretty usual for seniors.  It is fairly close to campus which is good.

I don't know what that thing is hanging over the rail, but this is the outside of the house. 

One more year of having a kid at KSU.  Hard to believe that era is soon to be over. 

The Rest of New England

The Atlantic Ocean at Kennebunkport.

A noon concert in the park and a covered bridge in Vermont.

The Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island.  It was owned by the Vanderbilts at the turn on the century.  There are a number of mansions in Newport that are now open to the public.  This one was tremendous with marble, gold, even platinum on the walls.  Amazing.

Another Newport mansion.  You can still rent this one for special events if you want.  It was also the setting for the movie, The Great Gatsby.

Plymouth Rock.  Really thought it would be more than this. 

Toured a replica of the Mayflower that sailed from Europe to the US in 1957.

It was a great trip. 

Boston #3

On Tuesday, we headed to Boston Commons, which is a large park, and the neighboring park which has beautiful flowers and these swan boats.  It is a little hard to tell, but there is a person at the rear of the boat behind the swan peddling the boat.  We declined to pay money to taking this little whirl around a small pond, but I think the swan boats are something Boston is known for.  We did ask a person on the bridge to take a picture of the four of us.

Then we went into Beacon Hill to find a place to eat.  We did like Rachael Ray tells people to do and went into a store to "ask a local" where to eat.  She directed us to the pub that was definitely one full of locals, not tourists.  I also took a picture of the row houses on Beacon Hill.  We saw a real estate advertisement where some of the homes were being advertised at $3.9 million. 

We then went back towards the park and found the Cheers bar.   Actually, the outside is the only thing that looked like Cheers, but is was definitely full of tourists.  Jackie and I found Norm to take our picture with.

That evening, we went to a Red Sox game at Fenway Park.  This is where the ponchos would have come in handy.  Instead we bought Red Sox ones for $10 each.  After a rain delay, we stayed until the seventh inning.  It was fun to be in such an old, historic stadium.

Boston - #2

Day two started off with a trip to Harvard Yard.  There were quite a few people on that part of the campus and it was interesting to look at the old buildings.  We refer to it as "our time at Harvard".   We also went to their bookstore/spirit wear store, The Coop, and ate while we were in the area.  To get around, we figured out the subway system which was pretty easy and definitely cheaper than cabs for the trips we took.

This was the blue train that had a stop right by where we stayed.  It was clean and well lit, costing $2 per ride.

We also went to the JFK museum on Monday.  This isn't a great picture because they are renovating the front entry area.  It was pretty interesting since it was history we had lived through although were pretty young at the time.

On the way back, we got off at a stop and looked at another church and the cemetary attached.  These gravestones are so old it is difficulty to read the inscriptions.  Also I noticed that the stones are turned every which direction.  In the midwest, we tend to have the graves so the coffins are running east and west.  These are in rows, but around the edges are markers that run the opposite direction. 

In the evening we went to see Blue Man Group.  It was an amazing, high energy show.  We were one row back from where they handed out ponchos to the audience in case it got messy and things flew out into the audience.  We nabbed a couple of ponchos from the row ahead of us just in case, then wished we had taken them with us for the next night.