16 days of summer

I planned to go to school today to begin working on my classroom, but it was hot. And I knew it would take forever for my AC to cool off my room at 1pm that I put it off. Can you tell how excited I am to go back? Just kidding... I could use a few more weeks. I caught a cold, I think from staying up all night at a wedding on Friday with the groom's mom who I met at the hotel. She kept talking to me while my ride fell asleep on the bed. Back to the wedding... it was gorgeous at the Jewel Box. A little warm though (what do you expect of a green house in St Louis in July??) I have never seen Dan, the groom, smile so much. I will try to get pics later this week. Plus there was his great groom's cake-- a bottle of Jager. It was fun times!



I want to say congratulations to Stephanie and Brendan on their new addition, Aidan. He was born on July 25. He is huge for how cute and little Steph was: 8 pounds 10 ounces! Of course Stephanie is an adorable new mother. She looks great in this picture! I cannot wait to see all three of them!

HAPPY WEDNESDAY!

I am feeling so bad for all the people who STILL do not have power. Tomorrow is the big day that they promise it back on to all. We got ours back sometime between Friday at 1pm and Saturday at 4:30pm. Since our parents all had electricity we stayed there. Elaine and Mary showed up here Saturday afternoon and it was on! We did not expect it that soon so it a good surprise. I did not get back over here till Sunday night because I had so much to do! Sleeping in my own bed on Sunday was fabulous! Soulard did not get their electricity until Monday night. My friend lives down there and a tree fell in their back yard. It was huge and ripped down big branches off two other trees. It knocked down two huge sections of fence and part of the back porch. They have enough firewood for bonfires for years! It is a mess! Wish I had had my camera when I went over there, but I didn't. I'll take pics if I make it over there before it is all cleaned up!

My roommates and I are currently obsessed with catching up on the first season on Lost. Mary and I are watching the last one right now. Then the countdown begins to wait for Season two to come out. I can't wait. Thanks to Josh and Christi, I already know half of what happens. I know some deaths and other things. Hopefully not too much of it is spoiled when I really get to watch it.

Mom got her walking cast on Friday! It was a beautiful day! She can go with me to get the grocery shopping done (still no driving!) and she can get downstairs to do laundry! She is a lot happier too! The countdown is till August 9th now when HOPEFULLY she will be finished and healed! Dad goes back to work next week, and hopefully he will survive. He is still really sore. But essentially, my nursing days of summer are over! Just a little bit more driving and that is not too bad!

Saw my tentative class lists the other day. I have my least favorite student and her sidekicks in the same class. I am not happy about that. I do have a class of only 13 though. That should be a good group. So my algebra classes are 25 and 22. Geometry is 20, 18, and 13. The Geometry should be nice. And actually I think that there are still some girls on lists who are not really coming back but who withdrew late. So we will have to see how things turn out. I teach most of my classes in the morning which is great! Only 2 in the afternoon. They have had way less sugar in the morning so that is nice! I have to get to my classroom to work on it sometime next week! I cannot believe how soon summer is going to be over. . . Still have so much I want to do before school starts again. Including trips to Little Rock and Columbia. I need to figure out what till work around the 2 weddings that I still have left. Dan and Lauren's is this Friday at the Jewel Box. It is beautiful BUT it is green house at the end of July. It is not going to be fun at the ceremony! But I am sure it will be great!

Bring on the storms and heat!

Love to my cousin Sarah who just left STL from a visit. She brought her boyfriend Andy. We did some touristy stuff-- the AB brewery tour (free beer, the greatest thing ever!), the Arch, the riverfront, and a really hot, awful Cards game. We had a really good time! Wish they could have stayed longer!

However, they probably did not want to because here I am blogging at my parents' house. Why you ask? Well, last night as my cousin Sarah and I were putting dinner into the oven the wind started blowing around the amazing 100 degree air outside. Then, the power went out. Then the tree in the front yard started shedding lots of branches! So the entire city got trashed yesterday. Out of NOWHERE. No one had any idea a storm like that was coming. Andy is really afraid of storms, especially tornadoes. He freaked out for about 3 hours. Yet he kept going outside to stand in it. Men are interesting creatures. He wanted to go in the basement way before tornado sirens went off. And as any St. Louisan knows, the tornado sirens go off ALL the time, and there is never really a tornado. So we disagreed over that. After everything calmed down, we checked on the dinner in the oven. It wasn't hot, but it had cooked enough. So we ate. Then headed to my parents to sleep in the air conditioning.

We watched the news and they freaked out because a bunch of the stuff I showed them downtown yesterday was laying on the ground. We walked across the Eads Bridge and talked about this really old building. Well, half that building fell over onto the bridge. Kinda freaky! Just talked to my friend who said he moved just in time as a huge tree fell.

I went home this afternoon to get some stuff/ see if the electricity was back on. It wasn't. Apparently, both my roommates stayed there. They just wanted their own beds. It was really hot, so I have no idea how they slept. As I drove around my house, I saw all the lights nearby still not on, I do feel really lucky to have somewhere cool to go. Hope my roomies don't roast!

Brannan wedding!

Here are some Michael and Mel wedding pictures:




First up is Bill and Colleen and Jim and Jane walking down the aisle together. I had never seen that before-- it was really cute!








Here come Mel and her dad down the aisle. Mel was one of those glowing brides. She was almost as happy as my cousin Jill whose wedding I went to the next day. I did not get any good pictures from Jill's but take Mel's smile and increase it by 10 and you will have Jill's.











Here is the beautiful cake from Wedding Wonderland that Mel and I went to scope out. Thanks to Katie for giving us the advice to check it out. (I did not get to eat any of it, but I heard that it was good!)








Mel and I at her reception. This was a crazy big reception-- over 500 people. It flew by because I was talking to P'sghetti's people, CJ girls, Mel's high school friends, Michael's friends, and Tulsa people. There were still tons of people that I did not get to talk to. I did get to dance with Rusty-- Mel's first boyfriend. He said it was a sad but happy day!









Here is the first dance. They make such a cute couple! Hope they are having fun in Mexico on their honeymoom! Big thanks to Jill for going as my date!

An update!

Here I am to update after a month off. I have been running to weddings and moving and taking care of the parents. Here is a picture of Becky at her wedding. It was by far the funnest wedding so far. Still to come is the approximately 70 beer bottles that we had stacked around the center piece of our table.

Next up came moving day. My new roommates are Mary and Elaine. So far we have only spent one night all together-- on Sunday. Mary was gone last week, Elaine is gone for 10 days. I will be by myself this weekend while Mary is in the Ozarks. Then we will have a full house cause my cousin Sarah is coming in town with Andy! Here is the front of the house. We have the first floor and three boys live upstairs. It is right down the street from the Delmar loop! I've spent more time there in the last week and a help then I ever have!

Here are our living room and dining room-- I cannot get a good shot of my bedroom but I will try again later.