Graduation and a little bit of everything else...

So I graduated on May 17th, well, at least went through the ceremony, I have to still finish my internship/senior project. The ceremony itself was pretty standard, nothing exciting to report, though, about halfway through the commencement speakers speech, a stage light exploded backstage. That was probably the most exciting thing that happened. Here are some pictures, they aren't the greatest as far as posing goes, but I believe it was my sister that took them and she likes to go for the more "natural" look.

The choir and president of Northwestern and a few other important guys that I "met" for the first time that day (as they shook my hand and gave me my diploma holder)

A candid shot, courtesy of Kate

Posing in the backyard in regalia

The family (from left to right: Grandma, Mom, Jeanie (Jordan's Mom), Jordan,
Hailey, and Elin (Jordan's sister))

Last Friday I went to the Children's Museum with Kristine. We had been planning to go for a long time and actually went this time! I was worried Hailey was going to be crabby because the time we were there overlapped when she would have taken a nap, but there was enough to do that kept her busy she didn't mind. As Kristine mentioned in her blog we went without strollers (mostly my idea) thinking the girls would be old enough to walk (at least I thought Hailey would do ok) and learned that strollers are still a good idea to bring along, especially if you are almost 9 months pregnant (sorry Kristine!!). So we spent most of our time chasing the girls around and snapping pictures as soon as a photo-op presented itself, so here are some of the shots I got:

Hailey going down the "Jack and the Beanstalk" slide

Hailey eating at the "Beauty and the Beast" dinner table

Hailey playing the keyboard that scared her at first

At the soap bubbles table Hailey for some reason decided that the suds had to be on
her face and started patting them on her cheeks, it reminded me of what guys
do with aftershave, it was quite humorous

Here she is with Graycen playing with the boats at the water table, let me just say, that after this exhibit, Hailey's shirt was considerably wet (thought it was pretty damp from a previous exhibit that had a play stream that she wanted to splash in)

And on Saturday I went to the ranch in Andover again and was delighted to find out that myself and 5 others were going to go on a trail ride at the Rum River Park! (note: below is not an actual photograph, but the scenery was quite similar) I got to ride one of the lady's (not using her name for the sake of her privacy) horses and we all explored the trails. To be honest I was a little nervous at first because it had been 2 years since I had been on a horse, but once I got on I found out I wasn't the only one who was really nervous which made me calm (don't know why, but it did). So horses can tell if you're nervous and they themselves get nervous because of it. There was a girl who was on a horse that she recently bought that was feeling frisky (first trail ride of the season) and this girl was super jittery. The lady with the ranch wasn't able to give me pointers because she had to spend most of her time calming down this other girl, understandably. So we get to this big sandy incline and this girl's horse starts crow-hopping up the hill and she is bouncing everywhere in the saddle helplessly shouting "ho! ho! ho!" (not like Santa, "ho" is used to tell a horse to stop/slow-down). So we all get to the top and she is shaking like a leaf, again, understandably. So we all take a little break and let her compose herself. There really isn't an "ending" to that story, it's just the only occurance of note that happened. I guess I felt better knowing that I wasn't the least experienced rider there. Though I felt bad for her, she just wanted to have a nice ride and wasn't able to keep her horse in check. But let me just say that riding a horse is a workout! I didn't realize it at first, but my muscles are still sore and it's 2 days later! But I have to say I love the feeling and I have missed it terribly, it makes me feel like I've actually done something and am maybe moving in the direction of getting back in shape. (((sigh))) someday (((sigh)))
So that is the end of my post.