Banquets and Grills

Monday evening, Laine and I went to the Faculty and Staff Recognition Banquet. In years past, this event has been open to all IWU faculty and staff and their significant others. This year, in an effort to scale back costs, the school decided to only invite faculty and staff who are celebrating milestones (every five years). Because I am completing my fifth year in the Admissions Office at IWU, Laine and I were invited to the cocktail hour and dinner. I also received a $25 gift certificate to the business of my choosing (Thai House). Typically, this event is held at a banquet hall but this year it was held in the new Joslin Atrium on campus. It's a really nice space and I'm glad that Laine had a chance to see it. Chris Kawakita was celebrating his tenth year, so we sat with Chris and Beni. During the banquet they show pictures of everyone who is recognized. Here's the picture that they had of me.

I had another banquet dinner on Thursday night, but this one was for admitted students from the St. Louis area and it was held at Maggiano's in St. Louis. Laine drove down to St. Louis while I was at dinner and met me at the Melick's house after dinner. It was good to catch up with them and see their place. We all went for a jog in the morning and had some coffee cake for breakfast on Friday morning. Laine and I got on the road shortly after Matthew headed off to work.

We seized the opportunity to head out to Kansas City, KS to visit Adam and Kelly Rose and see their new baby Sophia Renae. Kelly is still on maternity leave since Sophia is only six weeks old and Adam took the afternoon off, so we got to see their whole family when we arrived around 2:30. It's funny to me that when you have a baby you seem to spend virtually all of your time looking at it. This was very hard for me to adjust to the first few times I visited friends' babies but I'm getting used to it now. We had a nice time looking at Sophia, going for a walk and then dinner at a Mexican restaurant. We looked at Sophia a bit more before calling it an evening.

On Saturday morning we had a tasty breakfast of banana bread, breakfast casserole, and fruit. Then we took a trip to downtown Kansas City and spent some quality time in Barnes and Noble. I picked up "Although of course you end up becoming yourself: A road trip with David Foster Wallace" by David Lipsky who authored the Wallace memorial article in Rolling Stone. Back at their house they threw together some tasty chicken salad sandwiches and we looked at wedding photos, then again at Sophia for a bit more before hitting the road.

The trip back went by quickly thanks to good conversation with the wife. We pulled into B-N around 11:30 PM and went to bed. Sunday we had the whole day to ourselves. After church I fiddled with my two broken lawn mowers and Wes and Scott came over to help. I thought that I was going to take some pieces apart and figure it out but Scott fixed my Poulan mower just by yanking on the cord a few times to un-jam it. I was able to mow the lawn while Laine spray painted a couple big pots that Lori left on the patio. Then we went for a bike ride to the library, bike store, and Common Grounds. The first two were closed and the last didn't have what we needed so it was a failure in that regard, but it was really nice to bike around town.


Laine marinated some veggies and we put them on the new grill along with some hot dogs. It was a great relaxed Midwestern Sunday evening. We're looking forward to many more this summer.