Boeing Classic

Every year, the golf course in our neighborhood hosts the Boeing Classic, which is a PGA tournament on the Champions Tour. We thought it would be a fun family activity to attend the tournament. The golf course is only a 10 minute walk from our house.

Emily took Jacob and Andrew to the opening of the tournament on Friday morning. The festivities began with a fly over of a Boeing 777 jet.
The jet flew pretty low and was an impressive sight. Our neighbor forgot that the jet would be doing a fly over, and she thought we were under attack. No, really. On Saturday we all went together as a family. We had a great time. Jacob had been looking forward to this all week. When he dressed himself in the morning, he put on his miniature golf shirt.

Here the boys are watching the action on the 9th green, our favorite spot of the day.
We took this action shot from the 10th fairway. We don't know who this golfer is.
Here Andrew is giving me a hug as we watch the golfers get ready to putt on the 10th green.
We finished the day at the 18th green. After this picture, we moved closer and were seated right next to the green. Andrew kept babbling when the golfers were trying to putt, so one of the officials asked us to leave the area. What a great family activity. We all had a great time, but Jacob was disappointed that he didn't get to play golf. We may not have been clear enough when we told him we were going to the golf course.--Kelly & Emily

Dinner!

I was in the kitchen cooking dinner and I had an extra moment so I made brownies that where baking while I prepared the rest of the meal. I switched the brownies out for enchiladas and the boys and I where playing while we waited for dinner to come out of the oven when Jacob said, " Mom what did you make for dinner? It smells like you made yummy chocolate soup. Did you make chocolate soup?" No, I didn't make chocolate soup for dinner, but that sure sounds good.

--emily

Cleaning Grandma's Bus

Every year before school begins all the grandkids help Grandma wash and clean her bus. It is a great tratition and the kids love it!

Jacob's job was to clean the windows. They were very sparkley when he was done.

Andrew's job was to close the big bus door. Look at those muscles!

Here they are washing the outside of Grandma's bus. The kids have such a great time being so close to the big bus. Jacob was such a great helper; he just leaned over and helped Andrew. I was expecting Jacob to snatch the hose from Andrew followed by Andrew's shrieking scream. But not this time.

Thanks Grandma for a fun bus filled day! --emily

Watering Fun

This all started with watering the pumpkins. I got the hose out because the pumpkins where looking hot! Jacob and Drew came in the yard as soon as they heard the sound of the water! I luckily stopped them before they got their clothes soaked. I sent Jacob to run up and grab the swimming suits.

We quickly changed and had an impromptu, backyard water extravaganza! The boys were spraying each other, filling the dump truck, and making awesome mud puddles. We even had a neighbor friend join us in our crazy fun.

This is Jacob's new camera pose! He always asks, "Was that scary?" He also wants to check out what the picture looks like on the camera. Today we took a few extra because he didn't think it looked scary enough. --emily

Railroad Days

Today as a family we went to the Railroad Days parade. Jake and Drew had a good time monkeying around with their cousins, catching candy and watching the decorated cars. After the parade we walked around to see what the vendors where selling. Jacob was on the hunt for a small squirt gun. We searched all morning with no luck. It was cute he even brought all the money from his piggy bank in a Ziploc bag. We might have to hit the dollar store next week. --emily

Cat & Mouse

This last week my mom joined the boys and me on an Ikea adventure. There are so many fun thing there! Anyway, we were in the kids section and a stuffed animal caught Jacob's attention and he had to have it. So grandma offered to buy it for him because that is what grandmas do. But my mom, being the awesome person she is, had to make sure Drew had something also. So Drew and I browsed the stuffed animal section. They had dogs and alligators--all kids of fun animals but Drew had to have the mouse. So here they are--a cute little brotherly pair. The cat and the mouse! --emily

Jacob's creativity is starting to blossom.

Today I was upstairs changing Drew. When I came downstairs, Jacob was sitting on the kitchen counter with his "school box" of supplies. This box is filled with glue, tape, pencils, and rulers mostly supplies bought by my cute aunt Mary. He had also gathered a fun assortment of random things getting ready to glue onto a scrap of paper. His favorite skill right now is gluing things. He will always ask, "Can that be glued?" For example, we where hanging his latest art project in his room to his magnet board when he asked, "Mom can I glue it to the wall?" I am hoping I never have to clean that up. Another example my mom gave Jacob a plastic fire fighter hat, and when it had gotten a crack in it, Jacob asked, "Can I fix it with glue?" We decided that tape would work better. He did a great repair job!

I had asked Jacob why he decided to do this project

on the counter and his reply was, "Andrew can't get it".

Isn't that AWESOME! This is my favorite Jacob art project yet. --emily

Business School

It has always been a goal of mine to get an MBA. I decided this year that it is finally time to make that goal a reality. I chose a distance program with Indiana University's Kelley School of Business. Last week I went out to Bloomington, Indiana to start the program. They had a week long in-residence that focussed mainly on Organizational Development and Change.

Here I am at the registration the first day of the program. We got our student ID, textbook for our class that week, and some trinkets.

They had a big dinner the first night. It was fun to meet some of the other people in the program.

This picture was taken the first day of classes. I'm sitting at a table with Rob (who I would later find out was in my group), Jaideep, Juan, and Tabitha.

Here I am in one of the classrooms. I was surrounded by other students, but when I asked the girl in front of me to take my picture, everyone around me scattered. I guess they didn't want to show up on my blog.

The instructors were all really great. I tried to get a picture with each of them. Clockwise from top left: Professor Linda Dunn-Jensen, Professor Sheri Fella, Professor Sarah "Intelligirl" Robbins, Usha Venkat, Professor Steve Hayford, and Professor Tatiana Kolovou.

Our cohort was broken up into groups of six. We did all assignments, presentations, etc. with our group. Meeting and working with my group was the highlight of the week for me. They are some of the brightest, most talented people I have had the pleasure to work with. I hope that we will all be friends the rest of our lives. In the photo above, from left to right: Pamela Trouw, Rob Suppiger, Katie Fox, Kelly Siple, Aaron Bock, and Whitney Carroll.

Here we are working hard on one of our assignments in class.

Here's my team working on a simulation. The goal of the simulation was to get 60% buy in from the employees regarding a shift in strategy. We had to choose which tasks to perform in what order. Each task would affect the employee buy in either up or down. We got up to about 56% buy in before we ran out of time and money. Lesson learned: just fire the guy who refuses to buy in.

Here we are preparing for the case competition. It was a long night, but we stayed on schedule and did some of our best work. Most nights we were up until 1 or 2 a.m. finishing our assignments. This night was no exception.

I've always been really into doing things that promote team unity. We had a social event on Wednesday night at a place in town called Nick's Tavern. Before the event we went to a store so some people in my group could get Indiana University gear. I thought it would be cool if we all got matching red Kelley Business School t-shirts to wear to Nick's.

I'm standing under a tribute to Bobby Knight, the famous former IU basketball coach. I had wanted to go see the basketball court where the team plays, but I never had time.

Despite our busy schedule, my group and I were able to get out and enjoy some of Bloomington's finer eating establishments. This night we were in the mood for Thai food.

I had the opportunity to participate in a focus group with a few of the other MBA students. Darren Klein, seated to my left, is the Director of Marketing for the program. He wanted to get our input on how to market the program in our respective geographic locations. I was happy to share my thoughts, and it gave me the opportunity to meet a few other people in the program.

It was a fun and rewarding week, but I was very happy to get back home with my family. I brought back Indiana University hoodies for Emily, Jacob and Andrew.

If this week was any indication, it will be a busy and challenging couple of years as I complete the rest of the program. --Kelly

Girls Camp 2009

This year I was asked to be a leader at the girls camp that I attended as a young woman. It was an amazing and fun opportunity. As a youth I had no idea how much work and planning went into an activity such as this. I know now! I spent many nights before camp crafting, making handouts, making bags, making beads, and so many of the little details that maybe only I noticed. Did I mention beads? When I was young we made beads to trade with our friends. I think I made 20 or so. When I was working on my beads prior to camp, I had asked an experienced leader how many I should make, and she said 80 to 100. I laughed because I thought she was joking. Not Joking! The girls are out of control. They trade with everyone. They run around in search of a bead to trade that they don't already have on their string. If you happen to have a cute bead, girls will come out of the woodwork and hunt you down to get one of your beads. It is crazy, but fun! I made 100 beads and I came home with 12 or so left over. Not too bad. It was a fun week filled with certifying, hiking, the climbing wall, the slip n' slide, river "screaming", pranks, making new friends, and knitting hats for babies. I was given so many great opportunities to love and serve. I hope that I am asked to join the amazing team of leaders next year! --emily 2009