Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! Nels is so sweet. He went to the grocery store to pick up a few things and came home with a pumpkin to carve. He said that it was one of the last ones. We had fun carving it. We had a flimsy knife though and so the carving was slow going. But we finally got it done. We stuck a birthday candle on the inside. Here are some pictures of our fun Halloween night.


Spooky!

A tradition that my family had growing up was that when we went trick or treating to my Grandma's house we would eat donuts and drink apple cider. Nels likes this tradition so we have continued it. He stopped at Krispy Kreme and got a dozen donuts. Yummy! So that was our Halloween.

Fun Weekend with Nels's Family

Nels's parents and younger sister Anna-Lisa came down this past weekend. We had a blast! Here are some pictures of what we did.

Nels's birthday was October 22 so when they came down on the 26th Anna-Lisa surprised him with a birthday cake. I don't know how Nels does it, but we ended up celebrating his birthday 4 days. On the 20, his parents took us out to dinner, on 21 I made his birthday dinner because he had a school dinner on his birthday. I made him a birthday dessert on his actual birthday. Then on the 26th we had cake in his honor. He's pretty lucky if you ask me!

The cake was pretty cool though. It's a ghost. The eggshells are the eyes. You light a sugar cube with lemon extract on fire so it has a bright flame. The picture didn't show that part very well.

Boiler Up! The mascot for Purdue is a train. So the above Pre-game picture is us tooting the train horn.

We figured out how to use the timer on our camera. We had fun taking pictures. The below pictures show how funny Nels's dad is. We wanted to take a nice picture, but he kept being goofy. I thought they were funny though. So here they are:

We finally got one by shortening the timer from 10 seconds to 2!

Here we are at the game. On each of the seats was a black pom pom. That's what we're holding. Our seats were in the End Zone. Luckily, almost all of the points were scored on our side. So we had a great view. Oh, we played Northwestern by the way.

The picture below shows the suites above the stadium. Neil Armstrong was attending this particular game. He was in town for the dedication of the Neil Armstrong building.

Here's the final score 35 to 17! You never would have guessed that it was tied 14 to 14 at half time! Purdue really jumped ahead in the last quarter. It was awesome.

Victory! Nels was way pumped after the game.

Quick picture in front of the stadium.

This is a video of the last winning point for Purdue. It also shows the "P" flag running across. I actually figured out how to use the video on the camera!

Well, that was our weekend in a nutshell!

Disclaimer

Okay, so here's my disclaimer.

This is a new thing for me. So I'm sure there is a learning curve that I will go through. I love to read other people's blogs. I find other people's lives far more interesting than my own. I'll try to make this blog as entertaining as possible, but my life is generally pretty boring. So maybe I'll start doing things just so I'll have something interesting to write about!

So with that said. I hope you enjoy this blog, and if you don't just remember my disclaimer.

$100 Dinner

Last night I attended the Krannert Leadership Speakers Series which consisted of a dinner and keynote speaker. The event was $100 a ticket ($75 of which is a donation to the school). Since I work here though, I didn't have to pay. Many of the people in attendance are very wealthy. Several of them flew in on their private jets. One of the people donated $10 million dollars to the school. Of course because he did that the building was named after him....Jerry Rawls was the person and the building is the one that Nels goes to school. Anyway...

To be honest, the food was not that great. The rolls were my favorite. They served a spinach salad with bacon and an odd dressing. The main dish was chicken that had a curie taste to it, string beans and cooked carrots. You would think the dessert would have been good...but no. It was a pumpkin mousse that had been sitting out all night and did not look appetizing. I took one bite and didn't eat anymore!

The keynote speaker was a lot better than the food. Former Senator George Mitchell spoke to us. He was very entertaining at the beginning and the end. The middle part though he started to talk about the war in Iraq indirectly. He spoke about how the US is viewed as a super power but our reputation is not good with other countries. The middle of his speech was depressing to say the least. But the beginning part was funny because he told how he became a senator and his first day on the job. He also spoke about his work in Ireland and helping with peace negotiations. Very interesting.

The night was fun and exciting. It was great to "rub shoulders" with some influential people and hear their stories.

This weekend has been the celebration of Krannert's 50th Anniversary. (Krannert is the name of the business school here at Purdue) So I have been able to attend panels and discussions presented by the alums. Some of the panels have been on Entrepreneurship, "what it takes to lead,” and how to manage and facilitate change. They have all been really good and makes me want to start up a business and run with it.