Halloween Stanford Style

This past Saturday was Stanford's Halloween party and it was a blast! I was a part of a fantasy football league (child size jersey + 2 toilet paper rolls + black eye stickers = NFL) and George was our referee, although all he did was flag me for excessive celebration.

Above are the other members of our Fantasy Football League - left to right, back row - Pam, me, Heather, and Ellie - front row - Caitlin and Ginny.

Go Frogs!

This past weekend the TCU Horned Frogs played (and whooped) Stanford in football and because of the event, we were lucky enough to have some dear friends come and stay with us. In the picture above is Brad (George's former roommate), Tom and his wife Jennifer with Tyler (Tim's brother and sister-in-law), Tim and Emily, and then George and I. Tim's parents, "Big" Tom and Mary, also came and treated us to a fabulous dinner, but aren't in the picture.

We had such a sweet time reconnecting and sharing 3 months worth of experiences and laughs with good friends. It was such a treat and we can't thank them enough for making the effort to visit! Ok, enough mushy stuff, because the weekend was definitly more about laughs! Below is Brad wearing as much Stanford garb as he could find in George's closet. He went to class with George on Friday pretending to be a student and it was early enough in the year that people actually bought it!

Here's Emily and I on Stanford's campus - she was just as captivated by the beauty of this tree lined path as much as I was.

Below is Brad, Tim, and George standing in front of George's locker in the business school. I know, leave it to George to be a grown man with a locker! Aside from that, we felt quite out of place walking around Stanford's business buildings on game day in all purple. It was Stanford's homecoming so there were tons of alumni walking around and on several occasions I felt so out of place that I wanted to scream that George was in fact a student and we weren't just snooping around! Don't worry, I didn't.

Love you all! - Johanna & George

Welcome to Fall

Fall is absolutely my favorite time of year! The leaf change isn't quite as significant here as compared to Missouri or the east coast, but I'll take what I can get. Every now and then I get lucky and catch a random tree covering in vibrant red....and it just takes my breath away! The picture above is on Stanford's campus as you are walking up to the business school.

Speaking of Stanford - they have stolen my husband and won't give him back! Above is how he spends the majority of his evenings, with me in the background watching TV with headphones and trying not to interject comments. He swears that he's working hard, but then I see pictures like the one below from his leadership team and I have to question what he's working hard on. :) (George is the second from the right.)

As for me, after much soul searching, prayer, and encouragement from George and my family, I have decided to go back to school for a degree in Nutritional Science on the path of becoming a Registered Dietitian. I'm doing a distance program (because who knows where we will end up living) from the University of Northern Colorado. The program will be part-time during the school year and full-time during the summer. I'll potentially graduate in 2010. At which, my end goal is to work in or with school districts in the area of nutrition education and community nutrition policy reform. Proper nutrition in schools and childhood obesity is such a "hot button" right now, but once I started doing researching I was horrified at how great the need actually is......and it is one of those things that I can't turn my back on.

Right now I'm also volunteering with several non-profits to get as involved as I can at this point. On a grass roots level, I just started with Collective Roots, http://www.collectiveroots.org/, helping them in their Garden Club and on some marketing/donor relations activities. Then in a broader scope I have been given the opportunity to learn from and work with the American Cancer Society as they lobby for nutrition policy reform in Bay Area schools. I also hope to at some point become involved with Revolution Foods, http://www.revfoods.com/, which through their partnership with Whole Foods has made huge strides in providing healthy, quality, fresh lunches to several northern Bay Area schools.

Oh - I have such a passion for this and could go on and on......but I'll be respectful of your time and end it here....or at least for now. But expect updates! :)

Love you all!!! - Johanna