Snackmaster

On Monday we had a nice visit from one of George's college roommates and good friends, Snack, also known as Robert. George and Snack lived together their last year at TCU and bonded over the loss of several fish due to George's pet turtle, the ever present smell of eggs, and parties crashed by our minister who lived next door. Awesome memories for all of us, as I probably spent enough time over there to be a roommate as well. Currently, Snack lives in Houston, TX where he's studying to be a dentist and looking for a lucky lady to spend the rest of his life with.

And just for fun, here is a flashback of Snack at our wedding dancing up a storm! Kinda makes you wish you where there to see those moves firsthand, doesn't it!




Thanks for the visit, Snackmaster!!

Country Roots

Here are the pictures I promised earlier of my grandpa and I with his pride and joy - his antique John Deere B tractor. Before our visit he spent some time spiffing it up with new tires and shine as it dates back to between the early 1930s and early 1950s. He never used this particular tractor - it's his favorite - but he used ones similar to tend to all his fields. He has been a farmer is whole life growing corn, soybeans, and wheat in the land around Bellflower, Missouri. Another interesting fact is that he was born just two miles away from where he currently lives. He's a great man and makes me proud of my country roots! :)

Here is all three of us - Grandpa, me, and his wife Tina.

1 year down....

Hey team,
So I officially finished my first year at the GSB! It's been a fast-paced year that's flown by but it's good to have a break. I have about a week off before I start my summer internship at Bessemer Trust in San Francisco. I'm looking forward to the summer and hopefully I'll learn a lot (and it'll be nice to have a salary again, if only for a while).

The summer plan is to spend about 8 weeks working for Bessemer and then Jo and I will spend about 4 weeks in Canadian, where I'll be working with my dad. As much as I'm looking forward to working at Bessemer, I'm probably more excited to spend most of August in Canadian (even though it will probably be about 1000 degrees). I haven't spent a prolonged amount of time there for quite a while, and Johanna is looking forward to spending time studying for the GRE and playing with the nephews.

I don't have any fun pictures to post, but Fox News was at the GSB this morning interviewing a bunch of Silicon Valley hotshots and they interviewed our Dean right outside of one of my main classrooms. I thought it was kinda cool so I'll post the video here.

Yosemite

This past weekend we went camping with a group of friends at Yosemite. This was the first time for us to the see the beauty of this area and we were both simply awestruck. I almost hate to even post these pictures, because they don't even begin to capture the magnificence and grandeur of the waterfalls, valley, and cliffs that we saw. It was all so incredible.

Here's the group that we went with - all GSBers, most on their first trip to Yosemite as well and all fairly inexperienced campers, except of course for our trip leader and organizer, Tom. It made for an fun, interesting trip of firsts for the group. (From left to right, Pam & Tom, Garrett and Shannon, P.J. & Katherine, Mike & Jordan, Brett & Angie, and George & me)

Then, there's the boys.... although it looks like in their brute masculinity they have scaled a pointed cliff, it is in actuality just a rock conveniently placed at one of the very safe, easy to get to lookout points. (from top to bottom: Tom, our fearless leader, P.J., George, Mike, Garrett, and Brett)

Here's us girls.... unfortunately in our picture the illusion of bravery is ruined by a random guy standing in the background. Oh well. (from top to bottom: Pam, Katherine, Jordan, Shannon, me, Angie)

Can you see me? I'm the little speck in the bottom left corner completely drawfed and humbled by my surroundings.


Then of course, here's George with his ever-present trusty map, making sure we all know our elevation, distance traveled, and that we are all on track.



On our 9 mile hike, we saw two different waterfalls both that were at their peak from the melting snow coming down from the surrounding mountains. They were amazing and the first one pictured added a refreshing sprinkle as we came to the end of the trip!

Here's some other pictures from our hike. And, again, just imagine these images with 10 times as much power and glory.

Unfortunately, I unintentionally retired our camera after the day of hiking and therefore neglected to get any pictures of our campsite. So, just picture a massive campfire; smores, hotdogs and tofu-dogs galore; a tent just big enough for two sleepingbags; and more stars than I've seen in years. It was a perfect weekend.