Good morning!!! What a sun-shiny day. My mom and I have been up since 6 am. And since the pool isn't open, really nothing is open yet, we had no choice but to go down to the casino. I lost my fortune and now we are waiting for the other sisters to wake up. I lost $30 of my own money and $20 that mom gave me to play. Is that a sign of a gambling problem when you give other people your money to play? I'm joking! But the machines are not very nice, they are evil really. This reminds me why I hate casinos. My $30 could have bought 5 gallons of gas, some sunscreen for my already burnt skin and an A&W Rootbeer. But, alas, I gave it to the Harrah people. Atleast with the casinos in Minnesota I'm giving the Native American cause. Here is the already rich people. Argh! We leave for Orange Beach, AL today. From what I hear the beaches are really nice there. I guess we will see.

Biloxi, MS
Welcome to the Gulf Coast. It is very nice but you can see Katrina was here. Yikes. Hugh 15 floor hotels sit in shambles, house foundations with the houses wiped out. They have started rebuilding which is good to see but six years later the devastation is still very visible. So yesterday was the busiest day so far. We started at Elvis' Graceland. Interesting but I'm not a big Elvis fan so it wasn't high on my list. The mansion was much slower than I expected. After that we drove to New Orleans. We did a quick walking tour of the French Quarter and than got the heck out of there. I'm no big fan of New Orleans either. We arrived at Biloxi around 8pm and had a bit of problem with the hotel parking, checking in and food. Today was a great day but also sad. Eric and I took the hour ferry to Ship Island. It is a barrier island 11 miles off the coast of Mississippi and is part of the Gulf Shore National Seashore. What a beautiful day! On the island is a Fort Massachusetts. Very interesting. We did some swimming in the warm Gulf waters and relaxed on the beach and fry my legs, feet and head. Ouch! After 4 hours on the beach we took the return ferry and eventually got Eric to the airport for his flight home. :-( I miss him already.

Marion, AR
Not a very exciting day. Drove through southeast Iowa, all the way through Missouri along the outskirts of St. Louis and most of the way through Arkansas....well it is only 60 miles of Arkansas that we are driving through. We had a downpour for about an hour of the drive. It was very challenging but we got through it. The sisters kept us entertained with many games of Bingo and Trivia. Tonight we are staying just outside of Memphis. Tomorrow is Graceland and New Orleans and a lot more driving.

Iowa again...

Waterloo, IA
What a long day!! We are crashing in Waterloo, IA. We started our road trip at 4:30pm when we picked up Eric at work. We stuffed the minivan and than we were on our way. Nothing too exciting happened. We got to Waterloo at 9pm on fumes (the gas light came on right by the hotel). Early day tomorrow so good night!

In less than 18 hours we will be on our way for our Gulf Coast Road Trip. How exciting...eh? It will be great. This trip is my reward for finishing my Accounting degree. I have officially graduated from St. Kates. The graduation ceremony was Sunday. It was very nice. I got my diploma cover and got my metal....hum I wonder where I put that. I got my final grade...an A of course. I finished with a 4.0 GPA for all my courses. How cool! Well it is time for bed. I have an early start with a 5:15am wake up call for my morning workout. Than I have to drive Eric to work, take my car the airport off site parking lot, take the shuttle to the airport, take the light rail train downtown, work for 4 hours, take a bus to the Shakopee park and ride and than pick Eric up from work. All that before the trip officially starts. Busy day!!!

It was such a busy weekend. On Friday we traveled to Independence for my friend Mandi's wedding. It was very nice but the weather was not. Rain and cold....like 40 degrees cold. It is May freaking 14th! We went to the wedding ceremony in Taylor and then the reception was in Arcadia at the same place we had our reception. Being the rude people that we are we ate and literally ran. We had a 7 hour roundtrip to Papillion, NE for Michael's graduation and it was 6pm. It was a good drive. We had some rain to deal with but other than that the ride was uneventful. We pulled into Bonnie and Hiram's house around 1am. I was so ready for bed. I was up at 630 the next day (of course, a day I could sleep in) so I decided to do some rollerblading around the neighborhood. On one of my loops I saw a man looking rather suspiciously inside my car. I had my car keys so I kept hitting the lock button so the horn was going off. It was Hiram. He scared the heck out of me! Anyways the graduation was good, over 400 graduates so a big class. Terry and Judy were there as well as Carrie and her kids. So it was a good time. We came back yesterday. We drove 915 miles in one weekend. Fun Fun!
 
So the reason for the header...Tonight I decided to enjoy the beautiful weather and go rollerblading by the river. I was on about mile 5 and I was jamming to my tunes and just go along when I hear this yelling from behind. I'm like what the heck. I turned around to see who was yelling at me and it was a biker. I lost control and tried to correct myself, flaying my arms and his bike clipped my hand and I went crashing to the ground. He says he was giving me encouragement!?! Thanks dude! I got up and went another 2 miles and went home to tend to my wounds. My leg is chewed up and my elbow is looking nice and bruised with scratches. Fun! Fun!

 

Happy Summer! 5 days to graduation!!! Woo Hoo!

I don't want to use this blog to complain about the weather but...talk about a crazy weather week. So the last blog 10 days ago it was freezing, it even snowed on May 2nd and the furnace was on. It is now May 10th and it is 90 degrees outside, it is hot and humid and the A/C is on. I love the weather here in Minnesota. Tonight's Twins game had a "hail delay" as there were golf ball size hall on the field!! Crazy! I stole this pic from Twitter. I guess some of the Twins players had never seen hail before. Huh?

This past weekend was great. The weather was awesome. Saturday morning I went out for 15+ mile bike ride at 6:30 am. It was such a peaceful ride except in the swampy areas where the frogs were going nuts but that was way cool. I love those early morning rides. After that I had a concert at Grace Church in Eden Prairie. It was the Veteran's Celebration. In the afternoon my mom, Mike and Nancy and I went to the Minnesota Zoo. It was such a nice day. And we got to see some animals get a little action. The grizzly bears were "busy." Click here for the video. Eric was reffing the Eagan Tourney to "make me some money." :-) After that Danielle, Greg, Celeste and Evelyn joined us for dinner (lasagna...my specialty) and than we spent the evening at the hotel swimming. They went home Sunday but Danielle, Eric and I hung out. Danielle and I biked to the tennis courts and played a set. She killed me 5-3 and than it started to rain. Oh well.

Last night was the last class for my degree. Hooray! Today I handed in my final exam and went to graduation practice. I got my garb and hood (even though its the wrong one). I'm ready to go. Woo hoo! That's about it from here. We have a busy weekend planned. We are doing the Midwest circle tour. Friday we are driving down to Independence, Saturday we are going to my friend, Mandi's wedding and than driving to Omaha for Michael's graduation and rounding out the trip with a drive home on Monday. The whirlwind tour. 11 days until graduation!!!

Mom, Mike, Nancy and I enjoyed a great day the Minnesota Zoo...but not as much fun as these bears.

Happy May! This morning it was 35 degrees but with the 25 mph wind it felt like 22 degrees and there was snow flying. Isn't that awesome? Happy May 1st. This has been a very long winter and spring refuses to come, hopefully summer comes soon. April was very busy as I mentioned before but it was also very dismal. The Twins can't win and usually get blown out! Today they lost 10-3 to Kansas City. Can you believe that? They got swept by the Royals!!!! Maybe the can turn it around in May (I hope) but then again they are playing their AAA-Rochester team. Mauer is everywhere, but the playing field...$23 million for what?

Speaking of the Twins, that is how we spent our Easter Sunday. We went to an overly packed 730am Mass and then we went to the Game. It was great! We were with Bill and Alice, who are very cool. TC Bear had his bunny ears and the Twins actually won (which this year is a miracle.) Nothing like a BBQ Pork sandwich, a SchWWWWweigert hot dog and a fried "Minneapple" pie for Easter. Yum! Later on Eric complained he didn't get ham, I reminded him that BBQ pork does come from the same animal. LOL.

Tuesday was suppose to be another Twins game but Mother Nature wasn't having any of that. So they PPD the game until Thursday. I have to admit I was so happy because I had a concert Tuesday night and couldn't attend the game. Now I could. Awesome!

I got my hair highlighted and it turned me blonde, you want to see picture? click here.
This weekend was so nice, it is one of the last weekends with nothing to do, expect for Eric's running test today. It is nice to have nothing to do. Eric past his test!! After that we went to Ikea for some meatballs, knives and bed sheets. Of course we had to stop in the cafeteria for some Swedish meatballs and some Daim almond torte. Yum! It reminds me of Copenhagen, it has almost been a year since my Europe trip, boy was that fun. I'm down 12 lbs since Ash Wednesday and only 20 days until Graduation day!!!! Hopefully it will get warmer by the next time I write.

Happy May Day!!