GAMEDAY WEEKEND

I know you will all be shocked to see that I am actually doing one of our blog postings. Hopefully I will get off my dead ass and start doing more of them in the future. Carrie and I are both busy with work so we don't get to do this as much as we'd like...

Last weekend was a huge weekend in Iowa City. ESPN GameDay was here for the Iowa football game against Ohio State who is #1 in the nation. At the time, Iowa was ranked #13. The game didn't go as well as we liked, but it was a one-in-a-lifetime event nonetheless. The entire city was absolutely nuts for 2 days, everyone was talking about the game.

On Friday afternoon, my friend Brian and I went down to the early GameDay presentation at Hubbard Park on the U of I campus near the student union. GameDay had set everything up down there and it was packed all afternoon. Then on Saturday morning, the official show took off and Carrie joined me down there along with John Downing for the festivities. The atmosphere was awesome, but the best part had to be the signs. Carrie and I are posing here next to one of our favorites. Not pictured was probably my top votegetter - "Troy Smith likes Unicorns" (with a nice rainbow.)

At the game the atmosphere was absolutely insane. The stadium was full to the brim about 45 minutes before kickoff which is about 45 minutes before it's usually full. The crowd was loud all game and often hurt my ears which is unusual as well. I have a picture here from our seats where Will and I were sitting:

Unfortunately we lost the game. But yesterday for homecoming we beat a hot Purdue team 47-17 and got ourselves back on track. The Hawks are looking good and it's been a fun year so far. We went to the parade on Friday night which Henry really seemed to enjoy. He spent a lot of time looking for Herky... which he's quite good at saying by the way. More to come...

september weddings

two weeks ago we went to the wedding of my dear friend erin and her sweetie, chad, at st. clement's church in chicago. the priest who married erin's parents performed the ceremony and i had the privilege of doing the first reading. erin looked so elegant in her lovely wedding gown...
the reception was held at fulton's on the river which, as you might guess, is right on the chicago river and affords great skyline view. we sat at a great table full of chicago friends and had a lot of laughs.
one advantage of sitting at a table close to the kitchen was being able to snag the big platter of rice krispie treats before they got to the dessert buffet!

speaking of marriages, this weekend, rob and i celebrated our first wedding anniversary. newlywed erin left a phone message wishing us a happy anniversary and she said that it was hard to believe that a year had gone by already. our first year together as husband and wife has passed so quickly, as good times tend to do, and it's certainly been full of great memories. here's to many more happy years together...

ch + rd
xoxoxo

cooler drumming or, oh the irony

so, just when i finish whinging about blogger and not being able to post photos, i decide to, once again, try to upload some images just to prove to my point, and...
...lo and behold, it worked!
whatever.
isn't it funny how it's irksome to be proven wrong, even when in the process you've gotten what you wanted in the first place?
anyway, i more or less gave up on trying to finish documenting the canoe trip (will stalwartly soldiers on with this task and betsy sensibly created one lovely, comprehensive post), but i didn't want to leave out these pics of henry doing some solid drumming on the chest cooler. this was our last night up north and we stayed on will and sandy's kemo lake property. we had set up our little tent village on the platform where the abandoned canoes, left by the previous owners, are usually stored. i was standing on the other side of the cooler, out of the frame, and henry and i took turns creating some crazy rhythms. there was much wide-eyed excitement, lots of laughter and a bit of screaming.


good times.
it was a great trip. i thoroughly enjoyed our time in northern minnesota, especially my first excursion in the boundary waters and i'm happy i was able to share these experiences with people i love (and like, too!).

blog rot

sorry things have been so stale in these parts lately. the kinda sad thing is that i don't know if they'll change much anytime soon, for a few reasons:

1. it's hard to blog with a full-time job. i'm still getting used to my new work schedule and often find myself dozing, totally zoning out or doing random domestic tasks during the evening hours that used to be prime blogging time. i'm only two weeks into fall term, but things have been going pretty well so far. i have one section with only two students (!) and i had a minor technology melt-down in the classroom on friday ($#*@%*$ DVD projector!), but it's great to be back on a small, liberal arts campus, my colleagues are really friendly and welcoming, and i've even worked out a carpool with some fellow IC residents a few days a week. i intend to take some photos of my office and campus sites, but i've yet to remember to bring the camera to school with me. that said, even if i did have photos...

2. blogger is totally messed up. it seems that everyone else (betsy, will, amber and bill, at least) is still having an okay time of it, but my attempts to upload photos earlier today were completely unsuccessful. actually, i have no idea if this post will actually make it online. we haven't been able to leave comments on other blogs using our log-in for some time now (maybe since the switch to blogger beta?) and things that used to be simple are now head-scratchingly confusing. when even rob has to throw up his hands in frustration with a computer problem, i know that something's up. if we figure it out, i'm sure you'll see some photos and life re-capping here soon. until then, blog on (those of you who still can!)!

xo,
c