....living.....

I ran across this quote the other day and tore it out of a magazine....

"I love living. I have some problems with my life, but living is the best thing they've come up with so far."
Neil Simon

Griffin has a way of reminding me of this. REAL living is about finding the joys in the simple things, like eating, and not focusing on the things that weigh us down. Thanks kiddo, I love you!

There's no place like US!

You can always tell when my dad and his friends are going to start telling stories about their college...oh I mean "glory".....days. Their eyes gloss over, you can see them start to get giddy...ready for the punch line, and it seems as if they have actually transported themselves back there. The older I got the easier it was to predict the endings to these beloved tales...fraternity boys + new found freedom + no real parental supervision= one heck of a crazy night, but the typical college boy ending isn't why I love hearing these stories. It's the way my dad tells them, like they were the best days ever. It's because those days and those friends are what help shape you as a person, help guide you into the real world, and are of coarse the source of a lot of laughter, which makes for an enjoyable story to listen to!

Thanks to my parents, the summer of 2000 I found myself wondering around the campus of the University of Nebraska. To try and say the person who walked onto campus that August and who walked off the December of '05 was the same girl would be very difficult. I am in so many ways the woman, wife, mom......that I am now because of the 4.5 years spent at UNL, the people I met, the things I participated in, the chance I had to be a part of something bigger than myself. There is no doubt in my mind that God placed me in the exact right spot and had certain people walk in and out of my life during this time (even though I doubted more than once) so that he could teach me what I was going to need to know to survive in the real world....I look back in awe at the process of it, how perfect the timing really was, and just what a blessing it ended up being.

Along my way at school, I was blessed to meet some friends who made my college life oh so enjoyable, and if I may say down right hilarious! Thanks to them I have memories that make me smile and stories of my own to tell! The friends that you make in college are the family you choose. It's the first time that you don't have the support of your immediate family and so you bond together and make your own! I am so thankful for my college "family" and all the life we have gone together so far. Ryan and I have been so blessed in how our friends have overlapped and intertwined. Our life is different and better because of them....we are an "us" with the help of them. We can't imagine our life without them!

The pictures above are mostly courtesy of my BFF (and fellow bug princess) Casey Hoins. They are from our few GLORIOUS days spent over Labor Day weekend laughing, loving, discussing politics, eating, and laughing more with Griffin's many "Aunts" & "Uncles"!! You guys, we love and miss you sooooo much already! When is the next reunion??