Jack Frost nipping at your nose....

I think that song left out the part about the 50 mph winds knocking you over!  Just a quick post to alert the world that thanks to that ridiculous storm system that affected the ENTIRE country practically, we had our first snow yesterday!  Granted it didn't stick for too long, but there it was when I got out of bed yesterday.  Not so sure that I'm ready for this!  I'm pretty sure the amount of snow that was on the ground yesterday morning was equal to the total amount of snow I saw all winter last year in Missouri.  Not that I'm complaining - after all, I do have new snow boots to wear! I'm sure I'll survive but I did ring in the first snow of the year last night by curling up on my couch with some hot chocolate (with marshmallows of course) and turning on the heat in my apartment.  Yes, I caved.

On a much different note, but in my mind, still equally thrilling, as I am getting ready this morning I turned my TV on to one of my Cable Music channels, the "Adult Contemporary" station.  Typically a lot of Jack Johnson, Rob Thomas, Daughtry, etc.  Imagine my surprise and utter excitement when the Spice Girls "Say You'll Be There" came on this morning!!  Pretty sure I haven't heard that song since about 7th grade when a bunch of us girls were going to form our own singing girl group.  Those were the days....thanks for the flashback NVC Cable.  

Happy Thursday Friends!!  

Run Forrest....

Two weekends ago I took a little adventure outside of Aberdeen.  A three hour drive to Sioux Falls, a 45 minute flight to Minneapolis, and another hour flight to Midway Airport and I got to spend some time in one of my favorite cities with some of my favorite people!  I spent that weekend in Chicago staying with my very best friend from grad school Michelle, who now works there, and my sister Kristin and her husband Will who were there to run the Bank of America Chicago Marathon.

Michelle and I spent Friday night when I arrived catching up, and laughing our heads off.  Saturday we met Kristin and Will in the city for lunch at Xoco (which was AH-mazing and worth the 45 minute wait in line to order) and did some shopping on Michigan (again AH-mazing).  Then after some R&R at Kristin and Will's hotel, we headed to Carmine's for fantastic Italian and so the runners could carb-load for the marathon the next morning.   It was packed with people doing the exact same thing but it was so good!!

The next day the runners took off at 7:30am and Michelle and I were able to see them about halfway through and then again at the finish from the Bank of America customer bleachers.  When we met them at the reunite area they were exhausted and hot (it was an unusual 85 degrees in Chicago by the time they finished).  But they did an awesome job and we couldn't be more proud of them!  It was Will's first and they ran it together at the same pace so it was pretty impressive for them to run the whole thing together!  Congrats you guys!  

Silly Will....you can't be THAT hungry after the marathon! 

So proud of them! 

Back to the gypsy that I was

A couple weekends ago (yes, I'm a bit behind), Northern State University held their homecoming festivities culminating in 95th Annual Gypsy Day on Saturday, September 18.  NSU's homecoming originated as a single-day event  back on November 18, 1916.  Three individual convinced the NSU President and Aberdeen businessmen that turning the campus into "one big Gypsy camp" for the homecoming game with Madison Normal would be a great way to promote the college and community. Thus, Gypsy Day was born!

This year's theme was "Fifties Fever."  I attended the Gypsy Day parade, which I expected to be much like the St. Patrick's Day Parade in O'Neill, but I was a little off.  There was the expected marching bands, farm machinery, fire engines, and of course, political candidates, but the sheer amount of parade entries was incredible!!  There were many marching bands, lots of floats from different companies (including ours!), and some pretty different entries as well.  Here a few photos from the day!  The weather was gorgeous and the bright blue sky provided a fantastic back drop for the morning!

The Avera St. Luke's float, complete with "Lukey" the Lion!

One of the many marching bands.  Made me miss color guard!! 

The Twist Cone's float, I think the Fifties theme came pretty easily to them! 

Firemen, playing bagpipes, wearing kilts....enough said.  

Like I said, farm machinery (don't worry, there were John Deeres as well!) 

I got the biggest kick out of this little girl who was having a great time waving in her costume, but of course the adults had to make sure she wasn't going tumble off!!