Cook's In Kansas

Well we are now in our home state! We arrived in Arnold after a rainy white knuckled drive on Wednesday. (I don't think my knuckles were white. -Laurie) After a restless night spent by Laurie, Kevin and Marsha, we went shopping yesterday for things that were left on our list. We discovered a very cool shop that sells fair trade artisan items. It might be our new favorite place to shop. Laurie's mom, Shirleen got out of school for break yesterday, so this morning we all had a breakfast of pumpkin pancakes. They were yum-yum! We returned to our shopping today and are all most done! Audrey has failed to take significant naps the last few days, so you can imagine her state at this point. Hopefully, by tomorrow when her cousins arrive she will be in a meeting mood!

Last night Laurie and I hosted the team I work with at our house for a holiday party and meal. We had a great time. One of the grads got us all Chinese yo-yos. You can see everyone had a great time with them. Audrey really got into it.

Craig one of my grads was dared by the other two to shave his goatee until it looked like a fumanchu. As you can see it made him look really creepy. Of course that weird look on his face doesn't help.

Audrey and the yo-yo

Craig, Kelly and Nick playing with the yo-yos

Kelly, Linda, Audrey and Craig

Creepy Craig

Audrey helping me put the star on our Christmas tree

Marsha helps with the tree trimming

I know this is a little late, but I thought I would tell you about our trip home for Thanksgiving. We traveled with Marsha for the first time. She was very good. In fact on the way back to Kansas she was better behaved than Audrey.

While at in Missouri, we visited with many of Laurie's relatives. Her cousins who grew up in New York were all there with their respective significant others and some with thier dogs. It was quite an adventure at Grandma Stahl's. Laurie, her mom, Aunt Karen and Grandma all worked on a coat for Marsha, too while we were home. Laurie's brother Bill was in town from Nashville, too.

On the Friday after Thanksgiving we did brave the stores, but did not get up super early. Bill went along and we had a pretty good time. We were able to get all the things we went for without the early rising.

In Malden, we visited with my Papaw Cook for the typical country breakfast. We celebrated my Provance grandparents 50th wedding anniversary. We also ate a lot. Marsha got the chance to run in the church ball field. She really got up a lot of speed. Now we know why at one time she was a $10,000 dog.

Audrey and Marsha during our adventure to Missouri for Thanksgiving

Audrey had a great time visiting with Grandma Stahl at Thanksgiving.

Audrey and Uncle Bill are wore out after all the Thanksgiving fun.

Marsha meeting the Cook side of the family.
Colton, Audrey, Dad and Marsha

While we were home my grandparents celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary

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Lots of activities at the Cook house this week. Monday, Laurie and Audrey visited with one of the ladies from church and Audrey got some new toys (Just what she needs). Wednesday Laurie was a church for a meeting and the youth hosted the weekly fellowship dinner, so I helped with that. Then last night was the amazing Thanksgiving meal in our dining centers. We ate with some of my grad students and our friend Diane. Our dining staff does it up right for these events. Linen table clothes, great food and candles on all the tables. You almost forget you are eating in a dining center. It has also been a busy week for recruitment events. I have been at something related to recruitment everyday this week, but yesterday. It is the big push before the holidays.

This weekend, we have some things planned. Tonight we will be attending a bingo program that is sponsored by a student group I advise. I will be the featured caller from 8-9. I am a great bingo caller. It is probalby the closest I get to hosting a game show. I am sure that I will try and work on part of the kitchen as well this weekend. I will give a full report on Monday.

Another busy weekend at the Cook house.

Friday
I took Friday off. After spending a week at a conference and another week catching up at work, we just spent some time together on Friday. We tackled the first step in our kitchen remodel project. As with everything in our house it was much more complicated than it looked. The previous owners had at some point put up masonite on the walls by and behind the counter and our stove. It was faux marble and just ugly. How do you thing they put this on the walls? With glue, lots and lots of glue. This then riped some of the paper off of the drywall. Now that is a problem that can be fixed with some drywall mud. We are getting to be experts at that. But the other great thing they did was they put up the masonite before putting on the counter top. The counter top does not move, the cabinets do not move. Thus there are small portions of the masonite that broke off and are sticking out above the counter. We went to Home Depot and got a Drimel like tool to grind it off. This did not work. So after consultation with my dad and Laurie's mom we think the best solution is to try and trim it out with a utility knife.

Later on that afternoon Laurie starting feeling bad and by the end of the night she was running a 104 temp.

Saturday
Laurie began feeling some better. We were pretty lazy. At 4pm I had to come into town for a fundraiser for the Lutheran Campus Ministries Board. It was in conjunction with the last football game. We spent around $300 on food for a grill out and only made about $130, but lessons were learned and it was a fun time. In case you care or didn't hear, K-State ended up beating the University of Texas on Saturday. This was a big deal! We also cooked a turkey for a youth event on Sunday.

Sunday
Laurie and I were greeters at church. We had a dinner after provided by our stewardship committee as a thank you for giving. We then had a youth event. The youth (at least the 5 that came) helped us cook a meal for the local emergancy shelter. This is a shelter for women and families in unsafe situations. We weren't able to go and serve the meal, but it was being delivered today. We were all wiped out by the end of that. We came home and Audrey fell asleep by 8pm. I fell asleep on the couch around 9pm and we were in bed by 10:30.

Well what an interesting last 24 hours. Kansas of all states even elected a Democratic representative. I have to say that I did a little dance of joy when Laurie called this morning to say that Rummy was stepping down. The interesting thing is that he is scheduled to come to K-State tomorrow to deliver the Landon Lecture (the same one GW did last year). According to the K-State President's office he is still coming. Unlike the Bush lecture I have decided to stay away from Rummy. I figured my blood pressure couldn't handle it. I would imagine that K-State will get some more national exposure tomorrow considering all that has transpired.

So after 6 months of no posts, I am going to give this another try. The part that complicates this the most is that we don't have internet access at home, so all the posting has to be done at work. Sometimes there just isn't enough time in the day.

Over that six months, another school year has started, Audrey has turned 2, we got a dog, and Laurie turned 30(just yesterday). Things here in Kansas are great. I still love my job, we are still very involved at our church, Laurie teaches Audrey new things every day, and having a dog has been so much fun. I have included some posts that illustrate some of these events.