Cook's In Kansas: January 2006

George W. Bush at K-State

So yesterday was the big day. President George W. Bush was here at K-State. Laure & I both went to the lecture. We arrived at the colasium at 9:30. There were protesters a plenty. Some who were againt the Bush because of the war and then our local crazy Fred Phelps and his family who are against everything. We went through the security and then visited with folks we knew inside. We then took our seats. We were in the first row of a side section that was just over halfway around the area, so pretty good seats. We waited and waited. Finally around 11:30 the action started. Of course being in Kansas, people were crazy! It was like a rock concert when he came out on stage. He then proceeded to speak for about an hour and some change. I have to say that I expected to sit there hating him the whole time, but I have to give him credit. He was engaging, warm, and articulate. I know this all is really hard to believe for many of you. Now, there were definatly times when you know he wasn't being totally truthful or that he skirted around issues or just trivilized them. He then took unscripted questions from the audience. Again, he did a pretty good job. Of course some of the questions were about difficult topics that are not easy to sum up in five minutes, but he did okay. There were no "Bushisms" the whole time.

So, I guess this is all to say that George W. Bush might have gained a little bit more of my respecte yesterday. That doesn't mean that I agree with him, support him or believe everything he has to say, but you could tell that he at least is passionate about being President.

So life here with the Cook's in Kansas has been very hectic. Work is definately out of control this semester. So I will give you a brief recap of what has been going on in the last week or so:
Thursday: Our friends, Tanya and Josh Massey packed some of their things since they are moving to Stillwater, OK. Tanya has taken a job at Oklahoma State. She started yesterday. Tanya and Josh are some of our closest friends here so we will definately miss them, but Stillwater is not too far for us to go and visit.

Friday: One of the student organizations I advise hosted a program in our student union, so I went and helped with that. When I arrived home, Audrey was asleep on the couch and had been since about 8pm. When I tried to take her to her room she woke up. She then was wide awake and wanted to play. This went on until about 1:30 when we finally gave up and all went to bed in our bed. Audrey is not a good bed sharer so this made for a very restless night.

Saturday: Audrey woke up at about 7:30 a.m.!! I got up with her and let Laurie sleep in a little bit. We were pretty lazy most of the morning and into the afternoon. At about 3, we dropped Audrey off with some friends and Laurie and I went to see "Brokeback Mountain". I know you are all surprised that it is showing in Manhattan, KS. The theater was very full. It was definately a touching movie. The acting performances were quality and I have seen more graphic sex scenes in R rated "straight" movies. It is certainly worthy of all the buzz. Wethen went to dinner at Panera Bread with friends and then came back to our house and played the DVD Pop Culture Trivial Pursuit 2. It was much fun.

Sunday: I had a work event all day! I traveled to KC and then back to Topeka. We made it home around 9. It was a long day, but fun talking with prospective students and parents.

It was announced yesterday that President George W. Bush will be speaking at K-State on Monday. I am definately not a fan, but I will probably go so I can say I saw the President.

After a long hiatus I am back to blogging. Our holidays were great. We had fun eating and visiting with everyone. Audrey really got into Christmas this year. She loved opening the presents and was always surprised by what was inside. So far she has loved her Little People toys and as you can see from the picture her baby doll, that we have named Ann-Marie in honor of my cousin who got it for her. She is shaping up to be quite the little mother. I guess that means that we must be doing something right since she likes to hug, feed and kiss the baby.

We had a great but short visit with our friends, Stacie and Angie on New Year's Eve.

Our house is slowly recovering from all the mess from returning from travel. We had so much mail when we returned that the post office had closed off our PO Box and had put our mail in one of those big mail tubs.

Work has been slow but good. I think I am getting a handle on the semester. I am going to be very busy. We do all of our hiring for next year this semester. This includes hiring two full time hall directors, 5 graduate assistants and one coordinator for leadership development. The last position is with whom I work the closest. My boss asked me last Friday to chair the search committee for that position, thus requiring me to travel an additional time this year to do interviews.

Laurie has been working diligently as the co-head of the nursery at church. We have paid nursery attendants and they are in need of hiring. They have also been working to keep the nursery staffed and clean until a new person is on board.

I have been working on a small committee that is looking at our church mission statement and have had some meetings about that. I also have a retreat tomorrow for the Lutheran Campus Ministries Board that I have served on for about a year.

Last night we attended a Partylite candle party at our friend Sarah's house it was fun, many of our friends and people I work with were there. Laurie has decided to host a party so don't be surprised if you get an electronic invite. You can order on-line and then it will be credited to Laurie's party. They have neat scents and cool candle holders and such. The candles are about the same as Yankee or Village candles but the accessories can be a little more.

I guess that is about it for a while we will keep you posted.

So as you can see we have been very busy