Okay, okay we get the hint!!!

Life here in Kansas has been more than hectic. At work I have been swamped with hiring committee responsibilities. Since my last post, I have traveled to Indianapolis to interview candidates for a job in our department, we have hired most of our new graduate students, and we have brought many candidates to campus for the our full time positions. In addition to that we are wrapping up the prospective student recruitment process for 2006-2007, so there have been various responsibilities with that. I am looking forward to having decisions made about these positions and wrapping up the year.

At home, things are good. I haven't seen home much in the last few weeks, but it is still there and Laurie and Audrey are doing well. We had a great Easter. Laurie's mom came to town on Friday afternoon and spent the weekend with us. On Saturday, I mowed our yard for the first time of the year(it was quite a bear to mow). On Sunday, the Easter bunny visited the Cook's in Kansas for the first time. He brought Audrey fun finger paints, watercolor paints, two cute puzzles. Plus, Audrey is very interested in dogs, so he knew to bring her "The Lady and the Tramp" DVD. We tried to steer clear of too much candy. At church on Sunday, Audrey participated in her first egg hunt. She had a great time and quickly caught on to what her task was. One of the cute little girls at church helped out and another shared her eggs with Audrey, but Audrey definitely got the hang of it and found a few eggs on her own.

After church on Sunday, many of the grad students and some of our friends here at K-State came to our house for a festive meal. We had 11 people over. We ate well. If you want a great grilled pork loin recipe let me know. We also played a couple rousing games of croquet.

We are still very involved at our church. Our church is going through some growing pains. Laurie and I have been participating in lots of discussions about how to move the church forward, while respecting the history. It looks like I might be stepping up to be the chair the committee that we currently sit on as well, because our current chair will be joining the church council.

We are looking forward to coming home to visit family and friends in May. We are hoping to head to St. Louis on the 12th. Then journeying down to Malden to help with all of the wedding preparations. I have to say that it is very startling to get your little sister's wedding invitation in the mail. I am very happy for her and Jon, but on some levels she will always be my little sisters. I am sure some of you can relate since you saw her grow up, too.

Well I think this gets us caught up. I hope to be better about this as we wind down the semester.