Cook's In Kansas

2006-12-22T15:52:00.000-08:00

It's time for everyone's favorite now annual report on the trip to see Mr. Claus! Hooray! This year's visit couldn't have been any more different from last year's. We went on Tuesday around 5pm to our local mall and spent absolutely no time at all waiting in line. There were no fit-throwing kids ahead of us to set a sorry mood and no frightened faces to make us suspicious - just Santa, gloriously jolly Santa! Audrey was so excited to see him; when we'd walked past him while shopping on Sunday she was extremely interested in what he was doing and the idea of going to see him herself. We walked directly up to the jolly man and he started talking to her in a kind voice and she was not worried at all. She wasn't too sure about sitting on his lap though but, fortunately, Santa's chair was very wide and he scooted to the side so Audrey could sit next to him. They passed a fake gift back and forth between them and chatted about what Audrey wanted for Christmas and our tree and Audrey helping to hang ornaments. The "elf" taking the photo was also very nice and patient and she took an amazing photo for us. Audrey was even unconcerned when I walked away to join Daddy in looking at the photo previews with the elf and continued to chat with Santa. How exciting! The thing I may be most proud of concerning Santa is that Audrey wanted to ask Santa for nothing but a "Christmas shirt" which translates into a shirt as a gift from Santa. Can you imagine how Kevin and I have beamed with the knowledge that our child longs only for a special shirt for Christmastime??

2006-12-22T15:37:00.000-08:00

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!

2006-12-15T14:21:00.000-08:00

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

2006-12-15T14:15:00.000-08:00

Audrey helping me put the star on our Christmas tree

Marsha helps with the tree trimming

2006-12-15T14:08:00.000-08:00

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.

2006-12-15T13:58:00.000-08:00

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

2006-12-08T10:20:00.000-08:00

2006-11-17T15:10:00.000-08:00

Your Vocabulary Score: A

Congratulations on your multifarious vocabulary!
You must be quite an erudite person.

How's Your Vocabulary?

2006-11-17T14:46:00.000-08:00

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.

2006-11-13T14:13:00.000-08:00

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.

2006-11-08T14:39:00.000-08:00

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.

2006-11-06T12:14:00.000-08:00

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.

2006-11-06T12:09:00.000-08:00

Audrey is so excited about being outside with Daddy and Marsha!

2006-11-06T12:07:00.000-08:00

This is our new girl, Marsha. This is how she looks most the time.

2006-11-06T12:04:00.000-08:00

Audrey is displaying her Kansas pride at a kid's area at the Kansas State Fair

2006-11-06T11:59:00.000-08:00

This is Audrey in her car with Uncle CoCo

2006-11-06T11:56:00.000-08:00

This is Laurie helping Audrey blow out her candles!

2006-11-06T11:54:00.000-08:00

This is Audrey's great monkey birthday cake. Laurie made it from scratch. It was even banana flavored.

2006-05-09T09:32:00.000-07:00

So there has been some time elapse since my last post. We have been pretty busy with end of the school year kinds of things here at K-State. I have been trying to wrap up the year and also start moving forward on stuff for new student orientation that takes place throughout the month of June. We have been getting lots of rain so that has made working outside or even getting the yard mowed a challenge. I finally mowed last night. The grass was so long. Between the trimming and the mowing it took about two hours.

This past weekend was another busy one for us. Friday night we had a dinner with a small group from our church. Each spring our church arranges dinner groups that take turns going to each others houses for a meal throughout the summer. We had a great time. Our pastor and his wife are in the group as are another couple that we already know. The fourth couple is fairly new to our church and to Manhattan, so it was nice to get to know them. Audrey had a great time playing with the other kids. She also had a great time eating the chocolate dessert that we had. It got all over her clothes. But I guess we knew she enjoyed it.

We also watched the movie "Capote" this weekend. It was very well acted and very interesting. I would recommend it. We also tried a new recipe for homemade onion rings this weekend. We used the batter recipe that we had, but then added panko breadcrumbs. These are Japanese breadcrumbs that are rather coarse. They definitely added a crunchy texture. The O-rings were good.

Sunday we were greeters at church. Following church we went to the University Gardens and browsed their iris garden. Audrey had a great time running up and down the rows and saying how pretty the flowers were. Later that day, Laurie and a couple ladies from church went to Salina (a town near by) to see a movie and go to dinner. There is a theater that shows art house films and foreign language movies. Laurie had a great time. Since many of our close friends have or will be leaving K-State at the end of this year, I am glad that Laurie is making connections with other people. Audrey and I went to dinner at Chili's with some other staff in residence life then came home and hung out until Laurie came home. It was very fun to spend time with Audrey. As many of you will soon see she is definitely a smart and funny little girl. She is learning new things every day.

2006-04-27T12:46:00.000-07:00

Tuesday night was the big end of the year banquet for Housing and Dining Services. At K-State it is quite a production, with video clips, a theme, and lots of awards and recognition. This years theme was like local TV news. The video clips were very funny and when people went up on stage they sat at a news desk instead of standing at a podium which was fun. This night is always fun, but typically bittersweet. This year many of the students that Laurie and I have known at K-State for a long time are graduating. Plus, our friend Sarah is also leaving K-State at the end of this year. I definitely did not make it through the evening without some tears. I was honored to be inducted as an honorary member of the residence hall honorary here at K-State in recognition of my service to the students of K-State and my advising of that organization. You can see more in the following pictures. It was definitely a fun time.

2006-04-27T12:43:00.002-07:00

This is me with my closest work colleague Sarah. She will be leaving K-State at the end of this year. You can tell we are both trying hard not to cry.

2006-04-27T12:43:00.001-07:00

Laurie and I with our dear friend, Sarah

2006-04-27T12:43:00.000-07:00

Laurie and I with Diane and Patrick. We all worked together in my previous job.

2006-04-27T12:42:00.000-07:00

This is me with Patrick I student I supervised and worked with at K-State. He is graduating this year :(

2006-04-27T12:41:00.000-07:00

This kind of looks like Diane with her parents at her wedding! But it is just us with her at the Leadership Banquet.

2006-04-27T12:40:00.001-07:00

This is the staff team I work with at K-State!

2006-04-27T12:40:00.000-07:00

This is me with the President of the organization I advise at K-State, Shea Olsen

2006-04-27T12:36:00.000-07:00

The following pictures show Audrey's latest fascination: Mommy's high heeled shoes! She thought of this all on her own the other morning and proceeded to clomp around the house in them.

2006-04-27T12:35:00.001-07:00

A big girl in Mommy's shoes

2006-04-27T12:35:00.000-07:00

Aren't we proud!

2006-04-24T14:36:00.000-07:00

Well, we had quite the productive weekend. Friday night some friends came over and we played games and just hung out. We also found out that a friend of ours was in need of a place to stay for six weeks while she transitions from K-State to her graduate assistantship, so she will be staying with us. On Saturday Audrey woke us up bright and early, but we used the time to get things done. We raked leaves in our yard that had collected around our fence. Laurie trimmed back some of our bushes and I mowed and trimmed the yard. Audrey had a great time helping with all of these tasks, especially picking up leaves one at a time and putting them in the bags. That night we watched "In Her Shoes." It was definitely a movie worth watching. It was funny and interesting throughout.

On Sunday, as we were getting ready for church, Audrey was sitting in her booster chair eating her oatmeal and watching Paula Dean. Paula happened to be making a pie with a graham cracker crust. As a result, Audrey learned a new word from Miss Paula, "cracker." After that event, we went to church and as a family brought forward the bread and wine for communion. Audrey had a great time at the end of the service swaying to the music. In the afternoon, we again worked in the yard. Laurie put down new mulch in places where we had mulched last year and then mulched in new places. I prepared some dirt patches in and around our house for grass seed and then spread that. I also planted some gladiola bulbs, hopefully they take.

Last evening we ate dinner with our friends the Massey's who were in town from Oklahoma and some other K-Staters. After dinner we walked down to City Park and Audrey and her friend Garrett had a great time running around and playing in the park.

On the work front we are almost done with all of our hiring processes. Both of the committees that I was a part of completed our work on Friday. We successfully offered to a candidate to fill the position that I work closely with. We also finished our graduate student process. It is definitely a freeing feeling.

2006-04-21T14:11:00.000-07:00

Last night as we were watching television, Miss Audrey decided that she wanted to serve Laurie and I on the plastic play plates she has. Initially, she was just giving us the plate and the play silverware. She then asked us if we wanted more. When Laurie said yes, she went to her play pot(the one Aunt Whit got her) and started "dishing" food out of the pot onto the plate. Then brought it over to us. We thought this was so cute and funny. It is proof that kids are paying way more attention than you think.

2006-04-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

Oma joins the photo

2006-04-19T08:57:00.001-07:00

The Cook Family on Easter

2006-04-19T08:57:00.000-07:00

Feed the ducky

2006-04-19T08:56:00.002-07:00

Already and artist.

2006-04-19T08:56:00.001-07:00

The book purse

2006-04-19T08:56:00.000-07:00

What did Grammy and Papaw send?

2006-04-19T08:06:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-02-21T13:50:00.000-08:00

So it has definitely been days of ups and downs for the Cook's In Kansas. Just as soon as Audrey was showing signs of recovery she would have a relapse and lose whatever food or drink she had consumed. This created much stress for Laurie as she was preparing to host a candle party this past Saturday. I also had commitments for the Lutheran Campus Ministry Board that I am a part of on Friday night and did not get home until 10pm. Saturday, Audrey was definitely starting to come back from the brink. She actually played a little bit.

Laurie's candle party went well. Some friends came over after the party and we had a great Italian meal prepared by Laurie and we played a game. Sunday, Audrey was definitely getting back to full strength, but we were leery about taking her to church. However, Laurie is on the alter guild this month so she had to prepare the bread and wine for communion. So she went and Audrey and I stayed home. The rest of Sunday was spent just being lazy. We watched "The Aviator," which I definitely enjoyed.

Work is really busy and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. We are conducting phone calls to prospective students this week asking them about the status of their housing application and trying to answer any questions. I have had two early mornings the last two days. I am also trying to do check references for candidates for our graduate assitantships. Plus all my other meetings and general job duties. I am really feeling tired right now! Hopefully I can sleep in a little tonight/tomorrow morning.

2006-02-16T07:35:00.000-08:00

Well it seemed that all was well when I journeyed from home yesterday. I even called at about 10:30 to see how things were going. All was well. However, I got a call at about 3 from Laurie. She had gotten sick and her and Audrey had just been laying on the couch all day. She was worried that she was being a bad mom and wanted me to come home early if possible. I had to go to a meeting and wrap up a few things so I ended up leaving at 4:15. Needless to say she was happy to see me when I arrived.

Audrey is still very sleepy, but her fever has gone. She also is refusing to sleep in her bed, which has made our sleep less restful. Laurie began to feel better throughout the evening. We even go the chance to watch Hustle and Flow, one of our Netflix movies. It was very good. Definatley strong performances by the cast.

2006-02-14T13:21:00.000-08:00

Last night began our first (hopefully last??!) all night puke-fest. Audrey began throwing up around dinner time (how lucky for us!) and the vomiting continued throughout the night until about 7:40 this morning. Kevin is a jumpy dad when he thinks Audrey might be about to throw up because she um, took out her binky or stirred in her sleep so we got even less sleep than we might have. Let's just sum it up by saying we were glad once the contents of her lunch, snack and milk had been depleted and we were just looking at water. When I left the house this afternoon to get the mail she was finally able to keep water down and was eating applesauce as if it were the best thing on the planet. Let's hope the puke will not return!

2006-02-07T09:30:00.000-08:00

So I am such a blogging slacker! I can't believe I haven't posted since my b-day. I have been traveling a lot for my job and spent the latter part of last week in Des Moines, Iowa at the winter business meeting of a professional organization I am a part of.

Audrey continues to learn new words and do new things. She definitely keeps us busy. She has developed a slight cough over the last couple days so we are monitoring that.

We subscribed to Netflix and have been watching many movies we have missed. We are also trying to watch any that are up for Academy Awards so we can be informed Oscar watchers! This past week we watched Batman Begins and Million Dollar Baby. Both very quality movies, obviously for different reasons.

On Saturday, Laurie and I went on a date. We had tickets to a concert at the campus performing arts auditorium. We saw the Count Basie Orchestra featuring Nneena Freelon. Nneena is an artist that we discovered about 5 years ago and have seen in concert once before. The concert was great and we got to meet her afterward. While we were standing in line waiting for her to come out and sign autographs of course I was excited. My wife leaned over to me and said, "You are a celebrity whore." Which all of you know is very true. I love meeting famous people and I have plenty of stories to back it up. Some of you have been along for the ride for some of those events(Jesus, Tammy, Glenn, etc.)

The funniest thing about this date was that we did not plan our dinner very well. I thought we would go to the local "fancy" restaurant, but I had failed to make reservations earlier that day. So there was a long wait. Needless to say there was a long wait at all of the chain sit down restaurants. As a result we ended up at PIZZA HUT. Laurie suggested it because at least the come to your table and take your order :)

2006-01-24T10:28:00.000-08:00

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.

2006-01-24T10:18:00.000-08:00

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.

2006-01-19T08:05:00.000-08:00

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.

2006-01-13T14:35:00.000-08:00

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

2006-01-13T08:42:00.000-08:00

Crazy Teeth

2006-01-13T08:41:00.001-08:00

Audrey bringing Baby Ann-Marie on a walk

2006-01-13T08:41:00.000-08:00

Kevin, Eva, Laurie and Eli

2006-01-13T08:40:00.000-08:00

Eva wearing her new ruby slipper necklace

2006-01-13T08:37:00.000-08:00

Amy, Kevin and Baby Anna

2006-01-13T08:34:00.000-08:00

Audrey with her new coloring books.

2006-01-13T08:33:00.001-08:00

The Cook Family on Christmas morning

2006-01-13T08:33:00.000-08:00

Audrey opening her first Christmas gift this year

2006-01-13T08:32:00.001-08:00

Shirleen and Grandma with their new spatulas!

2006-01-13T08:32:00.000-08:00

The Cook Kids

2006-01-13T08:31:00.000-08:00

Whit with her family on graduation day

2005-12-23T08:06:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we visited Santa at the mall. We've been toying with the idea for a while but weren't sure how Audrey would react to Santa since she wasn't particularly fond of a certain dancing-hip-shaking Santa decoration we saw at a truck stop. So, for the past few weeks we've been talking about Santa and trying to teach her to say "HO HO HO!" when we mention him. We also get overly excited (by non-parent standards) when she points to a picture of Santa. Everything was fine as we waited in line to meet Santa: she was smiling and pointing both at the man in the beard and photos of him and craning her neck to see him around the other people. We even got a few "HO HOs" out of her. Then, tragedy struck! The boy in line in front of us had a freak-out when his mom handed him to Santa. He DID NOT WANT that fat hairy man to be anywhere near him and showed his displeasure but kicking and screaming his tiny head off! You might realize that when one kid starts crying, others join in to create a beautiful choral event. The other kids began to look concerned hearing the loud screams and we did our best to face the opposite direction, shunning THE CRIER, and actively distracting Audrey from the terrible sounds. When the boy finally moved on (after having a pathetic screaming picture taken, I might add!) we approached Santa. Audrey looked at him with curiosity. I attempted to hand her to Santa and found her clinging to my arm like Santa was not a jolly man in a red suit but a pit full of hungry lions. To avoid a scene like the one we had just witnessed, I sat on Santa's lap and held Audrey. I have to admit I felt rather silly and Santa seemed a little too eager to have me join the photo. Hopefully this is not repeated for other costumed characters in the future.

2005-12-18T09:04:00.001-08:00

Yesterday was my sister's college graduation. It was pretty exciting. The speaker was even good! It was neat to be back at Southeast. Laurie and I had not been there since our friend Stacie's graduation a few years ago. Of course we had to tell Audrey that this was where mom and dad met. My mom, dad, brother and Grandma and Papaw Provance were all there. Whitney's fiance, Jon's family also came which I thought was very nice. Some family friends, Denna Barnett, her mom Phylis and brother David also came. Dr. Tom Harte was one of the readers which was cool. He was who read my name when I graduated and he also read Whitney's name. This was also the first time Laurie and I had been to Cape in a long time. Things have changed so much. I sure wish there were that many restaurants when we lived there.

2005-12-18T09:04:00.000-08:00

On Friday we were preparing to depart for St. Louis. Laurie and I were rushing around the house gathering up all the things we needed to take along. Audrey was in the living room(gated in with the baby gate). For the most part she was happily playing and periodically coming to the gate to call out to us. At one point both Laurie and I were in our bedroom getting clothes together to go into the suitcase. I then went into the living room. To my suprise, Audrey was holding one shortbread cookie in each hand, each one had a bite taken out of it. I asked her what she was doing and she looked up at me with this devilish grin. All I could do was laugh and call Laurie into the living room. Laurie and I have taken on the task of making shortbread cookies since the death of my great grandmother. We use her recipe and the cookie cutters she used. Laurie had put the cookies in tins and put them under the tree so we would not forget them on Friday. Crafty Audrey was able to open the tins and managed to pick the two largest shapes, the snowman and the gingerbread man. I guess that's what we get for leaving a child in close proximity to cookies .

2005-12-14T07:43:00.000-08:00

So I have been meaning to post this story since Sunday. At our church they have asked people to bring in photos of babies that are in their lives so children, grandchildren, neices, nephews, etc. After church Laurie was holding Audrey and looking at the pictures when one of the little girls in our church came up to them. Now this little girl is very cute and of course belongs to that perfect family. Her dad was the church council president, her mom the choir director, you get the idea. Anyway, she says to Laurie, "All of these babies are so cute." And Laurie responds, "Yes they are." Then this little girl says,"But you know who the cutest baby is?" And Laurie says, "Who?" And the little girl says, "The baby Jesus." Isn't that about the cutest, sugariest thing you have ever heard!

2005-12-12T13:09:00.000-08:00

Adventurous Weekend
Friday: Laurie went to a Candlelight party hosted by Mardee, our neighbor and the administrative hesitantly in the Residence Life office. She is kind of everybody's surrogate mom here at K-State. Laurie had a great time and I had fun with Audrey.

Saturday: We got up pretty early thanks to our little munchkin. We got around and after lunch went Christmas shopping. We had a great time believe it or not. We went to Target, Wal-Mart, Hobby Lobby, and the mall. Most people were friendly(of course Wal-Mart had the grouchiest shoppers). We then at Old Chicago.

My boss, Derek had an end of the semester gathering at his house for all of the staff. We ate, drank, and played Catchphrase. Audrey played with Garrett, Anna, and Elise. A good time was had by all. So good that Audrey feel asleep on my lap near the end of the evening.

Sunday: I had to be at church early for a meeting so Laurie and Audrey dropped me off. They went grocery shopping in the mean time. The church service was nice. I love the Advent season. Each week at our church a different family is asked to light the candles on the Advent wreath. Plus we sang Joy to the World as the closing hymn which is a great way to end the service.

After church we went to the residence halls and ate in the dining center. It is convenient and free!!! Derek was not using two of his tickets for the women's basketball game so he generously let us use them. We had a great time at the game. Audrey danced to the music and had her first sighting of the K-State mascot Willie the Wildcat. She took a little nap on my lap and then after half time woke up and clapped and cheered the rest of the game. It was so cute she would say, "Go, go go." Last night we watched the Survivor finale and ate homemade pizza (a Sunday night tradition at our house).

All in all a great weekend of family, friends and fun!

2005-12-06T08:01:00.000-08:00

Cook's at Christmas

2005-12-06T08:00:00.000-08:00

Bathtub Pixie

2005-12-05T10:53:00.000-08:00

Well we had a fairly interesting weekend. On Friday we went to dinner with some friends here at K-State, Tanya and Josh Massey. They really are some of our closests friends her and it is possible that they will be leaving at semester rather than at the end of the academic year :( We ate at Famous Dave's a Bar-B-Que place we like! You know there is nothing like good BBQ. We then went to Target which is always fun.

Saturday morning the realtor that sold us our house was sponsoring a free movie so Laurie and I went(even though Laurie was not feeling well). We saw the new "Yours, Mine and Ours." It was okay. There were funny parts, but definately not better than the original. Then we went straight home because Laurie was really sick. Saturday as a result was really low key. I watched the Academy of Country Music's 40th Anniversary special. It prominately featured Reba and Barbara Mandrell, two of my favorites.

Laurie was feeling better on Sunday so we went to church. We then went out to lunch with our friend, Sarah Decke. We had to go to Wal-Mart(Boo) but we needed birdseed for our bird feeders and Laurie had to pick up something that must be for my Christmas or birthday because I couldn't see it. We then went home and began decorating our house for Christmas. We put up the tree and all of our other decorations. So, anyway, a pretty busy weekend.

2005-12-01T11:41:00.000-08:00

The pictures that are now on here are from our trip home. Unfortunately our camera batteries were dead during our time in St. Louis. We did not intentionally leave the Weiss and Stahl families out of the photos.

2005-12-01T11:38:00.001-08:00

Colton, Great Papaw Cook, Audrey and Papaw Cook

2005-12-01T11:38:00.000-08:00

Audrey Colors with Papaw Cook

2005-12-01T11:36:00.000-08:00

Audrey with some Provance cousins and Colton

2005-12-01T11:35:00.000-08:00

Audrey with her Aunt and Uncle

2005-11-30T13:19:00.000-08:00

Laurie, Audrey and I had a great Thanksgiving visit with our families. We spent Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in St. Louis with Laurie's mom, Shirleen and brother, Bill. We had a tastey Thanksgiving dinner at Laurie's grandma's house courtesy of Grandma, Shirleen and Aunt Karen.

Friday morning at 4am, Laurie and I went shopping. This was our first experience with the "Black Friday" shopping. We were cold at times and definately tired once we were done at 10:30, but we had a great time. Our only disappointment was at BestBuy. I was not pleased with their level of respect for the customers who had lined up at 4:30 and earlier for their bargins. However, at Target and Kohl's we had a great experience. We purchased a video camera at Target and can't wait to use it to capture all that Audrey is doing. We also got other bargins.

Saturday we journeyed to good ol' Malden, Mo to spend time with my family. I had some interesting surprises at the Wallace and Owens on Saturday afternoon. If you are curious ask me. We had a great dinner of Mexican Dish(a Provance family specialty) with my mom's family. We also celebrated my mom's birthday that evening, even though her birthday was technically the next day. Sunday, I sang at my parent's church. I had a great time singing. I chose a song that I had sung many times before and was probably one of the first songs I sang as special music growing up. Sunday evening we had a good old Southern meal at my Papaw Cook's house with some of the Cook side of the family. My cousin Amy and her family and my Uncle Jim and Aunt Jamie were there and we had a great time. Monday was a casual day at home with my mom and dad. My sister got to come home early from student teaching. We had homemade chicken strips and such(my favorite meal). Monday night we went over to visit my best friends parents, Robert and Judy. Of course they had fun with Audrey.

All in all we had a very relaxing and fun trip. Audrey had a great time with all her grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. We are looking forward to our visit in the next couple weeks. I hope to post some pictures later this week.

2005-11-30T12:56:00.000-08:00

Applesauce Mohawk

2005-11-30T12:07:00.000-08:00

So Laurie, Audrey and I are venturing into the blogging age. We decided that this might be a great way to keep in touch with family and friends. We are not the best at posting pictures, etc so we are following the leads of our dear friends the Clubbs and giving this a try.