Engaged and Graduated

Emily and I both want to thank everyone for coming to the party, the turnout was great. We really do appreciate all the love and support that we get from our friends and family. A special thank you to my Mom who headed up the decorating committee! Also, a big thank you to Fleetwood who made sure that none of us would have to be “that guy.” Fleetwood came into St. Louis from Springfield around 7:30 for the party and by 9:30 he was puking into a bucket at the bar and one his way home for the night. He decided to do as many shots as possible in as short of a time span he could. Needless to say, I don’t think he really remembers much of his trip to St. Louis, but hey..it was great to see him!
For anyone who was wondering, the band was Contagious, who I would venture to say that they are the best cover band I have ever heard.

After months of anticipation, the big night finally was upon us. I really enjoy planning events like this, and every since I left college I have not had the opportunity to plan many events, so I was pretty excited about it. Emily worked her ass off for her Master’s and getting a 4.0 while working a full time job is an awesome achievement and I wanted to make sure that she didn’t have to worry about a thing and that the party was awesome.
Emily graduated Friday the 16th in one of the more boring graduations I have ever attended. Luckily, when Emily walked across stage, she just kept on walking to the parking lot, so we got to leave after an hour and a half. They had only made it ¼ of the way through the hundreds of names, so I have feeling we would have been there for another hour or so had Emily wanted to stay. The speaker was one of the worst speakers I have ever heard. I keep thinking, “Bueller…Bueller…Bueller.” And to top this off, he was drowning on and on about a topic that I didn’t even care about. I can handle a bad speaker talking about something that I care about, or a bad topic with a great speaker. But a bad speaker plus a bad topic equals Josh wanting to shoot himself in the head.
We had friends coming in town Friday night so we could golf early Saturday morning and the girls had a day planned to go shopping, getting a pedicure and manicure and lunch.
Getting up at 7:15 kind of shocked the body, but a few cups of coffee got the whole body kick started. We had a great time golfing and I believe I have given Ben a new addiction.
The party was a ton of fun and Contagious really made the party. I did learn that the five hour energy drink, does not set well with my body. Ben was pushing these drinks like hotcakes, and after a few hours I decided to have one. After getting up so early and spending all day in the sun, by 7:00 I was a little worn out. Within 30 minutes of drinking this stupid drink my mind was going a million miles a second and my stomach felt miserable. I started to get real pale and sick. So, at 9:00 p.m. and only 6 beers, I am in the bathroom at Game Day puking: Quite the start to the night. Once I got that crap out of my system, I was ready to rock. The beers started to go down like water and the shots were flying around like crazy: hey, who I am to say no to a shot. Emily was quite the trooper. She is normally a 3 beer queer, but she was drinking all night and taking shots with the best of them. She did however puke behind the bar around 11:30, and then kept right on drinking. Hey, it was her night!
Sunday found us sleeping in until 12:30 and trying to be as lazy as possible. We had a house full of people, so we had to clean and I had to get the yard mowed, so something had to be accomplished, but let it be known, we did not like doing any of it.

Orlando
I did get Emily a trip to Orlando for graduation. Our good friends Bear and Amy have a time share and they are going to Orlando as well and we are going to stay with them. A big thank you to them for letting us stay with them for free. We got cheap plane tickets and a free place to stay, can’t pass that up. We are leaving July 28th, which means I will miss Norah’s 2nd birthday.  I really hope it doesn’t traumatize her for life that her favorite person in the whole world is missing her 2nd birthday.

This is where we are staying.

Notable gifts. Gifts were not expected at all, and anything that we received was very much appreciated.
Emily received:
An IPOD shuffle, head phones and an arm holder for the shuffle
A gift certificate to a spa
A trip to Orlando, FL We received some gift cards to Bed Bath & Beyond which will be put to great use, a gift certificate for couple’s spa, 3 bottles of wine and candle and candle holder. I believe this covers the gifts, sorry if I left someone’s gift out.
Once again, thank you to everyone for the gifts and for coming to the party! Another blog to follow early this week.