'Tis the season

To graduate. We can't wait to make it official, and to have our families here to witness it! Here's our whirlwind weekend schedule:

Friday, May 9th:
morning:
-pick up fruit arrangement for Saturday's party
afternoon:
-my parents arrive from Portland
-commencement rehearsal
-go pick up cake for Saturday's party
night:
-dinner with my parents

Saturday, May 10th:
morning:
-get ready to have 20ish people over
afternoon:
-Dan's family arrives from MN
-grad party with great friends and their families
-education department reception
-all school social
night:
-Dan's brother gets here from college on the East coast
-dinner with Dan's family

Sunday, May 11th:
morning:
-baccalaureate service bright and early
afternoon:
-graduate.
-take a lot of pictures with fellow graduates
-cry and say goodbyes
night:
-sit around and note the fact that we are college graduates

This should be fun!

Apparently, I Like to Make Stuff

In my mind, this semester ended a couple of weeks ago. I really haven't had much of anything to do that was school related for about 18 days. So, I've been trying to find things to do. I've written thank you cards to a couple of professors who played significant roles in my experience at Wheaton. I started a list of things to do before we move from here. I even copied down my recipes from their scraps of paper into my official recipe book (thanks Janell!).

One stroke of genius came to me in me in a session of my English Lit. class. The final for that class consists of several "reflections" on various readings from throughout the semester, in the form of journals, paintings, poems etc. I decided to make a quilt. You heard me, a quilt. No, I've never made one before, but I've always wanted to, so when the opportunity presented itself, I was all over it. Each quilt square some how represented a piece we've read. The finished product... ta da!

But I finished that quilt like 3 days after I started it - like I said, nothing else to do - so, on Saturday, my good friend Meg and I spent 13 straight hours scrapbooking.

You can spend 13 hours straight doing that, you say? Why, yes, you can. Scapbooking stores have these work rooms, usually toward the back of the store, where all sorts of folks spend time "cropping" as it's affectionately titled. This particular store stays open until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays for crazy scrapbookers like Meg and myself. You heard it here first: I am nothing if not a scrapbooking addict, and I was determined to finish our honeymoon album before our first anniversary. Here's a sample of the fruits of our scraping marathon.


Having finished my quilt and accomplished this scrapbooking feat, it seemed that desperate times were calling for proverbial desperate measures: gardening.

Seeing as how we live in a rented space - for only 3 more weeks, planting flowers (which cost money) into the ground would be awfully silly. So, we got a hanging planter and filled it with all sorts of beautiful spring flowers. The original idea was that Dan was going to get me a bouquet of flowers for our anniversary, but while at the flower shop he saw some potted flowers that he thought I might like, which quickly snowballed into an evening of horticulture. It was awesome, but I also felt a little young to be in the yard with dirty hands, a bag of potting soil, and a trowel.

I have absolutely reveled in the free time I've had to explore my crafty side; even more than that, I've enjoyed the crafting itself. However, part of me is starting to getting concerned. Am I turning into one of those nerdy craft women that stencils green ivy above the doorways in her house and sponge paints her furniture? Am I destined to decoupage side tables and cross-stitch Christmas stockings? That seems to be the road I am headed down. I guess, so long as I stop short of faux-finishing the walls in my bathroom, I'm ok with all this new-found craftyness.

Tulips and Tanks

366 days ago (thanks, leap year) Daniel Hoyt Olfelt and I officially started our new life together. Since that day we have been working to find things we both equally enjoy: movies, meals, TV shows, activities, dates, restaurants...

Yesterday, as we were celebrating our first anniversary, I think we finally found that illusive equally enjoyable date activity. Enter: Cantigny Park. It is the estate of the former Col. Robert R. McCormick, a very rich man who was once the publisher of the Chicago Tribune. This is what it looks like walking onto the property on a beautiful spring day:


From the parking lot you see blooming trees, ponds, fountains, bridges and garden areas to tour. I was ecstatic to spend a day exploring the sprawling gardens of colorful flowers with my husband. Then we turned the corner, and took in this sight:


That's right, hidden among the formal and rose gardens is the "tank park" full of at least a dozen assorted artillery tanks, complete with plaques describing the types of war-fare they were used for. Those two relate, right? Army vehicles and well manicured gardens? The real question is, would Dan be able to resist climbing these once-used army tanks, even in his church clothes?


Of course not. What you can't see in this picture is that he wasn't the only little boy climbing this tank.

Somehow, I too got sucked into the action, also mindless of my church apparel. Check out the shadow; my feet are so way off the ground :).


After making our very acrobatic way through the Col.'s tank park, we found ourselves in the incredibly beautiful tulip garden, probably my favorite part.


And let's not forget the quintessential Dan-extends-his-arm-and-takes-a-picture-of-the-two-of-us picture.


The moral of the story is: whoever came up with the idea of mixing army tanks with tulip gardens is a brilliant, brilliant person. Normally, Dan would have obliged but only been moderately excited about wandering the grounds of a billion dollar estate, but throw in some interactive tanks and he is a happy man. Place me in the middle of an army-themed park and I may play along for a while, but sprinkle it with ranunculus (pretty flowers), water features and walking paths and I'm just giddy. So here's to you, super creative park designer person!

Dan Dan the Professional Man

My laundry doin', furniture makin', computer fixin', sci-fi lovin' husband has a real world post-college job! I couldn't be prouder! The only problem comes when people ask me what his job is. I get that same look on my face that I used to have when people asked me growing up what my dad did... "uh, something with computers I guess." Eventually I got really good at using terms like I knew what that meant, "oh, he's a sql server database architect", but if asked to clarify, I had to disclose my ignorance" I think it's like... computer stuff."

So, here I am at the next stage in life, answering that question with the same level of naiveté. "Dan got a job? That's great! What's he going to be doing?"

Here is what I do know: He will be working for a company called eCreative Works in Plymoth, MN (about 40 minutes from where we hope to live). His job title is Web Developer, and the offer included health and dental (thank GOODNESS!). That's all I got folks.

This lack of understanding of his professional job has not hampered my enthusiasm about getting him a professional wardrobe, however. Last weekend, while out shopping for graduation outfits for us both, I came across a bargain basement "Marshall's" type place that carries only men's dress apparel. You wouldn't think I would be all that excited about this, but oh, I was. I got 4 (good-lookin') shirts and 2 (very stylish) ties for Dan - each item was $10 or LESS! If I'm not careful, I'll spend his whole signing bonus before he gets it...

Just for fun, here are some pictures from the end of the year dinner we went to last night. This was with the Breakaway Ministry cabinet that I was on this year, planning short-term spring break mission trips for >150 Wheaton students.

The ministry cabinet, also known as a few of my favorite Wheaton people.

Dan, the ministry's honorary member/tech support also made an appearance at the dinner. "Wow! What a professional looking shirt!" you might say.

(Apologies for the wacked-out color on these; we just got a new digital SLR, and sometimes we forget to change the shutter speed when we go outside. This equals over-exposure.)