Quick Trip to Minneapolis

This past weekend I took a very quick trip to the beautiful city of Minneapolis to visit a great friend from college who is currently 33 weeks pregnant with her second child and on strict bed rest. On top of that, her mother was just recently diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia. Needless to say Jeanine was in serious need of some distractions, so my college roommate, Adrienne (another great friend!) and I decided to fly in from opposite ends of North America to pay her and her family a visit. The weekend was full of laying around, eating and drinking wine (for Ade and me at least) while Jeanine's husband Mike basically waited on us hand and foot. All three of us girls and Mike swam together at KU, so we always have fun talking about the 'good old days' in Kansas. It was wonderful to get caught up, at least a little, with some very good friends. Anyhow, the weekend went by way too fast and we look forward to getting everybody together again, under happier circumstances, soon! Here are a couple of pics - the first one is from this weekend (Ade, Jeanine and me with Jeanine and Mike's son Nolan -- the squirmy, but darling, 3 year old!) and the second one is from a swim meet (I think Big 8's) our Freshman year! Can you pick us out???
Meanwhile, Tom and Marin were kept company by Aunt Sara who came to the big city of Meridian for the weekend with her two little dogs, Tina and Pele. They had a great weekend too!
This week the swim team started the "Summer Schedule" which means we are now swimming every morning at 6am at the outdoor 50 meter pool here in town. The 5:30am get-up routine is a hard adjustment, but I do really enjoy coaching in the morning as the sun comes up. If we could just get the schedulers at the squadron to stop scheduling Tom for early morning flights so that he can be at home with Marin in the morning, that would be great. Yesterday, just to prove a point, Tom brought Marin to work with him while I was coaching. She got to help him do some waving in the shack (you'll have to ask Tom to explain this) where she learned how to say "Roger Ball" and then she assisted him in giving a brief that he had to do for a later flight. Don't worry, I picked her up before the flight took off, but nonetheless, I think she had a lot more fun going to work with Daddy then she has had in the past when I've taken her to the pool with me. Future pilot, perhaps? Gosh, I hope not --- I've done enough worrying about pilots in my lifetime!!
Next up, my mom and sister arrive tomorrow! They will be here for a week! Cath and I are taking a quick road trip to Atlanta on Friday to see her favorite band, No Doubt, play and then we plan to tour the CNN headquarters on Saturday. I don't think too many people would pair those two things together ;)
We're really looking forward to having them here!!