Mom's Day

Andy, L and I drove to U of I for their Mom's Day festivities. E and I attended her sorority brunch at a local hotel restaurant. I had the chicken, which was delicious, and E had the salad.

B went to lunch with Andy and L and we all met up in the afternoon. We went to the flower show and bought some succulents.

We walked to the Quad where a student organization was hosting a fundraiser - give them a dollar and you can pet the service dogs. L petted as many as she could find. The club trains the dogs then matches them with a home.

Andy and his undergrads. We were fortunate ot have such a beautiful day.

Sisterly love. (E let L get a free Frosty from Wendy's with points she earned for attending classes.)

E and I attended her sorority's painting party in the late afternoon. We pretty much followed the instuctor's directions. They turned out OK. E is one of the sorority's officers who helped planned the activity. They were allowed to fill 20 seats and it was full to capacity. I'd say that was a success.

We dropped E off at her apartment and gave her an early birthday gift - a balloon with paint on it (because of the painting party), Snickerdoodles and a Game of Thrones card L found.

Moms Day and she's 21!

Andy and I (we left L and Mayu home) went to U of I today for Moms Weekend (Day for us) and our first stop was E's apartment. She's 21 today! I gave her a little bag with a few adult beverages, an Apple watch band and a microwave cake.

Then we picked up B at his dorm. It's so nice to have them at the same school!

E took us to the sorority's office to pick up our Moms' Day shirts. I got the corsage for free at one of the bookstores.

Andy and B went to walk around and E and I went to a craft show in the Union. I bought this ISU magnet. Probably not a big seller at U of I, lol.

Then we drove out to the school's Japan House. They were hosting tea ceremonies which we didn't stay for. There really wasn't much to see except for these cranes.

These were pretty cool. These bundles of 1,000 itty-bitty cranes are for good luck. I think they were selling them for $40 (I didn't have my glasses on so that could be wrong. On Etsy, I saw one for over $100.) Wish I had a place to hang that. Good luck never hurts.

And this cardinal was right outside Japan House as we started to go through the garden. It's said a cardinal is a visitor from heaven and if that's true, I'm starting to get spooked. I've seen cardinals on Mom's birthday, Dad's birthday and now E's birthday? A little creepy.

For lunch, Andy and B went to a restaurant while E and I attended her sorority's event at a Champaign restaurant. The first thing I noticed when I walked in was a sign that said "Welcome Mom's." The apostrophe was killing me. Are we in a college town, or what? Not a lot of English majors, I suppose. And, of course, I was seated to be looking at it the entire time.

After about an hour we got our food! It was OK. I had the three little pig omelet - ham, bacon and chorizo with cheese. The iced tea was $3 a glass! The one good thing about the incredibly slow and disorganized service was that I was able to have enough refills to get my money's worth.

Our '80s basement

Andy was cleaning up his workroom the other day when he came across these signs that used to hang in Watterson Towers at ISU. Not sure how he ended up with them, I'm sure there's a story there, but he's been hanging onto them for about 30 years now so I decided it would be best to at least hang them up so he can enjoy them ... and remember the good ole college days. He hung these three above his work bench. "Jolt" and "Excalibur" were names of two of the dorm's four elevators. I don't believe they were named when I lived in the dorm the year before Andy did.

And the workroom shall now be known as "Conference Room B" ...

and the laundry room is the area coordinator's office. Just brings a little more ISU to our basement that already has my sorority composite and membership certificate...

... our favorite albums surrounding our ISU flag. Pretty easy to tell which side is Andy's and which is mine ...

... and the framed R.E.M. "Document" poster with the concert ticket of our first date. Awww!

Moms Day shirts

Not that I needed more T-shirts, but I added two to my collection last weekend at U of I. On the right is the Moms Day shirt E got for me from her sorority. On the left is one I saw at the bookstore and bought because I thought the back design was interesting.

I'll try to get over the use of the apostrophe in Mom's since, according to AP style, moms in this use is descriptive and therefore doesn't need any apostrophe, like farmers market and teachers union.

Reunited for formal

E's boyfriend, P, came to visit her from ISU last night. She sent me this photo of them this morning.

He's there for her sorority's formal tonight. They went out Saturday and bought him pants, a shirt and tie. Looks like he's all set. E ordered her dress online. Even though she won't look at lace when she's shopping with me, it appears to be an all-lace dress. Hmmm. These are the pictures she sent when I asked her to send a full-length picture so I could see the dress:

The funniest part of this picture is the girl behind her. Not sure what's going on there.

Doughnut day

Here were the supplies for Andy's annual frosting making for the church's doughnuts. This year he did the chocolate and a new, cinnamon frosting. He wasn't too happy with the chocolate frosting this year. He said it was too thin and I thought it was a little bitter.

They look pretty, though, and they were selling fast.

Here's the homecoming float E helped her sorority build. She rode the float in the parade last night and said the plan was to set the Minnesota gopher on fire. I thought that sounded a bit dangerous, even for college kids, to set something ablaze in a parade. Later she clarified that the torching of the gopher was to happen after the parade. She didn't stick around to see whether that actually happened.

E bakes a cake

E sent this photo today of a cake she baked for her sorority's "day away" event this weekend. When we were visiting her, we bought her cake pans, potholders and a very flimsy cake holder.

Semi-formal

Woke up this morning to find this pic on my iPad. It's E and her friend, N, at E's sorority's semi-formal dance last night. The boyfriend couldn't make it down this weekend, so she took her friend, N, from high school. The girls are planning to room together next year in an apartment with E's current roommate and a boy they know from high school.

Road trip!

E joined her sorority for a sisterhood activity of hiking through a state park in Indiana. The park is about 70 miles east of Urbana. These are some pictures one of the girls posted on Facebook. It looks like a pretty place to enjoy a fall day. And, of course, nice to see E wearing the shirt we made this summer.

Turkey tacos Illini style

E met up with her sorority at the campus recreation center tonight where they participated in a cooking class. She this picture of turkey tacos they made. They also made a creamy chicken broccoli pasta, which E thought had too much pepper in it.

New letters

I ordered these letters off of ebay for E at least a month ago. We eventually found a T-shirt she liked and were ready to iron them on, but then I couldn't find the iron. I know it's here somewhere. Anyway, we bought a new, cheap iron and I was finally able to iron on the letters. Turned out pretty good!

And her pin

I've been asking E for months to send me a pic of her sorority pin. I'm saving the pictures she's sending from college and will eventually put them in her scrapbook, but if she doesn't send any pictures, she's going to have a sad-looking scrapbook. But finally, here it is:

Not as blingy as mine is:

Where's E?

This was the spring 2016 initiation picture posted on Facebook by E's sorority. Can you find her? She's in a blue dress and she's in the Epsilon.

First formal

E's BF, P, made it to U of I this weekend for last night's sorority formal. She said they had fun.

Goofy kids.

Early b-day present

I saw this on etsy and had to get it for E's birthday. I didn't want her to have to wait till April to get it when she could use the keychain for the entire semester, so I gave it to her early. Too cute that it includes the sorority's dolphin mascot. She hung it on her ID lanyard.

E's paddle

E got this before she came home for winter break - her first sorority paddle. This one is from her "big sis."

Pledge class

This picture of E's pledge class was posted on Facebook. Can you find her? She's toward the left.

Homecoming

E was in the U of I Homecoming Parade last night. She rode on this float her sorority and brother engineering fraternity, Sigma Phi Delta, created. The school is playing Wisconsin today in the Homecoming Game so that's Bucky the Badger hanging from the crane. At some point in the parade, E said the badger fell and the float ran over it. At first, she said, they all screamed, but then the crowd started cheering as if that was suppose to happen so they all went along with it.

E's sorority with the float after the parade. Note the missing Bucky.

Here's the float with Bucky intact.

Here is E and some of her sorority sisters posing with a Chief Illiniwek.