through the years...

So there's not much new going on here (because there is so much school work to be done) but I thought I would procrastinate and share some pictures of us through the nearly 6 years we've known each other.

The biggest changes seem to be in our tans....

crosstown showdown

Michigan State's baseball team played the local minor league team the Lansing Lugnuts (go nuts!!) in the crosstown showdown. This is apparently the third year in a row that they've had the game and the Lugnuts won the last two but MSU won 12-2!

It was a fun game and there were a TON of people. Luckily, it was a really nice day and it was Thursday so the 'Thirsty Thursday' $2 beers were quite popular!

They even found a way to get coach Izzo involved... he got a standing ovation at the game as he was announced as being the 1st base coach during the 3rd inning...


We had really good seats too! We were right behind third base and only 3 rows up! Unfortunately there were a lot of lefties who sprayed foul balls our direction but, don't worry, we escaped without losing any of our teeth!


This picture is Big Lug, the Lugnut mascot. We're not really sure what he is- it's like a purple and green spotted dinosaur walrus thing...

Most people had left by the bottom of the 9th inning when we took this picture but it's a pretty nice field!

Happy Easter!!

Happy Easter everyone! Holidays remind us how much we want to eventually make it back close to family; they just aren't as exciting alone! Nobody was here to hide Easter eggs for me!
Today has been pretty slow... Mikel is at work and I'm at home cleaning and getting motivated to do homework. Mikel has been getting progressively more hours from work so that's been nice for us.

As for school, I only have three more weeks of this semester left! Yea!! It's always nice at the semester for classes to end so I can start looking forward to something new; by the end of the semester, I'm usually ready for change! Now I just have about 3 papers to write and 1 exam left before I can move on from this semester.

Mikel had more excitement in his basketball class last week than he would have liked... a student compound fractured his ankle! Ew ew ew!!! It's a good thing it was not in my class! Mikel handled it really well, of course, and luckily the student wasn't too freaked out about the whole situation.

We are excited for the weather to start getting warmer around here so we can spend more time enjoying the outside! Can't wait for summer!!

we're in the finals!!

Mikel and I decided this was probably something we'd never seen again...

MSU pulled off another upset and beat UConn in the Final Four in Detroit to advance to the National Championship game on Monday. Unfortunately, Mikel had to work but they were all listening to the game on the radio and he was able to wander through the electronic section every once in a while to sneak a peak.

I watched the game at home but as soon as MSU was shooting their last free throws, I grabbed our camera, hopped in my car, and drove downtown East Lansing. I had a feeling it was going to be pretty wild so I wanted to soak it all in (from the inside of my car). I figured it would be much more exciting seeing it in person rather than on the news! I had a hard time taking pictures with how dark it was but I got a couple shots (although it still doesn't do justice to the madness)!There were thousands of people running down the streets yelling and screaming, doing MSU cheers, and hugging and high-fiving random people. I actually paid 60 cents to park in a public lot just so I could get out of the car and take some pictures and video. While I was on the sidewalk for less than 2 minutes, I got a couple of high fives from random people and one almost hug.
There were probably 20,000 people on the streets of East Lansing celebrating the victory along with A LOT of police in cars, on street corners and on horseback. Police were even handing out high fives!

There was one last place we had to check out after Mikel got off work at that was Cedar Village. That is a student housing community area that has a TON of houses and apartments crammed in a very small area. This is where 'Cedar Fest' has happened and it apparently gets pretty wild. Here's an article about the "peaceful celebration".
Here's just a short video we shot from the end of the street. I tried to zoom in at the end to show all the people but it got pretty blurry....

The national championship game is Monday night so I can only imagine how productive Tuesday morning classes are going to be!!

GO GREEN GO WHITE!!

This is the picture from the MSU athletic department website of MSU's open practice in Detroit. There were 30,000 people there to watch a 50 minute practice!!! That's so cool! They are opening up the Breslin Center tonight so people can go in and watch the game- it would be fun to go but Mikel has to work so I'm not going to go by myself. I will have my camera ready in case things get exciting around here!

Other than that, we only have 4 weeks of school left! It's technically 4 weeks and then finals week but my finals week will be over on Monday so my semester is over on May 4th. I'm enjoying this semester for the most part but by the end of the semester, I'm always ready for something new.

This summer is looking pretty busy. Mikel will continue working at Sears and looking for openings in the athletic department; we're hoping for some turnover! I get to teach one class, Healthy Lifestyles, for the first 7 weeks from May 18th- July 2nd. I also was awarded a research development fellowship to work on a research project which will be an awesome opportunity! I originally heard that I did not get it but all the sudden last week, my advisor got a phone call and they wanted to offer me one. I'm not sure if someone didn't qualify or backed out-- either way, it works out for me!!
After that, I've got some volleyball camps to coach and it will be fun to get back into the gym! It also looks like Mikel will be able to make a trip to Idaho while I'm there. We found such cheap flights so we had to do it!

Things are busy but good around here!!