just one more picture...

A night on the town

I went to a concert the other night at the Pageant with some girls. I couldn't believe I had never been there before - it's a really great venue. Anyway, we saw Sarah Bareilles, with Mark Broussard and Raining Jane. They were all really really good. I have to say, though, that I HIGHLY recommend listening to that group Raining Jane. They were incredible and really really fun to watch. We'll have to check them out on i-Tunes or something.

Me and my wonderful friend Sam at el concierto. I love this girl.

With the parents in town

My parents were in town this past weekend! We did lots of fun & FREE St. Louisy things and went to lots of great restaurants and my mom made pie. All in all it was a wonderful weekend! I won't bore you with descriptions; I'll just cut straight to the pictures.

We started out with a trip to the seminary to see the new campus. I don't know why I like this picture of me and schub... both caught a little off guard :-)

The we went to the Basillica Cathedral. It is BEAUTIFUL and has the largest collection of mosaic tyle in the country (I think that's right). My pictures of inside weren't very good, so you'll just have to imagine what it looked like inside based on what you see outside. except that doesn't really do it justice either. it's really quite incredible.

Then we headed to the art museum. Dad wanted to see the Pollack (?) exhibit. It was pretty good. Here's mom taking pictures. She can't help herself.

On Saturday we made it to the botanical gardens. We could not have picked a better day. It was chilly, but gorgeous! Here's mom and jason in front of one of the Niki displays (the current featured artist in the gardens).

More Niki. She was unique... to say the least. I only took pictures of her tamer things.

Me and mom in front of some of the Chihuli blown glass.

I'm sure this is called "Boy with Flute" or something, but Jason called it "Larry Goodman." ha.

Schub and Chihuli.

My cute parents.

I was enamored by these fish for some reason. They are so used to being fed that they just open their huge mouths when people walk by. It was hilarious. Therefore I'm posting their picture.

Strolling through the gardens...


Little mom in the maze....

Schub celebrating his defeat of the maze.

We had such a great time! Thanks so much for coming!

E Doty's wedding

So my boss got married on Saturday. I know I talked up the Bon Jovi medley dance that her whole wedding party was supposed to do, but it didn't end up working out. So sorry to disappoint. But the wedding was still great! The ceremony was really nice, the band was great and lots of people danced, including almost all of my directors, which was really fun to see. I didn't get too many good pictures. The one that turned out the best was the one of their dog, who is the most laid back dog I have ever met in my entire life. He sat outside the church in this outfit during the ceremony, and then was at the end of the receiving line. He let like 150 walk by and talk to him and pet him and just laid their the whole time with no leash on. amazing.

Rowdy, the Amazing (not-so-rowdy) Dog.

Mr. and Mrs. Toohey entering the reception

Happy Erin

Super Happy Ross

The bling bling cake

Ross playing a song for Erin on his wedding gift from her, a limited edition Les Paul Gibson electic guitar. what rock stars.

The potted orchid centerpieces (we got to take one home... who wants to take bets on how long it will actually live?)

us.

And Newt said...

"Thank you LINDSEY." That's right. I met Newt Gingrich last week. I keep telling everyone about it because I think it was a pretty big deal. Of course, I didn't realize it was a really big deal until I looked him up on Wikipedia, but does that really matter? The point is that he shook my hand and thanked me personally, with my name at the end of his sentence. And he doesn't look nearly as mousey as he does in that wikipedia picture.

One of our alums works for The Gingrich Group, one of Newt's (we're obviously on a first name basis) healthcare transformation organizations. He was going to be in town with a free afternoon, so we arranged for him to come and talk to a group of our alumni. It was all on short notice, but it was free and it was a great talk and we had about 80 people come. I obviously knew very little about him and politics and his place in history, but he's a very interesting guy and a great presenter. He apparently has his PhD in history and taught at the University West Georgia for a while, so he was very comfortable in the classroom, used the chalkboard, made lots of jokes, etc.

I know he's controversial and stuff and has caused some dissention in Washington in the past... and I don't know enough to feel really passionately about who he is and what he's done, but I can't argue that he was really engaging and has a lot of fascinating things to say about healthcare and the state of our country. I won't tell you all about what he said here, but it was really interesting. If you ask me about it I'll be happy to share what I remember.

Christmas in October... and November... and December

I thought everyone outside of St. Louis would be interested to know, and probably very jealous, that one of our radio stations has started playing 24-hour Christmas music. That's right. Starting October 10th at 12am, Movin 101.1 began playing non-stop Christmas music, and it will continue until January 1, 2009, when it then turns in to an ESPN radio station. I think it's safe to say I will be changing preset #3 in my car.

Here's to you, Nona.

When people ask me what the most "interesting" (as my mom would say) Christmas gift is that I've ever gotten, the gloves that my Nona got me and my two sisters this past year definitely makes the top 3 or so.

These blue gloves are uniquely designed with chunks of rough rubber glued to the palms for the sole purpose of peeling potatoes. Nona's purchase-on-a-whim due to a persuasive infomercial.

Jason's first use of these gloves was a few months ago before we had actually tested out their potato peeling ability. Jason had been hiding the gloves (or at least one) under his side of the bed for weeks, just waiting for the perfect moment. And one night I said the words. I said "Jason, will you rub my back?" And did he ever. I turned my back to him, completely unknowingly, and it suddently felt like Jason had grown 1000 rough, jagged fingernails all over his hands... and it scared the mess out of me. He, of course thought it was hysterical and decided that the gloves worked quite well.

Last night was our first time actually using them to peel potatos. Not quite as funny, but it worked okay nonetheless. Here is Jason in action.

What an interesting way to peel potatos. I'll have to call Nona and tell her how they worked.

reunions

So this is less than exciting for most people, and my photography skills are really coming out here in the dark room and people with red eyes. I just thought i'd post a few pics of our big Saturday night Gala during reunion weekend. It was just crazy this year. seriously... TONS of walkins. apparently people have been told after they graduate from business school that RSVPing is only optional and they will be accomodated for at any occasion if they just show up on a whim.

Anyway, the Gala was at the zoo. It was really really nice (once we found everyone a seat). The food was good and the band was good. I didn't have time to take any other pictures over the weekend, but the other events including a networking luncheon, classes by business professors, a cocktail reception, a picnic with the Dean, a tour of Busch Stadium, and a tour of the Fox Theater... along with a few other things. It's a very full weekend and I'm glad it's D-O-N-E!!!

Two of my directors, Sandy and Nancy.

My newest coworkers, Dolly & Shannon.

The band. It was a steel drum band. I highly recommend them if anyone is looking for a steel drum band in St. Louis.

Debate Days

Probably everyone knows by now that the Vice Presidential debates were held at Wash U last week. By the way, I work there. And by the way, I work for possibly the biggest "event planning" type of office on campus. Alumni and Development (my department) is constantly doing events and programming for alumni, and always does them professionally, expensively, and well overall because... well, we are the development office. The more we dish out for our alums, the more (*fingers crossed!!*) they will dish out for us (no sarcasm here...). So anyway, we are always called on to do big events like, oh, presidential debates and stuff. So there was tons of excitement on campus the days leading up to the event, but I'm convinced that our office was particularly crazy. I mean, I know that a lot of other offices were encouraged to leave by 3 or 4 p.m. to avoid the traffic and craziness, while our office was still recruiting volunteers on Thursday morning.



So, you ask, did I get to go to the debates?!? No. I didn't even volunteer. I didn't even want to. I mean, I kind of wanted to. I know I probably just missed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, BUT 1. I had the Graduate Reunion weekend beginning the next day, which is basically my whole purpose in life at Wash U which comes to fruition the first weekend in October every year. 2. Jason was leaving to go out of town the following morning and I just didn't want to be out of the house all night right before he was leaving. 3. They were looking for volunteers to stand in the parking lot and direct traffic, not escort Obama around or anything glamorous. So I don't really feel like I missed out on much.



Nevertheless, it was an exciting day on campus. And although I was crazy busy and had reunions coming out of my ears, I took 15 or 20 minutes to walk around campus and just experience what was going on. It was exciting indeed!

My walk to work in the morning.

Helicopters flying in the sky. kind of crazy.

The football field transformed into a satellite field... plus tons of cops, obviously.

The NBC truck.

I think this was where Fox News was broadcasting from (hence the mccain/palin signs).

Where CNN was broadcasting from... many many more obama/biden signs. They even had an "Express Yourself" booth where students could make signs and pins and stuff. I saw one pin that said "I'm Anti ______" and you could write whatever you wanted in the blank. That was quite interesting.

My favorite sign of the day.... oh so proud to be from the south.

And look who stopped by the office! McCain, Obama, and Biden were wondering around somewhere too :-)