Noel in the L.A. Times

Noel was studying in the library last week when a reporter from the L.A. Times came up to him and interviewed him for a story he was doing on the new library. He ended up starting his article with Noel's name. Check it out.

Congratulations, Dad!

I'm so proud of my dad. He just finished the Traverse City Bayshore Marathon and ran his best time ever! His goal was to qualify for the Boston Marathon next April and he succeeded! Way to go, Dad! I'm not sure we'll make it to Boston to cheer you on, but we'll definitely be there in spirit.

Coordinating Communities

Noel and I have served as Community Coordinators of our apartment building for the past 2 years. It has been such a fun job for us, challenging at times, but rewarding. We have to reapply each year and we just found out that we've been rehired for another year. Yippee! We are so excited. This coming year will look quite different than the past 2 though. We will be overseeing not only our apartment building of 12 uints, but also the neighboring building of 20 units. Yikes! We're not exactly sure how it's all going to work yet, but are excited for a new challenge.
Also, we just found out that our good friends, Tony and Christen, have been hired as the community coordinators of their apartment! Yay!!!!! We are thrilled, not only since we know they will be AWESOME, but also because they live on our street! This means they're on our team and we'll get to go to all the same meetings. It will be fun to work with such awesome people who are so dedicated to creating community. Congrats, Tony and Christen! You two are going to do an incredible job!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to our moms, grandmas, sisters, and friends who work so hard at raising their children! You should be honored every day, not just on Mother's Day, and we hope all of you had days where you felt valued and cherished.

Now let me tell you about the wonderful Mother's Day I had! Although I am not a mom (or a mom to be), Noel wanted to honor me for being a "mother" to so many people at Fuller. I believe our job as Community Coordinators has brought out a bit of a maternal instinct in me, as I love caring for our neighbors (especially the single folks with no family around), preparing meals for them, and spending time with them. It's definitely a fun, rewarding, yet challenging job.

In honor of that, Noel surprised me with breakfast in bed. He gave me a menu with 4 items to choose from and I chose waffles. They were delicious (I told him no more excuses about not knowing how to cook!). He also bought me a new 3 wood to complete my golf club set. I did not move my clubs out here when we came to CA, but decided last fall that it would be fun to have them. My dad shipped them to me, but my 3 wood was missing. It's my favorite club (I use it instead of a driver) and I have not been able to play yet since I refuse to play without it. No one seems to know where it disappeared to. Anyway, I now have what appears to be an incredibly nice, brand new 3 wood and may even hit the course one of these days.

I really had a great day and am so thankful for Noel's thoughtfulness.