The Return

I think the graduation party was a success. We had a TON of food and a TON of leftovers.  I was surprised at how many of my sister's friends that I knew and was pleased to meet some of their parents for the first time.  People brought their grandparents, their aunts, their twin babies, their kids and it was a regular jolly holly reunion. I brought a vase of fresh stems from the Farmer's Market, where I visited with Tammy. Tammy treated us to lunch at Dos Rios and I had to bite my tongue to not give some practical business advice to a lady selling beautiful appliqued shirts. I just wanted to tell her to put it on the back of the tshirt and put it on some v-necks. Anyway, I digress. The point of this paragraph is......?

My sister got a scholarship to ISU for the fall and had her scholarship essay on display.  8 semesters of tuition scholarship as long as she maintains a normal GPA.  So far, it sounds like the cheerleading squad in Cyclone world is going to take over most of her life. Practice goes from 430-1030PM each day. That doesn't seem realistic, but she said it has built-in study time into it.  We've already planned our ISU game visits for the season so we can watch her on the field. That part seems unreal, but I'm going to love being back at Jack-Trice for some more games this fall.

Jade has changed a lot in the last 6 months. I can really see a drastic maturity level switch for her, which is lucky. It took me a lot longer to reach her level of maturity. She's really quite lucky to have found the zen place for herself at this age.  My brother has joined the airforce and will be an enlisted member later this winter! We can barely believe the changes in life, but it's really mostly relieving to see all of these positive changes for everyone this fall.

The house in Ankeny is on the market and we are still house hunting up here. Holy hell, 4000 property taxes are unreal. Just paid our KC taxes for $1402.00. Though I knew KC was an anomaly, it's going to be weird to make our escrow payments on a new mortgage.