Chad and Anna

Today was Chad's wedding.  We all went to the wedding chapel (well, one of the wedding chapels) in Mandalay Bay.  The ceremony was short but nice.  Chad looked smooth in his tux and Anna was beautiful in her dress.  After the ceremony we went back to their suite for the reception.  Anna is Mexican, and while she speaks English just fine, some of her family doesn't, so the speeches were translated into Spanish, which was fun.  The only formal pictures were of the family right after the ceremony, so I wanted to make sure we got a picture of our group of guys.  From left to right are Brett, Deyrle, Jason, Chad, me, Mike, and Nick. 

An Open House and a House Full of Friends

As an Olathe resident and a graduate and fan of K-State, I'm excited that we have a K-State campus here in Olathe. Today was the big Open House at the main campus in Manhattan, but it was also the Open House for the campus here. Meghan and I enjoyed attending the Manhattan one a couple times back before we had kids, so we thought it would be fun to go as a family to our local one.  Joshua liked pointing out the multiple instances of "K-State" that he saw.  Hannah stayed in the stroller, but Clara and Joshua walked around, often hand-in-hand to explore the various exhibits.  I participated in one where you try to drop an Oreo from your forehead into your mouth.  I failed.  But it was fun, and we will probably try to go again next year.

In the evening our friends the Bartons came over for dinner.  Joshua and Macyn had a good time playing together.  I wasn't sure how it would be for Joshua since he doesn't have a whole lot of socialization and is often quiet around people he doesn't know well (although they've actually seen each other quite a few different times, four of which are documented in this blog), but they played really well together.  Nick spent some time helping Hannah to be fascinated by her own feet (she seemed amazed, really).  And we had a great meal that Meghan made for us.  It was a really fun night.

Not a Fun Fiesta

K-State's football team started the season with very little expectations as they were projected to finish in the middle of the Big 12.  After some big wins early in the season, it became clear that they were a very good team, and they continued to climb the national rankings.  After beating Geno Smith and West Virginia, Collin Klein became the Heisman frontrunner, and after we beat TCU, we were #1 in the country.  We were two wins away from playing for the national championship, which would have been the greatest sporting moment of my life, before a crushing loss at Baylor ruined it all.  Still, we had a chance to win the Big 12, and we beat Texas to do that.  That's certainly a good result to a season, especially one with such low expectations to start, but after being so close to a chance to play for the title, it felt like a disappointment.  So tonight was our last game of the season, the Fiesta Bowl against Oregon, which I watched with the three Barton brothers at Nick's house.  The Ducks won, but it didn't really matter at that point.  We won the Big 12 but not the national championship, and none of that changed from this game.  Still, it was a great season for Bill Snyder, Klein, John Hubert, Chris Harper, Arthur Brown, and the boys.