Nurse Sara

Last Thursday I had the distinct pleasure to attend my sister Sara's graduation from nursing school.  It was held in Elmira, so I took the day off and Owen and I made the drive back home to go.  Dennis had to work and miss out on the festivities. 
We secretly decorated the house while Sara was rehearsing as a surprise.

As we started driving to the ceremony, Natalie and I noticed an ominous sight...

Add a tornado warning to the fun for the night.  We didn't actually get one where we were, but we were quite worried during the ceremony as the lights kept flickering.

This was when Sara spotted all of us

I think this group was the worst behaved in the whole room.  The worst was my mother, who couldn't stop giggling at various things throughout the ceremony.  That's a story for another day...but she was keeping us entertained.

Sara going up to get pinned

woo hoo!  All graduated!




We all got our photo ops with the new grad then headed out in the massive storm.

We got back to Mom and Dad's and cracked open the champagne to celebrate.

Of course we had a cookie cake as well...Sara's favorite!

We are all very proud of Sara graduating from college.  She worked very hard and will now be able to start an exciting new career that I'm sure she will succeed at.  Great job Sara!

goo goos and choo choos

On Saturday we got in the car and took a little trip to Rochester.  There were two objectives for the trip: see new baby and see trains.  We got our Tim Hortons coffee (and some Timbits for Owen) and off we went.
We first stopped at Strong Memorial hospital to see Jenn, Sam, and the new baby Elise.  She's a 10 lb beautiful baby.

Dennis and I took our turns holding her and smelling her yummy newborn head.  Doesn't she have great hair?

Owen was curious at first.  He just stared at her and whispered baybeeee.  Then when Mommy held her it was a different story.

Yeah one hand on the baby, one on Owen.  He then lost it and hit her. Oy!  Sorry Jenn and Sam!
Luckily Uncle Sam kept Owen entertained for a little bit.  We chatted for awhile and then said our goodbyes.

Don't they both look great?

We drove a little ways to Medina to see the big Thomas the train.  We had been planning this for awhile, but didn't anticipate the turnout they would have.  We got to the train station only to find that they tickets to ride were sold out for the entire day and apparently had been for weeks.  Oops! 

Truthfully he was happy enough just to see Thomas I think.  Next year we'll have to get the tickets much earlier.

After Thomas departed we went into the train museum where they had a huge model train layout that was pretty cool.  Owen and Dennis were in heaven.  Everytime a train went by, Owen would yell "chooooo choooooo!" so loud that everyone around us would crack up.

There was lots for little kids to do there.  He played with a rice table, train tables, and then we got him his first tatoo.  He loved his little Thomas tatoo all day until it was bedtime.  I got him in his PJ's and he started freaking out that the tatoo was stuck on his arm.  He was pulling his skin and crying.  I had to find the rubbing alcohol and promptly scrub that baby off.  Oops again!