Guys' Pancake Breakfast

As an end-of-first-year-of-doctoral-studies celebration, I invited a number of my fellow classmates to our place for a Saturday morning pancake breakfast. We ate lots of pancakes and basked in the fact that we have completed (nearly - one more week!) our first year in the Higher Education and Student Affairs doctoral program at IU. Good times!

Ice Cream with the Hardys

Dave Hardy (a classmate and colleague of Jim's, also a 1st year student in the HESA department) and his wife Susan and son Jarom invited us to join them on Thursday night at a local ice cream joint, Bruster's: half-price banana splits if you bring your own banana. A good deal, and the sundaes are so huge that two people can share. Needless to say, we were all enthusiastic.

You can choose three kinds of ice cream and three toppings. Wow. Delish. Jarom was so intent on his dirt sundae that he couldn't even smile for the photo...

Next time we will be like the experts and ask to put our sundaes into two containers to share. More toppings all around, right? Who doesn't love that after a long day of work and classes?!! Summer is coming!

Evidence of a Future Soccer Player

Here SHE is, folks, Baby Girl Gieser! And we both agree that this is some strong evidence that this little girl could have potential on the soccer field. Look at that perfect shot of her leg. No wonder she's been kicking and rolling around so much already.

Here's a profile image, with a hand/arm held up below her chin. We even saw live images of her opening and closing her mouth. Wow, technology is amazing.

Look to the right side of this image - can you count 5 toes?! That's the underside of her foot.

We deliberated quite a bit on whether or not to find out the gender of this new one...but finally decided at today's 21-week check-up (well, actually, over breakfast that morning) that we would go for it. And we are very grateful and excited to now start preparing for and expecting this daughter. We still feel in awe that we are going to be parents!!

Dad & Mom G's quick visit

It was a short weekend but boy did we have fun! Saturday morning Jim fixed up an excellent pancake breakfast, which we needed to face a full day of the "patio beautification project". We took advantage of Dad's expertise to re-work our small back patio, from boring concrete slab and uncut grass to a patio with potted plants, creeping clematis, and comfortable sitting area.

Here are the men beginning to dig and replant. They used upwards of 80 pounds of soil to replace the rocky mixture that had been there, plus another 60 pounds of potting soil. ...The other fun thing about this project was discovering a nursery just down the road. We always have enjoyed wandering around nurseries and learning about trees and plants - and now we've got one here to explore! **Photos of the finished product coming soon.

On Saturday night we had a nice dinner out and then went to West Side Story on campus. It was an excellent production! IU has a terrific music school (undergrad and grad programs), and even the dancing and the sets were really good. Baby Gies seemed to like the music too, and was thumping and kicking a lot throughout.

Upcoming visit - a contrast

This weekend we are looking forward to a visit from Mom & Dad G. It was about a year ago that they visited us in Cape Town (remember how hot it was?!)...what a contrast. For that trip, they had to go approx. 10,000 miles and endure 20 hours of flight across the Atlantic. For this trip, they will only have to drive 350 miles in 5 hours.

Unfortunately there are no beautiful mountains and ocean coastlines in southern Indiana (and I'm not that tan). BUT we we do have a great outdoor farmer's market up and running now that it is spring! And we are going to see West Side Story at IU! And grandchild number 3 is kicking up a storm!