The past 3 months

As always, I eagerly read Laura's recent blog posts and realized it'd been over 3 months since my last one.  To ensure you don't suspect we've fallen off the face of this earth, I thought I'd provide a quick update.

Laura visited at the end of August and it was such a fantastic visit.  She met several faculty members and thought one student was quite intelligent, so I try to provide her with regular updates regarding that student's performance and class participation.  I hope that isn't violating any student confidentiality laws, ha ha.
We went to Toyota employees' Kings Island Day in September.  Such a nice time - mostly because E&M hung out with their friends and Steven and I got to be by ourselves (just kidding). 

Elizabeth continues to hang with her friends, take piano lessons, and enjoy the psychology club.

Michael's first basketball game of the season is tomorrow!  He played with his select team a couple of weeks ago - his m.o. is still nerves of steel during free throws.

Last weekend Elizabeth and I attended a campus play called "Check, please!"  It features multiple first dates, taking place at the same restaurant in NYC.  Hilarious!  Or, as the mountain folk would say, Hill-arious!

I was at her school last week as part of my psychology and the law students' service learning project. My class paired with the Law and Justice village's criminal justice high school students (taught by a GC alum who actually took my psych and law class many years ago) and taught one another about psychological and legal aspects of famous criminal cases.  It was a front page story (granted, below the flap) in the city newspaper and the GC president told me how much he enjoyed reading the article when it had top billing on our school website. 

 

I have seen multiple other alums recently, including Ashley Clayton, who received the inaugural Distinguished Young Alumni Award (I nominated her!) during Homecoming.  She's a research director at Yale University's School of Medicine (psychiatry department).  She gave a very moving, kind acceptance speech and I was honored to sit with her family.

October = Halloween.  We went to the women's basketball team's party at the coach's house (she's in my Fun Friends lunch group).  I can't believe Michael's carved pumpkin didn't win best pumpkin, can you?  The full moon of Halloween caused the bottom half of Elizabeth's hair to turn blue.  Oh wait, that wasn't the moon.  That was Elizabeth and her friend Emma.  With our permission, in fact!

And finally, here's a picture of my good-looking husband and our precious children. Happy Fall.

Deutschland

Cross another item off my bucket list!!!  Wir Deutschland besucht!  :)  Wow, what an amazing trip.  Elizabeth and I left all our worries and responsibilities behind (including syllabi and summer assignments - yes!) and enjoyed ten days of peaceful, yet simultaneously exciting, fun.  Perhaps the best trip ever.

Laura provided the cultural and historical significance of some of our undertakings on her blog, so no need to repeat that here, just know that we were quite intellectual and worldly regarding the places we went and the activities in which we engaged.  But more than that, we had FUN!  Laughing, teasing, remembering, relaxing, hiking (and hiking and hiking and hiking; our back calf muscles now noticeably bulge in our jeans) and much more!

Some global observations:
Patrick is a fabulous chef.  Laura is the kindest hostess.  Michael is the funniest teenager.  Elizabeth is the most easy-going travel companion.  I am the happiest guest!

I cannot express how grateful I am to have been able to physically make the trip.  Whatever pain existed was totally worth it, and I would do it again in a heartbeat.  I was so thankful to experience snapshots of Laura, Patrick, and Michael's lives, and Elizabeth is always so lovely to be with.  Some of our favorite adventures included touring Laura's university (where Elizabeth loved seeing a dog play in one of the fountains); watching brave Michael and Elizabeth tackle the woods' ropes course; seeing Michael participate as church server even though I understood only 14 words during the hour; listening to live opera;

saying "hallo" and "danke" to every store employee just to feel like a native speaker; appreciating their beautiful house; the aforementioned hiking and resultant huge calf muscles; listening to Patrick's storytelling; finding frozen yogurt most days; enjoying meals together; meeting some of Michael, Patrick, and Laura's friends; taking walks in 72 degree weather; hearing about Patrick's entrepreneurial skills; Boggle; giving advice during a fashion show; appreciating Laura's balcony; talking about life; laughing at Michael's observations; shopping at Lidl; all the photo sessions; avoiding wurst; talking about books; and doing the do-si-do with Laura.

     

Laura has always been the kindest person, and I so admire her intellectual life as well as the close relationships she has with her children.  It's easy to see why they love hanging out with one another .... all are amazing individuals.

Elizabeth reminds me of Laura in multiple ways so one of my favorite pictures from the trip is of the two of them together in Laura's office, surrounded by books, including The fault in our stars, which is one of Elizabeth's top 5 all-time favorites (it's the blue one sticking out by E's arm).  I also love the photo of Elizabeth and me on the rocks, even though Elizabeth said it looks like she has a shaved head and I have a Texas-sized side ponytail.

Thank you for the many beautiful, life-long memories, Sudhaus family!

 

The Great State of Texas

After a 23-year absence, I was back in the great state of Texas.  The hotel's pool was perfect and driving by the Bell building brought back many happy personal and professional memories.  Friday evening I saw Susan, my best friend from when I lived in Austin.  How we laughed and laughed and laughed. 

But the highlight - and reason for the trip - was seeing Nick.  What an amazing, awesome nephew I have.  So conversational and so smart and so easy going!  When I asked him what book he would choose if he were in charge of a book group's selection, he said Robert Cialdini's Social Influence.  I almost fell out of my chair - I spend an entire week in social psychology covering that book and mention it in almost all the courses I teach.  I loved hearing how he uses the persuasion techniques and tactics covered in the book to land clients and create his marketing suggestions and solutions for his clients.

I'd asked Laura what I could show up with to celebrate Nick's birthday and was informed that Nick is a health nut.  So, see the picture on the left to know what I brought instead of cookies, cupcakes, etc., even though Nick told me later that he does like desserts, I think especially brownies.  Because I expected to dine with a health nut, I was prepared to eat at a tofu/spinach bar but was quite happy when he suggested a Mexican restaurant instead - check out that genuine decor.  (He did tell me he'd make a banana/spinach drink later, but fortunately he forgot, ha ha.)

We visited two bookstores.   One was odd and old (the sign claimed it was "unique," which we realized was code for weird), the other mainstream.  I needed a book for the flight home and found the section of my favorite author's books.  Nick realized one of them was signed by the author, so that's the one I bought.  Great eyes, Nick!

Of course we needed some frozen yogurt to cool down in the 98 degree weather.  And we also needed some watermelon to further cool down before dinner.  What you see on our plates is not all the watermelon that was consumed; and it was only with incredible restraint on my part that the entire watermelon was not eaten in one sitting.

Dinner was at a barbecue joint, within walking distance from Nick's home.  I absolutely loved spending the day with him.  I loved seeing where he lives (with the unusual 8 foot tall chair), hearing about his work, talking about our relatives, learning about his daily life, meeting his roommate, and catching a glimpse into his world.  He could not have been a kinder, more accommodating (it took us a while to find the frozen yogurt place), more interesting host.  I am so thankful I got to be with him, celebrating his 22nd birthday!  You rock, Nick!

St. Louis

Sometimes Steven and I have awesome ideas, and one of our best ideas of the summer was to visit Uncle Al and Charlotte!  We so enjoyed spending the evenings with them, catching up, and we so appreciated Charlotte's culinary talents! They look great!!!  They are great!!!

All of us loved the zoo. Polar bear!!!  We spent an entire day there and survived the sudden downpour (fortuitously for us, we were eating lunch under a huge umbrella at the time!).  We found a favorite resting bench.  Elizabeth may have found a new career.

 

All of us also loved the art museum (well, maybe I'm projecting a little of my art museum love onto the others), in part because we separately toured the exhibits while writing down answers to fascinating questions we came up with at breakfast that morning.  Questions like "Which exhibit do you think took the most time?" "Which one could you have done yourself?" "Which one reminds you of someone else in the family?" "Which is the oddest?" "Which one would you want in your room?" etc.  Can you find E and M running in the rain to the car in the photo?

Elizabeth loved going shopping with Charlotte one morning, while Michael loved going to Uncle Al's athletic facility with him (guess which guy swam and which played basketball).  During that time, Steven and I toured the Chinese Lantern exhibit at the botanical gardens.  Unbelievable.  We saw every single wire-and-silk creation in the gardens. 

We all were just so happy the whole time we were there.  Thank you for another amazing vacation, Uncle Al and Charlotte - we'll be back soon.

Michael's birthday

Michael's 14 years old.  Check out his jersey number (same number as his dad's during high school)!  He celebrated with multiple sleep overs with friends, a few meals out, and a day in Lexington at Sky Zone with his friend-since-age-3, Stephen.  Of course they played basketball at Sky Zone, but a fancier version than usual.  I thought Michael was wearing his new bright orange play shoes but then how odd that Stephen was wearing the exact same shoes; Steven explained that those are the mandatory socks that everyone at Sky Zone has to wear. He does love his new orange sneakers, though; thanks for those of you who gave him birthday money to buy them!

For at least the fifth year in a row, Michael selected an Oreo ice cream cake for his birthday.  And something was very, very funny (I was probably telling one of my hilarious jokes when this photo was taken).

Michael continues playing organized basketball.  His select team won another championship.  He attended basketball individual player camp last week and was one of three campers awarded all-around best Camper of the Week - wow. 

Happy birthday, wonderful son.

May

School is out!  Alarms have been turned off!  Life is slower.  Breakfast is occasionally missed.  The dogs almost always have someone at home with them. 

Elizabeth has begun piano lessons.  She'll be learning both classical and popular music.  During the summer, she has a lesson once every two weeks.  During the school year, she'll have one lesson each week. We love hearing her play, although the dogs make mournful noises when she hits high notes, so she reserves those songs for when Steven and I are walking the dogs 30 minutes each evening.

Michael attended team basketball camp - 10 games against teams from around the state in three days.  Michael was unbelievable - he averaged just over 20 points per game.  Here's a clip of him making a buzzer shot.

We still love eat-out Friday. Here we are in Cheddar's parking lot this past weekend.  Steven's long arms make excellent selfies.

I get to have longer than usual lunches with friends.  Do you know these two people?

And we celebrated Memorial Day in Shelbyville.