Busy Season

So as the semester is wrapping up, the days have been pretty busy for Beth and me.  I have been to two conferences in the past three weeks and Beth had a week where she had 5 presentations to give in 4 days.  Needless to say we’re looking forward to summer and at least a couple days of vacation before getting back to work.

We have been very lucky to have a few more visitors though.  This includes Butch and Sherry Snyder, two of Beth’s family’s friends from back in Meridian (now in Tuscaloosa).  It was great to get to see them as they are good friends of the Marantos and I believe that I have only met Sherry once and never Butch.  We were able to have lunch with them at Beyond Bread (which is always nice) and spend a little time catching up.  Maybe we’ll get to see them next time we’re back in Mississippi.

After this a good friend of mine from Mississippi State, Adam Farmer, came into town.  Sadly, he was in town for his uncle’s funeral, but it was still nice to get to hang out with him.  We realized that we hadn’t hung out essentially since our wedding.  I’m also looking forward to seeing him again at a wedding we’re going to next weekend.  Hopefully next time he comes out we could do some hiking.

Finally, as the semester classes ended on Wednesday (also coinciding with Cinco de Mayo), we have enjoyed a few nights of hanging out with friends and Beth has been able to take a day off (something she has not gotten nearly enough of with her crazy program).  Last night we went over to Luke and Marianne’s house for a party for Karissa.  She finished her MBA program not long ago and I know we are all looking forward to her being able to do things again.  So last night we had a nice baked potato bar and taco salad dinner and then played a game of Tripoly.  For those of you not familiar with Tripoly, it is a game my family has played as we grew up and one that I particularly loved.  Since being in Arizona I have made a couple of Tripoly boards including the one you will see in the following photos.  A quick overview of the rules are here, but note that we use variations 1 and 2, because otherwise the game is just too easy.  Maybe sometime I can post all our rules. And don’t worry about it being complicated… it seems that Caleb is getting the hang of it really quickly.

Beth also wanted me to put this picture up that she caught of me (with an extremely awkward expression) while explaining the game.  Also note that Ben seems to be pretty angry about the entire situation.