To Illinois and Back

Every year the second full week of June we travel back to Galesburg, Illinois, home of our alma mater, Knox College. The third Friday of the month is always the Harley Knosher Alumni Golf Outing. We've been attending every year since we graduated and so look forward to visiting with Harley and the golf buddies. And every year, I am continually amazed at what a phenomenal man Harley Knosher is. He has the ability to make anyone feel special and the most important person in the room. He celebrated 40 years of being involved at Knox and had people at the tournament from his first year there through his last year. He is Andrew's mentor and taught him that golf (as well as life) is not an individual sport but a team event.

The obligatory Andrew and Harley picture.

We take one every year. :-)

We drove down to Cedar Rapids on Wednesday and left the girls at my mom's house. On Thursday morning we made the quick trek over to Galesburg. Andrew and Bob Carroll played a practice round in the afternoon while Bob's wife, Amber and I took advantage of a kid-free afternoon and got pedicures. We had dinner at the Landmark Cafe and then hung out with the golf guys, first stopping at a very disappointing Cherry Street (funny how things change, that used to be THE place for alumni to hang out when back in town). We quickly moved on to Seminary Street Pub once the very bad karoke started up at Cherry Street. We sat in the beer garden at Seminary Street and chased all the "townies" away by being loud and telling stories. And stayed out waaay too late!

The gang at Seminary Street Pub

The next morning we all gathered at Soangetaha and had a fine day for golf. Andrew's foursome of Bob, Jeff Ancelet, and recent grad John "Hawk" Hawkinson finished with a 55, the lowest gross score (that's first place for you non-golfers). But lost out by ALOT for the lowest net score.

A team photo (left to right):
Jeff Ancelet '98, Garth Gilster '02, Vince Pavilionis '02, Andrew '99, Chris Endlund '02,
C.J. Rugh '04, Bob Carroll '02, Josh Quinn '01, John Hawkison '07.

I may try to draft a Knox women's team next year. We'll see. :-) I picked up these very cute matching Knox hats and shirts for Ella and Lily at the bookstore. I also got sweatshirts for me and Andrew. I thought he could use another sweatshirt now that we're living in Minnesota. His one Mickey Mouse sweatshirt is getting a little old. Maybe we'll have to take a Knox family picture sometime once the weather gets cooler. :-)



For more photos from the Knosher outing please visit: knoxalumnigolf.shutterfly.com. I have also uploaded pictures from last year's Knosher outing. And I will be updating the Carnival of Golf website (www.knoxcarnivalofgolf.com) very soon. You can also check out Bob and Amber's blog for another account of the event.

We spent Saturday and Sunday morning visiting with my mom and Dave and then drove back in time for Andrew to see some of the U.S. Open. He had a pretty nice Father's day despite it taking us an hour longer than usual to get home. We gave him a movie I made of photos of the girls and him. A gift card to buy some fishing gear, another requirement for living in the Midwest. And Season 7 of E.R. We don't have the previous seasons, so what makes Season 7 so special, you ask? Well, it just so happens that if you are looking really hard in Episode 16: "Witch Hunt" you can catch a glimpse of Andrew as an orderly.

When we first moved to California and before Andrew became Hornet's uber-producer, he worked at Central Casting as an extra to earn a little money and try and get his foot in the door. He was an orderly on E.R., a bus boy on Providence and a gallery member in the courtroom of The Practice. He even had a conversation with Noah Wyle (aka Carter on E.R.) walking back to their cars after the shoot. I was about as jealous of him as I was when he spent the day working with Bon Jovi for Hornet. Aww.....memories. At any rate, for those of you who may want to catch his television debut, look for E.R. Season 7 Disc 5 from Netflix.

Andrew is currently in Los Angeles shooting footage for the upcoming football season. And on Thursday I'm off to Philly for GJWHF 2007 (Girls Just Wanna Have Fun) with Claire, Erin F., Erin J., and Allison. More on that in the future!