The Tradition Continues...

So as college football season draws closer and closer, I am feeling myself both REALLY pumped and also REALLY nostalgic.  I think it's just a timing thing (this summer is my 10th high school reunion AND the anniversary of my freshman marching experience at OU).  I mean really, I get this way every football season.  I love my Sooners!!  But being a part of The Pride of Oklahoma will always be a highlight of my life.  I still laugh out loud sometimes when I remember things about those 4 crazy years.  So much fun, so many memories, and some great music making.  Oh yeah...not to mention Saturdays in a stadium filled to the brim with 85,000 Sooner fans and trips all over the country to support our boys in 3 BCS bowl games and the Holiday Bowl.  So just to keep myself from rambling about how fabulous it was (and is) to be a part of such an amazing team of people, I thought I would give you guys some of my personal "highlights" from being a member of the Pride of Oklahoma:

• I show up to the first day of marching precamp as a freshman scared outta my friggin mind.  This is REAL folks!  There is an audition and you have to compete for a spot with upperclassmen.  I'm pretty sure I was hyperventilating through that entire week.  Especially when I figured out that I would have a playing portion of my audition on a horn that had completely different fingerings than my horn in high school!  So in less than a week I taught myself a whole new set of fingerings, a new marching style, and learned a whole mini marching routine (which was REALLY tough).  I also remember meeting some pretty great people that first week.  Hit it off COMPLETELY with Sarah Rice and Darren Parmele and so many, many others.  People that literally helped paint my college experience...
• A few weeks in Sarah, Darren, and I decided that all this crappy cafeteria food we had been eating at the dorms was just that.  Crap.  So we decided once a week that we would "meet for meat".  So we went to Chili's.  And ate real meat.  Like grown ups and all...
• Several times a week we would drive around in either my little cavalier or Darren's Rubicon and blast Boyz II Men (and make Darren sing all the embarrassing lyrics).  I was also guilty, quite often, of forcing him to let me use the intercom on his super fancy jeep while we were in the parking garage.  For none other reason than to sing "You Are My Sunshine" loud and proud...
• Getting "initiated" at the mello party.  Scared me half to death.  Then I realized that I was on a team with some pretty fabulous people who I really didn't need to be scared of at all...
• Meeting Brad Stone and realizing that sometimes, even if something isn't funny at all, if Brad laughs at it...that automatically makes it stinkin' hilarious.  It also makes things automatically more fun when he's around.  So one night me, Brad, and Darren went "dumpster diving" and came up with a walker that someone had left at the bus stop and an old stove that we insisted on loading up.  Why?  Who knows...we were freshmen...
• Marching next to Darren Parmele during the Chicago show and literally loosing it laughing when he steps in a hole while we are marching and doesn't miss a beat.  That one still cracks me up...
• Making TERRIBLE costumes for Halloween with Sarah Rice.  We were supposed to be Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart.  I ended up wearing a trash bag.  Literally.  And I was SUPER thankful because the night I had to wear that costume to practice was also the first real cold night of the semester.  And if I hadn't been covered in industrial plastic, I would have died from hypothermia... 
• Practicing and playing in the SuperDome.  Seriously AMAZING place to get to do marching band...
• Getting dolled up for games and standing next to Angie and Sarah in the stands.  Seriously some of the cutest pictures known to man.  
• Marching next to Eric Shannon and laughing about the fact that he and I keep missing our "dot" every time we move into the Batman symbol.  He says "Crapface!" every time he misses.  And so the nicknames Crapface and Crapface were born.  And 9 years later it is still stuck...
• PORTLAND, OREGON.  That is all...
• Hanging out in Tempe with some pretty sweet folks.  Losing my ID and having to go back to the hotel.  Making the hot tub into a whirlpool.  Making Rachel Porter get out of said hot tub when she was D-O-N-E.  So many stories...
• The Fiesta Bowl.  We lost to Boise State, but it is literally the best game of football I've ever watched in my life.  Such a game of ups and downs!  But man we were all so proud of how our boys never gave up the fight.  And neither did we.  I think I left part of my lips in that stadium.  They were seriously swollen for like 2 days after that...

There are about a million more stories.  Maybe for another day!  I'll leave you with some of my fav pictures for now.  They're in no particular order... Boomer Sooner!!  

Holiday Bowl fun at the USS Midway...

Getting ready to board the chartered flight to Oregon for the OU/Oregon game.  Probably one of the most fun weekends I had in college!

OU/saxeT Freshman year.  BEFORE the beautiful nickel silver mellos were in.  So vintage...

So we all decided to get in a port-o-potty.  College kids...

Leadership retreat before my senior year of marching.  This was the site of the world's most EPIC water balloon fight launched on our professors.  And I'm LOVIN' Chauvin, Adam, and Blake in this pic!  

 

Judging by the carnation, I'm thinking this one was our last home game as seniors.  Just me and Sarah!

Judging auditions in the meat locker room in Catlett with the lovely and talented Elaine Wiseman!

Mello Party 2006.  That one goes down in history man...

Darreny and Rachie!  I LOVE this picture...

This.  Just this...

The Portland group

Rachie was a little tired.  But I still love this picture of me and her and Crapface...

Sometimes.  When I don't know where I am. I get a little emotional...

This is the Big 12 Championship freshman year.  We literally stood in ice and snow for the whole game.  As if you can't tell by our bluish lips, we froze our stinkin' butts off man!

Pretty girls at the OU/saxeT banquet...

The Legendary Trio!

And then me and Sarah sumo wrestled. This was stupid hilarious...

OU/saxeT senior year when Johnny Boy made the trip to hang out with us!

It's a Darreny samwich with Rachie bread!

It was cold.  So we huddled for warmth...

Mello boner.  An inadvertent tradition started by yours truly.  This pic is fabulous...

The melloooooos!

Fiesta Bowl

New Years Eve sophomore year.  We were on our way to a bowl game as usual...

The concierge reception in Tempe.  Every night.  What the heck was that hotel thinking??

It's GAME DAY!

Some of the cutest french horn players in the world...

And then we sumo-ed...

Practicing in the Super Dome.  I look like I've got some serious attitude in this picture...

Pride Field.  2003.  Beast it...

Saying Goodbye at Ross University

This experience has been such a learning curve for us.  And by us I mean all of us...not just me and Jonathan.  Every student, spouse, child, staff member, etc.  I've moved around a little as a kid.  Most of my extended family always lived several hundred miles away from me when I was growing up.  I went away to college where I knew nobody.  I've done my fair share of goodbyes and see ya laters.  But this experience, even with all the experience I've had doing those things in the last nearly 29 years, has really stretched me in that department.  Yesterday we said goodbye to a sweet family here in Dominica.  Kelly Anne, Matt, Charlie, and Annabelle Nelson are moving on to Qatar to take on new jobs and new experiences and they left early this morning...

I've known for most of this semester that they were leaving.  But my feelings on the matter sort of caught me by surprise!  My dealings with the Prep School here on campus have kind of blown up this semester.  I started out with only After Care, then I did my fair share of subbing, and then I've been the "go to" sub for the Summer Program in the last few months.  So these sweet girls (them and really all these kiddos here) have made their mark on my heart.  Just like any other kid who has become "mine" after teaching and hanging out with them, Charlie and Annabelle, silly quirks and all, are no different!  Before I had really gotten attached to any of the kids at the school, I stupidly thought "Well, it is what it is.  They'll move on, so will Jonathan and I.  And we'll just do what we do...".  Wrong!  

Seeing those girls say their goodbyes yesterday was tugging on my heart strings.  Watching their parents say goodbye was equally difficult.  They've been such an integral part of helping people (including us!) survive this experience so far and they've got some HUGE shoes to fill (no pressure Ross)...  It was watching them say goodbye (and getting more than a few giant bear hugs from both the girls...even in their soaking wet swimsuits) that made me realize why goodbyes on this island are so hard.  Saying goodbye at home really is a see ya later.  Especially with family and friends who are part of your "roots".  But here in Dominica, everyone is all over the place.  From med school, we all go on to residencies.  From residencies, we all go into practice.  That could be anywhere...not just in the USA!  Faculty members move on and they take their kids with them.  So for that reason, the vast majority of goodbyes really are that.  Goodbyes.  Not see ya laters.  

I have to trust that anyone Jonathan and I say goodbye to in the next 2-4 years that is supposed to be in our lives beyond Dominica will cross our path again.  But there are several people that we've grown to love dearly who we may never cross paths with again.  Elise Strickland put it quite eloquently when she was explaining it to a distraught Solveig who was having to say goodbye to her sweet friend Annabelle.  "You know, sometimes we have friends in our lives that are there for a long time.  Sometimes we have friends who are only with us a short time.  But it doesn't make them any less special to us!".  A quote kept coming to my mind yesterday along those same lines "Some love stories are epic novels.  Some are short stories.  But that doesn't make either of them any less filled with love."  So true!  We just love our island family.  "Silly quirks" and all.  There is a crazy dynamic here when it comes to relationships.  You so quickly become sisters, brothers, pseudo parents, aunties, uncles, etc.  It's just the natural progression of things as we take this crazy roller coast ride of med school in the Caribbean together.  People will phase in, people will phase out.  The longer we stay here, the harder those goodbyes are going to be as we just continue to further build those relationships with these people who've become family in just a short 9 months...

What a blessing everyone in our little "island family" is to us.  What a blessing all 4 of the Nelsons were too!  I can't wait to see pictures and hear updates about Charlie and Annabelle in the faraway land of Qatar.  They are sure to make their mark there too!  Good luck Nelsons.  We love you all so dearly and you are already missed.  What an impact all 4 of you have made!  

In closing, some cute little pics of the crazy Nelson girls:

Charlie, who normally doesn't like combing her hair or wearing shoes (definitely a tom boy), let me get my hands on that beautiful head of hair she has.  This was day 2 with "the diva bun".  Then yesterday she and Annabelle were sitting in my lap and I noticed that Charlie's hair was brushed and styled!  I had told her earlier in the week that we are ladies and little ladies brush their hair twice a day so that it's nice and silky and beautiful.  I told her how pretty her freshly brushed and styled hair looked and she said "Annabelle didn't brush her hair this morning."  To which Annabelle said "Well I don't like to brush it because it hurts!"  And Charlie said "Well Annabelle, you know sometimes beauty is pain."  Classic Nelson girl quote!

Annabelle with her sweet friends Jozlyn (top) and Solveig (bottom).  She will be so very missed by both of them.  That kindergarten class just won't be the same without her!