Okie State Dreamin'

It's 70 degrees here in Bradenton, Florida today. I just looked at the temp on my phone a little bit ago for *home* (Oklahoma City) and it's 28 degrees there. That really blows. Chances are, I'll probably take Kaden to the park later and then go run my five miles outside instead of on a treadmill, so I'm not exactly missing the frigid Oklahoma weather AT ALL. But I do, however, miss all the other things that that come with that cold weather. The things I especially miss about Oklahoma are: family, the best friends I could ever ask for, the Oklahoma plains where you can see for miles and miles, southern hospitality, living in the bible belt, being surrounded by people who love children (Florida seems to have the "better seen than heard" mentality for kids), the lakes in the summertime, and of course my alma mater Oklahoma State University.

An old friend posted a link on Facebook reminding me how great OSU is, and how proud I am to have not only graduated from there, but also to have figured out who I was and where I wanted to go in life while attending college there. I always review the past and think of how the tiniest decisions could have affected my life now. The life I share with a beautiful child and the most wonderful husband a girl could ask for. What if I had chosen to play college softball elsewhere? I knew I wanted to play for a D-1 team with a reputation for winning which is why I eventually chose to play at OSU, but what if my recruiting trip had been awful and had swayed my decision to go to another school? What if I had decided to transfer when we didn't have a great year my sophomore year? What if I hadn't been struggling with hitting my senior year and never called to discuss hiting mechanics with my friend at the time, former OSU baseball player Josh Fields? We never would have become such good friends, and never would have fallen head over heels for each other simultaneously.

Before I even attended there, I knew Oklahoma State had a reputation over the "other" large division-1 school in the state as the *fun* school. I had heard tales of the fraternity parties, the nightclub The Tumbleweed, and of course the very popular "Strip" (where I may or may not still have some dignity of mine laying around in a gutter in front of one of the bars). These aren't the reasons I chose attend Oklahoma State, but they came along with the package, and I gladly chose to accept them with open arms. I chose Oklahoma State because of their excellent academic programs. I was impressed by their amazing athletic facilities and the future plans for them, since I knew I would be spending most of my time there. But mostly I chose OSU because before I decided to go there, I never met another student, faculty member, or coach from there that did not consider me family. If I was on their turf in Stillwater, America, I was automatically a friend.

I found out soon that wearing the orange and black uniforms or t-shirts wasn't just about representing my school, it was also about representing all my Stillwater family. There is not a city that my husband and I travel to throughout the year (and it's a lot of cities) that doesn't have an OSU alumni location to sit and cheer together to watch the big game on TV. You're never a stranger around another person in their orange and black. I saw an old man at the bank here in our current town in Florida with his OSU gear on for a football gameday a few weeks ago, and when I "fired my pistol" at him, he didn't get freaked out and scream like the lady in the car next to him, he gladly "fired his pistol" pack and gave me a wink. Family.

Looking back on all my old Facebook pics from college reminds me of all the fun times I had at OSU (they also remind me that I was a real idiot at times), and they also remind me about all the lasting friends I made that share the same feelings about their Orange and Black. I hope everyone feels as proud about the school they graduated from as I feel about mine!

By the way, the link that got me thinking about when "I fell in love with Oklahoma State" is: http://www.pistolsfiringblog.com/when-i-fell-in-love-with-oklahoma-state/. It's a good blog, I suggest you follow it.

Well, enough longing to be back in Bennett Hall relaxing before a big game, I have a nasty diaper to change. Awesome!

Oklahoma Trip

Well, we got to fly home this last weekend for July 4th. Hubbs usually rehabs 6 days a week, and then does an at-home workout on Sundays. The Royals were kind enough to give Hubbs a day off from his rehab, so we took off for Oklahoma. The flight there was not full so Southwest let us take Kaden's carseat on the plane. He slept in it for about the first 30 minutes and then decided he wanted to play the rest of the time. It was SO nice to no be traveling alone and have someone to pass the kid off to when he got bored in my arms. We got in about 2:00am to Wilberton, America where Josh's famliy reunion was. I got to meet a lot of his famliy that I haven't met yet in our 3 and half years of marriage, and everyone had a blast with Kaden. Late that night, we drove to Eufaula, America where my mom and dad's lake house it. My sister and all my cousins were there as well, so we had a blast on the lake that weekend.