Ups and Downs

As I have mentioned before, this is one of my favorite times of the year with a new academic year!  Seeing all the new freshmen around campus moving into their dorms, going to all the fun opening events and attending University Convocation!! 

Grace had fun at the carnival on Saturday night.  It is always fun to go see everyone and welcome the students back to campus.

Grace on the Surfer Dude ride

On the Sunday before classes begin MTSU always hold convocation.  It is a formal start to the academic year where students are welcomed, faculty and staff are present and the summer reading author comes to speak.  This year we had a great speaker and the tone of the whole convocation was great.

My view at convocation.  No I did not wear my regalia, but many of the faculty and staff do.

One of the things that was new this year is the True Blue Pledge.  In the past year there have been some unfortunate events on our campus and a taskforce of students, faculty and staff got together and created this unifying pledge.

At the end of convocation after the faculty and staff recess, the students are asked to stand and do the MTSU Fight Song.  I always sneak back in to see this.  I love the school spirit!!

One big downer to all this fun this year is seeing our first MTSU home being torn down.  We took some photos on Saturday and then Troy got some more Monday after they started to take part of the building down.

A full shot of the building before the tear down began. 

The entrance to our old apartment up close.  They have gutted everything and it is that Grace will never get to come back as an adult and see where she first lived when she was born.

Monday afternoon after they took off the stairwell on the end of the building.  Troy was able to get a few bricks for us to keep thanks to the construction crew!

Yes it is sad to see this, but it will really be sad when the building is completely gone.  The plus side is that MTSU students will soon see a new state of the art science building going up in this space.

In completely unrelated news, Grace LOVES helping me with the laundry and I got some video of her this weekend helping me fold towels.  She is really good at it and cries when I don't save her some towels to fold!  I am sure this will be different when she is a teenager.



Park Time

We enjoyed some time at the park this morning before it got too hot!  A little outside time is always good before you have to get ready for another busy week.

We checked out Barfield Park today. 

Though it is kind of far from campus, it is a really nice park!

Adventures in Babysitting

Happy Saturday!  It's August and all I can say is we are busy busy busy with work stuff!  Troy's RA staff returned to campus this past Sunday and he has been busy with things related to RA training.  August is always a busy time since both of our jobs involve getting ready for students to return to campus.  Though this can be a tiring time of year, it is one of my favorite times of the year in my job.  This coming week students will return back to campus and get settled for another school year. 

This past week Grace's school has been closed so we have had our favorite babysitter, Arbor, watching Grace.  Grace loves Arbor and enjoyed a whole week with her.  Here are a few pictures from their fun this week. 

Arbor is very crafty and helped Grace make a homemade crown, wand and flower bracelet!

Every princess needs a castle

I love this face!!

Just hanging out in the castle



Arbor took Grace to the Discovery Center on day as well!

Keeping Up with the Blog!

I know it must be hard for you all to Keep Up with the Arringtons with the Arringtons are not keeping up with the blog!  SORRY!  August is the craziest time of the year for us at work and it shows in my lack of work on the blog.  Hopefully I can satisfy those waiting for a new post with a few updates tonight!! Here you go....

A few weeks ago I made a homemade chocolate pie for work and everyone loved it.  Trey loved it so much he wanted to feature me in his blog.  So, check out my guest blog at http://dudescooktoo.blogspot.com/2011/08/chocolate-pie.html.  If you like to follow food blogs, Trey's is a good one to follow!!

Last week was Troy's 34th birthday and we did celebrate.  Here are a few photos from the celebrations.

Helping daddy open his presents

Singing to daddy

New gameday gear

Dinner at Chuy's to celebrate the old man

Here are a few cute photos of Grace from this one morning this week!

Grace putting on her shoes.

In other news, they finally began demolition work on the residence halls in the area that we lived in until last December.  This place is special to us because it is where we brought Grace home to from the hospital.  We are sad to see the buildings being torn down, but know there are great things are coming to MTSU in the space where these halls currently stand.  Here are a few pictures I took today of the progress.  I will keep posting new pictures as things progress.

The fences are up!  Sad to see!

Clement Hall where we lived for 4 1/2 years!

View of the rest of the complex

Making space for this!