I woke up to an empty apartment this morning...it's a widdle bit sad :(

My brother went back to school yesterday and my grandparents left early this morning. We had so much fun this weekend, though!

On Friday morning, my cousins gave us a tour of their elementary school. Then G&G and I drove down to Northfield...and we got stuck in traffic for an hour on the highway. Traffic jam has new meaning when the other people in the car can't stop talking about how elitist John Kerry is! Grr.

On Saturday morning, our whole group -the aunts, the twins, the five Hartnetts, my grandparents, John and I- went apple picking. It was absolutely freezing though! We just filled our bags really quickly, while the babies screamed, and then jumped back on the hay wagon. It was worth it to eat donuts and cider in the tent with the fiddle players and watch my cousin Eli dance (he's 1 1/2). Then John and I went to a Kerry rally in Minneapolis...there is so much momentum here! I got a "Christians for Kerry" pin. It's been starting to offend me that Bush supporters take a moral and religious highground, as though Kerry supporters are sacreligious. We had to drive to the Kerry headquarters to buy John a huge sign for his dorm's hallway. Later, John and I went to IKEA and got his missing chair part (so the seat isn't on the floor of his room anymore), and went to dinner at a sports bar in the Mall of America. The Red Sox were winning the entire time we were there- it was creating completely false hope. Anyway, we then went to see Jerry Seinfeld, which was his birthday present. I couldn't stop laughing, but it was mostly because Jerry was on the stage and it's kind of surreal. My favorite joke was about weather forecasters. He said "if 5-day forecasts were really for 5-days, you would only need them every 5 days." I honestly never thought of that.

Sunday morning my little party went to St. James on the Parkway. And my uncle Chris showed up! Living here is like constant Christmas because before moving to the Twin Cities, I only saw these relatives during the holidays. Then I dropped John off at the commuter bus with his huge sign...the bus driver almost refused him service (for partisan reasons)! Then I went to the Lessin-Burris's for dinner. My little cousins all helped me make scenary for my lesson plan on prepositions. Then we ate dinner and compared the pies from the annual post-picking bake-off. The cream-cheese custard apple pie won.

Well, anyway, this morning I'm so tired and feeling like I'm behind already for this week. But I love going to see the kids every morning! My student teaching position is easy like a bake oven and the kids are cuteness personified. And I realized that I'm starting to dress like a kindergarten teacher. How you may ask? Today I'm wearing warm brown pants, socks, and suede clogs, and a pick toggle sweater. It's a slippery slope towards corderoy jumpsuits and gaudy holiday pins! Yikes.