I'm Outta Here...

Today is officially my last day at ORU. Here are some things I'd like everyone to know about this place:

1) It's not too bad a place, if you can avoid chapel, Oral, Richard, strange ORU kids. OK... so basically if I just stayed in my little cubby hole office all year long, it's not too bad!

2) When I was looking for a job last year, I wanted to go somewhere where the people I worked with were great. I lucked out because the people in the athletic department are just that! I will be sad to leave them!

3) Though Richard McCutchen will not be attending my wedding and Cliff will be attending my wedding (no grudge, Richie!), they are my favorite people from here. I would not have survived an entire year without them!

4) If you dig a little deep, you can find students that don't want to preach down your throat or explain to you that God told them to come to ORU (not that this is bad, but its not what you want to hear the first time you meet someone). We were lucky to have some great student help in our office this year -- I thoroughly enjoyed all of them and they made me feel all of 20-years-old again!

5) I must give a shout out to Jenny Hardin and Janae Voelker (Nae was the only Kansas girl on the basketball team this year so we had that bond!). They definitely reached out to the lonely, nerdy SID this year and made it a bit more comfortable to be apart of the team. Though I wasn't the biggest fan of traveling for five-straight months, they made it a bit more worth while. And because of them, I got some nice TV time at the NCAA Tournament, got to be in the presence of the greatest women's basketball coach to ever walk to hardwood (Pat Summitt) and allowed me to get two free pairs of tennis-shoes and some nice gear!

6) People at ORU cannot drive. Obviously since they are in the state of Oklahoma, that should have been a given. But I really don't think that anyone on this campus was forced to go to driver's ed when they were younger. I have literally had people pull out in front of me five different times, while they are driving five miles-per-hour --- and then they wave to me! I wave back, but its not with a nice gesture!

All in all, I will miss the people here. I will miss the girls. I will miss the coaches. But that is it. They made this place bearable for me all year, so thanks!

Now, its time to start a new chapter in my life. When I move back to Wichita this weekend, this will be the first time in me and Matt's relationship that we will be living in the same town and be in the same place at the same time permanently (by permanently, I mean that we will always be in the same place now - not that we will be in Wichita permanently).

It's exciting, a bit strange, and something I can't wait for! Our wedding is less than 50 days away... I was thinking about it this morning and as it gets closer and closer, I find myself thinking of the moment that Father calls us husband and wife - my fear is that he'll forget our names!