Flashback Friday

Mary took Owen on his first airplane ride yesterday. Their destination was Stanford, for her 10th college reunion. In 2002, our entire family was at Stanford for Brad's 20th reunion. It's hard to believe she's halfway to her 20th reunion already. Here are the kids on campus 23 years ago this weekend.

Stanford Weekend

This weekend was Brad's 35th class reunion. We went and we had a great time!

Brad reconnected with lots of old friends. I did too, and as always I got to meet new people. This is Brad with our friend Bob and their friend Diane, both from Brad's freshman dorm, at Friday night's class party.

Brad and his freshman roommate, Winston, and another dorm mate, Cynthia.

Brad and freshman dorm mate, Kent.

All of these people (except Sue Coin) are from Donner, Brad's freshman dorm. From the left: Roc, Harry, Brad, MJ (whose daughter was in Mary's freshman dorm), Winston, Sakurako, Sue, and Kent.

I had so much fun and the way I look at it is, if I had this much fun and I didn't even go to school with these people, imagine how much fun they had!

Saturday morning we, and from the looks of it pretty much everyone from Brad's class who was there (and they broke the record for highest attendance from a 35th reunion year class) was up bright and early to attend a fantastic talk by their classmate (and one of my heroes), Congressman Adam Schiff.

Afterwards we hung around outside in the beautiful weather to eat lunch and for more conversation. The most hilarious/illuminating was the discussion about AARP. Brad's friend Kent is an editor at AARP and I took a survey of our group to see who belongs. While everybody expressed the same vain reservations that I have about joining AARP, it turns out that everyone at our table is a member except for us. So, with such strong recommendations on the informative articles (and yes, the discounts too), and after getting a tour of the app from Kent, this week I'm going to join us up.

On Saturday afternoon we met up with our dear friend Annelise and enjoyed catching up and laughing with her. We also realized that it's been 25 years since we became friends in Racine. She and Brad started at SC Johnson together, and the first time I met her was when I brought baby Mary to Brad's office.

Friday night was the football game against Oregon. It was a 49-7 blowout, but even with an 8:00 o'clock start we still stayed for the whole game. (Which is a big deal for me given that 8:00 isn't far off from my usual bedtime.) Antics included not only the band (with a great halftime show thanks to what must be a new and improved sound system) but also a rabbit that got loose on the field and created some hilarious moments. (For everyone, that is, except the poor rabbit.)

After the game, we did something we never do, which is go to a student bar (with the Coins) and close it down. (Lucky for us it closes at 12:30 but we still get to say we closed it down.) It was a fitting end to a fun weekend, as we left early the next morning to drive home in time for Brad to catch his flight out of LAX.

Flashback Friday

We're up at Stanford this weekend for Brad's reunion. Five years ago we were there too, only we got the added bonus of hanging out with our favorite Stanford student (she was a sophomore). I know we'll have a great time this year, but I know we'd have even MORE fun if our favorite Stanford grad was with us!

Flashback Friday

On April 25, 2010, Mary made her college visit to Stanford with Brad. She fell in love, they said yes, and the rest is Mary Harrison history. Here she is, a high school junior, enjoying some dinner outside Tressider Union.

Flashback Friday

Five years ago this week we were getting ready to fly to California to take Mary to college. Yep, it's been that long since Mary started her four happy years at Stanford. It seems hard to believe it's already been five years, which I know sounds trite but it's an accurate reflection of how I feel most weeks when I write my Flashback Friday post. Also, this has nothing to do with Flashback Friday, but I wanted to make a plug for two new blogs. First, Jessa has started a blog about their time in Morocco. Its address is peachesinmorocco.wordpress.com. Not to be outdone, Peter has also started a blog. His topic is street cats in Morocco and the address is streetcatsofmorocco.weebly.com. Enjoy!

Flashback Friday

With Stanford in the Rose Bowl today (again!!), of course it had to be a Rose Bowl Flashback. And aren't we lucky to have had two Rose Bowls when we got to watch Mary march in the parade and at the game!! This is from the first year she was there, in 2012. After a huge day and a big win over Wisconsin, she (and we) were exhausted but happy! Happy New Year all—and go Cardinal!!

Graduation Weekend!

We all had a fantastic long weekend at Mary's graduation. There are far too many pictures for this post, but soon I'll get them all up on facebook. Here we are all in the car on the way to dinner on our first night - squeezed in and happy to be together!

On our first night we had dinner with our friend Annelise from Racine, who's been a supportive friend to Mary these past four years. 

On our walk to Baccalaureate on Saturday morning.

Mary processing out of Baccalaureate. It was a sunny morning and quite warm, but the speaker (Vernon Jordan) was superb. 

After Baccalaureate we took a picture or two, and then we walked over to a party.

Mary's friend Lisa (on the left) and her family have been Mary's second home these past four years. Her dad's a professor and they live on campus. They hosted a beautiful and fun brunch after Baccalaureate.

The Harrison group at the brunch.

That night we had dinner with Brian and Candace, who Mary has gotten to see a lot of during her four years.

Sunday morning it was time for graduation. Stanford does its graduation procession a little differently. (They call it the Wacky Walk.) Mary and some friends built an adorable canoe and they "paddled" in. 

After the ceremony, the band played a short concert. I think this picture says it all.

As does this one of the entire tenor saxophone section.

After the big graduation, we went over to Hoover Tower for Mary's economics graduation. Here's our whole group.

And a lighthearted moment with the kids (and John getting a Cardinals cap on Peter's head).

And finally, our graduate! There are a few more pictures (translated: dozens) that fill in the gaps. If you're feeling brave, you can see them on facebook when I get them up there in a day or so. If not, this gives you a pretty good idea of the weekend!

Ode To Football Band

The good news is we get to have Mary home for almost three weeks ..... starting tomorrow! (That is, if the weather in San Francisco cooperates ..... she could be delayed if the weather prediction of high winds and storms are as bad as it sounds.) The "bad" news (not really) is that she's opting to spend New Year's with friends in Seattle instead of playing in Stanford's postseason bowl game (the Foster Farms Bowl, on December 30 in Santa Clara) so ..... as it turns out her last football game with the band was Big Game the weekend before Thanksgiving. (But fear not, she's not totally done with band ..... there's still basketball season!) This year her band section dressed up (a Big Game tradition) as Ghostbusters. Today a couple of photos of her, taken by the official band photographer, showed up on Facebook so ..... I thought I'd share them.

I think I'll call this one: "oh my that's a lot of hair!!!"

The Harrisons Mix It Up

Last week while I was waiting to board my flight from LaGuardia, I got a text from my brother Steve who, it turns out, was also waiting to board his own flight to St. Louis (though from a different city). The next day, after he finished up with his St. Louis meetings, we met for drinks before he left town. (And by "drinks" I mean coffee for me and tea for him.) Today he and Amy start their week of moving out of New Orleans, and by week's end they'll be fellow residents of Missouri!

Meanwhile back on The Farm ….. Saturday found Mary marching in her first football game of the season. (This year Stanford has an unfortunate home football schedule; Saturday's was only the second home game since school started, and there's only one more home game yet to come.) It was reunion weekend and by the looks of what we saw on TV (and in this picture) I think it's safe to say everyone had a good time. Here is Mary with her friends Veronica, Lisa, Max, and Alison. (Max, if you watched the game and were paying super close attention, was the student featured with the Stanford Solar Car Project in a cutaway to one of the commercials.)

Meanwhile on the other side of the country, Peter was treated to a weekend visit by his Aunt Kathy and Uncle Don, who were in town visiting his cousin Lauren. They went out to dinner on Friday night (above) to one of DC's best craft beer bars, Churchkey. On Saturday he guided them on a bike tour of the District.

I will finish my post where I started: St. Louis. Since we've been gone for most of the month we hadn't seen John and Troy for awhile. So yesterday the four of us caught up at brunch at The Southwest Diner, a great local spot (if you're willing to wait to get in). I didn't get the memo to wear Packer gear (okay, yes I realize it's a standing requirement on Sundays) but John, Troy, and Brad were still willing to sit with me!

More of Last Week

Today Brad and I are off to New York City and Connecticut for about a week for a combined work (Brad) and play (both of us) trip. So before I leave I want to finish up from last week (when I didn't take very many pictures so it'll be quick). But I was inspired at the Napa Farmer's Market. The produce was so pretty. We loved having one last look at the harvest in warm weather!

We enjoyed some pretty views last week. This was at the Matanzas Winery, where we had a picnic. It was really peaceful - there wasn't anybody there picnicking except for us.

After five days in Napa and Sonoma, it was back to Stanford for some more time with Mary. We went to the Washington State football game, where our favorite band player wasn't playing in the band after all. (It was an awkward Friday night game and Mary had too many other commitments on Friday to be able to march.) So she sat with the students for the first time since freshman year, and we enjoyed the chance to visit with her in the stands for a bit.

Mary took us to a bunch of new places in our short stay, including this make-your-own-ice-cream-sandwich shop. Pick your cookies, pick your ice-cream, and enjoy - which we did!

A Mary Morning

We started our Northern California week with brunch. Mary's friends Lisa and Veronica joined us. We had a great time and it's always so much fun to spend time with Mary and her friends.


After brunch Mary showed us the house she's living in this year. It's in a part of campus called "the row" and it's a fantastic location. Her house is called Columbae. Fifty-eight students live there. Almost all are seniors and juniors.


Columbae is a co-op, meaning that the students cook and clean for themselves. Everyone has a weekly job and everyone has to cook dinner once a quarter. (They have an industrial kitchen.) Mary says the food is superb. It's also quite organized and neat. And it's a veggie house. This is their kitchen garden.


The front of the house has a big porch. Lots of Mary's friends live on the row too, so it feels like a neighborhood. Seems like it'll be a perfect place for Mary to live during senior year!

Glad We're Delayed

Our flight to San Francisco is delayed by about 90 minutes so we were still home when the picture of Mary and her three friends appeared during the broadcast of the Stanford/Notre Dame game - yay - it was so fun to see!

Mary's Seattle Weekend

Mary was excited to be in Seattle this weekend. Or as she called it, "my very first trip to the Pacific Northwest."


In her spare time she took in some sights, drank her fair share of coffee, kept up with her schoolwork, and even found time to send her dear ol' mom a few pictures for this blog.


The occasion for the trip was the women's Pac-12 basketball tournament. Here's Mary with the tenor sax contingent. Since a basketball band is always small - and since the band has to play for men and women in both the conference tournaments and (hopefully) both the NCAA tournaments, and do so just as the winter quarter is coming to a close - only a few kids from each section go on any of the post-season trips. In other words, this will be Mary's only post-season basketball trip.


Mary's view from the start of last night's game. After beating Colorado on Friday night, I'm not at all happy to report that last night Stanford was upset by USC. Drats. So now everyone goes back to campus, but I have a good feeling that the #4 ranked Card will be back in the NCAA tournament. They just won't have my favorite tenor in the band.

Tournament of Roses

One our first stops in Pasadena was to see the floats being decorated. Up close you can really see the detail and amount of work it takes to decorate them entirely out of plant material.

Behind Peter and Kayla you can see floats being worked on. 

The complimentary rose at the end of looking at the floats is a nice parting gift.

That night (December 30), Stanford held a pep rally at the Santa Monica Pier. We met up with some friends before the rally, and Mary was able to stop in for a quick hello.

After the pep rally, the LSJUMB played a concert. They dressed in "rally," which is code for "crazy get-ups." Mary's choice for the evening were her Wisconsin (as in "University of") game bibs.

The next day the four of us enjoyed some gorgeous weather in the Olvera Street area of Los Angeles, as well as Little Tokyo. We had a super delicious Mexican lunch on Olvera Street, which is the original Los Angeles. One of the things we learned during our visit is that the original name for Los Angeles is El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula.  (Yes, I am being completely serious.)

That night we picked up Mary at her hotel in Universal City and went to a nearby Japanese restaurant for a New Year's Eve dinner. We had a fun night of being together and eating some yummy sushi.

It was bright and early, but the Rose Parade was fantastic. I probably said it last year but I'll say it again - it's one of those things that you have to see to believe. It's pretty on TV, but it's so much better in person. Of course, the highlight for us was the Stanford Band. If you didn't catch it on TV, here's a link to a short video clip showing the footage from three different telecasts. 

We needed warm clothing for the parade, but once the sun came out it was back to t-shirts for pre-game tailgating!

It was a great game, but the result wasn't what Stanford fans hoped for. Still, we had a fantastic time cheering for the Cardinal, and mostly cheering for our favorite band, the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band. As always there were cheers and jeers in the media for the band; this little piece is one of my favorite cheers.

I think my favorite part of the day was the post-game concert. After the game ended the band waited patiently for the festivities on the field to finish up and die down. And then they assembled on a little corner of the field and played a festive concert. This little performance represents what I love about this band, which is about celebrating the moment.

We followed the band out to their buses and gave a big hug to our favorite player. (That's her in the Shane Skove eye black.) After marching in the five and a half mile parade and playing all day at the game, they were all tired, but still energized by such a fantastic experience as they'd had the past three days. We gave Mary a big hug and said so long.

We all had a good night's sleep and then we still had a few hours before we had to be at the airport. So Brad drove us over to Venice Beach and we walked around and enjoyed a superbly gorgeous day before heading east to much colder weather. It was a perfect way to end our stay.

But wait, there's more! Mary stayed on in Los Angeles as one of her band friends lives there. His parents were nice enough to host her and two other band friends. I know these kids enjoyed having a couple of laid back days. They drove back to school yesterday and classes start again tomorrow. So it's back to the books (and back to the band - it's basketball season afterall!), but after a wonderful and certainly memorable time in Pasadena.