third time's a charm

It's been said that good things come in THREES.  Well, maybe I made that up but I happen to believe it's true.  THREES are everywhere.

There were THREE pigs and THREE bears.
THREE stooges and THREE musketeers.

THREE's Company.
THREE men [and a Baby].

THREE answer options [Yes, Maybe, No].

THREE strikes.
THREE bulbs on a traffic light [American].
And so forth.

I have done some research-aka Googled-and have learned that there are a lot of rules regarding THREES.  According to Wikipedia a 'Rule of Three' may refer to:

• Rule of THREE (aviation), a rule of descent in aviation
• Rule of THREE (C++ programming), a rule of thumb about class method definitions [Emily]
• Rule of THREE (statistics), for calculating a confidence limit when no events have been observed
• Rule of THIRDS, a compositional rule of thumb in photography
• Rule of THIRDS (diving), a rule of thumb for scuba divers

With all of these rules is does not surprise me to any degree that my parents had THREE kids; they are never ones to break any rules.  And, following in their footsteps, we THREE little angels do our best to follow suit.

Let's see what I can scrounge up...

• Let's see, each one of us busted our chins in various pool accidents at the age of 3.5.
• The second letters of our first names are the first THREE letters of the alphabet group 'L-M-N-O-P' eLlen, eMily, aNdrew.  You just never know what you might learn here :)
• We were all three born in Louisiana.
• We have all [or will soon] subjected our family to THREE graduation ceremonies each.
• We all THREE graduated in 2009 from Grad School, College, and High School.  (I wanted to put a link to my blog post about that but I see that I wasn't blogging then :/)
• And now, in the year 2013, we have all THREE received fairly significant bands of precious metals:  Engagement ring, Engagement ring, & Aggie ring.  As I'm writing this I just realized that our rings fit our familiar alpha-rhythm of EEA or Ellen, Emily, & Andrew.  I would call that coincidence but knowing our parents they probably planned that too.  Trust me, it is entirely possible with those two.

Jeff, Emily, and I all drove to College Station to go with Andrew to pick up his Aggie Ring.  This is a big deal at TAMU; a deal so big that I still don't quite understand.  People tell me it's because I didn't do my undergrad there and I missed out.  I've never really argued this point as it is quite obvious that I did miss out [please detect some sarcasm here!!!!!]

I should also note that I am so proud of Jeff for making the trip to the forbidden land and did so with very little grumbling but he still tries to hide in pictures.  My beloved Texas Tech Univ. graduate is still trying to grasp the fact that he is marrying into a fairly well-rooted family of TAMU-ers.  It's a tough pill to swallow but he's a big boy.  And if not that's what counseling is for ;)  Sigh, love makes you do some crazy things.

Anyhow, we had a great time pretending to be like we are still in college.  And do you know what I found out?!  I can't do it anymore.  You know, the moment your 2X year old body wakes up and realizes it's not 22 anymore?!  You have no idea how hard that is for me to admit but it's so true I couldn't lie about it if I had to.  And I know it's only going to get worse...

Regardless, we had a good time and am thankful for to Brother Andrew for opening up his sofas to us for another night's sleep.  Even though there are few things in the world that I would enjoy laying my head on less than that of sofas belonging to college guys.

I have to be honest in the next picture.  I am not quite sure who's arm is who's and actually find it quite disturbing.  But I like our smiles.  Andrew looks like he's loving every minute, doesn't he?!  My, how he loves his two sisters :)

And there's Jeff!  The camera man.  We were racing the sun and I'm thankful to Jeff that he volunteered to be behind the camera :)

Congratulations, ANDREW!!!!

I love you and am so proud!

Now go study ;)