I've been tagged!

I've been delinquent in thanking Theresa and Denise for tagging my blog in a fun little Internet game that is a throwback of sorts to snail mail chain letters. First, the tagging game's rules:

• Link to the person who tagged you.
  
• Post the rules on your blog.
• Write 6 random things about yourself.
• Tag 6-ish people at the end of your post.
• Let each person know he/she has been tagged.
• Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Six random things about me:

1. Although most people associate me with the Irish heritage on my dad's side of the family, my mother's side of the family has Norwegian roots. According to family genealogy research that my maternal grandfather did, I am directly linked to Norwegian royalty. Alt for Norge!

2. Despite my Irish blood, I am the only current redhead in my family. My mother's mother, who dyed her hair red, swore that it was natural. She made a bet that she would have a redheaded child to prove it. She won a bottle of wine in 1951 when my mother (her first daughter) was born with strawberry-blonde hair. Mom's hair later turned blonde, but grandma's genes were proven again when her first grandchild, me, was born with red hair. Grandma had died two years before I was born, but Mom said that she knew who my guardian angel was ... and that Grandma would've been toasting with another bottle of wine. I'm thankful that my hair has stayed red ... and I don't color it. Honest. (I'd bet on it.)






















3. I used to wear the symbol of the enemy. A KU grad and huge Jayhawk fan, you would've thought I have always been anti-Wildcat. But in high school, before I became hooked on KU basketball and the university lured me to campus with a hefty journalism scholarship, I often wore a soft and comfortable K-State sweatshirt handed down from my neighbor Trina, who went to K-State. Never again!


4. I once sang in one of the oldest churches in London during a high school choir trip. During the trip, my friends called me "Mistletoe" because that's what they thought the British man at the airport called me when he checked my passport and said, in his very thick accent, "Thank you, Miss O'Toole." The highlight of the trip, though, was visiting the birthplace of William Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon.

5. My first day as a full-time newspaper reporter was Sept. 11, 2001. My assignment that day was to head to the airport and interview people whose planes were headed from one coast to the other and who had to land in Wichita when all flights were grounded. Brian and I had just married 10 days earlier, and I felt guilty for being a happy newlywed starting my new life during a time of such national sadness and distress.

6. I once did a live phone interview on Court TV about a murder trial I was covering in Butler County, Kan. It was the first -- and only -- murder trial I've ever covered on my own.

I tag:

1. My sister Jen, whose blog is "The Happy Couple: Party of Three!"

2. My cousin Evan, whose blog is "30 Percent Irish: Adventures in Wyoming"

3. His wife, whose blog is "Trying to Catch a Breath"

4. Jenn, whose blog is "Patience is a Virtue"

5. Curt Rogers, a Denver blogger and fellow lover of golden retrievers, whose blog is "While Walking Duncan."
Curt was kind enough to nominate my blog for the Brillante blog award in July.