Tell us a story. APRIL 27 - NATIONAL TELL A STORY DAY & Affiliates Determine which of the employee written creative stories are true or false. Submit your answers – via email only – to [email protected]. You can send your answers in from your personal or work email account. To help during this time, please do not print this and submit paper copies with your answers. All entries must be submitted via email by 4:30pm on Friday, May 1.

So there we were, thirty-six of us on the bus on the way to the railroad station in a foreign country with a driver that spoke no English. We had lost our tour guide back at the hotel as she had to greet another tour group. Things could not get any worse could they? Our bus pulls into the railroad station parking lot and a man with a loud two way radio approaches us. "Leningrad 1correct?" he asks in broken English. "Yes" I reply and before I can get another word in he says "Platform 4" and hurries off, his radio still shouting in Russian. I get the thirty-five other members of our tour group off the bus and make sure I have the thirty-six passports and visas that our tour guide gave us. I realize that I have been declared de-facto leader due to my ability to be able to read the strange Cyrillic script that is everywhere. Looking at the tickets I discover a problem. A sleeper carriage seats thirty-six people and we are a group of thirty-six but one ticket looked different. Typical Soviet efficiency puts thirty-six of us in one carriage and 1 in another. As we find platform 4 (not too difficult, it is between 3 and 5) I decide that possession is nine tenths of the law and pile everybody into our carriage. After a few minutes one guy shows up who was not on our tour group, this must be the lucky Russian who is going to be with thirty-five foreigners overnight unless I can figure this out. I try to explain the situation using what little Russian I have but knowing how to say "I have a blue pencil" and other beginner phrases appears to muddy the waters. He calls the guard over, who looks quite spectacular in his Soviet era uniform. Between my broken Russian and his broken English a deal is brokered and we swap tickets. Now we can have thirty-six of us in one carriage for the overnight train journey to Leningrad. I hope we have a tour guide to meet us in the morning otherwise this could be a very interesting vacation for an eighteen year old.

It all started the Christmas of 2017. I had been enjoying conversation with a new Facebook friend who lived in England. We became friends when I posted my story about how I had overcome some of life's struggles under a post by Tyrese Gibson (from the Fast and Furious series). This person (we will call him Mark) read my 700 word story and messaged me. He had a similar hurdle2 in life and asked for my advice. Now I usually don't talk to strangers but he was polite and I never miss a change to teach, so we chatted every week. Then every week became every day as we found more that we had in common and were interested in each other's lives. He had no family in England to spend Christmas with and had never been to the States before so he asked if he could visit me for 3 weeks during Christmas and New years. Now we had been planning to meet in the summer but I also was pretty free for the Holiday so why not? My friends and family were concerned thought that he was a bad guy. So to appease their nerves I brought a friend with me to the airport to pick Mark up. When I saw him my whole world changed. Throughout that next week as we hung out together and did "American" things I fell in love. I had been dating someone else during the time before Mark arrived so romance was the farthest thing from my mind but he was everything that I wanted in a man. We dated for 1 week before we got engaged. When you know you know! He had to go back to England after the three weeks and that goodbye at the airport was the hardest. Little did I know that I would have to say goodbye to him 2 more times at airports before the green card application finally was approved and we were able to get married almost 2 years later. During those 2 years we went through a lot. His ex broke into his house and stole a few things. I almost moved to England but we decided to have him move to the USA because we both preferred the American culture and living options. He had to dissolve his agency in London. I visited him twice and we toured the UK visiting all different kinds of places. We spent hours and hours on the phone every day and exchanged over 40,000 messages(I'm glad messenger is free!) When we finally were able to be together and have the wedding everything went smoothly and we are now living happily ever after.

Irregular heartbeat. Dizziness. Passing out. The doctors agreed it was time to get my VSD fixed. Who knew that a 20-year-old would need open heart surgery? Completely terrified of having my chest cut open and relying on doctors and a cardiopulmonary bypass machine to ensure my safety during the procedure was not something I would ever look forward to. What if3 I didn’t wake up? It was scheduled for January 11th, 2017 at SSM. The morning started early, around 5:00 am. I sat patiently and waited until 7:15 am when they would take me to the procedure room. I was taken back and my parents waited nervously in the waiting room for 6 hours. I started to wake up, but I couldn’t wake up enough for them to take my breathing tube out. It took me three hours to finally wake up enough for them to take it out. I was hungry, but they wouldn’t let me eat anything besides ice chips until the next morning. They made me roll from one side to the other every 30 minutes to keep the blood flowing. The pain of turning from side to side hours after your sternum bone was cut in half was excruciating. I never realized how much I used my chest muscles to simply move my body. I remained in the ICU for the next two days. I was able to drink water and eat small amounts of crackers. On day 3, I was able to start eating more normal food, but I was on a very strict Mediterranean diet. It was also on the third day that I was able to move from my hospital bed to the chair right next to it, with help of course. Day 4, 5, and 6 consisted of short walks down the hallway, watching tv, trying to sleep the pain away, and several rounds of pain medications throughout the day. The worst part of my day was in the afternoons, when I received blood thinner shots into my stomach. Day 7 consisted of a shower and being released to go home. It all seems like a blur to me now, but I remember how grateful I was for the amazing care I received, my friends and family’s support, and how strong I was able to be for myself to heal and return to a normal life.

When you went to school, were you taught PHONICS? I was. None of this memorization stuff used for reading now. As a result of this, I not only learned to read but also found myself in a challenging situation. My family went out to eat at a restaurant which was a special treat. As we were ordering my dad said we could choose a drink which was a huge thing as we always had 4water. Now let your imagination take you. Here I am staring at the back of the pop machine sitting on the counter in front of me. It says Mountain Dew, Hi-C, Sprite etc. I know what I want! I want orange. It is the best flavor. I hate to have to say what I want as I am very shy but I couldn’t give up the chance for a cup of orange soda. I stared at that word Hi-C. I sounded it out in my head. H..I..C.. Hmm. It doesn’t sound right. I do it again. The only way I could sound it out was Hick. I never remembered my dad calling it that in the past but I couldn’t come up with anything else. The lady asked me what type of drink would I like. I said Hick(said phonetically mind you) she looked at me and said ”What”. My dad stepped in” She would like Hi-C(hi-see). As you can tell, I did not have a lot of experience ordering anything and since that day I have never again forgotten how to pronounce un-phonetically the work Hi-C. Tell us a story. APRIL 27 - NATIONAL TELL A STORY DAY & Affiliates Determine which of the employee written creative stories are true (T) or false (F). Submit your answers to [email protected] by May 1 for a chance to WIN!

It was 2004. I was getting ready for one of my FAVORITE days in elementary school – Valentine’s Day! The movies, the candy, fun art projects and heart-shaped pizza for lunch, I couldn’t wait. I put on my favorite dress, ate some breakfast, and decid- ed to do my own hair…it wasn’t one of my best ideas at 10 years old. I went into my parent’s bathroom, grabbed my mom’s round 5hairbrush, and started brushing away. I wanted my hair to be perfect for my favorite day of the year! Unfortunately, the round brush got completely tangled in my hair and I started to panic, pulling and tugging, only making it worse.

I ran downstairs, into the kitchen and showed dad. He laughed, then panicked. He didn’t know anything about hair (that was always Mom’s job.) Mom had already left for work and dad was in charge. He tried to get the brush out for 20 minutes, again, only making it worse. Dad called mom and mom called Jansen’s Hair Salon in Waunakee. The hairdresser told them to bring me down there to see if they could help.

I walked into the salon with the hairbrush hanging off of my head, completely embarrassed as the hairdressers giggled. After what seemed like gallons of detangling spray and hours of tugging, the brush was out. Still humiliated, dad thanked them, tipped them, and drove me to school. I walked into my classroom, over two hours late, seeing everyone passing out valentines and candy. My friends asked me why I was late, but I was too embarrassed to ever tell anyone. I spent the rest of the day remind- ing myself to never try to do my own hair again.

In 2011, I was fortunate enough to cross a goal of off my bucket list. My neighbors invited me to go work on their friend’s Wyoming ranch for a week and we could bring our own horses. Each day we gathered pastures of mother cows, and babies, in the morning. We branded, and vaccinated, the calves in the afternoon. It was beautiful country with cactus, wildlife, breathtaking 6views, and adventures around every corner. One morning, the ranch manger sent Jake the ranch hand, my neighbor, Sue, and myself across US Hwy 85 to gather 6 bulls to bring back to the ranch. We had to ride through a six-mile square pasture that contained cow/calf pairs and then through a large culvert under Hwy 85. The bulls were kept in a small pasture across the highway and we had to find them to bring them back through the culvert, through the cow pasture, and pen them back at the ranch. Only five, of the six, bulls had been through the culvert. We gathered them up and pushed them to the opening of the culvert. The five bulls that had been through it before went right through but the sixth one refused. The bull became nervous, and very excited, quickly when it could no longer see his herd mates. He ran up the embankment, jumped the fence, and was running down the highway before we could stop him. Immediately Sue rode through the culvert to keep the other five bulls contained. Jake, and I, went after the bull. He went across the highway to open the gate up to the pasture and I went after the bull. At one point, my horse and I were running flat out along side a semi with the bull on the other side running just as fast. With traffic flying by, I finally got the bull turned around and pushed him across the highway and down to the gate. Between the three of us, we got him back in with the other five bulls and started for the ranch again. As we were riding along, a van stopped up on the highway, and a lady got out and started videoing us. I heard her tell her husband to look at those real cowboys herding the cows. Little did she know, we were just Wisconsin farmers on vacation!

Growing up as the only girl in a family of four older brothers was hard. Always being pushed aside and ignored. My uncle was always there for me making me feel wanted, so just like any other kid I would always follow him around and copied whatever he said and did. One day while watching him shave, I wanted to do that too! As soon as he left the room I grabbed that shaver 7and looked in the mirror to get started, but I didn't have a beard like him, because I was only 5 years old but then, and I was a girl. But that didn’t stop me! As soon as I was done I ran into the room where my family was. My mom squinted her eyes trying to figure out what was different and yelled,"Tonya! Where are your eyebrows?" My mom still laughs about that to this day.

I started collecting rainbow décor in 3rd grade. My room had some sort of rainbow paraphernalia anywhere and every- where from the walls to the windows. I basically adored rainbows. There was no stopping me from infusing rainbows into all my 8hopes and dreams. I decided on a rainbow wedding back then in grade school and I considered this “someday rainbow wedding” to be the most important thing in my life I had to accomplish. I had it all planned out. My bridesmaids would each be dressed in their assigned color and the groomsmen would have a bowtie and vest matching their partner’s dress color. My hair would have a beautiful headband with rainbow colors, matching my bouquet of all seven wonderful hues. My future husband would have a gold vest and bowtie, representing what is usually at the end of this lucky symbol. I would share in my vows that “In searching for the rainbow’s end, I found not gold, but our love instead.” Since grade school, I had planned on our wedding song to be Judy Garland’s, Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Our invitations would state, “The dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.” The “flower girls” would instead drop little rain petals we would cut out of cellophane shiny paper. Then when they’d walk down the aisle first, it would represent a little rain, and then the bridesmaids would walk down the aisle and their bouquets would have a sunflower in the middle, representing the sunshine. I had the two critical ingredients necessary for all rainbows to exist. I had so many detailed plans for this special day. I ended up writing them all down for a creative writing assignment in 8th grade. I shared all the intricate plans and landed myself an A+ for all the innovative descriptions. My teacher wrote in his comments with my grade, “Good luck finding a guy who will go for all this.” Well, I didn’t need luck. I fell in love with a man who wanted nothing to do with the wedding planning details. He just told me to let him know where and when to show up and what to wear…and I, for sure, had absolutely no problem with that! Now over 20 years later, through both stormy times, and sunny times, we have designed a colorful marriage that will hopefully live to see many more rainbows.