Saturday, October 6th was my last day with WSEE, I am going to WKOW and WMSN in Madison, Wisconsin. I have mixed emotions about leaving… I’m happy to be moving up and excited to start my new job, but I am really going to miss WSEE and Erie. I am writing this blog today to share with you some of my favorite memories over the last two years.

Let’s start with weather… My first time on the air was October 8th 2005, I had only been here 5 days, training with Ray. I had never been live before and I was so nervous I almost fainted. But I’ve gotten over that. Doing the morning show my third week here help.

I have a lot of great memories with the Stormteam, and we really were a great team. I loved doing severe weather cut-in’s with Joey. The two weather specials I got to with Ray and Joe were a lot of work, but fun, I got to incorporate both my reporting and weather skills.

Weather training on our fancy new weather computers was great, despite the fact that I worked five weeks straight with Ray’s daughter being born in the midst of all of it. Joey, Ray and I didn’t get to work together very often and it was a blast to be together for those last two weeks. Ray had us laughing so hard we were crying half the time. If you think he’s funny on the air, you should hear him behind the scenes.

And I have a favorite blooper moment too. I was doing the weather for the noon show and there was severe weather at the time. I cut to the Warren Live Eye and, unbeknownst to me (because the director thought it would be funny not to tell me), there was a spider on the lens. When the shot came up the spider was behind me so I didn’t see it, but then I turned sideways and there it was! Of course the spider probably wasn’t very big in reality, but it was huge on the screen. I sometimes forget that it’s just a blue wall behind me, and I totally freaked out… LIVE! Raychel Vendetti and the director, Bob, couldn’t stop laughing and neither could I. Needless to say, I have it all on tape and so does WSEE.

I have a lot of great memories in the newsroom too. I didn’t go to school to be a reporter and I had no clue what I was doing at first, but I learned pretty quickly. My first story was about sand replenishment for Presque Isle State Park. And I’ll never forget my first package (long news story), it was about a husband who gave his wife a kidney. It was really touching and it’s still one of my favorite stories.

Of course my favorite stories were weather related. I got to cover the flooding in Meadville for three days, and I got to wear my hot pink wellies too. Covering the 50 car pile-up on I-90 this past January was a nightmare. I was so cold, and wind made it even worse, and the snow was coming down so hard we could barely see a foot in front of our faces. I had to go live about it during Newswatch at 6, and the only place for me to stand was on the roof of the live truck. I had every piece on clothing on that I could find and I was still so cold I thought my thumbs would break off!

I got to cover storm damage a lot and environmental stories like the one about littering in Wintergreen Gorge. What you didn’t see in that story was me sliding down into the gorge on my backside!

I have so many fun stories about all of our photographers, directors and the other reporters too… too many to mention! I have so many wonderful memories from my two years here and I will never forget them. I will never forget Erie and I will miss this city, especially the beaches of Presque Isle. Thank you Erie, and WSEE, for making these last two years so wonderful.

I have had phone calls to the contrary, where viewers have said their wooly bears have had a lot of black. While there is no scientific backing to this folklore, we want to see pictures of your wooly worms. Send them to weather@wsee.tv and we'll see what they say. My personal belief is that the big brown stripe is what is fashionable this fall season among the wooly bears.