Thats a Wrap

Wow! We have been finished with school for about two and a half weeks. Sorry I gave up on the blog at the end of the school year...it was a CRAZY last week. Finals were not so bad for Ty, but he ended up having to help me to finish mine. Apparently finals week seems like the best time for arts and crafts to some of my professors. I was printing pictures and coloring them by hand like there was no tomorrow. Then there was the final 5-7 page paper I had to write in Spanish and the poster representing the paper.  What a chore.  We managed to survive the week and are thrilled to say that we both got good grades this semester. 


Now, summer is here! We are thrilled to be back in Chippewa Falls and seeing family all the time. Ty started an internship in Eau Claire at a place called Applied Data Consultants and loves what he is doing and is learning so much. He hopes that this internship will get his foot in the door so that we can come back to Chippewa long term. As for me...I am still working as needed at The Rutledge Home and looking for jobs that might give me more hours. So far, no luck.  You know, its funny, now that we are back in Chippewa and its Summer, we are excited to go back. Only one year left and we are going to be FINALLY be college graduates! As Ty wrote when he had finished his last final, "School is done for the year, one year left...let this be a lesson to all...never take time off from school to "find yourself." Sooner or later, you will find yourself back in school."

Spanish Phrase of the Day

Por Fin! El semestre se terminó!

Translation: Finally! The semester is over!

UPDATE!!!

I know its been awhile, but things have been as crazy as you can imagine! Only two more weeks and we will be home in Chippewa. Originally we thought I would be stuck here for three extra weeks taking a summer class, but it was canceled and I am able to take it in the Fall so all is well. Ty gave his major presentation about his research project and poster last week Monday. It went well. He passed with flying colors and his professor was very impressed. Later that evening we watched the children of a couple living in River Falls with ties to Chippewa. They have three wonderful children and we were able to take them to play at the Burger King Play land. Later, while I put the little one to bed, Ty took the older two to see Rio. They came home raving about it!

The rest of the week was filled with class and homework. I gave two presentations in Spanish and then Friday Alyssa Came to visit! We had a great time. We went to a Mexican restaurant in Hudson and shopped at a cute little store downtown. It is always nice to have a visitor! I miss you sister of mine!

As for this last weekend, we stayed in River Falls to do some much needed catch up on our major projects. We met Brooke, Annie and Leslie in cities for a coffee and then got right to work. We decided to stay up there for dinner. We tried this cute little Thai place. The food was really good. I always love to try new foods from other countries. Afterward we went to church at Bethlehem and drove home to relax. Sunday was more homework and not much for fun. Well, time to get to work again...here are some pictures from Easter. Yes, I am 23 and we still have an Easter Egg hunt!

Spanish Phrase of the Day

Un abril lluvioso trae un mayo hermoso

Literal Translation: a rainy April brings a beautiful May

English Equivalent: April showers bring May flowers

The Fire

Last night Ty and I decided to drive home and spend the night. Ty had an interview in Eau Claire for a summer internship, so we thought we would save an hour by driving home. Around 8:30pm we were looking at the River Falls Journal news paper for a new apartment when we looked on the home page of their website and saw the picture below....

Ty said, " Hey isn't that our apartment building?" Sure enough, when we read the story it was our apartment building! We couldn't believe what we were seeing. It was quite the scare. We quickly called the apartment manager, and she told us that there had been a fire on the other side of the building (left in the picture ours is the balcony to the right of the blue awning)...she said that she didn't think there had been any smoke damage to our apartment, but we were still nervous. She couldn't give us much information at the time, so we just had to wait until the morning after Ty's interview to assess the damage. I couldn't sleep all night.

When morning finally came, we went to Ty's interview and then headed home. When we drove up to the building, all we could see was a huge black hole on the back side of the apartment building. It was nerve racking. We didn't have renter's insurance at the time (I know, I know...bad us). When we got to the parking lot and we could see cleaning crews already there trying to make it livable for the rest of the tenants. When we got to our hallway, there was no smoke damage . Then came the moment of truth, we opened our door to find that everything was OK and that there was no smoke damage. There was an odor of burnt plastic, but we were SO blessed not to have any damage! Praise God, we were safe and no one was hurt in the fire. There are many who did lose everything in the fire and our hearts go out to those people. We will be looking for ways to help those people out. If there is anything anyone else can do I will post on the blog. 

Spanish Phrase of the Day

Quien inició el fuego?

Translation: Who started the fire?

Posters and Papers and Presentations , Oh My!

Monday hit like a ton of bricks...I was so tired I just didn't want to roll out of bed. Mondays are always hard, but this one seemed harder for some reason. Yesterday was a very productive day. Ty was at the school so I was home cleaning and doing laundry. After dinner it was back to the books. This semester has been a busy one, but these next few weeks are going to be especially crazy. Ty's big mapping project poster is due in a week. He will be displaying it in the University Center too. That will be VERY cool. 

As for me, nothing is really new. I am just observing in the classroom, teaching Spanish to Kindergartners and writing lesson plans. In two weeks there will be presentations coming out my ears and papers galore, but for now its all the same. 

Ty has an interview tomorrow for a part-time internship with a company in Eau Claire that does GIS (for those who don't know that's a mapping software). Please pray that it all goes well. Back to work...See everyone this weekend!

Spanish Phrase of the Day

Este semestre cogemos el toro por los cuernos

Translation: This semester we take the bull by the horns

Friday, My Favorite!

Well, this has been a very busy week. We have been trying to get through lesson plans and mapping projects between observation hours and studying for tests. We did find a little time to squeeze in some fun.

Monday, we were all settled in to sleep when Ty had this idea for his project that would make it "better" so, at 11pm, we hopped out of bed and drove to Hudson where I studied and Ty did research until 2am. Surprisingly, we weren't too tired to go and try to recreate our first date on Tuesday (more to come).

I taught my lesson to Kindergartners again and they were actually listening to me this time. Then, I hurried back to campus to have my night class. When night class was over around 6:30pm we headed to the Cities to celebrate the 3rd anniversary of our first date. Depending on who you ask, it was either really terrible or really good. Since I am blogging, I will tell you why it was really good ;). We did get lost and we did have a difficult time finding parking, I will admit that was no fun. We did try to go to the restaurant where we had our first date, and were ignored by a waitress. BUT we found this cute place called the Loring Pasta Bar. Yes, the menu was more expensive than we expected, but I thought the authentic food was good (Ty was not as impressed). You could see the Kitchen from where we were sitting and there was a live band playing authentic Italian music while people were dancing. 

This is a picture from their website. I tired to take one, but it was just too dark.

Afterward, Ty suggested going to McDonalds for a McFlurry...I said, "After 3 years thats all I am worth? At least take me to Dairy Queen!" He ended up doing alright. We went to Coldstone on our way home. In MY opinion, I thought it was a unique way to celebrate our 3 year anniversary. We did learn one thing from this though, some good memories are just never meant to be recreated...

As for the rest of the week...it has not been nearly as eventful. Studying and working on mapping projects has been the focus. Well, I suppose I should study some of my Spanish Vocab before class at 3pm. We will miss seeing all of our Chippewa friends this week. It is getting to be CRUNCH time in the semester and we need to stay up here and focus for the next two weeks. 

Spanish Phrase of the Day

Una cabeza sin memoria es como una fortaleza sin guarnicion.

Translation: A head without a memory is like a fortress without an army  

 

A Special Day Tomorrow

DISCLAIMER: some parts of this post may be cheesy or corny...sorry in advance

So...this may seem weird or lame, I am not sure.  Tomorrow is a special day for Ty and I. When we first got married we hadn't had our 1 year dating anniversary yet (yes mom and dad...I can hear a quick wedding joke just writing this). We thought it would be fun to celebrate the 1 year mark of our relationship starting. Tomorrow it will be 3 years that we have been together. We were going to try and find a way to go out to dinner at the place we went on our first date (pictures to come). I have class so we won't be able to go tomorrow, but its a unique experience for us because we live so close to the cities where we went to a twins game and then walked around the Nicolette Mall with a group of friends. This has become "our special place" ever since. I guess do what you will with it, but we are excited...and in three months we will be celebrating 3 years being married (go ahead make the quick wedding jokes, I know you want to). 

As is obvious from my tan, this was not taken in April on our first date, but on our honeymoon in Puerto Rico...sadly we have no picture from our first date...if you were there (Heather, Kayla, Tanara) and have a pic we would love to have it. Spanish Phrase of the Day
Eres la luz de mi vida y no hay nadie para mí a parte de tú
Translation: You are the light of my life and there is no one for me but you

Almost Friday...

Well, another week is almost gone and here I am just posting for the first time since last week. Its crunch time and things are starting to get a little crazy around here. This last weekend was productive and fun too. We went to Menominee and studied for awhile. Leslie came up and had coffee so we chatted and went to an antique store. Then my parents came with Taylor and Alyssa who we haven't seen in awhile. We went to dinner and then to have more coffee and play a game of Ticket to Ride. What a blast! After they left we studied more and then headed back to River Falls. Sunday was another productive day for Ty. He was busy doing homework and I went to Goodwill and talked wedding with my friend Maggie who is recently engaged.

Ty is finally getting going on the GIS portion of his research and has been working hard every night while I sit in night class. This was the first week of observing in a middle school ESL classroom and my first week teaching Spanish to Kindergartners. I love my ESL placement. It is so fun to learn more about resources for ESL and what teaching is really like. As for the Spanish for Kindergarten...not my proudest moment. I guess I didn't realize how abstract the concept "my name is" and "I like" can be to kids in Spanish. I figured out I needed to change my style a little. like that song,  a little less talk and a lot more action was needed to keep the kids interested. They loved the commands when was having them jump up and down, but after that, they were bored.

Well...needless to say, this week has been anything BUT relaxing. I have been go go go since Monday and this afternoon is the first time I was able to just sit and relax...(well I did dishes but it seemed so much more relaxing than writing lesson plans). This has been a nice break, but I have some Spanish homework to get to.

Spanish Phrase of the Day

Un poco menos se habla y mucha más acción

Translation: A little less talk and a lot more action