2 snow days...going on 3? 4? 5???

So 2 SNOW DAYS in a row!!!

It's great! I'm really getting a good start to this whole relaxing winter break thing. I love it.

At the same time, it's so much funner (not a word) being an actual student and having snow days. As a teacher, it's just frustrating. I am supposed to be in my classes getting to know the students, learning how they learn best, etc before I start teaching them in January.  And now they are going to be so behind in lesson plans....Oh well!

It's supposed to snow again tonight and all tomorrow, so we're guessing no school tomorrow, and probably not on Thursday either...and why would we go just on Friday??? Looks like early winter break for me! :)

We hope everyone is staying warm and cozy and enjoying the holidays wherever you are!!!

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Baklava!

Dan made the best baklava last week. It was so delicious! It was far better than any store bought baklava we've ever tasted...he's such a great chef! I'm so lucky! :)

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worst snow day ever

i hate the stupid snow....

okay, that's not true! :)

BUT - because of the snow and crazy oregon drivers who can't drive in 3in's of snow i couldn't go to the sara bareilles concert that i got tickets to go to tonight. 

what a waste of $40. i'm so upset! i was sooo excited to go to her concert with a few friends. i never spend my money on concerts either, even when I really want to go!!! but we had to call it off last minute because the roads were just too snowy and icy. how annoying. they were requiring chains in downtown portland...lame!!! i'm sure we would have made it just fine...but it's supposed to be about 15 degrees tonight and it would be scary driving back at midnight or whatever time the concert got out! i know there is going to be a ton of ice!! 

but on a happier note... IT SNOWED A WHOLE LOT! I was pretty disappointed this morning to wake up and not have very much snow, but then this afternoon is just started falling on down. We've probably got around 4 inches??? that's a lot for salem!! :) 

And SCHOOL IS PROBABLY CANCELLED TOMORROW!!! How fantastic is that??? WAHOO!

But no Sara Bareilles.....man, it just sucks!!!! 

I'm going to go watch a chick flick and drink apple cider to cheer me up...

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snow?

it's supposed to snow this weekend!!

i can't stop looking out the window to check to see if it's started yet...

dan won't stop making fun of me, but it's been awhile since i've seen snow (we were living in florida for nearly 1.5 years, sheesh!!!)

although, i love snow and the possibility of being stuck inside all day, having snowball fights in the 2 inches of snow that we get :) and having school delayed (not cancelled, because then we have to stay extra in June)...I am supposed to go to the Sara Bareilles concert tomorrow night with friends...and I don't want travelling to be a hassel!

so everyone wish for snow, but not too too much so we can drive safely to portland (okay, we have snow tires, but still....other people are stupid)

thanks!

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Way Overdue

Well, we are way over due on some updates!

Biggest news: Carlie has survived her first work sample! It was rough...but I don't want to think about it anymore. It's done. Enough said. 

We had a great Thanksgiving break. We drove down to EP with our good/"old" friend Misty and had 3.5hrs of

 catching up on the way down there and 3.5hrs of more catching up on the drive back. It was great!

We ate 3 different thanksgiving dinners. One at my nana's, one at my dad's and another one with Dan's family. Our stomachs were pretty stretched, but it was good good food! 

We also did some quality Black Friday shopping with Miranda. Coupons lulled us in, and we bought a new wonderfully warm and cozy quilt for our bed. Now we are looking for the perfect duvet....

The best part of our weekend back in EP was playing with our niece and nephew...they are sooo 

adorable! They are just too much fun! But Dan says, not enough fun to convince us to move to that next step in our lives quite yet :) Maybe soon.... ;)

Moving on.....now, that I'll probably be banished from blogging ever again if Dan ever sees that I'm discussing this online.... jk!! HAHA!

Here are some pics from our weekend!

Here is Eddie hamming it up for the camera. We were trying to get him to smile earlier and he wouldn't, then out of the blue he looks at me, smiles and says cheeese. Too cute!

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skool rulz :)

Well, Tuesday is my last day as a Middle School Science Teacher. I've absolutely loved being in middle school for a little over a month. Yesterday, I finished up my last day on my Human Body Systems unit with the 7th grade science class. It was so much fun! I have had such a great experience at my school, with my supervising teacher and my 1st period students...they are such great kids. I am actually really sad that I'm leaving!! I'm lucky that I've had a good experience. Honestly, now I am considering being a middle school teacher rather than a high school teacher. Although middle schoolers can be frustrating because they really don't understand the whole responsibility issue and you constantly have to keep them in line...but they have such great personalities and there is so much opportunity to make an impact in their lives! I would like to get into content material a little bit more though...I've learned that they really aren't ready for too much of the details yet. They are also so funny and awkward...it makes me smile.

ALSO - I am excited to say that I ACTUALLY taught my students...they showed HUGE learning growth on my pre and post tests, which I am excited about. I had quite a few A's...but there were definitely just as many F's. Some kids....well, it's just difficult. There are so many struggling kids in schools right now, especially at this age. This experience has really strengthened my desire to be a teacher even more, so I can take the time to help those kids as well as stimulate the bored kids in class. It's a challenge, but it's worth it to try and reach each student.

Anyways, I just wanted to share my excitement as I am learning to be a teacher. I really do love it and I'm so happy that I've made the decision to be a science teacher. Best $20,000 purchase EVER!! :)

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October

Dan is busy applying to colleges, watching CNN (he can debate you about any and everything that has to do with the election...it's kinda scary), bickering with the government...and of course he's doing lots and lots of painting as well. Dan has been really great about taking care of everything that I don't have time to do...like all the awful tasks that I don't enjoy doing even if I did have time...like the dishes, cleaning house, etc. He also makes us dinner frequently...He's so kind! I don't know what I'd do without him!?! 

Currently, I am just getting into my practicum experience in the middle school. So far, it's really great. I enjoy being in the school helping students so much more than sitting in classes at Willamette. While it was great to get back to school and taking classes, I am anxious to be on the other end of things and be the one teaching the students. I've learned SO MUCH about teaching and the education system, and I'm still learning everyday. Starting Nov 4th (ELECTION DAY!) I will be teaching a 10 day unit on the Human Body Systems. It's really fun! 

So that is sorta what we've been up to... Hopefully, I'll get some more time and update more frequently.

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Hiking @ Silver Falls

Quite a bit ago now, we went hiking at Silver Falls with Dan's parents to celebrate our birthday weekends. It was really fun to get out and exercise and take pictures of the waterfalls. 

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Salem life

Well, we've been quite boring here in Salem the past few weeks. I'm completely consumed by the MAT program and talking about teaching, and whenever I'm not doing MAT stuff I am pretty much being as lazy as humanly possible, until I have to get back to doing MAT stuff. Dan is...well doing Dan things. Mostly painting, thinking of amazing things, yelling at McCain on CNN and enjoying his freetime. 

We've also been playing with our new camera. We got a Sony A350 and we love it! Pretty much, we decided to splurge on a new digital SLR camera because we didn't get to go to Europe and travel as we had planned. We are still hoping to travel, but we're unsure of when it will happen. So a new nifty camera is going to hold us over until then...hopefully! Plus, we've found a variety of good 'reasons' why we 'need' one :)

Here is a pretty cool effect we just discovered. Pretty creepy huh? We have like 10 other 'haunting' photos. FUN!

At the end of August I went to the temple with Nana for the first time. The Medford temple is SOOO TINY! 

Below are pictures from the Oregon Coast a few weekends ago.

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Finally Home

Here are some pictures from our week in Southern Oregon. We had plenty of time to rejuvenate from our long roadtrip, we stayed with Dan's parents and played with our nephew and niece (who we met for the 1st time!) and spent time with Carlie's family (mostly being goofy with Cheyenne...as you can tell from the pics below). We also were able to celebrate Carlie's dad's 50th birthday and took some family pictures. We are so glad to be closer to our family!

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Moving to Oregon

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We made it!

WOW! It has been a busy few weeks. There are so many details to our life to update our friends and family...but I think it's just too much for a blog entry. Hopefully, we will have some time to go into some of the details of our road trip and time visiting family and friends in Southern Oregon. Once I find my USB cord for my camera (it is hidden in who knows which box at our storage unit), I will be able to elaborate more on what we've been doing with pictures.

For now, we are safe in Salem. We are staying with Ellen, a great friend and old roommate from the yellow house, and trying to figure out our new life in Salem. Dan is of course currently taking a nap! :)

Today, we found a fantastic new apartment in SE Salem and we cannot wait to move in!

School starts on Monday for me...somehow I've got to move-in to our apartment, read a book and write a 2-3pg essay before then. Oh, how I missed college life!

We miss our Florida friends...and of course our other family and friends across the country that we haven't gotten to see. Let us know how your summer is wrapping up!

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Indescribable Frustration

We're not moving Saturday.

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Busch Gardens

Last weekend we went to a theme park called Busch Gardens in Tampa. Busch (the beer company) offers free tickets once a year to military members and their families to visit any of their theme parks. We took advantage of it last year, when we were in Cocoa Beach and this year we never really got a chance to go again until last Saturday. Well, we found out it wasn't such a great idea to go on the weekend in the middle of July. It was unbelievably hot, sweaty and humid. There was a ridiculous amount of people there and overall we just didn't have that great of a time. We were there for nearly 3 hrs before we made it on a ride. As soon as we got there we went to get on a ride and they wouldn't allow any bags of any sort, not even my little camera bag. So we went in search of a locker, and there were no empty lockers to be found. He had to walk around the entire park to find one. Then 2 of the rides broke down while we were waiting in line, which was very frustrating because we had already been waiting for at least 45min for one of them (our favorite ride, Sheikra.) It was so irritating! I felt bad for the people though that got stuck on the ride at the very top of the coaster. That must have been awful in the heat!

We ended up leaving the park fairly early and went to dinner at Chili's, where we ate an immense amount of food.

Dan and his CG friend Lara

Asia Elephant

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The packing begins....and pictures from Coltyns visit

Well, I'm just about to really begin packing. I've kinda been putting it off all week by doing other errands. How do people move all the time?? The task of fitting all of our stuff into boxes is kinda daunting. Maybe that's just because we have lots of random things everywhere!!

Here are some pictures from earlier in the week when Coltyn was visiting.

So happy to be going to his gaming tournament!

Yeah brother, you should be happy that we drove you all the way to Orlando and back!

Being goofy!

Brother and Sister

A face we saw in the sky on our drive back from Orlando. Neat!

Coltyn at Clearwater Beach
Always, always texting!

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A date is set...sorta :)

Well, we've almost officially decided we are leaving Clearwater on Sat. Jul 26th. Who cares about the CG. So, we have only about 2 more weeks here and we are just starting to realize how much stuff we need to get done. Dan has already put in for his leave and we have somewhat mapped out our trip back to Oregon. We will get to see quite a few people along the way and I am super excited for that! We are going to try our hardest to get out of our apt lease by the end of the month and we'll pack all our stuff into storage. Most likely Dan will have to fly back to Florida in August to either go back to work (ugghh!!) or if he has to be here to finalize paperwork etc (yay!)

So I have a busy 2 weeks ahead of me. Good thing I don't have to work any more! I also want to try and squeeze in as much time w/friends as possible.

Also, very RANDOMLY my little brother Coltyn came to FL to visit for a couple of days. It's a pretty funny story, but I'm sure I'll elaborate later once I post pictures. Yes, my camera for some reason decided to start working again. It's kind of strange.

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July Happenings

Well, we've been busy and very unbusy the last couple of weeks. Every day is pretty much consumed with us wondering in amazement how we are still here. But in the inbetween time we had a nice 4th of July weekend. I had to work, but we headed to Clearwater Beach afterwards for a picnic dinner with some friends from our church. It turned out to be a really beautiful, relaxing afternoon. We played with the kids, chatted and swam in the warm water. Afterwards we met at a park nearby the causeway and watched the fireworks over the water. The fireworks were pretty decent and it was hilarious watching all the little kids cover their ears each time a firework went off!
I also went out with friends on Saturday night. I had so much fun! We went to mexican food for dinner and then headed to St. Pete to go to an amazing Spanish tapas bar/restaurant called Ceviche! So apparently, somehow I missed the whole ceviche thing in Spain. I don't know how this happened? Where was all the ceviche that could have been eaten...by me? Maybe I thought I wouldn't like it, because seafood is now growing on me and I like it much more than I used to. But anyways, the tapas bar totally reminded me of Spain. I think I might have mentioned Spain like 50 times...ooops! So we got some drinks (lemonade!) and hung out and then we were seated for tapas/dessert. My dessert was AMAZING! Afterwards we headed down to the basement to check out a live band, singing spanish songs with the spanish guitar. The music was great and it was hilarious watching all the crazy people dance, but we danced for a song or two. We had a good time!
Of other news, Friday is my last day at work!!!!! WAHOOOO!!! I am SOOOO EXCITED!!! No more work for me! I'm sure I'll elaborate more on this later (friday!)
We've also have some tentative roadtrip plans, but I think I'll go into that later as well.
Hopefully the next time we post it will be to tell you that we finally have discharge papers....I mean after all..."it REALLY REALLY should be any day now...even though I said that last time" (quote from a Coast Guard officer from a week ago!)

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Literally Us

Okay, here is another favorite snapshot. Both of us love this picture for some odd reason. I think because it's so real, I feel as though you can see what we're thinking. It's just so us. It was taken while we were heading to Clearwater Beach in the evening to take pictures at sunset around the beginning of the year. We had a really great time, saw a fabulous sunset and got some really great pics.

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Memories

Since our digital camera is officially broken (we tried to dissect it last night and found out we are not quite intelligent enough to understand what all those wires, circuit boards, etc are) we are going to post some of our favorite pictures that remind us of great times.

Now this picture isn't exactly the best picture or the best memory, rather it's the first one I came across, but it's a delicious memory.

In the picture, we are in Paris sitting on some benched by the Notre Dame cathedral along the Seine River. On a early morning walk to the cathedral we discovered the best little pastry shop. It had the most beautifully crafted pastries either of us has ever seen. Of course, as the indecisive people we are, it took quite some time to select which tasty little treat we wanted to buy. I chose the fruity creme tart above. It was so incredibly cute, I hardly wanted to eat it. But I did. And I enjoyed.

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Another frustrating update

Well, I guess us being discharged is back on....kinda. Confusing to keep track of huh? So we would have been discharged by now, but apparently Dan's paperwork was done very badly, so badly that everything has to be redone. So they told him they are working out all the paperwork and we should hear back in another 1-3 weeks, at least by the end of the month. YEAH RIGHT! We've also heard that the discharge papers might come in OUR mailbox, opposed to the airstation's. So now we are annoyingly waiting for the mail to come everyday. It's the pits. So we've officially stopped trying to plan the rest of our lives. The only thing that is in the works is grad school for me staring in Aug. I feel like all our blogs are about the same thing. Sorry! But anyways, I DID pass my biology tests, so now I'm officially accepted. I'm relieved.

On the other hand, while there is news that we might be leaving soon, we are getting sad about leaving FL, the sunny weather and the people we've met here. We've both met really great people at work and have made fantastic friends at church! But I guess it gives us a reason to come back to FL someday huh?

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Summer Time!

It's summer!

Here are some pictures from Memorial Day this year. We made it out to Honeymoon Island for an hour or two to relax and play with friends. Afterwards we went to the Chapmans for a BBQ - it turned out to be a pretty good holiday.

One of my favorite little friends, Emi Chapman

Cheese balls

Always playing in the sand. This time Dan is playing with Taylor, one of the tannest girl's I know :)

I would also have pictures of the ward picnic, but something is seriously wrong with my camera. I'm blaming it on Dan throwing sand on me and the camera while at the beach on memorial day, but he says it's because I dropped it while at the picnic...oops! Either way, it's very disappointing. So we might be camera-less for a little bit unless we can figure out how to get to to work. :(

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