Too young

Many of you who are my Facebook friends may have seen that a great mentor and friend of mine passed away this past Sunday.

Terry was the Director of Residence Life at UWRF for my first two years as a student there. I worked with him as I was the co-president of the Residential Living Committee and then again as a Resident Assistant. He helped me to grow so much in the area of residential living. He even inspired me to be a hall manager my last year at UWRF.

When Terry told us he was retiring, I was hurt. I wanted him to stay until I finished my time at UWRF. My friend Becky and I ended up helping to plan his retirement party and giving a little speech. The one thing I will never forget about Terry was his love for the HORRIBLE movie "Snakes on a Plane". We decided to plan his retirement party with a snakes theme. It was so much fun, and I'll never forget seeing him so surprised.

I was more than shocked when I saw his obituary on Facebook from one of our mutual friends. He was 61 years old and in great health. According to his daughter, he died of a massive heart attack on Sunday morning.

God works in mysterious ways, and I can only find comfort knowing that Terry is with him now. His church and faith was also so important to him.

Tony and I will be heading up to New Richmond, WI on Thursday night to attend the visitation (if the weather cooperates). I never met his family, but I do want to share with them what a difference Terry made in my life and in so many other college students at UWRF.

Please send your prayers to his wife and children as they struggle to understand Terry's sudden death.

Here's a picture of Terry on one of his many trips that he took with his wife after he retired. They traveled all over the world and saw many things in their few short years of retirement together. 

Saturday with Kaylee

Since I have a 2-hour delay today, I'm playing a little catch-up on our weekend. Saturday was a great day for me! It started with leaving for the cities at 5:30am to be to my 8am class. I gave a presentation that went very well, and we were let out at 10am. I drove over to Golden Valley to my great aunt Kathy's house. My mom, aunt MB, cousin Jennifer and cousin Debbie were all there. We ate a delicious breakfast, and played some fun games. Then, I headed to St. Louis Park and met my friend Jenna. We sat and visited, mostly about her upcoming wedding...Then I came home and picked up Kaylee Bug. We had an evening of fun! Here are some shots to highlight our time together:

We made crayon art together! 

Mine is on the left and Kaylee's is on the right.

We made homemade pizza for supper.

Tony threw in a frozen one as well. He likes to put some extra cheese on his slices....

We played Just Dance 3 on the Kinect!

The last thing we did was watch the movie "Rango". There are no pictures because I fell asleep within the first 5 minutes. I had a long tiring day, but it was a great one!

Looking for a job...

A few weeks ago, I was telling my co-workers about a great prank I did in college. During the month long winter break, I stayed in the residence hall to oversee the students who chose to do winter break classes. My fellow RAs were home for the break. I keyed into one of the RA's dorm rooms, and wrapped everything completely in newspaper. Everything was in exactly the same place, it was just covered in paper. My co-workers thought this was great.....So, yesterday our "principal" took a personal day. We wrapped his office! I may be looking for a new job come Monday morning.... :)

Here's one view. Note the lamp in the background and the guitar leaning on the desk! My favorites!

This is the door to his office. Mr. K is a teacher at South Campus who wanted nothing to do with the prank. So we wrote this nice little note incriminating him!

Prezi

I learned a really cool new way to do presentations: Prezi! Here's my first masterpiece. I still have a lot of learning to do, but with Tony's help, I'm very excited for my class presentation on Saturday morning! Take a look and see how cool presentations can be!

Rules We Learn By on Prezi

Couch to 5k

Today as we were sitting at Chuck E. Cheese, eating pizza and chatting with Laur and Jill, I was inspired. Inspired to start working out again. When Laur asked if I was a runner, I realized I had not run in almost a year! My waistline is proving that statement...

So, today I started the Couch to 5k program! I did the first workout, and I can feel it in my legs.  I always feel like if I post a new goal to my blog, then I'll actually keep it up. I know that someone will ask me how it's going!

Here's the link for the program if anyone wants to try it out with me:

http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml

Crayon Art

Here's my Sunday pinterest project:

Date Night

Our date night took an unexpected turn only 15 minutes into it. We bought tickets to go to a Valentine's dinner at Bethel to help raise money for the youth group. We were not given good instructions as to how the dinner works. We were told they served from 4:30 to 6. When we got there at 5:15, everyone was seated and there was some musical entertainment going on. We decided to skip out since we missed the beginning of the meal...

We then went to Victoria's. This of course was delicious as always. We went there for our first date and then again just an hour before Tony proposed, so it was fitting that we spent our Valentine's date there.

After dinner, we went to Cinemagic to see "The Vow". Did you know that Cinemagic is $3 cheaper than Wehrenburg? It's a steal! I had tears running down my cheeks only minutes into the movie. It's a great chick flick, and I think Tony enjoyed it too. (It's based on a true story...) Check out the trailer!

The Miracle Flower

In May of 2009 I was graduating from UW-River Falls. I decided to throw a little party for my friends and I that were close since freshman year. My friend Liv brought me this little tiny geranium plant as a party gift. I took it home to my parent's house, since they were my new roommates. My mom put it in a new pot, and I didn't really do much with it after that. It would sit in the hallway window at my parent's house. It just kept getting bigger and bigger. My mom would forget about it, so it would turn all brown and icky. She'd pick off the ickies and water it, before she knew it, it was big and healthy again. However, it never produced a single bloom. Tony decided he wanted to bring it to our house. He trimmed it all up, and put it in the window in our lower level. It LOVES its new home! This week we even had the first bloom ever! I guess we need to get more plants to fill this window. We have just the best spot for them!

Thanks Liv for the gift that is still giving!

t & t

I just LOVE pinterest.com. Today I made a book out of our wedding cards from a site I found on pinterest. Here's the finished product. I do have to make 2, since we received so many beautiful cards. I'm so glad that we now have easy access to the wonderful notes our family and friends wrote to us on the start of our marriage.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I have class tonight, so Tony and I are meeting in between work and class for some Flapdoodles ice cream! Our Valentine's date will happen on Saturday....in the meantime, Happy Valentine's to all of you who are celebrating today!

We had a Valentine's party this afternoon for our elementary students. I decided that they would get way too much candy, so I bought them all little Wooly Willy's. None of them have seen them before! I think they really enjoyed it! (and their parents probably will too!)

Supermodels

This afternoon, my aunt Amy text me asking me to come over for a study break. My cousins Kaylee and Megan had put together a fashion show for us! After the show, we celebrated with a root beer float! What a great study break!

Here's Meg's "4th of July" themed outfit!

Spontaneous Night

My plans for last night as of Friday, were sit around and do my homework. They quickly changed when Jill text me later Friday evening. Rochester was having the Social Ice in the Peace Plaza. Laur and Jill wanted to head down there for a drink! Of course, I couldn't turn that down! Then I received a text a little bit later that said they wanted to go out for dinner afterwards. I was on board! Saturday morning when I was in class, I got another text from Jill asking if I'd be interested in a Beatles tribute band concert after the ice bar and dinner. I didn't even hesitate to say yes!

Here's the crew that was free for a spontaneous night out on the town! Jill, Cher, Laur and my mom. This was one of the many ice sculptures. It was quite neat. Laur even had her martini in an ice glass

Laur thought I needed a picture with this engagement ring... There are lights shining on the sculptures to change the color of the sculptures. That's why my face looks so red.

The concert was wonderful! British Exports

The Big Outing

Thursday was a huge day for the staff and students at ZED-South Campus. We all loaded into a school bus at 8:30 am and headed to St. Paul. We made a 2 hour stop at the Minnesota History Museum. This was an experience that the majority of our students would never and will never again have. I walked around the museum with 5 elementary students. I captured some fun shots of the kiddos. Unfortunately, due to privacy, I had to put these little black stars over their faces, but I wanted you all to see a few of the exhibits that the kids just loved!

I think the kids probably enjoyed the Through the Generations exhibit the best. They could have spent all day making ice cream sundaes at the Ice Cream Parlor. This little girl is making me my 3rd sundae for the day! 

There was a jukebox in the ice cream parlor that the kids could play music on. This little guy stood there for 15 minutes listening and playing with it. 

This little guy would ring up the ice cream sundaes and take our money. In the background you can kind of see an old radio. If you push the dial on the radio, it brings on the announcement from the president when Pearl Harbor was bombed. Then footage begins to play on a tv in the corner of the attack. The kids were mesmerized by this. 

This is also in the Through the Generations exhibit. They took turns cranking the shells out. Then one kid would put the powder in and another would put the top of the bullet in. The red number at the top counted how many bullets they made. The kids worked so well together! 

This would be the second favorite exhibit: Minnesota Weather. There were all sorts of gigantic boots for all the weather Minnesota experiences. Here's a little guy trying some on. Also in this exhibit, there was a mock tornado. The kids sat in this little room that was set up like a basement. The lights went out, the walls shook, and we heard accounts of people who were apart of a big tornado. I can't remember where it was exactly. I left halfway through with a student who got quite frightened. He's been through a tornado before, and it hit very close to home for him. 

The highlight of the trip for me was our last stop: The Orpheum. We took all of our students to "The Lion King". It was phenomenal. It melted my heart to see my third grade boys clapping as loud as they can with huge smiles on their faces! That was a long time to sit still for them, but they did a great job! We never got up during the show, just at "half-time" as they called it! What a great experience for these kiddos, and for me too! 

Frustration

Have you ever worked very hard on a document on a computer and suddenly it just disappears?

This is how I feel now...Luckily my professor completely understands that I was stupid and didn't type up the assignment in Microsoft Word and copy and paste it into the webpage for the class, but I still have to redo it all and submit it by Thursday.

I'm so tired...

Today marks Day 4 with no caffeinated soda. Here's a rundown on my experience thus far.

Day 1: I started my day with a Sierra Mist. I knew I couldn't cut soda all together just yet. I just had 1 (compared to the 4 to 5 Diet Cokes I would normally have). I came home from work, made supper for my husband, lay down on the couch and was fast asleep by 7pm. I woke up at 11pm to go upstairs to bed. No noted headaches.

Day 2: I again started my day with a Sierra Mist. I'm noticing a huge craving for chocolate. I raid our stash at home, and my coworkers help enable my chocolate need! (Thanks Shannon for the PB Twix) I get home from spending some much needed bonding time with my coworkers around 7pm. I lay on the couch at 7:30, and I'm asleep. Again, no headache!

Day 3: Tony and I spend the day doing errands and odd jobs around the house. I completely forgot that I hadn't had a soda yet! It did seem weird to eat lunch at Beetles and order a water! I am asleep by 8pm on the couch.

Day 4: The headache arrives. It's not that bad, not that intense, but it's there.

Overall experience: I don't even miss the taste of Diet Coke. I've realized that I really don't like the taste of it. I enjoy having a Sierra Mist or Gatorade instead, and when I drink those things I don't do it excessively. My water intake is also up.  But I am SO tired. I want to go to bed right when I get home from work! Tomorrow night will be the big test. I have class till 9:45pm! Yikes!

I'm sure many of you are wondering why I would have a blog post updating on my progress, but my close friends will understand. I have had an unhealthy addiction to Diet Coke for a very long time. For me to go 4 days without it and without a craving for it is a huge deal! I have a 12-pk of Sierra Mist and Sierra Mist Cranberry at our house. Once those are gone, I'm done with soda altogether! I've realized that I need to choose healthier drink options. It's fine every once in a while, but even my students connect me to a can of Diet Coke. Scary!

Oh, Luna!

Yesterday was the first day that Tony was actually feeling better! His temperature stayed under 100 for an entire 24 hours! Since he was feeling better, he decided to have some fun with Luna.

Since Luna has been napping with Tony all day and night, this activity really tired her out. 

Both Luna and Tony needed to get some fresh air. So Luna went out to help Tony refill the bird feeders. She was very leery of the white cold stuff on the grass. She was very alert to the little birdies flying around however.

Fruit Ninja night!

Sunday night, we had Grandma Jayne, Grandpa Bob, Cher, Alan, Laur Jill, and my mom and dad over for supper. We were doing a late celebration for Tony's birthday and Bob and Jayne's anniversary. Laur had mentioned that she wanted to learn what Fruit Ninja was all about. I think everyone enjoyed the lesson!

Laur giving it a try.

My mom

Cher

Jill--Note Grandma and Grandpa in the background. They seemed to enjoy watching, but Grandma confided in me when I saw her while visiting Harvey that she really didn't understand how that tv thing worked! 

This is kind of a disgusting picture, but when I was downloading my recent pics, this came with it. Apparently Tony felt it was necessary to capture his nice tonsils. Here they are! Can you see why he has such an awful sore throat?

Bring on the pain

I have made a giant decision in my life. I am saying goodbye to caffeinated soda. I have such a horrible addiction to it, and it is so horrible for my body; especially in the large amounts that I drink per day. I have finished off every drop that I already had purchased, so the day is today to quit. 

Wish me luck, and maybe steer clear of me until the headaches cease to exist.