They've Come, They've gone...tomorrow!

This year's holiday season has been twice as busy as every other. Christmas eve I had to work but had the weekend off before that. So we jumped on the train and spent the weekend with Brent, Amanda and Makenna. We sat around and chatted, played on the computers and had some awesome Chinese food! (Chris loves the sushi bar there) Sunday, we ate at Jocko's Pizza Inn with them and they dropped off us off at my parents house and that night my mom and I drove to Michigan city so I could work Christmas Eve...Chris stayed with my dad and watched some western movie and drank some beers.

My Grandma told me about a family at her church that could use a special visit from Santa. I called Chris and he was all about it. Mom and I went shopping in the wee-hours! We thought this was okay since I only had a three hour shift the next day starting at 10:15 not 7:45. We found a spider man bike for the 6year old and a ROCK IT blue bike for the 9 year old. I also got them matching sunglasses to be stylin' with some bling-bling while they ride. Then we went to big lots- and got them a massive amount of smaller toys to go with. Then I had to get the mom something---back to Wal-mart for a sweater, earrings and bath robe. Of course we knew nothing about these boys so what they wanted, needed and already have was a total shot in the dark. Grandma called a few days later and said that the boys needed new bikes and it was perfect. The mom told her that it would have been great if we could have seen the look on their faces.

Santa came again to my parents house! That magical genius! I got perfumes, lotions, clothes, candy, books and more. Chris got super cross tickets (sixth row), jeans, a manning jacket, a Starbucks gifts card, colts crocs and a colts check book cover. Mom got the work out machine she has been wanting for almost a year now.

For new years we celebrated the west Christmas at Brent and Amanda's. Thom, Heidi and Matthew couldn't make it. Thom is on deployment, Matthew has been ill and Heidi is taking care of him. We missed them- but they sent great gifts! We'll be sending ours to them when it is closer to time for Thom to be home. At B&A's house we sat around and chatted, went out to get some Mexican food, enjoyed a wonderfully delicious meal prepared by Amanda which I have to admit- it was so good I was a little jealous- I bow down to the queen of pot roast and gravy. Darrell had to leave for work after dinner so we quickly opened gifts. We got a lot of great things including shirts, cocoa sets, HARRY AND DAVID candies, a lazy susan remote control bird house rack, a cooling pad for the lap top and more. After gifts we hung out some more. Then we watched the colts game and I went to bed. Chris retired for the night once manning came out of the game.

Today we went to Peep's for brunch and are planning on going to watch National Treasure: Book of Secrets after dinner. I think we all have been wanting to go see that one because we all jumped at the suggestion. We have had so many laptops going this weekend Chris told Brent that he does not want to see his power bill! Now we are watching myth busters and I'm going to clean out my email box!

HAPPY NEW YEARS Y'all!! :)

Well, I decided to go with Christmas after all and post some vids of Austin- Thanksgiving still to come.

Austin Crying Because He Was In Too Big Of
A Hurry To Put On His Gloves And He Fell And
Got His Hands Cold.

He Obviously Got Feeling Better: Look At The
Big 'Ole Smile On His Face! I'd Be Smiling If I

Had My Own Uncle Chris SledLift To The Top!

The Holiday Spirit is Here!

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We are super-Dee-dooperdy excited that Christmas is finally here! The Holiday spirit has invaded us (finally!) I went and did some Christmas shopping yesterday and got a heck of a deal on a Christmas gift for Chris. I can't find it anywhere online and it had no price tag- in fact the department manager said she's never seen it or anything like it. I thought someone may have "exchanged" it or left it by accident. I waited 30 minutes and no one claimed it so the manager said I could it buy for *blank* price. Which I know that price was far too low, but I guess I don't know because it is no where to be found. So he now has three gifts and one was sort of expensive so I'm done shopping for him. I think he said he has two for me, so he is almost there- which is better than last year! It's a madhouse trying to shop right now. I got some $3.00 Ice skates from the Goodwill that I can't wait to take a spin on. Hopefully we will be going to Chicago and utilizing the Out Door Ice Rink at Millennium Park in the next couple weekends. *

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Last weekend was Lara's family party. What-A-Blast. Casi's family and Chris and I were all planning on leaving early Sunday afternoon. But the beautiful hill of snow at Ellsworth Park was calling to us again. Casi, Shane, Austin and Rachel all went sledding early on Saturday while Chris, Ashley and I took to hill after dark. Casi, Shane, Austin, Chris and I all enjoyed the fun winter activity together on Sunday. Dad video taped us- wipe outs and all the entire time. As you can see from the video posted.

We also enjoyed a movie, popcorn and soda on Quakers Dime- it was nice. We watched enchanted with Rachel, Austin and Ashley. We looked like one large family of five- Have no fear....Chris and I have this parenting thing down. He sat on one end and kept Rachel and Austin quite, while I sat on the other and kept Ashley quite....yeah the movie got really "grownupish" for a while and Austin and Ashley got all bored. Rachel was mesmerized by the movie though- and it was really funny.

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We almost bought tickets to go to the Colts game on Sunday, but thought we better save our money for Christmas. Believe it or not, that was Christopher's suggestion! You know Chris, he's the first one to jump at the chance to A) Spend Money and B) See the Colts. He says not for you to think he's any less of a Colts fan, tickets are just too expensive...and personally, I don't think either of us will enjoy the game from the rafters after sitting 14 rows from the field this past August.

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I finally got the new lay out to work from Pyzam... Who would have thought it would be anything but right now? Don't worry I will change it after football season...hopefully a Colts 2 times World Champions one...??? I will add the sidebar stuff later- I am meeting Chris for lunch before I go to work since he has dinner plans with the guys tonight. Maybe I'll rent a movie or two for tonight.

Say Hello To My Little Friend

• MTV
• Music Videos
• MTV Shows
• Entertainment News

What a Rush...

Yesterday was the Secret Santa exchange at work. I got a Rachel Ray Cookbook (2,4,6,8) and a Colts freezy mug. I drew Sally the Mortgages ladies name and I got her the girl dancing teddy bear from HAllmark that sings Santa Baby and moves her hips. She loved it. After I got off work I came home changed clothes and we headed to AppleBees to ring bells for the Salvation Army. Chris signed us up at work. We were inside so it was pretty warm. We sang carols at the bucket and just had fun with our bell ringing time. Okay so this may be Cheeeee-zzzaaaay but, August Rush is such a goodmovie. We went to watch it last night with our fivebuck club cards after ringing the bells and it was great. It was slow but so captivating. We recommend it. I hope to get Thanksgiving stuff up soon, Next week are finals so all my free time is finishing up classes. We are going to Kankakee today for my family, family christmas party if my parents are going, we can't get a hold of my mom yet this morning. We wanted to go work at the house in kokomo but there is suppossed to be freezing rain this evening and tomorrow so we will probably just stick close to the apartment. I'm gonna go make my own version on the GYPSY from Peeps this morning.

Christmas Lists

Hey Guess what!?! Chris and I finally made a Christmas List and now we need one for everyone else! :) There is a first time for everything!

Chris
New Colts Hat (Any Style)
Anything Else Colts
Personal Digital Radio
Noise Cancelling Headphones
House Slippers (Size 12 or XL)
Myth Busters DVD
Now That's What I call Music (any of the 20's)
Ties

Lara
Curling Iron (Wider Barrel)
Ceramic Hair Straightner
Pantechc150 CellPhone Holder
Britney Spears - Black Out Album
Poseiden - Movie w/ Kurt Russell
Telescope

Both Of Us Gifts
Fandango Bucks - We have our $5 buck club passes!
Lowes Gift Card
3 - 11X14 Picture Frames
Microsoft Street and Trips 2008 w/GPS
Subway Cash Card
CookBook
Computer Monitor

And there you have it! A Christmas List for us incase you need some ideas.

Turkey Day!

Turkey Day was so much fun! I'm at my moms house right now and everyone is sleeping so I am posting, but I'll have to put pictures and videos up later. We woke up at our normal times - around 4:30 for Chris and 5 am for me - and we drove to Chicago where we jumped on the ALL ABOARD to Galesburg, IL to visit with some of the West Family. LeAnn picked us up at the train station and then we vistied with Grandma while she was at work for a little while. We talked the her client Willabell. That was fun because Willabell had so many questions about cell phones. She started talked about a rasberry and Chris was like, You mean a Blackberry. And she played with his for a minute. Then we went to Stan and Karren's house for dinner. Grandma was right behind us practically so we got to eat about 12:30ish. It was Yummy! Tons of food! Then we went to LeAnn's house to finish hanging out with LeAnn, Kevin and Amy and their two kids Austin and Amber. Amber has the prettiest eyes! She's adorable. After about an hour or so and Kevin was done loading his IPOD with music LeAnn took us back to the train station and we were on our way home. It was a blast, and the trip was actually very nice.

Last night we jumped on the ALL ABoard at a pit stop in Homewood. We bought MultiRide passes for the holiday season. The tickets to get on the train last night were 35 bucks each way for each person and with the 10 ride pass we paid only 12 each way! Sneaky us! So 10 rides is 5 trips which I know we are making atleast 3 so even that will save us money if we wanna ride the New Orleans train on Friday nights.

Chris and I rented WE ARE MARSHALL- Good movie. We liked it. Mom taped the Colts game for us on Thanksgiving so we are going to be watching that shortly. Infact I think we are running to to donut shop now that Casi, Dad, Devon and Austin are awake.

Guys Dig Library Chicks

So I find it fascinating that we have lived here for three months now and yesterday was the second time some freak tried to 'pick me up' at the library. I think I blogged about the first time when I was trying to translate an email from my spanish instructor and asked everyone around me if they could read spanish and then one guy was like "no but let me show you this website...what's your name? Do you come here often? Maybe we can hang out?" and then yesterday the dude's name is Paul and I was looking at CD's when he shoved a Black Eyed Peas album in my face and says, this is a great one. It gots that really cool song you know, :::Singing::: "Where is the love, the love...." He was totally scary so I was being polite just standing there and he's like so can I get your number. Aren't they supposed to check the ring finger still? I told him my husband might not like that and he was like, "Yeah I did hear you say we but I was thinking it was your sister or somethng." yikes!

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This Thanksgiving week is going to be a crazy one! On Thanksgiving we are getting up at like 4:30 am to drive to Chicago to get on the train and go spend Thanksgiving with Grandma and Grandpa West. We should arrive around 10:15. Grandpa is going to pick us then we are spending about 7.5 hours with them, catch the train back home to make a very late night. Then I have to be at work on Friday at 7:45 in the AM until 6:15 that night. Then when I get off work we are driving to a train stop near chicago to grab the amtrak for thanksgiving dinner with my family which my brother is coming up this weekend from Tennessee. We should be in Champaign around 11:00pm Then we get spend Saturday and part of Sunday when we ride the train back home. :) Lots of trains this week!

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I observed a class yesterday that was very interesting. The teacher does differiential instruction. And she gives a pre-test before they start the chapter then she creates an ability grouping chart each with a combination of 6 reasearch, review questions, writing and drawing assignments. These are based on which areas each student needs to study. Then she gives each student the worksheet that corrlates with how much they know. Each student then chooses three squares to work on that week. And when they are done they take their tests. I thought this was cool because some students were on Chapter 10 while others were on Chapter 6. It's kind of like an independant study in 8th grade. She said is is a lot more work than just normal classroom instruction but the kids really seem to enjoy working at their own pace (but they have to stay with where the class would normally be for that point of the school year.) Not nearly as many disruptions and only one student has a grade lower than a C. Which according the the teacher is really good. So new ideas, new ideas. It was fun to watch.

Call Me Paraniod...

Starting off on a good note- Chris lost four pounds last week and I gained 3 pounds! Our workout sessions are starting to get a little longer and we got the sweat to prove it. Halloween weekend I made a fun festive dish!

Deadman's Meatloaf! AHHH.... as you can see- we mummified him later. It may not look to appetizing but MMM-MMM-MMM was it good!

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I also have to fix the blog at some point- who knows when I will though! You can call me paranoid because I am convinced that my spanish instructor has the classroom bugged. When we have a break and he leaves the room if we talk about not understanding something he comes back from break and goes back over that one subject. (this has happened three times!) and then last night I got in the room second- right after Terry. And I asked him if he was taking Spanish 102 next semester and we chatted a bit on that then he said, "I feel like the only week I learned anything was the first week when he gave us homework." I agreed and we both agreed that we wish he would give us homework. We have only had one homework assignment that first week, now we are 12 weeks into class and the night he gives us homework. Not only that- but the first thing he asked the class was who will be continuing spanish next semester. See what I mean?

Here are the pictures of our apartment. Chris is painting the bedroom- we have been furniture shopping for in there and we are torn between a very pretty set with not much storage and a very expensive, not quite so pretty but better quality and LOTS of storage set. There is a good chunk of change difference between the two. If the closets were bigger in this place there would be no question to get the least expensive one - but a hanged just barely fits in the closets- like seriously you have to tilt the hanger slightly to close the doors. There are two more bedroom that I didn't take pictures of because I forgot when I was taking pictures and I'm too lazy to do it now before work.

Enjoy! Have a great week!

Working Hard

There's Chris up on the ladder fixin' the roof at the house in Kokomo. We'll be down there again in a few weekends to repair some drywall.

Catching UP

So just to get all the photos added here...

The weekend before the Tuesday we left for vacation my family met up! Casi and Shanes, Austin and Devon- Mom and Dad and Grandma, Chris and I all met in kokomo for lunch at crackerbarrel and then play time at chuck e cheese's.

Then dad drove the washer and dryer to Michigan City and Kristina and Dustin stopped by on thier way home from Michigan to pick up Dustin's new motorcycle.

Check us all out here!

***NEXT***

The weekend before Halloween Chris and I went to babysit Devon so Casi and Shane and Austin could go to a birthday party. It was an adult Birthday Party but Austin wanted to go. Apparently he had a great time and was a big hit with his obsession over getting money from cans- He got a bag full of beer cans which made their car stink! Haha!

See all the photos here

5-0, 5-0 Here we go, here we go

Exiting news Chris has managed to get two written warnings for his headlight being out this month! So hopefully he will get that fixed tomorrow. This week I made 2 referrals at work and I sold the first signature line of cedit that the branch has made since it's preapproval offer started. Yeah for me! The branch manager and office manager were so excited I was turning bright red while they were cheering! :)

Chris and I spent last saturday babysitting Devon while Casi, Shane and Austin went to a party. I'll upload and post those pictures tomorrow on my day off. I observed another classroom for my education class- this time it was a 6th grade language arts class. All they worked on for both classes were writing a memoir so it was pretty boring because there was nothing going on- thankfully the classes are only 47 mintes long.

Whew!

Hey, Hey! I got all the pictures uploaded now! All 325 of them! I probably should have split them up into two albums, it takes it a minute to open up. But HEY! We did a lot of fun things such as This Helicopter ride with Brent and Amanda where we saw Disney and other fun things from the a birds eye view.



Check us out at Universal where we spent four days, and most of our money. See the very cool putt-putt course we beat. Check out Makenna just being such a little cutie and see the rest of the family just hanging out. Most of the pictures we took using our Birthdays/Anniversary/next years birthdays present from my mom and dad. A new VideoCamcorder. It's awesome.



I'll have videos posted as I get them up. I'm still playing catch up with school homework and trying to get my volunteer things done (I have to get a TB shot for this!) But a fun thing I did take time to do was order some more of the makeup that Amanda got me for my birthday :)



I just wanted to prove to Ashley and Austin that we really did meet Scooby-Doo and Shaggy. And look at our faces, you just might think we seen a ghost or something!

Check All the Photos Out Here!

Horror Make Up Show at Universal Studios

Watch and laugh at the Horror Make-Up Show.
The videos are slightly edited and you should watch from top to bottom. (Sorry, my video host only allows 5 min. clips without paying, but don't worry- not all are five minutes.)

We are back from vacation! I will be posting pictures and videos soon- hopefully Monday so check back Tuesday! If Rene from The horror make-up show stops by I'll put your video up first Monday!

I did want to post about work today! It was exciting- first thing after I get my drawer ready- I got my fingers snagged (I call it more like SLAMMED) in the safe door. Now that door is steel- very heavy. It hurt like a ***Your Choice****. I was surprised I didn't cry- I guess it was too painful it sort of bypassed the whole need for crying. So no one saw me jump and grab my fingers so I thought, "I'll just play it off and go to my window and slowly move my fingers without anyone having to know how blond I am.

Basically the door is so heavy and I didn't want it to slam shut I tried stopping it with only one hand and that doesn't work so wellwhen the door weighs more than you do. Needless to say I didn't pull my fingers out of the way fast enough- however- I did get it slowed down and it didn't crush my bones.

I did need to ask for a band aid because my index finger had a little blood from where I pulled it as the door started closing. So Carrie asked, ''what's you do, let me see it...'' then she went to get me a band aid and next thing I know, I'm being woke up from a deep sleep.
I'm told that I must have gone into shock because the pain from the door was too much for body too handle. Which is why the pain in my fingers that I had before I passed out was totally gone when I came too.
I got a nice little rug burn mark on my face from the carpet that I thought I would share with you.

As I told Chris. the worst feeling in the world is when I was coming around again. Like I just remember looking out the drive through window then my ears started ringing then I'm being woke up. Carrie nor Andy saw me fall because she was getting the band aid and Andy was playing with papers for the courier. Like I always thought if I was ever going to pass out I would know it, but no, not this time. I've totally lost that 20 seconds or so of my life. :( But it was so scary because I had no clue where I was at while I was getting up. I thought "I've already woken up today" but that's all I could think of then it was like silent static throughout my body. I know I never want to slam my fingers in the safe door again.

Vacation is on the way!

Right on! Vacation is only a mere 5 days a way and I am ready! I think we are going to sea world and going to ride air boats in swamps :0 you know like they do on CSI:Miami. Other than that- I do no know what we are going to be doing. There has been talks of Universal Studios, Disney - but who knows.

I did my first classroom observation yesterday for my education class. I really didn't get to observe because she had me working! I was to work the Art Station and the Student Teacher was doing all the teaching because another teacher's son got sick and had to leave. So... I need to go back.

But to make that trip even more exciting - one of the boys in the classroom got suspended for bringing a knife to school that morning. Isn't that nice? It was like a 'welcome' the teacher said.

Chris is getting a little overworked at work. He's ran into some problems with sending guys away on jobs just to find out the salesman over exaggerated the problem to the service department and no tech was actually needed, nor were they wanted. Then one job site didn't have any materials and said they thought that Sullair would be bringing them. So it was a bust.

I don't know if I told you but my car is back. Safe and sound. It's not the same though ;( When you switch gear stick thing it's just off... you put it in reverse but it doesn't look like reverse and it won't click when you pull it from R to D. So I have to look down every time instead of just counting the clicks.

Well - I got more school work to do!

Score!

Up the MIDDLE to DALLAS CLARK- You'll see him take a tumble as he catches it.

Our car is being a major pain! Well, the warranty is anyway. This is the 2nd time that we needed the warranty and they say it won't cover the problem.

Thanks to the rudeness of the warranty guys Chris and I have decided to just cash out our warranty. It's not covering anything- and you only buy it to cover something you know...?

So We are paying the 1,200 bucks out of our pocket. I believe we are going to pick it up either Friday early evening or Saturday afternoon. It may need to wait until Monday- well no it will probably have to wait until next weekend then because I forgot Mishawaka is an hour ahead of us.

So there is the update on the car.

De que color es...?

Yep! I got highlights done today and got a slight eyebrow waxing done. No hair cut cut or trim today- I think in the next couple months I am going to try some curls- but we'll have to wait and see if I am daring enough to do that when the time comes. I was going to get bangs today but decided just to get the high lights.

Right after I put these pictures on the computer I put the card in the camera backwards so now even my older-than-dirt back up camera won't work- I hope Chris can fix it when he gets home.

Chris says THANKS AMANDA! for the wonderful advice on the baby Tylenol!

This weekend felt like it was so long just because we did so much! Saturday morning we went to jump on the commuter and missed it! The train left 2 minutes early and we were counting on that 2 minutes because we slept in! We were pulling right behind it when it started going!

We raced down to the Beverly shores stop and luckily were able to beat it to that stop. We jumped on and went in to Chicago. We had fun on our mile walk though it was a bit chillier than we had planned on it to be. Chris was in shorts and a tee- I of course had a sweater handy.

Then my mom picked us up at the station in champaign, we went to best buy to look at camera's but couldn't decide on one in the thirty minutes that we had. Then we headed to danville to celebrate my grandma's 89Th birthday party! It was fun! The girls and I played ball in the yard like my sisters and I used to so many years ago. Chris batted once and made it to first, poor thing! he still can not run on his knee he had surgery on. I told him to call the doctor and ask if it still should be 3 times bigger than the other knee. But he won't.

After the birthday bash we went to Megan Harrold's Wedding. We didn't have a camera so I got no pictures but it was beautiful. She looked like princess. Scott (her husband) seems like a really nice guy- this is the first time we met him. They greeted everybody as they dismissed us all row-by-row. That was a little different but it was a lot better than having to wait in the back for everyone to have their big long conversations with the newlyweds.

After the wedding we bought some papa murphy's pizza and cheesy bread and went back to mom and dads for dinner. Kristina and the girls came over to eat. One large 5 pound stuffed pizza was too much for us all. We still had three slices left which we took over to grandma's for her and her guests' dinner time snack.

Rachel and Ashley wanted to go skating. Chris and I met them at the rink and watched them skate- or rather watched them play games for an hour then we went back to moms to sleep. I said you know we are tired when we go to bed at 9:30pm and don't wake up till 7:30am! Usually we are early birds but not this time.

We almost missed our breakfast date at PEEPS with Brent, Amanda and Makenna. I got to introduce my mom to Makenna that morning when she dropped us off! Mom says she's a real cutie! So we went to PEEPS and had some yummy breakfast. I love PEEPS! YUM! Lucky for us the train was an hour late so we had time to relax and enjoy our breakfast.

Then we rushed to the train station. Chris and I stopped to eat lunch at CHIPOLTE's in Chicago- it was pretty yummy too! I have only had it once before this stop though I see it everywhere. Then we had perfect timing to get good seats on the commuter home.

We missed the colts game :( but mom kept calling to give us updates when something would happen.