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!

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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