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.

Boom-shock-a-lock-a -

Hello! I am SUPER-DEE-DUPER-DEE Excited because today was my first time balancing my drawer with out having to count it twice! My first count down today- BOOM! EVEN! Perfect! I know, I know it sounds silly but I'm thrilled because I was starting to feel like everyone in the branch was thinking I can't count or something though I've only actually been short that one time.

For example the other day I was 80 short the first count. So I'm flipping through packs of 20's to see where my mistake was made. And Andy is standing behind me and asks, "how many nickles do you have down there?" I said $94.00 and he goes, "you only keyed in $14.00" so now you can see why I am so excited about balancing the first count! Yeah!

So I just thought I'd share my wonderful news!

My car is still broken down in Mishawaka. It is at Gurley-Leep and they said yesterday that they do not know what is wrong with it. :( so it's probably going to be expensive- we are just hoping that the extended warranty we paid for covers it.

Well, that's all I really wanted to say. I have to go take a proctored test now for my online class so they know that I am really me taking the tests.

Peace.

Just a real quick update

Things are going well for us. We will be in Illinois this weekend for Megan's Wedding. Megan and I were the best of friends at the beginning of junior high. I'm so happy for her and I can not wait to get to meet her soon-to-be husband.

I have been going tanning for the trip to Florida and I am allergic to the lotion I have been using! Thankfully the irritation is finally going away. My elbows and heels were itching like crazy for a few days there. Hopefully I'll have some color when we get to Florida so I won't blind everyone- it's warm enough in October to wear shorts there right?

I gotta say- it's getting chilly out early this year! Last year we were in shorts until October this year, not so much.

Things are going good at the bank for me. I had a 20 shortage the other day but I know where I made my mistake and won't be making it again hopefully! My 'sponsor' wasn't concerned she said the first time, it's okay. :( I was hoping there would be no first time but hey..

My last day of work at CHUCK E CHEESE'S is WEDNESDAY! I work 5 - close and that will be it. Finished. I hate to leave Mihir and Mama T hanging like that but it is way to hard and I want to take a full school load in January. So that is what I am doing.

I also did my teacher interview today. The teacher is really, really nice and offered to let me observe her classroom for my observation study due Oct. 18. Which is great because she is the perfect age- first grade. so I'm excited.

Chris is having a difficult time modifying a ACCESS ?? program thing. Anyone got any good advice, drop him a line. He spent all day today at work working on it. He even bought a book and has been working with that for days. I can tell he is coming along with it though because he keeps showing me what nifty things he added each night.

My car broke down and is in the CEC parking lot at mishawaka! Hopefully Chris can take me to work WED and fix it then. If not we will be going tomorrow night to try and fix it again! We don't know what is wrong with it to be honest. The battery is strong- we know it was locked in DRIVE while it was actually parked. ?? I don't know. I just hope it will start right up when we get there.

Colts Game pictures

Before the game we played Scratch Off's




Grandma and Mom both won free spins- and got hats!


Chris displays his program with Bob Sanders on the cover!

Grandma proudly wears her blue

Chris says, "put me in coach- I'm ready!"

View all the pictures here! and there are a lot more to see.

Some clap, clap, Others stomp but around here...

....we do the hand jive like it ain't nobody's business!

Pictures available so check them out!

Chris and I met mom in Chicago and we all were on the Amtrak together to Champaign where Brent and dad picked us up.

Happy Birthday Makenna!

Chris made a friend with Noah right away!

Noah had video games! Does he know the way

to my husbands heart or what? :)

Makenna is getting the party started early with her

flower power powers!

Makenna had just woken up and the 'surprise'

made her cry on grandma's shoulder.

But she perked right up when she saw the cake,

she even stole a lick of the icing.

Mommy lit the candle on the big cake,

while daddy got Makenna's special cake ready.

And there she blows...

Presents! We all love presents.

The best gift of course was the COLTS cheerleader

teddy bear that Uncle Chris and Aunt Lara got her.

See!?! Love at first sight.

Grandpa Darrell knows what a fabulous gift

it is, as he plays spin the cheerleader.

Uncle Chris tries to steal the bear and Makenna says no way!

Makenna says, "Shoot Homie touch my Colts bear again

and Grandpa gonna take you down."

Click below for all the rest.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lara.west/MakennaSBirthdayPartyNumeralUno

...Hey!...Check it Out...

Lots of stuff to share...

First things first- I am now a National City employee and in two weeks- I will no longer be a CEC Manager. I'm sad- but happy all in the same. I even hope a little that the General Manager at CEC won't make me really complete the two weeks, though if asks me if I want to- you know I'll say yes- even though I don't.

Today (Friday) is my last day of training. Next week I will be in the branch with my 'sponsor' running some real transactions. And it's only 20 hours a week- So January will totally be a heavier load of a semester!

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School is going all right. Between last week and this week I had serious issues trying to find time to get my homework done. However waking up at 3:30-4:00 am every morning is a nice alternative. The only class I've had any problems in is my math class because I still yet to figure out how he is breaking up the classes for the homework and quizzes and due dates are only posted once you open the homework envelope that you can only open once. Perhaps I should email him and ask him if I am just looking in the wrong spot- of if he can send me a list with dates. ?

For my education class I have to start my teacher interviews next week. Then, I have to start my observation of classrooms asskignments the first week of October.

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Satruday the 25th as most of you know already- Chris and I went to the Colts Pre-season game with my mom and my grandmother. The tickets were for thier "birthdays" We had a total blast! I'm loading the pictures now. Hopefully they will start moving a little faster.

The game was awesome We stayed till shortly after Manning and the other starters came out. Which was the whole first half of the game! AND--- we learned that sitting 13 rows from the field is A HECK OF A LOT BETTER then sitting 13 rows from the ceiling. Who whudda thunk it? But Yeah! We were 13 rows from the field in section 144.

Grandma is like a football know it all and neer accuse her of having poor eye vision. She was calling plays before the refs even had time to grab the yellow flags. On a fumble recovery made by the colts- She said, "Don't get excited, that was a dead ball- he'd already touched the ground."I said, "Peytons coming out grandma and you know he won't walk all the way out there for nothing." Sure enough, two seconds later- the Lions are challenging the play. Good eyes Grandma.

Chris got some extra excitment at the game- Marvin Harrison ran right by him! He was pretty excited about that! I was just oblivious to the whole thing, though Grandma says she saw him coming before he got that close.

We were hoping to buy Makenna a Colts jerzey and found these really cute onesies that were made out of the nylon material, but they only had them in blue and we wanted one in pink. So we went inside to visit the merchandise booths and found a Colts cheerleader teddybear that we love'd for her, so we got her that for her birthday.

Outside the stadium we bought scratch off tickets from the hoosier lottery booth. Mom and Grandma won some hats which you will see when you look through the pictures.

COLTS WON!

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Our new apartment is working out just great. The guy from upstairs MIKE, brought his kids down to meet us- well to meet Chris I have not really been home at anytime to talk to mike. Chris wasn't home though so I told him to go upstairs when gets comfortable and say hello. Which he did for about 3 hours on the only night I have been or will be home this week. But I guess maybe I'll get to talk with him once my committment to CEC is done.

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This is very cool stuff right here:: We got our AMTRAK Rewards cards last week! Which means- we have officially been on the trains too much! :) We are thinking about purchasing a 10 ride ticket which will be five trips to champaign for 120.00 which is totally worth it for 10 rides. because it now costs anywhere from 12 - 35 dollars each leg for each of us. So 120 for 10 trips is only..... 12 bucks a leg. plus that 6.50 commuter fare.

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We did go to Champaign over labor day for Makenna's birthday party- which was a BLAST! I'll have those pictures loaded sometime soon! She is such a cutie. Brent and Amanada were excellent hosts'. There was yummy snacks- the most beautiful cake for a first birthday ever- and it was yummy with the fudge in it! But I am out of time so I will post about that tomorrow or sunday when I got more time to add the pictures.

Blessings, blessings

Hey- What's Up? The Lord has blessed us and with no minute to spare! Tonight (WED) is litterally our last night in the hotel- we were going to pay for 2 more nights but it was already booked up for the following nights. So we thought- hey lets find a house to rent that is ready to move in. We went tonight to look at this beautiful house 3 blocks from the lake- (not so good in the winter time!) but we wasn't able to make it tonight like he said. Then Chris called the Realtor we've been working with - Jane- and she said her tenant just moved out this morning if we wanted to stay there for a while. She showed it to us- huge apartment! Basically a house like our current house, but seperated into apartments. The entire first floor is ours. :)


I start at national city tomorrow. I went in on monday but my background check wasn't done yet so I had to go home. But I guess I haven't broken any laws because they called and asked me to job shadow Thursday! Yeah!

I had my Spanish class on Monday night! It's crazy- the instructor does not speak english very well- and so he's telling us stories and it's taking 30 minutes to get one portion of the story then he can't figure out how to say it in english so he finishes it in spanish then asks if we understand. I don't even think he realizes he is speaking spanish at that point! He gave us a lot of homework and said there will be a quiz next week over chapter one. My Education class starts tomorrow. I still have to check on my math class. It's online so i need to open my email once and a while.

Can I get a...

OH YEAH! I got the job at National City. So It will be Part-Time there and Part-Time Chuck E until they find somebody to replace me. Then it's all PT work and hopefully Full-time school in January. You just may have noticed the picture at the top here...:) That is my birthday card from Mom and Dad West! :) Inside it says, "See, There are things more frightening than having another Birthday.




The Card above is from Brent, Amanda and Makenna. Thanks guys!


If you can't guess who gave me this one, then you need some help. :) Love you too!

Chris and I just got back from Outback where we shared a bloomin' Onion and a 19ounce steak. It was YUMMY! I worked the whole day 10-8. Tomorrow I work 1-cl. My first class starts Monday and I start working at National City Monday morning. Then my schedule gets crazy! I'm training at the bank in the mornings until 12:45 and then I am 1 - close at chuck e tuesday, wednesday thursday I am at the bank till 3 then at class by 4 back to the crazy days.

This weekend Chris and I have COLTS TICKETS! 13 ROWS FROM the Field! We are going to meet my mom and Grandma there. It's preseason so the tickets were only 40 bucks each!

Chris is working hard! He is up to recieving more than 70 emails a day that require a response. He's been working all week at the hotel and tomorrow he is going to look for us a rental house. We have to be moving on out next week. So hopefully something he likes is available. We are trying to get something close to the school and to work for both of us. Sullair pays for Chris' school so we are hoping that next semester he'll be settled in enough to where he can take a class or two.

Welp, it's late and I am off bed. Have a good day

Proving Once Again, There is More Than Corn in Indiana...

Tuesday Morning I went to my interview at National City. I think it went alright, but again- it's waiting to see if they call again.

After that Chris and I went to Subway for Lunch and then I headed off to Indiana Beach to meet up with the girls and mom. We had a blast. The girls behaved and got along- no arguing! It was great. Rachel was dissappointed that she didn't get to do the waterpark but it closed at 6- we thought it closed at 8. The weather was great. I was in rain more than 1/2 of trip and thought it was gonna be a bust. Thankfully the storm moved on and it was a nice warm day with a cooler breeze- also the rain scared away a lot of people- We were walking right up to rides and jumping on!

SEE ALL THE PICTURES HERE

Still Catching Up

Still catching up... After Saturday (so Sunday);

Chris and I got up early and got dropped off by mom at Brent and Amanda's house where we got to see Makenna Crawl ... and she's a mover and a shaker... then we headed to the West Family reunion with them.

Thanks Brent and Amanda for the Pictures since I didn't have my camera. There was lots and lots of really good food and Chris was the Auctioneer to raise money for the family things. The auction rasied $278.25. Chris was awesome, you should have seen him breaking all the kids' piggy banks. :)

Brent and Amanda drove us to Bloomington-Normal where we caught the train to Chicago, walked another mile to Millenium Station and then rode the South Shore to Micigan City and drove home - I think we got in about 2am or so.