Around the Town in MC

Things We've been doing around town.

We made our way to the Pumpkin Fest in Westville, which oddly had no pumpkins which is what we went for. However, Bela did get to see why "Nothing Runs Like A Deere"



Anyone for some homemade Icecream? Not us, it was a bit chilly- so we introduced Isabela to a little thing called the Elephant Ear! She liked it soo much that she bought a second one! (of course I helped with it)


Then comes the big dance - Sadie Hawkins! Isabela was smokin' -


...so Chris had a little paintball talk with Paal.... Paal is the exchange student from Norway. The two became quick friends because they both knew how the other was feeling on their first days of school.


They went to Chili's for dinner. Deb and Jerry dropped them off, Chris and I picked them up and dropped them at the dance. Deb and Jerry were working the concession stand at the dance and they brought her home.


Bella's reaction to the dance was classic! The boys and girls were dancing much different than she is used to in Brazil. I'm sure you can use your imagine on how they shake their groove thangs....

BillyCreek/Covered Bridge Festival

Here we are at Billy Creek Village! One of my favorite places, though it has been a couple years, and now it seemed somewhat modernized... I don't know it may have been the huge colorful jumpers that they put in place of the Cider Mill....

Here Isabela does an all-time classic- Candle Making!









The tripod my mom bought us came in handy more than once since we got it, but we really enjoyed it here.








After Billy Creek we headed downtown to the Covered Bridge Festival in Rockville. We also met up with Kristina and the girls!


We played in the lake at the festival in Mansfield. (See Kristina's site for more pictures.)


After we looked around a small portion of the festival booths, and after the girls, Kris and I got in the water and collected us some oysters, we met mom at Turkey Run State Park. She wonderfully put together an entire picnic while we were out browsing the festival. We had hot dogs and polishes, chips and strawberries- YUMMY, YUMMY.

Then after eating and hanging out, we headed to find a near GEO CACHE! We searched and searched around the covered bridge but later realized it may be further into the woods. So we ventured that way...we looked and looked but it got dark too quick and we had to leave empty handed, but with a lot of fun memories. THANKS FAMILY! (see Kristina's site for more pictures) Maybe we can do one over Halloween weekend at Casi and Shane's house.

Man do I love getting A's!

Just got my first English paper for the semester back and it was a 92% - A! It was a persuasion piece about the welfare system - how it fails, how it's attempting to be solved, and why that plan does not work to the best interest of the American people. I lost points for a small typo where I entered two commas, and I lost points because I used APA instead of MLA format for my works cited page. (Hey it was just like the hand out she gave us, but what can you do?)

Next, I worked hours on top of hours on my history paper for Sir Edmund Andros - a busy, busy man in the 17Th century... I mean I worked HARD, my brain was strained. (I even had to ask my mom to help me find information on the guy from before he became GOV- she found an awesome on-line book that was the best possible source I used!) So it was due date, and I thought I was done. This is a 2-way video conference class, and the instructor happened to be at our campus this morning. She is GREAT! She said e-mail them to her early and she will tell you what you need to fix. I did, She came in and said, she recommends cutting it down... (I had 8 pages!) So I took it home and cut it down over the next week. I submitted it online and she never posted my grade. It has been like three weeks! Other classmates had their grades, so I was curious. I thought something was wrong with it. So I emailed her on WED asking, "did i make a major mistake and you want me to re-write? Did i take too much information out?" Thursday she was at our campus again, and she says, "Lara West...(pause)... excellent paper. I couldn't take off any points because there were no errors... however, you are still very long winded. (I cut it down to 5 pages) You got to tighten up that information." So I got 25/25!

This instructor is great because she does not take off points for a late paper as long as it is a paper that shows you used the extra time to make it a great paper, and if you get less than a B, she gives it back to you and tells you to fix it. She says, "If you fail it once, I didn't do my job right. If you fail to correct it, you didn't do your job right." (and you have all semester to fix it, because she does not give you an actual due date where you loose points. Just can't get too much stuff backed up!)

10 Days!?!

That's right, I have not posted for 10 whole days! The world must be coming to an end!


Anyway... Here is my attempt to catch you up with out forgetting the most important parts.....


So on the 16th, Bela had a soccer game, this was her first one where she got to play during the game because she now (finally) has enough practices in to play.

Here she is Warming Up.


In the Game, running hard


So I'm working on my soccer vocab, and here she is "dribbling" the ball, (apparently not just kicking it) You can't see her because the other girl was a total photo hog and kept getting in my way.


Here she goes, after the girl, after the ball.... so my vocab is not so good...

The game sadly ended in a tie 1 - 1.

The game on Thursday the 18th was cancelled because well... let's just say that MUNSTER, INDIANA is STILL, yes, STILL, under water. So they couldn't exactly all jump on the floating school bus and float it's way to MC. :)

I GOT MY HAIR CUT!

I took my hair up to my first set of layers and then got more layers. I also got my highlights touched up with some low lights this time... Don't mind the fact that my shirt is on backwards and wrong side out. I do not know why... crazy me.

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Saturday the 20th we headed for IL. Bela and I met my sister Kristina at the Mall and went shopping for Grandma's Birthday Gift, since the photo I ordered was a bust at Wal-Mart. We got her a great card, and Bela discovered how wonderful Hallmark stores are. We ran into our Cousin Becca while we were there, and spent a good amount of time going through the singing cards, having fun.

Then we went to the bookstore and to bath and body works. Then we headed to County Market to pick up the cakes. We bought Grandma flowers, and a balloon that matched the card and a 90 years old balloon to go with. Lunch at Aunt Marianne's was wonderful! Yummy Sloppy Joe's and Veggies. We played the bean bag toss game. Teams were Chris, Adam, and Jack's three boys, against Isabela, Ashley, myself and Tom. Ashley kept having Tom throw for her when she saw how good he is. Chris got a bag-in-hole too! The rest of us got close though!

Then we went to the church for cake and gifts. It was fun, Orville was there too! The kids loved seeing him even though he can't remember them, he did a good job pretending. :) Rachel found the skeletal remains of some animal in the church yard, that was fun to get rid of!

Casi, Shane and myself all got new phones this weekend too! We all got the blackberry Curve. I LOVE it! Casi already has music on hers, I need to put some on mine before the weekend trip! Chris actually got the same phone for work, now Mom, Dad, Casi, Shane, Chris and I all have the same phone. Chris is the only boy with a black one, the other boys have red.

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Sunday we got up with no real purpose. Rachel has just broken a light bulb with her ball in the front room and crying because she got yelled at for bouncing the ball in the house. So we decided to do a GEO CACHE! It was sooo much fun, I will explain this later, as I need to get to bed, and I want to explain it right.

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Bela had another soccer game last night (Tuesday).. THEY WON 2 - 0!!! This is the first win by the JV team this season. She was so proud, as she should be.. she almost scored... but if she hadn't almost scored, the other girl wouldn't have scored at all... so yay!

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This weekend is going to be a long one as Chris and I are Chaperoning on the exchange student trip. There are 60 kids, on 5: 15 passenger vans, going to Amish Country, Cedar Point, Niagara Falls and Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame. We are two of only 9 chaperone's. My dad is considering coming with, but I think he just made it to TN for his bike trip with brother.


And that's it for tonight!

Rain, Rain Go Away

I never did post the picture from Christopher's birthday dinner. We went to Valpo and enjoyed some Greek's Pizzeria, followed by some Cold stone. It was a cute little pizza place, and very yummy. While we were there the waitress asked Chris, "you're from Brazil?" because he was wearing the hat that Isabela brought him. He said, "close. she is." and Isabela and the waitress starting talking in Portuguese and having fun. She gave us some Brazilian candy as well.

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Yesterday I made Rice in Beans... trying my hand at a true Brazilian recipe. Isabela said they were really good, almost Grandma good if I would have cooked the beans just a little bit longer. They were in the water all night, and in the crock pot for 5 hours that day. The exchange meeting was all information we already had, so for us as adults attending it was a pointless drive and waste of a Saturday night.... for the students it was great to get to see other students from their countries and some, even from the same city. So it was worth it for all of us in that sense. There was a wide variety of food available. There was Spanish food, German food, Norwegian food, Korean food and of course lots of Brazilian food.

Here is Isabela with Deb! Her daughter is on the soccer team with Isabela and they are also hosting the student from Norway.

Chris is scary. Boys were not allowed to get their food until after all the girls got theirs. He must be hungry.

Here we are filling out all the paperwork...

This is Jerry, Deb's husband. Paal (Paul) is the student from Norway. Him and Isabela have been really good friends at the school. It is nice to have someone to talk to who is feeling the same way you are when in a different country.



Paal and Chris chat it up.

Here are some of the Brazilian students together. There are 24 of them total in the area.

All the students from all the countries in the area. Some of the places include South Bend, Gary, Merriville, Valpo, Chesterton, LaPorte and of course Michigan City. I'm sure I am forgetting a couple, but those are what I remember.

There is Isabela in the front corner with some girls from Brazil.

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It has been raining here since Friday and all you see for the entire day on the radar is RAIN, RAIN, RAIN! Lots of yards are flooded and I want to get one more day at the beach in before it is too cold.

Isabela gets to play in her first soccer game on Tuesday next week. Hopefully the field is not flooded! I'm tired of rain. Anybody else?

Colt's Game!

Us all excited getting ready to drive to Indianapolis.

Isabela doing what I usually do during the drive.

From the interstate...we can see it...

Passing right by it.

Bob Sanders, Yeah!

The lot that Kim told us to park in for only $3 was crazy! Here is the Colts Cruiser.

There were many, many buses painted for the Colts. Here is a band on top of the bus.

Yikes, look out for this guy.

One of my favorites!

See the Stadium sign behind us. We walked to the circle after visiting Circle Center.

Chris and Bela at the party.

We salute them both! :)

Chris and I having a blast at the party, lots of yummy food!

The bus, it was awesome inside, wood floors, two tv's, peanut machines... awesome.


Out walking through town again.

We just picked up our tickets and made our way closer.

hehe, pretty Dalmatian...

Wanna buy something colts? Prices were actually the same as at the mall.

Wooooo, we are getting closer!


And..we're in! Finally.

Cool car parts hanging around

Live Band even...

Open roof.

Very stylish vending.


Big smack daddy coach D on the wall.

Chris getting lost behind us on the escalator.... wee had to ride two up.... hey it beats the stairs.

Awesome.

Our View.

Lara !!!!

Nice View out the side window.

Check it out, 44 - Dallas Clark

Dallas Clark again, with his back to us, nice butt, but (hehe) he got injured during the game

200 people are spreading this flag across the field.

IU was the half time entertainment.

Go Colts, Go.


Bela Cheering!

The Walk of Shame.... sniff, sniff....