A few life changes

There is a time in life when everyone you know is getting married. That time for TJ and I was about 3 years ago: 17 weddings in 1 year. We were in 8 of the 17 between the two of us.

There is a time in life when everyone you know is having babies. That is the time we are in now. For example, I am hosting 3 baby showers between now and May. But I'm loving it. I'm not a "creative type" but I'm learning that Pintrest is my new best friend-and I'm so glad that we have a house, with a large enough living room to host such events, and I'm glad I have friends who I love enough to offer to help. And that they love me enough to let me practice my creativity. And that I have a husband that loves me enough to let me process and practice.

I'm starting to realize the number of ways that God has blessed me. Perhaps it's because I'm getting older. Perhaps it's because I'm learning more and more about God's grace, and the sinful world that we live in. Overall, I'm blessed, and I'm learning to realize it. 

Thesis

Today I submitted my thesis to the Internal Review Board of TTU, waiting to see thier response....

It's nothing but a waiting game now.... Again.

Summer!!

Summer is almost over. I'm relieved and very sad at the same time. This summer has been a roller coaster, as TJ and I have been traveling every weekend for weddings. It's a relief to not have to go anywhere. I'm glad classes are over. Now, however, I'm waiting for my committee to review my changes to my thesis, and I have nothing else going on. Today I got up and had breakfast, went and took a 2 1/2 hour nap, unloaded and re-loaded the dishwasher, watched 4 episodes of Hell's Kitchen, made choc. chip cookies, and I'm going to work out. All of this and I'm still bored... What to do? I don't know. I'm working on planning our trip to Spain/Paris, and I'm getting SUPER excited.... Yea for FRIENDS!!!

Married Life

So I realized that I was very good at blogging when I was in Spain. Almost once a week. I have forgotten the therapudic feeling that writing gives me, as I have had to write so much in the last year of graduate school. I probably picked a really bad time to start continuing this blog, as I began writing my thesis today, but I don't care. I'm not sure if anyone will actually read this blog, but I feel as though it's a great way to scrapbook our marriage and our lives. I'll try not to be greusomly boring with details. Let me know what you want to hear about.

Home....

I miss home like crazy. I am really ready to comehome because I have not been traveling lately. It's really sad, because I know that I will be missing Spain in just a few short weeks. There are lots of things about Spain that I am going to miss. I have decided that I am going to list them, so you will know some of my favorite things about Spain.

-Salad with lettuce, tomatoes, onions, with salt, vinager, and olive oil for dressing
-Walking everywhere-litereally everywhere. I like being able to be productive on the bus
-Being able to be out of phone reach, planning ahead, following through and being patient when waiting for others to arrive instead of calling(not hearing cell phone ringsall the time)
-Being able to go to 3 countries in 3 weeks-for really cheap
-Seeing all my NEW FRIENDS whenever I want
-Watching the Tech games live from 2-6 am.....
-Spaking Spanish all the times (this really includes when I can't think of the English words for things, because all I can do is speak in Spanish)
-My Spanish family (and all that entails, which is a LOT...)
-Not having to express my emotions with everyone, because I don't know how to do that in Spainish-I do however love being able to say what I want, when I want....it's freeing
-Soup for lunch with FRESH warm bread
-Being stared at, since clearly I look good ALL the time. It's the blond hair....
-Talking in English and knowing no one will understand what I am saying...
-Saying Merry Christmas, instead of Happy Holidays
-The fabulous people at the "Casa de los Ancianos" All of them, whom I love!!!
-Tinto Veranos
-Dancing Sevillanas
-Parks and Tapas
-Easy school

There is probably more, but I don't know for now. I think next I will talk about what I miss most about the United States

-FAMILY
-TJ
-FRIENDS
-Mexican food
-Ranch Dressing
-Being able to talk to whom I want, when I want, no questions asked...
-Knowing everything about everyone back home. I just want to be informed, and be able to ease drop with EASE... not have to work to translate it.
-Central heat and air conditoning...
-Being able to throw my clothes in the dryer to shrink them up a little bit
-Chosing who I WANT to hang out with.....(even though I like people here, it would be nice to change it up a bit)
-Fast food American style
-Cheddar cheese, American Cheese, Black olives without pits, pickles
-Swing dancing
-A little responsibility....
-Driving my car

I don't know. There is more, but if I keep talking, I will make myself even more homesick. I will be home soon!

So where to begin???

You probably want to know about Switzerland, huh? Basically I loved Suiza more than anywhere I have been outside of Spain. (Ronda is the place in Spain that is my favorite) It was small mountian town meets Europe with an incredible result. We went to Interlaken, which is the extreme sports capital of the world, in case you didn't know. We had planned on going Bungee Jumping 450 meters, touching the water in the river below, but infortunatly it was closed for the season because it snowed the day that we arrived.... So, we rented 4 wheelers and went up into the mountians and went searching for waterfalls, which we found! It was great! The snow was melting a little, so all the mountians and cliffs had lots of HUGE waterfalls coming off of them. What beauty. People deny that a God created us?

I went to Suiza with a group of 12 people, including myself, which was great! These people are seriously some of my favorite ever!

While we were 4 wheeling, (6 of us) the other half were mountian biking. They were hard core, but we passed them in a matter of minutes, which made us feel really good. Anyways, when we were finished 4 wheeling, we decided that we would push the limits of extreme a little more and go skydiving. Sooooo, we went skydiving. That's right. Skydiving over the Swiss Alps! I went with Amy, Brian and Ryan. My friend Jennifer went with us to take pictures. I don't really feel like I can write much about it, because it was one of the best experiences in my life! I just don't have the words, but don't worry, I got pictures and video... so I will share when I return to the States! Let me say this, though: From 13500 feet, the mountians were breathtaking... It was stellar!

The next day, the whole group and I went and rented motos (that's what they call mopeds) for about 6 hours and we went riding around in the mountians. We had a moped gang! It was hillarious seeing (picture this with me) 12 Americans on 7 motos all bundled up riding through the Swiss Alps, and all these Swiss towns. hahaha! Don't worry. The next day we spent hours shopping around the whole city of Interlaken, where we all bought Swiss Army knives, Swiss chocolate and Swiss cheese.

It was really a trip of a lifetime, because we spended the night in the Mailan airport, on the floor. We also met 3 other girls from our group there. All 15 of us were on the same flight back to Sevilla. One of the things that made this trip so fun, besides the opbious skydiving over the Swiss Alps) was really getting to know our group. We all slept in a hostel room with 12 beds-and it was like a slumberparty with 11 of your best friends every night for 5 days. What a way to get to know people really well, huh?

I feel like I need to take some time to talk about our group. The instructors and staff at TTU Sevilla say that we are the best group they have ever had. There are 28 of us and we ALL GET ALONG! Although there are people that we like more than others, (duh!) we ALL GET ALONG! We love eachother. We don't have spats. We want to know eachother. We love to be together. We share the same intrests BUT we are all VERY different. We would not be this good of friends, if friends at all at Tech. So how will we adjust back into society with out our Spainish friends? Or with our Spainish friends and other friends? How are we going to mesh our two realities? We don't know right now, but we do know that we are having a blast learning, loving and traveling together. :-)

Be jelous! (Oh, and we got repremanded at the hostel for yelling when TECH beat UT and we found out. We also sang the fight song and the kickoff song at kickoff-1 AM....)

Paris for my birthday

So I hate to be cliche, but I will have to agree with the rest of the world on thinking that Paris is the most romantic places in the world. This weekend was everything that I wanted it to be and so much more. Because I dan't have time to go into details, but I will hit the highlights-and let you know everything that we did in 3 days in paris. My friends that went with me are Jennifer, Erica, Maggie and Micah. Then, I had some other of our friends meet us there to participate in other evernts. They are Amy, Cayla, John, Nicole and Sasha.


We saw and explored:
-Cimetiere du Montparnasse
-Palais de Congrés
-Arc d´Triomphe
-La Siene
-Moulin Rouge
-Opéra Garnier-my favoirte building in all of Paris
-Palais du Louvre-WOW!
-Palais du Luxembourg-Sénate
-Jardins du Luxembourg
-The Pantheón
-Notre-Dame
-The Place where Princess Diana died
-Of course, the Tour Eiffel

Some of these places were explored extensivly while others we simply saw from a distance, but none the less, we saw it all. Are you impresed? You should be.

I don't know why the French have such a bad reputation in the states. The French have been the nicest out of anyone from any country that I have been in thus far. They all wanted to help is get around the city easily. When we tried to speak French, they helped us out (by teaching us Frnech) and then clarified in English. It was great! I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that France is run by tourists, but I don't know. They all went above and beyond about being nice. Long story short, I think lots of my friends will be going back again soon. Some for long term, other just to visit.

My new found love has become crépes. Crépes with chocolate, crépes with Nutella, crépes with Jelly, crépes with Cinnamon and sugar, crépes with applebutter and cinnamon. All sorts of delicious crépes. I would highly recommend them from France... ;-) Nedless to say, we tried delicious French food.

All these things + Paris+my birthday+my 22nd birthday+some of my favorite people=a really unforgettable weekend.