Welcome to Europe...

Yesterday was wonderful, David and I have been having quite the time adjusting to being back in productive mode. Honestly, yesterday was a much needed holiday! (Okay, okay. We basically took the entire weekend off and decided not to do anything productive. EXCEPT, of course, to get to level eight on Super Mario Brothers Wii. Why yes, that would probably take about 10 hours of non-stop gaming.) But like I said, the extra day off on Monday was wonderful. We slept in, read out books, cleaned the house and then... we went on a date to Europe.

Yep! You heard me right. David and I decided it was a great opportunity to start seeing the world, and so we hopped on the next flight to Europe from the Salt Lake airport.     ..... umm ... Yeah, just kidding!

Really, we just decorated our apartment as a little European Cafe because two of Davids brothers came up to go on a triple date with us. The entire idea actually came from the birthday present that David and I gave to Jeff for his birthday. We gave him a "Complete European Adventure Date Kit - (Girl not included.)" This weekend was the perfect time to put that kit to good use. 

Here is how the date went: While Jeff and Kevin were out picking up their dates, David and I finished decorating the apartment and hung a "Welcome to Europe" sign on the front door. When they arrived, they entered "La Caffe` Peaden."

The full shot of the "Caffe`."

The caffe` table.

Me posing with "La Caffe Peaden" sign. 

(You may notice that the arrangement of words is different in this picture than in the first picture. That is because I just put "The Peaden Cafe" into an English to Italian translator online, and it said "La Peaden Caffe`." So that is how I posted it. As soon as David realized what I had done, he switched the words and made us take another picture so people wouldn't think that we were "gringo's." Apparently Italian is VERY similar to Spanish. I learned this when we were watching The Italian Job and David started translating what they were saying. Who knew!)

Here is the whole crew (minus David who is taking the picture). We ate a delicious "Italian Dinner" complete with homemade bread sticks (okay, we used Rhodes Rolls... so they weren't completely homemade), spaghetti, salad and Italian sodas.

A closeup of our food. And the ranch bottle. 
You may be wondering about the #8 on the bottle, but don't you worry... there is a very good explanation for that. However, it is a story for another day. I will be blogging about it soon though. 

Next up on the agenda: Sightseeing!

This was the best part of the date. You see, in the "Complete European Adventure Date Kit" that we gave Jeff for his birthday, we included a Balloon Architecture Kit. This kit gave step by step instructions on how to make famous buildings out of balloons. (You know.. like balloon animals?) The intention was to make something like the Colosseum or some such thing.

Here is David working hard to tie our first balloon. 

Jeff and Lindsie, off to a great start.

  Kevin and Kayli starting on their construction project.

The beginnings of our project. :) 

Davids SUPER SAD FACE because one of his balloons popped while he was trying to twist it! 

Hard at work. Seriously, these things took some real EFFORT!

Can you guess what they were making?

Yay! Part 7-12 is finished!

Ta-da! Our finished product! The Brooklyn Bridge! (Did you know that this was the first bridge to be completely lit by electricity? I didn't either. Look at how much you can learn by playing with balloons.) 

Look at how similar it looks to the one in the book!

Here are Jeff and Lindsie with the US Capitol Building! 

And last but definitely not least, the Eiffel Tower!!!!!

We had a blast. Amidst all of the balloon construction there were quite a few sword fights (using carefully crafted balloon weapons) and other such activities. I even figured out how to make a balloon flower all by myself! 

Me with my balloon flower.

To finish off the date, we ate Cannolis for dessert. If you don't know what a cannoli is, please google it. They are beautiful italian desserts. However, they are also very complicated... so upon Googling "Simple Italian Dessert" we came up with these knock-off cannolis.

A special thank you to Rachel Ray and her Cannoli Fake out!

Another very special Thank You to my very special husband. This date wouldn't have been anywhere near as wonderful without your support and your incredible personality. I love you and am so grateful that we can have such a great time without leaving our house! 

A Lesson in Palm Reading...

So I am sitting at work right now with all of my Student Teaching papers scattered around me. I have two weeks of lesson plans that I should be writing right now, and even more organization that I could be working on. However, my brain is on vacation and I absolutely can NOT force myself to do something as productive as write lesson plans. (Truth is, i'm a little intimidated to be writing real life lesson plans for real life kids in a real life classroom.) But, David has promised that as soon as we get off work we can pick up a little Caesars Pizza (with FREE Crazy Bread, complements of the Big Blue Coupon book from the Bookstore), go home and watch a movie! We just signed up for Netflix and we are LOVING it! I already watched a movie today while I was cleaning up the apartment. It was one of the movies you can stream right to your computer. "The Man with One Red Shoe." That was the title and it was fabulous. A young Tom Hanks stars as a man who gets mistaken for a CIA agent in an airport because he is wearing one red shoe and one brown shoe. I really liked it. I love that I have hundreds of PG movies right at my fingertips. Netflix is even learning what we like to watch and suggests movies it thinks we would like.

The other day we watched a movie called "Only You." Its about a girl who believes that the man she will someday marry is named Damon Bradley. The reason she believes this is because a Ouija Board told her the name when she was way young, and then when she was in high school had her fortune told by a Gypsy at a carnival who said that Damon Bradley would one day come and sweep her off her feet (okay, so she didn't say it quite like that. It was more like "I see a name... David... no... DAMON Bradley...." and that was it. But it had the same effect.)

You are probably wondering why I am rambling about this movie. Well... when you sit at a computer for long enough and you are desperately trying to avoid doing anything productive, it is very probable that you may start googling random things. Because we had just recently watched this movie I ended up googling "palm reading". And I found a quick course to the art of reading palms. :)

Here is what I found:

It appears that I have a very long life line, a strong heart line, and a very pronounced "head line" (What is a head line anyway? Do I have a big head? Am I destined to make the front page of the newspaper?)

Unfortunately I do not have a health line or a success line. I'm a little worried. Apparently I will live a very long life with little success and no health. But people will know about me either because of my newsworthiness or my big heart. :)

Hows that for being productive?

How to eat an elephant...

DID YOU KNOW:

• The elephant is the largest of all land mammals. (A fully grown elephant can reach a height of 10 - 13 feet and weigh about 16,500 pounds)
• A group of elephants can be called a 'memory of elephants', although a herd is a more common collective noun
• September 22nd is Elephant Appreciation Day (just seven days after my birthday)
• Elephants spend about 16 hours a day eating
• They consume as much as 495 pounds of food per day.
• The elephant is my favorite animal

Elephants are basically huge, amazing creatures. I love elephants. I always have. I remember once when I was in elementary school we went on a field trip to the Bean Museum in Provo and I begged my mom to buy me a tiny glass elephant as a souvenir. I remember losing it on the bus on the way home and being devastated. Naturally, I enlisted the help of everyone within five seats of my to stop what they were doing to look for it. Needless to say, I cherished that thing. I have also loved each and every stuffed elephant that has had the good fortune to come into my life (as presents, or just as mere acquaintances while passing through a gift shop.)

You may be wondering why I am talking so much about ELEPHANTS. Don't worry... I haven't gone off the deep end. The thing is, David and I have bitten off a little more than we can chew. This semester is looming before us like an elephant just daring us to step forward. Not a cute little baby elephant like above. A really big mean scary elephant like this:
(Amy- please forgive my lack of real pictures of elephants. When you go to Africa next week you will have to take some good pictures for me.) 

David has just started his Masters Program here at USU. He will continue working at the Controllers Office, but will also be taking on two more jobs. He is a Graduate Research Assistant to one of his professors on campus, and has just been offered the chance to be a Quigley Scholar (he will get to promote Utah State and especially the School of Accounting) Both of these are really great opportunities for him, but will keep him very busy. Plus, taking care of me is a full time job!

As for me, I am in the midst of preparing for student teaching! I went to parent teacher conferences last night, and met my Cooperating Teacher for the first time. (We were supposed to meet before Christmas, but then she was diagnosed with Lung Cancer. She is doing well, and we are both looking forward to a great semester together. I think that the situation will be good for both of us.) I observe tomorrow and then start teaching in the classroom next week! Wish me luck! On top of that, I will be working 20 hours a week in the IT Computer Labs and will continue to move forward with my business, Red Ladder Design.

David and I have a lot of 13 hour days ahead of us.

But you know what they say...

The only way to eat an elephant is

ONE BITE AT A TIME.

The thing is:
I love teaching and can't wait to get into the classroom. I have so many good ideas, and can't wait to start implementing them. I love my job and am blessed to be able to work on lesson plans while I am there. AND I absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE designing wedding invitations. (I spent an hour or so today working on a design for a client who really likes unique stuff and I loved every second of it.)

All I need to remember is that I love all these things and that if I just take it one step at a time, everything will work itself out.
One step at a time.

After all, America eats 350 slices of pizza each SECOND. (That is 100 acres of pizza each DAY). And that, my friends, makes eating an elephant seem like eating a bite-sized candy bar.