yay for scrapbooking!

Seriously! I'm am so pumped! It felt great to get all of my supplies out and try to create the idea I had bouncing around in my head. I predict poor Gabe will be the subject of many more layouts. Which means I am always sticking my camera in his face. He's a big ham though- he loves it. I couldn't get this to scan very well though. For some reaon, whenever I use white cardstock with bright colors the white always comes out a funky shade. Oh well, it looks awesome in real life!

The New Man In My Life

I adopted my new little guy at the Arizona Humane Society. He is only 8 months old and the shelter found him as a stray. I can't believe someone would give him up. He is a mini dachshund. I'm still a little unsure on what to name him. Right now the forerunner is Gabe, but I am also entertaining Oliver, Sirius, Angelo, Cruz, Francisco, and Mercutio. His first night here with me went well. He slept all night in his crate with very little whining. We have been outside several times, but he still chose to pee on the floor in my kitchen. We'll work on that. He and I stopped at the pet store on our way home from the shelter and I bought him several new toys and some treats. He has shown very little interest in his toys so far. He would much rather follow me around and sleep by my feet.I'm off to do some scrapping, which I've haven't done in months. So excited about it! I am way behind on my albums though. I need to work on my college and San Francisco albums, plus start scrapping my life in Europe and my recent vacation to Hawaii.

Berlin

I was reluctant to go there. I really just wanted to spend my weekend at home to write some lesson plans and maybe take in the flea market in Frankfurt. But I had already said I would go and I didn't want to back out. After an eight hour train trip, which began at 4am, I was decidedly unimpressed with my first glimpses of Berlin. The bahnhoff (train station) smelled funny and the surrounding buildings looked like any average American city. I was a little worried that the city didn't offer enough to keep us busy for two days.

After spending three hours in Berlin, during which we checked in at our hostel and ate lunch, I had already started to fall a little in love. The people, though badly dressed, as all Germans seem to be, were fascinating to watch. Mullets and mohawks, in all their glorious forms, are alive and prospering in Berlin. We were stared at as well, so something about us must scream "American!"
Saturday night we went on an organized pub crawl. We visited five bars/clubs in the course of the night. Some girls in the group did a bit more drinking than others. I thought it was surreal when I was dancing in an underground club in Berlin at 3am. Clubs are very big here in Germany, so going dancing is part of the German experience.

The next day we went on a walking tour of East Berlin. We went by all of the big sights and I learned a lot about the city and its fascinating history. My favorite sight is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (Holocaust Memorial). It's meant to be abstract and up to each person to interpret their own meaning(s). I thought they looked like tombstones.

We also saw the Berlin Wall, or what's left of it. There is a very small portion of the Wall still standing out in its original position. Most of the Wall was torn down by the peopleof Berlin and other portions were removed and placed in museums and such. The part that is still out on the street is fenced in so that it's not chipped away and taken as souvenirs. I think it's pretty funny that there is a fence protecting the Berlin Wall. There is also a cobblestone line set in the ground that marks where the Wall used to stand.

So much has happened in Berlin. Kings and queens paraded through the Brandenburg Gate, Napoleon conquered it, Hitler used it as his headquarters, and then it was divided by Communism. I highly suggest Berlin to anyone who is going to be heading to Germany.

While I still think Berlin smells funny, and by funny I mean bad, I guess I can excuse that. The city is several hundred years old, after all. It's bound to pick up some funny smells along the way.

Catch-Up

At the moment I am desperately trying to load all of my CDs onto my new mp3 player. It's a Creative Zen Sleek Photo. Love it. So cool. And it holds pictures and stuff, so I can take them with me to Europe. But seriously, it's taken me three days so far to load all of my musica onto this thing.

My brother is officially a married man. That doesn't seem as weird as I thought it would be. The wedding was beautiful. Shannon was the most gorgeous bride I have ever seen. She has all of this stunning red hair and she wore it up in curls with a sparkly tiar. And my brother looked like a big, handsome hunk of man. They are so sweet and wonderful together. I don't have any good picures, so I'll have to wait until the professional photos come in.

I begin my journey in 3 days! (Monday!) I haven't gotten nervous yet- which is surprising. It will all hit me Sunday night and I'll start freaking out. It will be a good freaking out though... I hope. I haven't really had time to sit around and think about it yet. I am working right up until Saturday. And I had Matt's wedding last week, plus one of me good friends from high school just got married. Her wedding gave me a chance to see a bunch of old friends before I go. Tonight I went out for happy hour with my mom and a couple of her friends. We all had Grand Canyon margaritas, which had prickly pear juice in them. Only in the desert would people be crazy enough to drink a cactus. Tomorrow night I will be going out with two of my good girlfriends. (I have the best friends!) We will probably make a stop at our favorite cowboy honky tonk and do a little two-steppin'. Then on Saturday my family is having little get together as a kind of goodbye party for me. But on Sunday I have nothing, other than church, so that will give the nerves a chance to creep in. I've gotten lots of good advice from everyone around me. Advice on everything from how to pack (Lynsey and Sara) to which Geman beer is the best (George and Bob) to the best pick up lines to use in each country (Schmidt, Lynsey, and Shamady) to how to order good coffee in each country(Jim). Plus Jim, my boss, speaks fluent German so he teaches me a few new words every day. Everyone is being very supportive and it makes it a lot easier to move to another country for four months when you know all the people at home are thinking good thoughts for you.

It will probably be a while before I get to Germany and find a computer I can use, but hopefully I will be able to provide regular updates with lots of pictures. Auf wiedersehen!

Bachelorette Party

Only 3 more days until my brother gets married! We went to Vegas last weekend for the bachelorette party. We were there for about 2 days, more than enough time if you ask me. Vegas is a two day town and any more than that is just overkill. We stayed in the Luxor; a bit more expensive but really nice rooms. There were four of us total. Shannon (the bride-to-be), Joanne (the bride's sister and maid of honor), Joann B. (the bride's good friend), and me. Although Shannon talked about being wild and crazy this was more of a conservative crowd. We did go see two "male revue" shows. Thunder Down Under and Chippendale's . I was more a fan of the former and the other girls liked the latter best. Both shows were fun, if a bit awkward seeing as one of the Joannes is my boss. Shannon wore a wedding veil when we went out at night. A lot of people stopped her to either offer congratulations or condolences, depending on their degree of drunkenness.

This is Shannon and Joann B. sitting at the quarter slot machines in the Bellagio. They are trying to show me their seductive looks. By this time Shannon and I are already slightly tipsy. I wasn't yet tipsy enough to show them my seductive look, so they decided to show me how it's done. I ended up sticking a straw up my nose and then in my eye, which I would have to say isn't too cute.

I'm not sure what casino we are at here, but I do know we were nearing the end of night 1. I'm wearing my tall shoes and still the other girls tower over me.



Here is the official tally of all things Vegas:
number of casinos visited: 6
money I lost at the nickel slot machine in
the Luxor and Bellagio casinos: $1.50
Mai Tais consumed by the group: 9
Long Island Ice Teas consumed by me: 4 or 5
glass bottles of water that I broke on the floor of the dance
club in the Caesar casino: 2
men over the age of forty who hit on me and gave me their
business cards and room numbers: 2
drinks bought for us by other people: 9
random drunk men who stopped us to give Shannon wedding advice: 1
number of F-Bombs dropped by the random drunk man: at least 15

I love My Diamondbacks!

It's been almost a month since my last post. For all you girls that keep nagging me about it- I'm sorry.

Went to an Arizona Diamondbacks game with my parents last night. (My second D-Backs game of the week!) We sat out in left field and the foul post blocked my view of second base. Other than that it was lots of fun- it always is. I love going to D-Backs games. There is a Panda Express concession stand in the ballpark, so that's what Mom and I had for dinner. Dad went to the McDonalds stand for his food. Not your typical ballpark food.

This is our view of the infield from our seats. Notice the big foul post that is blocking second. Also notice the lack of people. It was like having the stadium to ourselves. We didn't have anyone sitting in the seats in front of us.

A view of outfield and the jumbotron. I love our score board.

I bought a program so that I could use the score card that comes inside. Keeping score is one of my favorite parts of the whole game experience. Notice my boy Chad Tracy scored the first two runs! The D-Backs beat the Rockies 6-2!

I'm heading to Vegas tomorrow for my soon-to-be sister-in-law's bachelorrette party! Woohoo!

Shannon's Bridal Shower

It was yesterday afternoon. It was a huge success and everyone had a good time! We had 23 people there all together. Shannon looked so beautiful and happy. I'm so excited to be getting such a great sister-in-law. We played about five games in all, plus we gave away as door prizes two of the rose bowls we used as decorations. The flowers were so pretty. Two bowls of red roses and one bowl of burnt orange and pink roses, which we gave to Shannon. The food was delicious- my mom made it all. We had a glazed fruit salad, a chicken caesar tortellini salad, artichoke dip with melba toast, and a BLT dip in cherry tomatoes. I had several people ask me today for recipes!



The Bride-To-Be with my Aunt Carol












I made this sign to tie around the pillar in front of our house. It was a lot plainer than I wanted it to be, but it got the job done.







I was in charge of making sure the present opening went smoothly, while my mom wrote down what she received from each person. The two girls on the right are Shannon's nieces- soon to be my brother's nieces too!









We had four carafes filled with drinks: water, ice tea, tropical ice tea, and lemonade. I made tags to tie around the neck of each carafe. The tags were just the plain white gift tags. I soaked them in some tea that my dad already had made expecting to get an antiqued-brown look. I didn't realize it was peach flavored tea and they came out pink instead. But they looked good so I kept them. I inked the edges with a gold ink pad and used this really cute pink ribbon that I found at my favorite scrapbook store.