Two Weeks and Counting!

So it's finally beginning to hit me that two weeks from this moment right now I'll no longer be Ms. Osborn, but rather Mrs. Spotanski. It's bittersweet as I am excited to move foreward with my life to see where it takes me, but then again I am sad to leave my family, and furthermore I am kinda nervous for the financial responsibility that I am about to take on and such. I know that I have nothing to be nervous about financially, but it's just such a new experience and all.

As excited as I am for the wedding, I am ready for the stress to be gone. I think our honeymoon to Durango is going to be a great chance to just relax and unwind after the stress of the wedding and just life in general. Tonight I started packing up some clothes and odds-and-ends of mine to take to Omaha on Monday and it felt so weird to be packing my stuff up to move it all. However, as anxious I am for all of this, I am really excited to start my new life with Nick!

New puppy picture!!!

So tonight Ethan and I took a trip (and i do mean trip!) to Grant City to see mine and Nick's new puppy, Akiba. After the nearly run stop-signs, winding road, and getting the car stuck in foot-deep mud I was almost to the point of just turning around and going home and just going to see him some other night. However, I got a call from the woman as I was finally on my way there after getting out of the mud (Thanks Duane Willaims!!!!!!!!!!!!) asking if I was still planning on coming and I told her the story, and she said she'd be glad to wait, and so we finally got there and this is what we saw:

Well, naturally I am soooooo excited to pick him up on July 11th :) So out of all the horrible stuff that happened on the way there (too much to recount), this was totally worth it!!!!

New (future) Family Member

Nick and I decided quite a while back that after our wedding we would get a puppy shortly thereafter. We were originally thinking of getting a Jack Russell Terrier, but only because they are fairly small dogs that would seem to fit our house well. However, the more we talked, the more we found that both of us are "big-dog-people" and we discussed how much we like his brother, Ryan's, Siberian Husky, Kia.

So we have decided to get one for ourselves :) Looking in the paper here in Omaha and in Kansas City there really seems to be hardly any Huskies to be found. So I was searching online a few days ago and found a breeder in Grant City, Mo (about 40 miles from Maysville) with pups available at the price we were expecting to pay. So we have decided on a little black and white male that we decided to name Akiba. The picture below was taken by the breeder when he was a little under a month old. I am going to go see him on Tuesday and then Nick and I are going to pick him up a few days after our honeymoon on either July 6th or 7th or so! I will put up more recent pics of him when I have them!

Garage Saling, Graduation, Growing Up

Garage Saling:

This past weekend marked the beginning of "garage sale season" for Mom and I :) On the first Saturday in May several neighborhoods in Liberty have neighborhood-wide garage sales and we just love going to them! This year Mom and I were planning on leaving around 6:30 a.m. Saturday morning to head to Liberty; however, Greg and Wendy called Friday afternoon and were telling us they were garage saling and so I mentioned it to Mom and she decided that she wanted to be spontaneous (say what!!!???) and that she wanted to go down and garage sale that night and stay in a hotel and then garage sale more the next day! So we went down and in just the hour and a half that we garage saled that evening I found pretty much everything that I was looking for (vhs/dvd player combo, big dog pet taxi, books) which was great!

I just love getting to do this with Mom and we have decided that this is our "deer hunting" ;)


Graduation/Growing Up:

Five days from now I will officially be a college graduate!!!! EEEEEKKKKKKK :) I honestly never knew if this day would really come and couldn't be more ready for it. These past five years have really flown by and I have enjoyed my college career, but now am ready to move on and get other parts of my life started :) This section is double-titled because I believe that with Graduation comes the neccessity (sp?) to grow up, and although I am ready for graduation, I'm not sure that I'm ready to be a "grown up" :) I love my family and am kind of daunted by the thought of moving 3 hours away and not getting to see them everyday. However, I'm sure that after a few months I will adjust to it and know that I will love getting to be with Nick everyday :) (that's the bright side :) )

Blessed, Bridal Shower, Bad Weather

As I was deciding what all to talk about tonight, I found that I had so much to say and so forgive me if I seem a little long winded :)

Blessed:

I have always known that I am blessed to have a wonderful family and group of friends, but I don't think that I (or maybe anyone else, for that matter) spend enough time reflecting on this and how different our lives would be without these people. I recently graded some essays in my sophmore class and some of the students wrote about some of the their horrible home lives, and it just really made me aware as to how wonderful I have it. Sure there are days when I come home from school/work tired and butt-dragging and then there's this little note at the end of the island asking me to do the laundry, vacuum, sweep, or something of the like, and I get thoroughly upset because all I want to do is relax. However, after reading about how bad some people have had it (and still do have it) I am thankful that God has given me the life he did.

Mom, Grandma Foogie, and Me at my bridal shower.....I have such a wonderful family :)

Bridal Shower:

This topic kind of ties into the "blessed" category. Today Martha and Teresa had a bridal shower for me and Nick (although, naturally Nick didn't come :) ) and it was so wonderful to get to see some family members that I had not seen in over a year, and whom it will probably be another year before I see them again! There were probably 25-30 people who came which is a wonderful turnout for a shower! Teresa and Martha just worked so hard on everything and the food, games, and just everything turned out amazing! I was glad that Martha and Kati finally got to meet, seeing as they will both be in my wedding about 2 months from now :) And I kid you not, Nick and I seriously got tons of wonderful gifts!!! It took me probably 45 minutes to an hour to open all of them, and then when I got home I brought them all in the frontroom to show Dad and they literally filled up the entire frontroom! We got everything from towels, kitchen utensils, a standing mixer (that I have wanted for soooooo long! LOL), to a clock, photo albums and picture frames, and an amazing hope chest that Dad made for me (another thing I have wanted for years!) I am just so thankful for having such a wonderful, supportive family and am so glad that we don't have to go out and buy these sorts of things now :)

The gorgeous hope chest that Dad made me is in the front :)

Bad Weather:


Tonight around 9 p.m. we had our first tornado warning of the year (as far as I can remember, anyways!) which I was dreading. If you know me, then you know that I hate bad weather especially since we don't have a basement because we have to go out to Grandma and Grandpa's when the weather gets bad. Nick and I have been talking and have decided that a full basement (finished or unfinished....doesn't matter to us) is pretty much a requirement in our next home, especially if we stay in the Midwest. Hopefully this year we don't have as much severe weather as we did last year.....it seemed like every night in Omaha there were tornado warnings, which particularly bothers me there because we don't have anywhere to go for shelter there, and because about 3 miles away from Nick's house a tornado hit last summer and did a lot of damage. In other words, I am a big baby and would love to live somewhere tornados aren't common :)

Wonderful, Wrapping Up, Winter

Wonderful:
Spring break is drawing to a close and I cannot describe how much I needed this past week off! I spent the whole of the week up at Omaha with Nick which was wonderful! U forgot a stack of essays on my desk at school that needed to be graded, which turned out to be okay because I was really then just forced to relax and enjoy my break. Plus, they will be there for me tomorrow morning at 7:30 a.m. when I arrive at my room :) I am planning on giving them back on Friday because that will give me plenty of time to go back over the grades I gave the others and make sure that I am happy with the grades I am giving, and also because I know there will be these few students who will complain and ask why they didn't get a 100% and frankly the comments I provide and the grading rubric attached should suffice as an explanation, but alas it won't and so they won't be able to continue questioning me throughout the week. Maybe that's the chicken way out, but I think that students should be able to read the comment and see all the marks on the rubric and understand why they received the grade they did.

Wrapping Up:
This semester seriously has been the busiest ever and I am so ready for it to wrap up. I have only two full weeks and a day left in my student teaching career and am so totally counting down the days :) I think it will be different when I have a classroom of my own because it's kind of tough just jumping in and taking over mid-school year. Anyhow, these last seven weeks have been so busy and I am ready for them to draw to a close, plus, I have so many other things to look forward to this summer and so the end of student teaching essentially marks the beginning of everything else!

Winter:
Well I am hoping winter is officially on the way out and I can assure you, it will not be missed by me :) Saturday was my last day in Omaha and it was so nice outside and I could only wish I had more time with Nick, but then got to thinking that the next time I see him I will be done with school and Winter should be over so we should be able to spend much more time outside!

Excellent and Excited

Excellent:
So far this week has turned out to be the best of my student teaching experience! My sophomores finished a personal narrative and are doing some practice stuff for the end of the course exam to come in late April. My Juniors just finished reading Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" and are working on Hawthorne's "The Minister's Black Veil" which were two of my favorite stories in high school. My MoWest supervisor came for an observation yesterday during second hour and it went really well and he thought highly of my lesson plan which made me feel great! I am just so thankful that he came during second hour because they are a spirited group who usually have a lot to say in discussion, very unlike third hour where I could stand on my head a sing a song and they wouldn't be impressed or phased :P

Excited:
Friday after school I am heading to Omaha to spend the whole of the next week with Nick and I can hardly contain my excitement! It's been three weeks since I have last seen him, and most of the times we were together before that was only for a day and a half or so, and usually that Saturday was busy with us working on wedding stuff, so it will be so nice to have lots of time together this time!!!