winter

I feel like I have a post a season :) But what can you do if you have tons of school work and a family to take care of? It's my winter break now, so behold - beginning of our holiday season:

Tradition - Zoo Lights; we go at least a couple of times.

Finally got our tree; hubby decided that we should have a real one this year. He set it up and put up the lights, Little Dude decorated it. I supervised :)

Kitty posed by the tree.

She also guards it :)

I play around with bokeh!

And while Little Dude is at school, I go out with friends, and use mall decorations for pictures :)

oooh hey!

Did you know I was on vacation?

We've been at my parents' house for over a month, and still have a little than a month left. 

We are rested up, tan and happy!

{almost} the whole family is here - my parents, me and the Little Dude, my sister, her hubby and their babe.

Yep, I am an aunt now! My nephew was born on the 17th of June. It's awesome that I can cuddle him and then give him back :)

Little Dude loves his cousin - he sings to him, talks to him, gives him kisses; and in turn Little Nephew loves his cousin - he babbles and smiles when Little Dude does any of those things I mentioned.

We travel around a lot - neighborhood cities, camping, hiking, and of course the beach. Little Dude is learning Russian, and is getting great at math.

I love love love it here, but I miss hubby and home and can't wait to go back! Though I know I'll be missing my family here like crazy once we leave....

yay!

Well, better late than never, right?

My commencement ceremony was last Sunday, and I while I am not done with school yet (still have 2 years to get my masters), I am done with my bachelor's degree. Feels sooo good to be done with it, because at one point I didn't even think I'd go back to school.

me and hubby

Little Dude graduated preschool, it was bittersweet. He is really looking forward to Kindergarten in fall! 

Also, tomorrow F and I are off to visit my parents for 2 months!

Aaand, my nephew is being born as I write this. Soooo excited for my sister!

YAY!!!

I need to post more stuff, but it's our birthday week, and midterm week, and there's a ton of homework besides the exam. And F had his Kindergarten round up, and tomorrow is his party. So I am sort of slammed here...

But I had to share this:

after a long process I got accepted into this awesome grad program, "Inclusive Elementary Educators Program, which includes licensure programs in two departments: Special Education and Curriculum and Instruction, and to the Master of Science in Special Education..."

Happy Happy Happy

There's more details and other stuff on my personal blog.

And for now I am off to write my midterm.

And if I am done early enough with that and laundry, there will be pictures!

:)

Spring!!!

Yesterday was spring. 60 degrees, sunshine and everything!

Little dude and I spend about 4 hours roaming downtown.

We shared a sandwich and a banana by the marina, watching seagulls and ducks. We ran through the fountain, getting a little wet. We lounged on the grass, taking in the beauty of blooming trees. We crossed the Steel Bridge and watched baby ducks and their mama.

It was blissful!

We got back home and F. asked (!!!) if he could take a nap.

Come on, sunshine, stay! We need some vitamin d!

school

When I looked in my student planner several days ago, I discovered that the spring graduation application deadline was yesterday.

Not a big deal, I though, untill I started filling it out and couldn't remember what catalog year I was supposed to use.

I am on campus only 2 days a week, with classes from 10 am to 4 pm with just enough time to walk from class to class, so there's very little opportunity for me to do anything else during those hours.

Well, yesterday I just ended up being so stressed out that I left my 1st class an hour early, and it gave me enough time to talk to advisors.

I found out I can use any catalog year, because the only difference was this intensive writing course I've been dreading. But it turned out, my regular advisor waived it for me! *happy dance* :) I really didn't want to take that class, but had to since, even though I started college in 2000, it wasn't in the US.

So then there's this other huge gap to fill in - my foreign language requirenment. Should be easy, right? Excpet there's a test I had to take in order for me not to take any classes. The test is super easy, but time consuming... So during the rest of that hour I went to the foreign language department, where I was given a form to fill out and attach to my HS diploma. I went to the Russian Language department, and was told that it could possibly be a copy of my transcript instead. So I had admissions send the copies over to them.

All I have to do now is e-mail the head of the department and explain the situation. Would have been sooo much easier if she was there when I stopped by and could hear me speak the language and just sign off on my requirenment :)

So now I am left with 12 credits, 4 of which will go to my psyc pre-req for grad school, and now I need to decide what to do with the rest. One thing that makes it easy is that another 4 should fit in with social science requirenment, and I can hopefully find a good child and family studies class. Then I am left with an elective that I have nooo idea what to do... Decisions decisions...

But I did turn in my application, and I can (in about 3 weeks) register for a spring commencement ceremony!



Ok, so that was some good news. Now onto crappy stuff...

I found out that this grad school program I want to do, Inclusive Elementary Education Program, has about 18-20 spots open, and about 30 people have applied already. The cut off for the application is April 1st, and there's at least 3 more people, including me, who are applying... The thing is the program is offered every 2 years, so after it starts this coming fall, it won't be offered till fall 2013.

And this is where I start freaking out. What if I don't get in? Am I supposed to wait two years? What will I do during those two years? I mean, I will have to work, but what will I do? I really don't want to have some crappy job, having a bachelors degree I've worked hard for... My only other option would be to apply for a General Teaching Education Program, that would start a summer from when I graduate. This way I will only have a year off as opposed to over two.

But I guess I should stop freaking out and getting stressed out untill I actually know what's going on. Right?

recap.

I think it might have been the first time hubby had to work on Christmas Eve, so F. and I were the only ones representing our family :)

It was fun though! They Boy got spoiled with gifts and attention, and I got spoiled with a little break.

We had a traditional home-made soup dinner yesterday, and ham and stuff today - everything was so yummy!



Hubby didn't get home till after midninght yesterday, because he decided to drive around after work, looking for any stores that might have been opened. He wanted to get more stocking stuffers for F. Everything was closed, of course, but it still was really sweet of him!

We played Santa when he came home, and it turned out that even without big stocking stuffers that we decided to wrap, F's stocking was pretty full!

It was awesome seeing his face in the morning. We woke him up, so he was super sleepy, but you could still see the smile on his face.

The big present was a hit! Even though The Boy didn't get as excited as we thought he would (we think he peeked/guessed what it was), he still loved it! He played with it all morning till we left to Grandma's house, and a lot after we got back.



Getting him to take a bath and go to bed was a big pain in the butt, because he didn't want to stop playing! :) The only thing that convinced him was his new constellation night light!

~~~~~

The good thing about having Christmas at somebody else's house is not having to clean up. The bad thing - you have to carry all the gifts upstairs!

But the reward of it is putting a bunch of pictures onto my new digital photo frame, and figuring out that I could transfer funds from my new Star.bucks giftcards to my old one. Now I can still keep going with the rewards without any waste :)

All in all, Christmas was pretty awesome, despite some minor stress. And I can not wait for MY big presents - I settled on 2 lenses for my camera! YAY!