Spring Break 2010

Okay, so March 15th was the beginning of Steven and mine's spring break....we're been pretty lucky in having the last two spring breaks end up being the same week! Like last year, we headed to MO to visit my sister, brother-in-law, and niece :)

This time though we flew:



We've never flown together and I thought it was interesting....I'm not so sure about Steven though...haha.

I'm not the best flier. Pretty much everyone in my family loves to fly and my dad used to work for an airlines which meant flying free by stand-by so we were able to travel quite a lot growing up. Loved traveling, hated flying. And I still don't really like it. Luckily, since we left on St. Patrick's Day, Southwest had a special where everyone on the flight (21+ of course!) were given a free can of Heineken to enjoy:


Pretty sweet deal! And although it was 7 a.m., you can't let something like that go to waste! Plus it was the only drink we had on St. Patty's day.....we're good kids!

So Steven put up with my slight anxiety of flying (haaaa) and got a free beer out of the deal. Not bad, right? (By the way, Steven loves flying. Loves, loves, loves it. Of course.)

When we got there, I was so excited to see my sister P, and niece AJ waiting for us! AJ was of course a little shy at first, she just kept staring and smiling, it was so cute! :)
She saw me at Christmas and P and I skype every few weeks and she "talks" to me on the phone all of the time, but I wasn't sure if she would really remember me. And the last time she saw Steven she was just a little thing, so I was most nervous about her freaking out because he was around (he tends to scare little ones because he's 6' 7"...basically a giant to them!) but she did really good!

We had fun though, went to Purina Farms, went to P's work, went on a walk, blew bubbles, and I made two tutus for AJ - I think they turned out super cute!!

AJ and I at Purina Farms

Steven and AJ at Purina Farms

AJ looking adorable in her pink tutu

AJ's blue and green tutu

Even Teddy got in on the tutu action!

Sad to be going home :(

I don't look that nervous, do I???

Steven and I were also able to go to Anheuser-Busch for their brewery tour and had a really good time! All of those pictures are on Steven's computer though so I'll try to post them later!

It was a great short trip and I'm hoping we can go back this summer....I don't like them living so far away! :(
But we're lucky in the fact of all of these technologies to keep in touch with each other and we do get to see each other quite often, so can't complain too much! My dad heads down next weekend to see them and to run the St. Louis Half-Marathon, I'm sure he's going to have an awesome time!

Another Busy Week Done!

School has just been non-stop since spring break! It's been crazy!

This past week I had been studying for an expressive test that I took yesterday in ASL Fingerspelling and Numbers - I was nervous because the two weeks before spring break happened, our teacher was out of town in Mexico sooooo in the past four weeks, we've had class once! Not good! After spring break, we had the one class (which had a pop quiz...I did really poorly on that quiz) and then it was this week with the test, so I wasn't sure that I would be prepared for it.....but I got through it and she said I did good, so hopefully it turns out OK! I was really awkward during the test because I sign left-handed and the way she had it set up was really crappy for lefties. I sat at the end of the table, but she had that chair at an angle, so my left side was closer to the table then my right plus she had taped down the test at an angle so every-time I signed to her, my hand was in the way and I couldn't read the paper!! Plus my elbow kept hitting the table...it was just annoying. She told me that I needed to move my arm out farther because I ended up signing really close to my body so I wouldn't be hitting my elbow and so I could read what I was supposed to be signing........ummmm hello! I don't think it effected my grade though so if it's the same for our next test, I'll tell her that I want to stand or something. This coming week will be the receptive test.....hopefully that will go fine as well!

I also had a 3-4 page paper due this week for my Eastern Philosophy class. Mine turned out to be 9 pages that I wrote in under 3 hours, haha. I didn't mean for it to be that long, but the topic I had chosen to write about said to "pick several verses" and I probably over-compensated on the number I did. Oh well. She also handed back the book report papers we turned in last Thursday and I was happy to see she gave me an A! Finally! We have a test in EP next Thursday as well, so my week is going to be another crazy one.....plus I have a test in my on-line class too....joy!!

Monday in my ASL Linguistics class we were given our results of the test we took the week before break - we only have expressive tests in Linguistics and this time we video-taped it so our teacher could grade them over break. We then set-up individual meetings with him so find out what we got and go over what we did wrong. Half of the class had meetings before the other half and they were freaking us out because they kept saying that they did bad and he's a really harsh grader, ext, so the rest of us who were having meetings with him Monday before class were super nervous to meet with him! One of the ladies in our class is a CODA (child(ren) of Deaf Adults) and she received a B so everyone was expecting to do worse than her. Keep in mind that for Linguistics and Fingerspelling and Numbers, grading is different and much harder. To receive an A, the percentage is 94% and up instead of 90% and up. So getting a C or even a D might not be that bad because it would have been a B or C. Haha, that's what everyone is keeping in mind to stay positive! Anyways, I had my meeting, he showed me my grade and I almost started crying because I got a really high B. The look on my face must have been crazy because my teacher started laughing at my expression. It's just a relief to have a good grade and be doing good in that class!

Now I just have to finish my on-line homework and turn it in and I'll be done with this week's craziness. Next week will be the three tests and the week after that will be a Linguistics test. Then we start preparing for the end of the semester.....crazy! But I'm ready to be done!

I've been thinking about taking ASL 5 during summer term, but we'll see. I need to decide soon!