"Home"

As many of you know, I returned to the states recently for family issues. It was so good to go back and be there with everyone. I got to see family, eat delicious food, hang out with friends, and just be there. I did struggle everyday I was there but it SO worth it. I would not have missed one second, and I only wish I could have stayed longer. I won't bore you with the sadness of why I was there - I just wanted to express my appreciation for everything that makes up my hole in the wall heaven: Holdenville, America.

I feel closer to my family and friends back in good old Oklahoma than I ever have. I love the fact that I will always be comfortable staring at a pasture with a beer in my hand...well also with Momma's good food in my belly. :)

However, I did have to come back to Italy. This is my "home" for quite a few more months. When I returned, I discovered everyone hiding in my room with the lights out! They greeted me with a surprise welcome back get together!! They had printed all of these wonderful pictures and taped them up everywhere, they hung toilet paper streamer from my ceiling, and had even cleaned my room! As I was traveling back to Italy I was so sad to leave my home and return to this "home" but I'm glad I did.

I started something here, and as much as I might not appreciate it sometimes I am truly blessed. These people took me under their wings and went above and beyond for me in my time of need. It was the best surprise ever.

PS, I forgot to write about the snow! A few days before I left for the states we all woke up and looked outside. It had snowed in the mountains over night - they had white caps!! The clouds were low (below the snow line) and almost transparent. It was the most beautiful scene. I didn't take a pic, but I will ask around to see if anyone else did.

Vaca is over... THANKFULLY

Hey guys!! So I'm back from Spain and I must say one of the highlights was coming "home"...... I really missed my little closet I live in. lol. For future reference I would say 6 days in one city as a visitor is too long. Anyway!! SO when I got back I had to start working on evefrything that is due.... a huge group project (ours turned out really good, I'm thinking its becuase we have an auditor from Price Waterhouse Cooper's on our team) a final and then this long HW assignment. Thankfully I am all done with everything but the test, say a prayer and keep your fingers crossed for me!! If you know me at all, you know how much I loathe accounting.

This has been a difficult week. I don't think I have been more homesick. You can imagine my joy when I got back from vaca with all the wonderful things waiting for me.... a package and letters from my grandmas and a card with pics from my sister! AND I'm still waiting on a gift from one of my best friend's LaChelle. There could not have been a better time to be reminded how much I'm lived and supported through this whole process. Thank you guys SO much!! As the holidays approach its only going to get more difficult so please keep up with the thoughtfulness. You'll never know how much it truly means!

Oh, and I guess I can start counting down the days til my DADDY gets here!! I am so pumped to see some fam. We're going to do so much, I know he will have a blast. I'll be saving up til he gets here. My cousin Toby might even come before then - she is going to Ireland at the end of this month and is looking into flights into Italy... WOOT! AND my mom is planning on coming in April with one of her besties. I'll be busy bee entertaining, but I'll be happy the entire time about it!

I love you all and miss everyone and everything SO much! Now back to studying for my final! Ugh.

Barcelona!

Sorry it has been so long. Brief history of what's been going on. I finished my stat class.... feel confident with my performance, although I don't have my grade yet. I'm on trqavel break and when I get back I have like 3 days until a paper is due, HW is due and a final for accounting. I'll get it all done though, I'm sure. Now, I am in Barcelona agina.

I was here last summer and didn't enjoy it much, I'm trying to be open minded here. So far its been lots better. Last night we did some shopping and had tapas and sangria. Tapas are just like small appetizers and sangria is like a wine where fruit has been soaked in it.... delicious!! Tonight we are taking a cooking class and going on a bar crawl. We're going to learn to make paella which is a seafood rice dish here that is AMAZING! I'm more excited about the food than anything... surprising. LOL.

We're here til Sat morning then off to Milan to celebrate Halloween. We'll be meeting most of the group in Milan so it should be fun.

OK, I better go. Again, sorry its been so long and sorry so short! :) Love you guys!!!

Trip Planning and New Friend

Hey there! Well we have our first fall break coming up. I'm getting pretty excited. One of the girls that I'm close with wanted to go to Barcelona so it looks like thats where I'm headed for 6 days! I've already been there, but I'm excited to experience it with different people. So far there's five of us going. I'm looking into day trips outside of the city because six days anywhere is a long time. I'm sure I'll be so ready to come back "home." Hopefully the beaches will be pretty this time of year but no bathing suit weather. LOL.

We'll also be staying a night or two in Milan. I'm excited about that! I've never been, maybe I can do a little shopping!

This week we have accounting Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Needless to say I'm not excited about that. Ugh, eight hours a piece. Bring it on!

Oh this weekend we had a happy hour here at CIMBA so alumni could come back and meet us. Well, I met this girl Anna who is awesome!! That night she took me to Bassano to see the annual fireworks! It was SO much fun!! We're meeting for coffee today and we might go dancing Wednesday. YAY. She was great. I took like 10 pictures of the fireworks and none of them turned out well. My camera sucks at night! :(

Well, I'm off now to do some accounting and to get ready for my coffee date. I love meeting new people!

Keep me posted on your lives too!

Productivity

Hey everyone! So this week we had to get through six chapters and do our Italian and our individual coaching stuff..... It seemed like it was going to be tough. I'm well known as a procrastinator who pushes everything off til the last minute. NOT this time. I had everything done Wednesday! I was so pumped. We all banded together for like two days and just worked on everything. As a little treat to ourselves we randomly decided to go to VENICE to stay Thursday night. I mean we literally decided to go around two and by three we were on our way. It was my first time to see it (I was the only one out of the seven who went that hadn't seen it) and I absolutely loved it. I can totally see how people fall in love with it. There are windy roads that lead to endless bridges. It was awesome. We didn't take a gondola ride or anything, but we did hop onto one guys boat in the middle of the night to take some pictures. My camera doesn't work at night so most of the pics are on other people's. I will get them soon.

Care Package!!

Ok, people I will make this easy for you and add a few suggestions to any care package ideas.... I will update this post as I can think of more.

• Popcorn
• DVDs - my interent sucks so its hard to stream them
• School supplies - like post it tabs, actual tabs, a binder, another notebook or two
• Actual mexican salsa
• Tortillas
• Febreeze
• Headphones - big comfy ones
• Computer Battery
• Slippers
• T-shirts
• Euros - :)
  

You get the gist. :) Make sure you write on there something lame like USED clothes or towels and it is of NO value. Some people have packages stuck at customs cause their friends and family don't listen. Love you guys!!!!

Public Service Announcement

Hey everyone!! Sorry its been awhile.... Let's see lately. Well let's start with the obvious - class. We had stat for two grueling days this weekend. We all over prepared which ended up being good because Dr. Ringleb was pretty thrilled. We even got out of class early both days! 9-6 is just too long anyway. So far the material has been decently easy. We'll see how it progresses though. We have another six chapters this weekend. The tests are open book and open note so that'll help with having so much in such a short amount of time. Accounting is starting next week too. We'll have that like Tuesday and Thursday 9 to 6. I'm really hoping we get out early from every class. I doubt we will, Dr. Rongleb said our butts weren't conditioned yet, but I'm betting they will be by the end of this!!
AdaptabilityThey have been making us take so many strengths tests lately! Its pretty neat to see how they all compare. So far, I'm pretty compassionate and say that's a strength... we'll see how being a softie suits the business world soon enough I suppose. On this last one my top five were empathy, adapability, communication, activator, and positivity. I wouldn't read too much into each word. With theese tests the words have specififc meanings that you're not used too. On another one love was one of my top ones. So I guess I'm an outspoken bawlbag who loves everyone and likes to get her way. :)
So we have chesnutt (spelling?) trees here. There really should be a public service announcement about the damn things! Do you know how big one of those things are? Well they're like 3 X the size of an acorn or bigger. Anyway, I guess they fall like leaves in the fall... only in clumps! You can be walking - or sitting at a restaurant and crack bam!! They've fallen on the street and bounced around. I havn't seen anyone get hurt yet, but its CLOSE!
I got a card from my Memmie today... 4 letters and counting people.... ;)