School is Cool

Well I've been in school for over 2 weeks now, and so far, so good. I'm actually enjoying it. It's nice to be able to use my brain again. The drive to Eau Claire sucks, but at least there is an end in sight. I like all of my classes so far, and I've been able to find time to get my assignments done outside of classtime. It helps that I get extra credit in my Oral/Interpersonal Communications class to go sit in Academic Services and just work on homework or study in between classes. My schedule is pretty nice. I have classes from 8 to 1 on Mondays and Fridays with a 1 hour break in the middle, NO classes on Tuesdays, classes from 8 to 4 on Wednesdays with 3 hours of breaks in between, and just 1 hour of class on Thursdays. It's kind of annoying driving to Eau Claire on Thursdays, but the kids come with me and I drop them off at my friend Laura's house in EC and she watches them while I'm in class. They LOVE it there. She has an indoor pool so they got to go swimming the first week because they had the heat turned on. Thank you Laura for helping me out! The other days the kids go to Angie's house (my regular daycare) and my parents help out and take them usually 1 day a week, so it has been working out okay. There's not too much else to report. Lara is still in dance every Tuesday night, and recital time is coming up quickly, in just a few months. This year the theme for her class is Lollipops. It's so fun to watch the progress of them learning their dances every week, and I think I'll be sad once again when dance is over for the year. I will be excited to not have to chase Ayla up and down the hall every week during class though. : ) Lara goes to Kindergarten Round-up in another month, so that's kind of exciting. I just hope I can take her to the St. Croix Central school district, regardless of where we end up living this summer, since she'll most likely have to get on the bus at Angie's house, which goes to SCC schools, but there's a good chance we'll be living in Baldwin or somewhere else close by. That's one question I'll have to ask I guess! Here are a few pictures...
Here are all of my ridiculously expensive books for school.


Ayla pretending to hunt.

Lara painting the Tinkerbell stone that she made up in Siren.

I had to get some pictures of the girls in their vests because they're starting to get too big for them.

Back to School

I start school on Monday! I actually kind of started 2 weeks ago. I had a 2 week CNA course in St Paul through Century College, which just finished up yesterday. On Monday I start my regular classes at CVTC for Nursing. (The CNA class is a prerequisite for the program) It's a 2 year associate degree program, but will take longer because there are so many people trying to get into the program. I was originally planning on taking my classes at the River Falls campus, but I was in my CNA class the day of registration, so they were all filled up by the time I got home. So now I'm going to be driving to Eau Claire 4 days a week, hopefully only for this semester, then I should be able to get my classes at River Falls after that. I'm excited and have a pretty decent schedule (except for having only 1 stinking hour of class every Thursday, so I'm annoyed I have to drive almost an hour for 1 hour of class) so I hope the kids cooperate with me and let me have some study/homework time so I don't have to stay up too late every night. I'll update again once classes have started and my life is super chaotic. : )

Christmas and Other Winter FUN

We had a couple different Christmas celebrations, and Santa made his way up to Siren this year, and even came a couple days early. My brother left the country on Christmas day, so we had to do everything a little early this year. Here are some pictures (a lot actually) of Christmas and some other winter fun.


This is Lara's first snowman of the year. It's huge!

Just a random picture of them in the tub.

Lara checking things out after our big snowfall.

The little monkey getting into some trouble.



Lara with my cousin Claire.

Santa came! Opening up some of the Zhu Zhu's.

The Zhu Zhu Pets and their Fun House!

Going for a ride behind the four wheeler.



Uncle Jon gave Ayla Kurtis the Cabbage Patch Kid. : )

Her George blanket.

Uncle Jon gave Lara Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure, which she had wanted for a long time!

Lara's big present from Grr-ya-ya and Papa. She loves to shoot!

Papa's snowman. Just a tad bigger than the one lara built.

Getting ready to play outside again. We had lots of snow on Christmas day!

The kids in their "bling" shirts.

Disney on Ice - Princess Classics!

Lara and I went to Disney on Ice in December. It was the Princess Classics, so she wore her Snow White costume and really enjoyed the show. They did small acts from different Disney movies that had a princess in them during the fist half, then after intermission they did basically the whole Cinderella story. It was a lot of fun! Mickey and Minnie were there too!

Some Fall Fun

Here are a few pictures from fall 2009...

Making leaf piles to play in up in Siren. Ayla liked it for about a minute, then got mad when we stuck her in the middle of the pile.


Hanging out in Henry's tub after a night out in Woodbury with my cousin and a friend. One of the dogs even joined us.

Some kite flying on the golf course.

Halloween 2009 - A little late...

I've been horrible at updating the blog, so I thought I'd throw a few posts up this weekend. Here are some pictures from Halloween 2009...

Lara was a "nice" witch, and Ayla was the elephant that Lara was at her age.

We went trick or treating in Baldwin with the Jones' like we do every year.

After we were done, we stayed and played games for a few hours.



The kids built a fort while the adults played games. : )

Lara was supposed to be Princess Leia but we couldn't find a costume in her size. All of the boys were Star Wars characters.