LOVE is in the air...

We have room checks every monday night, and we always have a theme. This week was a love theme, and our room decided to decorate for the firs time! Well obviously we go all out! Valentines day is also our guy RA's birthday so we made him a microwave cake...and we sang love songs to him when he came in. WE WON! So now we just have hearts everywhere..so fun!

So now.....my Valentine's Day:

On this collllddd winter morning in Heidelberg, I woke up early to get ready for the day as usual. I have been really excited lately for this day of love (even without a valentine!) normally bitterness comes out of this holiday, but I was feelin the love today for sure. (but not yet). So I get ready and I run into one of the girls who says 'Oh my gosh, I love our boys!'. So of course I grab my camera and head down to the breakfast room. And here is what I found:

The boys had secretly snuck around the night before and made us all little valentine notes to go along with a flower for each of us! How cute are they to think of us! Of course, I know these boys and they are pretty much unbeleivable so it figures they would do something so unexpected and thoughtful! They each signed our notes with a little 'special' comment. Here are a few examples:

'I love you and Abilene is close to Lubbock, hint hint'

'how's mrs. england sound?'

'happy valentines naked cheese!' (one of my many acclaimed nick names)

'happy v-day even though your from TEXAS' (from a bitter californian haha)

'if you ever want to date....'

and many many more funny ones that wouldn't make much sense without long explanations!

So then I walked (or froze) down to class. I went to German, then english, then we headed off to our essighaus lunch. As we were sitting down two of our boys, ben and cam, made all the girls stand up in the middle of the room. They turned their hats sideways and performed a rap they had made for us! It was HILARIOUS! They said it was just a few minutes of portraying how they feel about us (from all the guys). It seriously made my year! By the way these are two very talented boys, for real! The rap consisted of funny things about how we are the girls of moore haus, the best girls to travel with cause the rest they unravel, and talking about how they love it when we get sweaty walking up the hill so don't take a taxi! Obviously I don't have quite the rhythm they are gifted with haha but it was a whole page that made us feel so good about our selves, seriously it was the sweetest thing ever!

Now, its almost 6 and me and a few other girls are getting together a surprise dinner of pizza with blankets and candles at the castle for some of our guy friends! We figured it was our turn to do something thoughtful! Then everyone will probably all meet up somewhere after dinner to just hangout. It has been the best valentines day ever!

Oh yeah, and it was made better when I got a package from home that included the traditional valentines day rubber ducks my mom is so well known for. hahaha I love it! I hope everyone else had an amazing Valentines Day as well! It has been great to have such a wonderful day, and for once not be depressed about not having a Valentine! Shoot, I have about 26 Valentines here. Right now I would not trade any one of them for just one boy!

Well, I'll conclude with the true phrase of Valentine's day, ICH LIEBE DICH!

who needs sleep when we've got love...

Love. Such a major concept floating around Moore Haus right now. I guess its just the whole Valentine's Day sickness everyone has been infected with. I know to some in the house it creates an akward feeling, to some it causes us to missed loved ones at home, to some it causes loneliness, and to some...all of the above PLUS being thankful for all the love we have around us.

I woke up the other morning having had a terrible dream. I dreamt that I had just gotten home from this semester, but I couldn't stop crying! Obviously I love being at home, but I just had this horrible feeling in my stomach of how much I missed my family I've formed and just being in the house in general. All I remember about the dream was not being able to stop crying, and asking for just one more chance to go back and do it again. Well, I woke up and you can't imagine the relief when I realized I am still here for 2 more months! When I think about leaving though, it makes me want to cry because I realize nothing will ever be the same again. But obviously NOBODY talks about that because we all feel the same way. So instead I just am thankful and constantly reminded about how much love has grown in this house. I can't wait for my family to come visit; I know that even just walking through the house our love for each other will be so evident. (post soon to come with more specifics! get excited.)

Oh yeah, the reason I have love on my mind is as I was listening to the new Jack Johnson CD (aka my life right now)...the line 'who needs sleep when we've got love' popped out at me. Considering our house doesnt get quiet until about 2 am every night...you could just consider this our motto!

I just finished my German homework which was to write 10 sentences (auf Deutsch) about our 'lieblingsplatz' (our favorite place). I chose 'meine Kuche' (my kitchen). I really enjoy these assignments oddly enough, and I'm really starting to love speaking German! Staci, our faculty family wife, told us today how nothing can be blown off as 'not important'. She took German in highschool and part of college and realized it was a waste of time, but now she's in Germany and it's all coming back! Very interesting...

Today, Staci spoke at convo. She did an amazing job! This was like the first convo that everyone stayed awake. She talked about decision making, and she kind of gave us a testimony of just the major decisions she has made in her life. She and her husband have moved so much and made so many decisions in their marraige...it was really cool to hear her talking back over and evaluating how she did it. Things that helped her decision making were: prayer as a lifestyle, knowing that God is bigger than any decision therefore he will be there either way, and knowing scripture. Things that hinder her decision making were fear, being deceived by loyalty, and a few other things. She has a gift for speaking about major life matters and making them sound so simple and clear. I really enjoy listening to her! I know that a lot of people, myself included, are finding it hard to keep a lifestyle of prayer, find God time, and really embracing each other as brothers and sisters of Christ. I came into this year with expectations of it being a completely life changing spiritual experience, and of course it is, but its not playing out as evident as we all expected. We realize that its something that is gradual...even this dream we are living in has its own bumps and curves along the way. I guess we just expected that being taken out of our safe-zones we would automatically feel more spiritual, but I know that can't just happen at the snap of a finger. I am really trying to work on this part of my life right now, and today Staci's talk really helped put us back into perspective. I love having wise older (she's not old) people around!

Alright, enough for today...gutennacht!

the rain in SPAIN falls mostly on the plane

Mark, Jess, Me, and David at Toledo


A view of the moat around Toledo


Palm trees in Sevilla!

View from the top of the cathedral in Sevilla


Jess, me, and Dustin trying to portray how warm and fabulous it was!


I beleive Eliza Dolittle was wrong because there was absolutely nothing but spain sunshine shining on us all week! It was GORGEOUS weather...such a nice change! We just spent a week in Madrid, Spain for our Educational Feild trip! It was such a great trip. We got to indulge in the fact of being as touristy as we wanted seeing as we were with a group of 60...so we lived it up without a care in the world! I really really like Spain, I can't say that Madrid is one of my favorite cities because my favorite parts of the trips were spent in smaller towns.





Our hotel was extremely nice! We were told that our hotel was right down the street from El Corte Englis (a HUGE 7 story department store which housed a supermarket). We all went to check it out because we had kitchenette and were so pumped to cook. We looked like a bunch of 5 year olds running around Toys R Us. Everyone had a dazed smile just in awe of all the food we could purchase! Needless to say, when in Spain, buy TONS of mexican food! So, my roomie and I bought a nice little stash of guacamole, salsa, queso, chips, pida bread, frozen burritos, eggs, tropicana orange juice, and chocolate (duh). We looked like such nerds, everyone running around smiling and laughing in awe of this magical place. I can proudly say that I only paid for one meal in Madrid...the rest of the time we cooked! One of the boys even made Steph and me omeletts one night!





The rest of our trip consisted of a bus tour of Madrid, eating paella (a very famous spanish dish consisting of rice, chicken, calamari, and other random things), and singing acapella as we parade down the streets. We visited Toledo, a small town surrounded by a wall and a moat, which is known for making gold things including intense swords that we got to play with! The next day me and 3 others went to the southern town of Sevilla. The weather was absolutely amazing and the whole town was full of orange trees and palm strees. It also is home to one of the biggest gothic cathedrals in Europe, and Christopher Columbus's tomb is inside. We climbed to the top of the tower (33 floors) and had an incredible view of all of Sevilla. We met up with my friend David's friend who studies there, and she and a few of her friends showed us around. They were all from Texas Tech so it was fun to talk to them! I had a funny experience on the train ride back including wine in a box. Picture me drinking wine out of an orange juice carton while playing gin rummy...it was a pretty funny sight! The next day we visited a monastary..but by this point we were all getting a little tired of planned tours. We visited a few museums in Madrid and saw paintings by Picasso, El Greco, Goya, Rembrandt, and Velasquez. We also went to an symphony which was okay, and a flamenco dance which was so cool to watch!





All in all, Madrid was an amazing trip..not only was Spain amazing, but being able to spend an entire week with the whole house was amazing! Comparing it to our EFT last semester, we have all grown so much closer which made it all the more fun. Well, time for our Sunday night dinner at Essig. Bye!!

when in ROME...

(at the colloseum, the ruins, make a wish at the trevi fountain, and in front of the spanish steps!)

Ciao! Well I just got back from an amazingg weekend in Rome! It was absolutley gorgeous/the most historical place I've ever been! To be able to walk through ruins for the very first civilization was unbeleiveable.
I went with two other girls, Kelli and Caroline, and we basically did Rome in a day and a half.


DAY 1: We mastered the metro/bus finding our hotel. Then we went to the Colloseum. Walking up the stairs and being greated by this gigantic monument was crazy! We went inside, walked around, took tons of pictures, and then headed for the Palletino. This was incredible. We walked through gardens and orange tree vinyards that overlooked basically everything monumental in Rome. Then we walked down into the actual ruins. The sun had come out by now, and we could actually feel the heat from it! I became obsessed with the sky during this trip. Of course, leave it to me to be fascinated with something I see everyday, in Rome haha. I'm sure my friends were about to kill me if I were to say "oh my gooodness, look at how cool the sky is!" one more time! We then made our way to the Spanish steps and the Trevi Fountain. I LOVED the Trevi Fountain. It was probably one of my favorite places. We went to it 3 times! Over these 3 times I ate a lotttt of gelato, saw a PROPOSAL and took a picture of it (now i'm semi stalker-ish), and then saw a BRIDE AND GROOM and took like 40 pictures (I had just figured out the 'burst' setting that takes consecutive pictures...and now I'm a complete stalker). We then ate pesto pasta at a cute little restaurant called 'that's amore', drank a glass of wine, and then made our way back to the hotel


Day 2: We got up and made it to the Vatican around 10. We saw St. Peter's Basillica, which is gigantic! Then we went to the Vatican Museum that has 'School of Athen's' and the Sisteen Chapel. It was veryy amazing seeing such famous paintings! Each room of the Vatican Museum leading up to the chapel was completely decked out with paintings on all walls and ceilings, very intense. We didnt get to see the pope, kind of disappointing, but I think I'll live. Then we just went back to the places we loved the most--then ciao roma!


Now I'm back in Heidelberg thankfully, it was a great weekend, but always nice to be home. Austin and I just devoured an entire large pizza...guess thats what happens when you only eat like 2 meals over a weekend! Austin had a veryyy eventful weekend as well so we've had a lot to catch up on today. Tonight is the Superbowl, and we get to watch it! Except it starts at midnight so tonight will be a late one. We have school tomorrow, and then Tuesday we leave for our field trip to Madrid! It should be just lovellyyy weather there this week so we are very excited. Well, time to catch up on my TV shows I've missed this week aka One Tree Hill. goodbye!