De la Espana....en los Estados Unidos

(From Spain...in America)
When I arrived home from Romania on July 2, life was not, as we say, back to normal. Instead, we had an exchange student living with my family. She had arrived the week before so she already was familiar with my parents and brother. For the next three weeks, she stayed with us as part of our family. In the mornings, Angela went to classes at the highschool. In the afternoon, she went on various excursions with the other exchange students. I believe there were 25 other students living in our community. For the most part, we had a good time. The language barrier was often a problem and we had a few miscommunications. It did help that I can speak Spanish, so we were able to understand some things. Her English was very limited however. We were able to introduce her to a culture she had not experienced before. We took here to our church, to the zoo, the beach and other things around our town. She also got to go camping in Canada with my parents. It was a good experience though and it was interesting to learn about her culture.




Hanging out in our room















Posing pretty
(Brother not pictured because he moved out!!!)











Another family pose

They're coming...here????

Who? you might ask...
None other than one of the greatest and most well known and well loved worship groups of today...Hillsong United!!! Ok, well, they're not exactly coming to A-town, but I just found out that they are going to be in Chicago next month! Of course, I just found out, so I'm not sure if I'll be going yet, but I know that I'm not the only one who loves Hillsong, so I thought I would pass this information on to anyone else who is interested!!!

And another fun thing that I found online:
Just by choosing pictures, this thing tells you about your personality. It pretty much described me to a T!! Give it a shot and see how accurate it is for you!

It's about time!!!

Most of you probably remember multiple posts earlier this year about all my car troubles. Well, I'm happy to announce, those troubles are now over!!! *knock on wood* :) I've been casually looking for a new car since March or so. But in the past few weeks since I've returned home from Romania, I've been constantly checking Craig's List or autotrader or just looking for cars alongside the road. Last week my dad and I went out to a few car lots but there really wasn't anything that I "had to have". Yesterday I had some time to kill so I was browsing autotrader. I found a very nice Mustang that caught my eye. After showing it to a few people my dad and I decided that we would go out today to check it out. I must say that it is a very nice Mustang. It drove quite nicely and was eye catching...especially because it was orange! We test drove it around and we took it to Mike's house. Him and his friend know a lot about cars and thought it was a good car. I was starting to think that I was sold on it. So we headed back to the car lot, but then the car started sputtering and all of a sudden the gas wasn't doing anything! I was able to pull into a parking lot before the car stopped completely. It had run out of gas!!!! So we called and a person from the dealership brought us some and we were on our way again. I had seen another nice car that I wanted to test drive, so we took that one out for a spin as well. Mike and Brett gave their approval on this one as well. (Side note here...my dad got to meet Mike's parents, and it turns out he knows Mike's dad from a previous job! Small world!!) So now I had a decision to make after driving both these cars. I really liked both of them, but there were a lot of things that made one car better than the other...can you guess what car I chose? :)




It's a 2000 Chrysler Sebring...convertible!!!!












I never thought I would own such a nice car!









Haha! Compare the old and new....as much as I love my old Sunfire...I'm sure gonna enjoy cruising around with the top down!









I love the feel of the wind through my hair when I'm driving down the road!










So happy :)

Meme week

I still have a lot of things to post about, but right now I am housesitting while Kim and her family is on vacation. That means I don't have my pictures on this computer, and I don't want to update with out pictures. So you'll just have to wait until next week.
In the meantime, did you know that this week is meme week? So in the spirit of participation, here's a meme for you. Feel free to play along :)

01. What time did you get up this morning? 9:00
02. Diamonds or pearls? Diamonds
03. Last movie you saw in a theatre? Iron Man
04. What is your favorite TV Show? Fresh Prince of BelAir
05. What do you usually have for breakfast? Lucky Charms
06. What is your middle name? Jane
07. What food do you dislike? Fish
08. What is your favorite CD at the moment? A mix of Hip Hop and Rock that I made
09. What kind of car do you drive? Pontiac Sunfire
10. Favorite sandwich? I don't eat sandwiches
11. What characteristic do you despise? Chronic criticism
12. Favorite item of clothing? Weathervane Jeans
13. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go right now? Santorini
14. Favorite brand of clothing? American Eagle
15. Where would you retire to? Probably the same place I'm living when it's time to retire
16. Favorite birthday? doesn't really matter
17. Favorite sport to watch? Football
18. Furthest place you are sending this? Not really sending this anywhere, so whoever reads it 20. Are you a morning person or a night person? Both. I can get up super early in the morning (like 4am for work) or stay up super late and night and be just fine
21. What is your shoe size? 9.5
22. Pets? a dog, Tucker
23. News you'd like to share with us? Nothing new or exciting...sorry!
24. What did you want to be when you grew up? an astronaut
25. How are you today? just peachy!
26. What is your favorite candy? Snickers...or Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
27. What is your favorite flower? Daisies
28. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to? August 3
29. What are you listening to right now? cars driving by, and the keys clicking on the keyboard
30. What was the last thing you ate? A chocolate chip cookie that I baked in my car...more to come on this later
31. Do you wish on stars? Yes, only the first one though
32. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Cerulean
33. How is the weather right now? Hot and sunny, I've spent most of the day outside by the pool!
34. Last person you spoke to on the phone? my dad
35. Favorite restaurant? Main Street Pub
36. Hair color? Brown with natural blonde highlights
37. What was your favorite toy as a child? My Easy Bake Oven (does that count as a toy?)
38. Summer or winter? Summer
39. Hugs or kisses? Kisses
40. What is the most romantic date you have ever had? Going for a long walk at a park, and around a pond, just the two of us talking
41. Chocolate or Vanilla? Chocolate
42. Coffee or tea? Tea
44. What is under your bed? Old magazines.
45. What did you do last night? Hung out with friends, swam and watched 21
46. What are you afraid of? Spiders
47. Salty or sweet? Sweet
48. How many keys on your key ring? 3
49. How many years at your current job? 3 (as of last Saturday!)
50. Favorite day of the week? Saturday
51. How many towns have you lived in? 3
52. Do you make friends easily? yes Acquaintances? yes

Haiti

Our church's Haiti mission team is probably in Miami right now. They left early early this morning to spend a week doing VBS in Haiti. Please keep them in your prayers during this coming week.
Also, please especially pray for Jennifer. She broke 2 bones in her arm last night and they have put a temporary cast on her arm for the trip and they will put a permanent one on when she gets home.

The zoo

Last Saturday my mom, our exchange student Angela, Alecia's mom Bonnie, and their exchange student Elena, and I went to the zoo. It turned out to be a perfect day and we had a good time.



Wallabees...the dad, the baby and the mama. The baby still fit in it's mom's pouch and the lady at the zoo said that it will go in there until it is 3 times the size it is now!!








We went to the petting zoo area and the goat took a liking to Bonnie!











I love the penguins!









The bears were really cool to watch. This one was taking a bath when we got there. The other one had seen the zoo keeper and thought it was going to get food, so it was pounding on the door for literally 15 minutes! You could hear it at other exhibits!










Gorilla







Angela and Elena










They have a new lion exhibit. It was cool but there is so much room for the lions to hide that it was difficult to watch them.









I thought this was interesting about the turtles...

Busy Busy Busy

I haven't had any time to update at all this week! But I promise, sometime soon, I will update.
About
-the zoo
-Anniversary dinner
-VBS
-and maybe some more about Romania
Just bear with me as this is a very busy week! I will resume my normal blogging soon! :)

Picture meme and Personality Quiz

I saw this on Jennifer's blog and I thought it looked like fun.














The rules:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

And I saw this on Diane's blog, so I thought I'd do it too :) It's really accurate!

Your Five Factor Personality Profile

Extroversion: You have high extroversion. You are outgoing and engaging, with both strangers and friends. You truly enjoy being with people and bring energy into any situation. Enthusiastic and fun, you're the first to say "let's go!" Conscientiousness: You have medium conscientiousness. You're generally good at balancing work and play. When you need to buckle down, you can usually get tasks done. But you've been known to goof off when you know you can get away with it. Agreeableness: You have high agreeableness. You are easy to get along with, and you value harmony highly. Helpful and generous, you are willing to compromise with almost anyone. You give people the benefit of the doubt and don't mind giving someone a second chance. Neuroticism: You have low neuroticism. You are very emotionally stable and mentally together. Only the greatest setbacks upset you, and you bounce back quickly. Overall, you are typically calm and relaxed - making others feel secure. Openness to experience: Your openness to new experiences is medium. You are generally broad minded when it come to new things. But if something crosses a moral line, there's no way you'll approve of it. You are suspicious of anything too wacky, though you do still consider creativity a virtue.

The Five Factor Personality Test

Holiday weekend fun

I can't believe it's Monday already...this weekend went by way too fast!!! We still didn't have power at our house on Friday, but that wasn't too bad because we were out enjoying the day. I went to the parade with Alecia and her family.



Alecia and me waiting for the parade to start







Our church's praise team had a float and they sang and played as they went down the route. It was my favorite float

A good reminder for all of us

After the parade, we went back to Alecia's house. We relaxed for a while and then had a delicious lunch of grilled chicken and grape salad. It's a good thing so many people grill out for the holiday because we didn't have power! It finally came back around 3 on Friday, so we were without for almost 48 hours. We decided to go to the township park and walked around for a while. We went to the car show, watched the tractor pull, and just enjoyed the day. Mike called me when he got out of work so I went over to his house. We went to another friend's house to watch fireworks. A bunch of friends had gone and bought a ton of fireworks, so we launched them off for about 2 hours! It was a lot of fun!!

Alecia's dog relaxing :)

After church on Sunday, Mike and I went up to Big Star Lake. His friend's family has a trailer up there so we went to meet them. We spent the day riding the sea doos and just sitting around being lazy. We had dinner up there and then went out for ice cream on the way home. It was a great way to spend the holiday weekend!

I'm home!

Well, I'm back in A-town again! I got in on Wednesday night. I was supposed to get in at 6, but due to a mistake with the airplane and then because of that, being delayed because of the weather, I did not get in until almost 9. I had a nice welcoming party waiting for me. Jennifer and her daughters, my parents, and Mike were there. And also Cheri and Dawn because their husbands and Cheri's son were coming in from Guatemala. It is good to be home! When we got home though, we were without power until about 3 yesterday afternoon, so that is why I am so late in posting. I will try to get more pictures up this week as time allows. (One bad thing about my limited computer access over the past 3 weeks is that I had almost 800 blog posts to read! So, as you can imagine, I will probably not be commenting, but I will read as much as I can!)

Mountain pictures

I told you about the mountains the other day, so now I will show you some pictures.
Today is my last day here. I went to the market and I will spend the rest of the day packing and relaxing around here. I will leave here tomorrow morning at 5 and my plane leaves Cluj at 9:25. I will get into Grand Rapids at 6:23 tomorrow night.


The cabana we stayed in











The view from almost the top of the mountain











These girls clung to me the whole week. They were so sweet... Melita (Romanian version of Melissa), Ioana, and Adelina.










This is the view of the mountains I went to on Saturday