My other blog

http://comovivirasi.blogspot.com

I just realized I never posted that here.

A Poll of Sorts

So I've decided to create a second blog to keep y'all posted sobre mi vida en Espana. However, I have a few ideas of what to name this new blog and I want sus opiniones sobre el nombre.
1) Grandes Exitos (great/large successes)
2) La Vida Es un Ratico (life is a moment.)
3) Como Vivir Asi (as to live thus)

So cast your votes and they will be considered accordingly.

How to Enjoy St. Louis

I have recently returned from the great city of St. Louis. I went for the wedding of my childhood friend/surrogate brother, Mark Spencer, to the lovely Miss Susanna Hasser. Since my departure for St. Louis, Susanna's hometown, she has changed her last name, both legally and on facebook, to Mrs. Susanna Spencer. The couple really are perfect for each other in a million different ways ranging from their witty senses of humor to a shared love of the Traditional Latin Mass to a desire to fully follow the command to "be fruitful and multiply" to a love of red velvet cake.
The wedding was wonderful. The bridesmaids wore teal dresses, which looked lovely on all six gorgeous ladies. I know that there is a movie that claims that teal bridesmaid dresses severely shorten the duration of a marriage, but that's a lot of crap. What shortens the duration of a marriage is the intent of the parties entering into it.
Anyway, since we went to St. Louis, my parents and I decided to visit the Gateway Arch on Friday evening. The Arch was beautiful and it really stands as a monument to what Man can do when we put our minds to it.













We also explored the beautiful downtown of St. Louis. I don't have any pictures but I strongly encourage you to go to see it if you ever get the chance. I've added an album just of pictures I took of the Arch and the wedding as well as the riverfront of St. Louis. The Mississippi River has swelled over its banks and has taken over the riverfront of the city. Most of the city is still dry but there was a small area that was underground.
My mother and I also visited Soulard's Farmer's Market. It it was on Seventh Street/Avenue, I believe. It was a great big market with some amazing things and I loved it. There were so many things to see ranging from the standard food and jewelry shops to a pet store and an area that sold food and drinks (Yes, including Budweiser beer).
Budweiser beer was EVERYWHERE. We had hoped to visit the brewery and take a tour but did not have time. That was sad. But almost every restaurant we saw, except the Saint Louis Bread Company, had at least one neon sign advertising Budweiser and/or Bud Light. It was mildly amusing. One of m favorites was a restaurant that had a Bud/Bud Light sign for every professional sports team in St. Louis. It's interesting to see how they can incorporate the Cardinals' logo and the Blues' logo into a neon sign advertising Budweiser.

Now for the amusing anecdotes from the wedding/reception...
The bride has a niece who is about twenty-one months old. Clare, the niece, spent the entire wedding Mass announcing "ALL DONE!" at the end of every prayer. The Mass was at least an hour and a half long...so she said "ALL DONE" a lot. I guess it must mean "Amen" for her.

The night before wedding, my parents and I were heading out for dinner when we ran into the groom's Aunt Karen and her three children: Spencer (7 or 8), Kellen (5), and Tessie (3). (Tessie is NOT named after the famous song about the Boston Red Sox.) Kellen marched up to us while we were chatting with his mother and said, "Who are you?"
We introduced ourselves and asked him who he is. He didn't reply but his mother told us that his name was Kellen. And his little sister, who was running back and forth from the ice machine getting ice for the ice bucket, announced, "I'm Tessie!"

The next night, at the reception, I was dancing with the groom's younger sisters (and two of my good friends who might as well be my younger sisters) Charlotte (19) and Clare (15) when Clare went off to dance with her cousin Theresa. Charlotte and I decided we needed new dance partners so we went off to the steps to the main table where we found Tessie and two-year-old Maria; we asked them to dance and they agreed. I spent most of the rest of the night bouncing around the dance floor with a three-year-old on my hip. We also got good at dips and flips; I had to do all the hard work but she LOVED it and would shriek for more. I occasionally let her dance with other partners.
One of our best dances were with another small child. Tessie loves Maria, Mark's cousin on his mom's side of the family. She wanted to go say hello to Maria, who was with her mother, Lisa. We went over to talk to Maria and Lisa and then the little girls decided they wanted to dance together. In their world, dancing meant being held by Lisa and me while they held hands and we bounced them around to the beat of the music.
My favorite dance was with Tessie and my older brother, Greg. Greg and I had been meaning to dance at some point during the evening and he was partner-less at one point while Tessie and I were bouncing around. A slow song came on, so I asked him if he wanted to join us on the dance floor. He acquiesced and he and Tessie held hands while I held her and he had his other hand on my back in the typical ballroom dance position. It was cute but it was also fun.

I also got to dance with Alexander, another cousin of the groom. Alexander is nine years old and has more energy than the Energizer bunny. He also drank three cups of coffee during the course of the evening. He was bouncing all over the place and I couldn't keep up with him. He wore me out and by the end of the evening, I was exhausted. But I still danced with Charlotte, Clare, and Theresa as much as I could.

On the whole, I had a great trip to St. Louis. I didn't like getting up at 5:30 this morning; that was miserable. And I had two rough flights home. But I made it back to Grand Rapids. And now I have three more days left in this lovely city. Tomorrow, I have a class with a paper due and a quiz. Tuesday, I have two four-page papers due. And Wednesday I have a final exam. That afternoon I'm heading home to Ann Arbor. I'm so ready for this.

How to Get Sunburned in Six Simple Steps

Speaking as a very red person right now, I think I will detail my fantastic day yesterday all while explaining (with pictures) how to get a fantastically painful sunburn.

1) Find a sunny place to spend your day.
Check; we went to the Grand Rapids Festival of the Arts for about five hours. It was a bright sunny 90-degree day. And there was very little shade.











2) Walk around a lot.

Check; we went to three different venues and traveled back and forth between them multiple times.
We also saw this really freaky lady.









3) Sit in direct sun as much as possible.

Please note the excessive sun in the picture. This was our third venue of the day.

By the way, I swear these dancers were doing a salute to High School Musical.








4) Wear tank-tops so as much of your body can be burned as possible.

We look cute and are opening ourselves up to getting burned.











5) Stand in lines as much as possible.


Don't we look happy? Here we are standing in line waiting to get henna tattoos.















6) Love every moment of it.


We loved the day. And we got some great bonding time out of it.

Here you can really see the burn beginning on Nicole. Mine is slightly visible but it didn't really become obvious until we got home and my camera batteries died so we didn't really get a chance to document it.












But next week, I'll be back with "How to Enjoy St. Louis." And maybe then we'll be able to see my redness. Or maybe we'll see me as a tan goddess.
Check in next week for my last post from Grand Rapids.

The Further Domestication of Cecilia-Irene

So back in October, our household purchased what we believed at the time to be a nice cut of steak. We were saving it for a nice/fancy dinner. But things never worked out and the "steak" sat in our freezer for months. Finally, about a week or so ago, Christina and I decided that the time to eat "steak" had come. We planned to cook it up on Friday before going out to see "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian." It would be a nice dinner before seeing what turned out to be a fantastic movie.
Then, I took the "steak" out of the freezer and discovered it to be a pork shoulder. Unsure of how to cook this cut of meat, I turned to every cook's best friend. And before you could say BAM! we had a recipe for Roasted Pork Shoulder. It was pretty simple, just required some spices, red wine vinegar, and some time marinating in our fridge. We also added some potatoes to give us some vegetable and starch points. Before we put it in the fridge to marinate, it looked like this:














After marinating for three hours, we put it in the oven for three hours. (But we took the plastic wrap off first...not to worry...) The following picture was taken when the roast had been in the oven for about an hour and a half.


Isn't it pretty?


And I mean the roast, not our oven. Our oven is old but faithful.








The roast was finally done around 6pm, when Christina's fiance, Jake, arrived for dinner. He had grilled cheese and rice while we girls had pork and potatoes and rice. (He didn't want to eat meat on a Friday.) But before serving the meat and potatoes, I made it look all pretty because after all, presentation is key.
Now, this is pretty. The potatoes and the pork were very artistically arranged on the platter. (The rice was in another dish.)











I think I'm getting pretty good at this domestication thing. In the past month, I've made lemon-parsley chicken, east bistro chicken (this semi-spicy chicken and pasta dish), and now the pork.

And Prince Caspian was great. I loved it. It wasn't completely true to the book but whatever...

At long last...

For the past several weeks, I have been stressing out about one thing. I had yet to receive my formal acceptance into la Universidad de Deusto in Bilbao, Spain. I'd been accepted into the program here at GVSU, but not in Spain. I had hit the point where my prayers went something like "Jesus, make me more like you. And could I please get my letter from Spain ASAP? Help me to become a strong holy woman of God and get into the University of Deusto..." I think you get the general idea.
I was so worried/stressed that this morning, I had my housemate Christina check my email for me. I knew the acceptance letter would be coming soon and I knew it would be coming to my email. But I couldn't handle one more day that dejected, rejected feeling of checking my email in the morning and seeing nothing from Spain. And then Christina opened my email account and said, "So, do you want me to read the email to you?" She started reading it to me and then she let me look at it. It was an amazingly peaceful moment.
So now I'm filling out the questionnaire for family housing. I'm hoping to live with a family; maybe even a Catholic family but that's probably too much to ask. But I'll keep praying. It probably won't be prayers along the lines of "Father, make me a strong, holy woman of God and please let me live with a Catholic family."
Pero, ahora, estoy feliz con el hecho que puedo asistir la Universidad de Deusto.

My left foot-paw!

This past summer I attended Campus Outreach Academy (COA), a program run by University Christian Outreach (UCO) to train and form good Christian leaders to evangelize on today's college campuses. This was a wonderful experience and I'm so grateful that I went. During numerous prayer times those two weeks, we heard many prophetic words and scripture passages telling us to prepare for times of sorrow, struggle, trial, and suffering. Sitting here on my couch in Grand Rapids and looking back over the past year, I've really started to realize that my many struggles these past nine months have been spiritual warfare more than anything else.
First, in September, there was my bout with walking pneumonia. This was a stressful time and in some ways changed the way I prayed and the things I requested of God.
This was followed by several months of simple, occasional health issues related to anemia, a migraine here or there, and stress/winter related fun.
Then, in January, I went to the UCO Winter Conference. And, as I realized the other day, I haven't been completely physically healthy since then. My migraines got to the point where I had a few that I thought were going to kill me. Then, my breathing problems, which turned out to be allergy-induced asthma rather than bronchitis, came along. And then, there was the long and painful saga of my left leg. (Side note: For some reason, I was just reminded of a comment a friend of mine once made that went something along the lines of "Identity crisis, my left foot-paw!" She was referencing this excellent series of children's books.)
My leg crisis began when I fell on the ice on my way to the bus-stop after work one jolly, cold night in February. I heard a distinct pop coming from my left knee but being in a hurry and rather tired, I thought nothing of it and headed home for the evening. My knee continued to hurt for a few days but I chalked that up to the fact that I was working six to eight hours a day most days that week. And I had spring break a few weeks later, so my leg seemed to heal and I went back to my normal life.
Unfortunately, my leg did not heal. Instead, I frequently found myself in pain after walking or running for a long time. This situation worsened as time went by and I started finding myself frequently packing my knee in ice. And Greg and Kyle frequently began pressing me to go see a doctor. So finally, right before finals week, I consented and made a doctor's appointment. The day after I finished my last final, Kyle's twin brother, Alex, drove me to Ann Arbor, and then Jenny Pink drove me to the doctor's office. The doc ordered an MRI and said I was looking at one of two situations. Either I had a torn meniscus (which would mean surgery and weeks in bed) or a sprained LCL. So, I made an appointment for and MRI the following Wednesday. And then I began wearing a knee brace and starting using crutches to hobble around the world. Then, I had my MRI and the following day found out these shocking results: sprained ACL (not too bad, just means I need physical therapy when I move back to Ann Arbor in late June) and arthritis.
Yep, I have arthritis. So I'm going to spend the rest of my life struggling with arthritis.

And yet, I know that in all of this, God will be with me and love me and support me.
More on this story later...I'm tired but I'd love to tell you about the ways that God has used this situation to bless me in the past few days.