Happy July

I cannot believe we are halfway through the year! It has flown by! I finally figured out how to do some edits on my background...I guess I just needed a little time. At some point I will fix the header. One of the not-so-nice parts of the year is that my computer died and the hubby's has issues, so we only (er, 'thankfully') have 2 work computers without much photo editing software.

Another not-so-nice thing is that I killed another phone with water last week...stupid me put my purse on the sink at the doctor, because I did not want to bed down to get it. How was I supposed to know it was an automatic sink?!? Thankfully I have a beautiful, pink Razor waiting to be illegally unlocked...

A few good parts of the year are:

• I finished level 9 (of 10) Dutch with a surprisingly high score in writing!


• I passed level 7 (of 9) for flute and had a very good orchestra score


• We had a wonderful 10 trip in Switzerland


• We had 2 weekend trips to Germany and one to the Netherlands


• I have had 6 weeks of North American (I guess Canadian to be exact) visitors!


• Mom arrives in 13 days!!!

Anyone interested?

http://dwotd.web-log.nl/dutch_word_of_the_day/

As
1. ash, ashes [noun] [de as, ]
The grayish-white to black powdery residue left when something is burned, is called "as". "As" has no plural form, so both ash and ashes translate to "as".

Today

• I passed my midtest!
• I decided I like wrapping gifts
• I have to give a presentation on the palace tomorrow
• 51 days until I leave
• I decided I really NEED 2 girls, so I can dress them matching, like my nieces

Father's Day...

Haha-I was laughing this morning! I got an e-mail asking, "Is today Fathers' Day there? Because it's not for another week here." YES, here it was yesterday! Mother's Day was the same day, so I assumed Father's Day was also...the good thing is I remembered to call AND the card was there in time.

Dutch test is done! The last one FOREVER (hopefully) is next Friday!

Dutch Course

I passed level 4 of Dutch! I was very nervous to go see my results on Friday, but was soooo relieved to see I had passed. Not my much, so I am scared for this last class. Level 5 began yesterday, so I only have 17 more days to learn...I have the same teacher as level 3, which I was not too happy about, but what can I do? I tried to find a picture of the school building (that I'm sure is like 60 years old), but I couldn't, so I'm sharing a picture of the road I walk on every day and the building I pass.

Random Thoughts

So I have things to work on, but (of course) I don't feel like doing anything else except reading my book, the Circle Trilogy.

When I am finished I will maybe write a review on it. My mom bought it for my birthday, but it was too heavy to ship, so it came with a friend to Switzerland. It seems like it's 'weird,' because it deals with the main character switching between 2 worlds, but it's actually not. It is a 'thought provoking' book. I don't want to read more about it on the internet, because I'm afraid it will ruin the ending. I am about 600 pages into it.

Instead of reading, I am forcing myself to work (which is not a bad thing).

What is on my plate:

1. We are having a kid's camp next week, so I am helping with the administration. The theme is Friend of Jesus, so I need to go find a picture and make name tags.

2. My mom's Christmas gift was/is a photo book, but I was waiting for a few pictures from my sister, so now that I finally got them, it will be more of a Christmas/Mother's day gift.

3. I have a message to transcribe (probably makes no sense to most people, but that is ok)...I worked 5 hours on it and somehow all my work was lost! I was devistated and still don't understand what happened, so I have to start all over...probably 10 hours of work ahead of me.

4. Oh, and possibly most important, I have a mid-term on Monday that is 'heel belangrijk' (critical for my existance). So far this week I have been good 'bout studying, but more is always better. For anyone that doesn't know, I am enrolled in Dutch courses at the University here...I am in level 4 of 6. Supposedly that means I should be pretty good, but I'm not. I have ups and downs every week. Probably 10 times a week I say I'm going to quite and I don't care, but then I have to convince myself that there is a good reason to learn it. The biggest consolation this week is 'I've only been here 6 months.' But I guess that shouldn't be used as an excuse.

5. More blog posts...