May Updates

So, at this point, we are only halfway through May, but there are all sorts of updates to be told!

Back in March, I was pink slipped from my teaching job.  Fortunately, they were still hiring for my position and two days ago, I re-interviewed for my job.  I was up against several highly qualified and amazing candidates with years of experience, but ultimately, my experience over the last year at Crossroads, the reading skills I implement into the English classroom, and my strong desire to come back won me back my job.  While it will go back down to the .67FTE, I was told by one of my APs that there is a very good chance that it could become full time before the school year starts!  While Luke and I can afford for me to continue the part time position, it would be awesome if they could bump it back to full time...  All I have to say though, is that I am SO glad to not have to fill out teaching job applications this summer.  Those are super time consuming.  In fact, if I could only use one phrase to describe my summer of 2010, it would be Applications!

Our school is getting a new principal (our current one is retiring at the end of this school year), and it was just announced yesterday that one of our current APs has been hired for that position!  I'm very happy with how the principal interviews resulted because Nancy has been in my corner all year and has been enthusiastic about my professional growth since September.

Lucy is now 4.5 months old and is growing like a weed!  Here she is a month ago in the Dwight chair (we call it the Dwight chair because for Easter, we purchased the IKEA chair for ourselves, and since Dwight was our little Easter bunny at the time, it became his gift to us):

And here she is this past week:

It's hard to believe that this little cuddle bug (who is currently curled up and sleeping on my lap right now) will become a giant dog in just a short amount of time.  We continue to take tons of pictures and videos of her, so feel free to visit http://lucylorenz.blogspot.com for more updates on her!

In other family news, Luke's sister graduated this week and got a job offer all in the same day!  Congrats to Becca!  Also, my sister, Lauren, graduates from UMD today with her degree in English (for being someone who never wanted to copy me, I find it highly entertaining that she has the same B.A. as me!).  Congrats to Lauren!

Only 18 more school days until summer :)

Walk for the Animals

This is plea from me as we go into the last week of fundraising for the Animal Humane Society's Walk for the Animals on April 30th.  My goal is to raise $250, and so far I've raised $110.  This will be Lucy's first Walk for the Animals and we appreciate any monetary support we can get (every little bit helps!)

This is an event that Luke and I have a very personal investment in.  Our little Dwight was adopted from the Golden Valley site, and want to be able to give back to them as much as Dwight gave to us during his time in our family.

Please Please Please consider donating (it is tax-deductible).  The animals appreciate it more than you can ever know.

To donate, click on the link below.  Then click on the blue star that says "Make a Donation in My Honor" at the top of the page, and then follow directions for a credit/debit card payment.


http://events.animalhumanesociety.org/site/TR/Walk/General?px=1503133&pg=personal&fr_id=1150

We Love Lucy!

To keep track of her growth, I'm taking as many pictures of Lucy as I possibly can, and can't wait to be able to compare them as she gets bigger!  Instead of completely filling up this blog with pictures of Lucy, I started another blog that is dedicated to her:  http://lucylorenz.blogspot.com/

Lucy's blog (We Love Lucy) is more for Luke and myself, so that we can sort and organize the evidence that our soon-to-be mini-horse was once the size of an average dog... but feel free to check it out from time to time!  My goal is to update it with at least weekly pictures of the crazy terror dog. 

P.S.  Lucy's link will always be located on the right side of this blog.  Just click "We Love Lucy" and you'll be there!

Miss Lucy

Dwight's passing has left a very huge hole in our lives.  A hole apparently big enough that only a Great Dane mix puppy can fill...

Meet the newest member of the Lorenz family- Lucy!  Lucy is almost 15 weeks old and is a Great Dane mix (we don't know what kind of dog her dad is).  While she's only been with us for a little over 24 hours, she already has us wrapped around her humongous paw!

Keep an eye out for her adoption story coming soon :)

See you later, little Bunny

Over the last few weeks, Dwight had been battling a nasty UTI, and potential GI infection.  After two visits to the vet in less than a week, two antibiotics, one steroid, medicated shampoo, diluted disinfectant, ointment, and subcutaneous injections of fluids, Dwight decided that enough was enough and passed away last night.  While we were doing everything we could to try to save our spunky little bunny, it wasn't enough to give him the will to fight the infection that was making him feel so horrible.

Dwight took his final breath laying in his favorite spot by the back door, looking out at the deck, where he used to spend hours just sitting and watching.  While sadness had been a major member of our family for the last week (watching Dwight get weaker and thinner each day took a huge toll on us, and resulted in multiple nights of tears and comforting), when Luke told me that Dwight had gone, the first thing I felt was relief.  Relief because I knew that he wasn't suffering anymore.

Dwight's favorite spot

It's amazing how such a small little guy made such a huge impact on Luke's and my lives.  Just under 5 years of being a family together taught us a lot about patience and personality (Dwight's personality was at least 20x bigger than his body size), and his passing has already left quite a hole in our hearts.  We may still have 10 pets in our house, but walking downstairs for the first time this morning forced me to feel how empty it already feels.  This morning, when I was on my way out the door to go to work, I walked over to the spot under the lilac trees where we laid him to rest, only to find that earlier Luke had put down some carrots for him on his way out to work (as close as we'll ever get back to that morning ritual of treat-time before heading to work).  As I sit here now, in the back room, I occasionally see him hop and kick his feet out of the corner of my eye, but by the time I turn to look, he's gone.

Thanks for the good times, Dwight, and we'll be seeing you again later someday.  Keep an eye out for us...

By the edge of a woods, at the foot of a hill,

Is a lush, green meadow where time stands still.

Where the friends of man and woman do run,

When their time on earth is over and done.

For here, between this world and the next,

Is a place where each beloved creature finds rest.

On this golden land, they wait and they play,

Till the Rainbow Bridge they cross over one day.

No more do they suffer, in pain or in sadness,

For here they are whole, their lives filled with gladness.

Their limbs are restored, their health renewed,

Their bodies have healed, with strength imbued.

They romp through the grass, without even a care,

Until one day they start, and sniff at the air.

All ears prick forward, eyes dart front and back,

Then all of a sudden, one breaks from the pack.

For just at that instant, their eyes have met;

Together again, both person and pet.

So they run to each other, these friends from long past,

The time of their parting is over at last.

The sadness they felt while they were apart,

Has turned into joy once more in each heart.

They embrace with a love that will last forever,

And then, side-by-side, they cross over… together.

Guestroom!

Before Spring Break started, I knew that I wanted to accomplish some sort of home improvement project before going back to school.  Since the first part of the week was spent in Colorado, I really only had a couple of days to pick which project I wanted to get done in the next 48 hours.  Since we've been in our house, we have painted the basement, kitchen/dining room, basement bathroom, our main floor bathroom, and the unfinished storage room (soon-to-be office space that included painting the walls and the floor).  Originally each of the rooms were a standard beige color (we're pretty sure that the previous owner hired painters just before putting the house on the market, and painted every room the same), except for the basement, which was the yucky fake wood paneling.  Since I believe that the easiest way to make a big change for little moola in the shortest amount of time is to throw a new color on the wall, I decided to paint the guest bedroom. 

Here's a reminder of what the room looked like before:

On Saturday, Luke and I took a trip to Home Depot and Menards to pick up some much needed items for our projects (Luke's working on finishing the ceiling in the old storage room.  More on that when it's closer to being completed!).  Originally, I went in there thinking that I wanted to go with Behr's Shale Grey (kind of a brighter blueish grey), but after some deliberating in the paint chip aisle, I walked away with 2 gallons of Glidden's French Grey, which was a much bolder color that I had intended getting!  We couldn't remember if we had any rollers left or if we had any clean paint trays around, so we went home to tally up our supplies and planned to come back the next day for the rest of our necessities.

Sunday morning was spent at Menards, picking up a short handled brush, a wide paint tray, a new roller brush, painter's plastic and more Frog Tape.  As soon as we got to the house, I jumped right into getting the room prepped and taped, and I was painting by 2.  Getting both coats on took me until about 7:30 Sunday night, with only brief breaks for snacks and fresh air.  In the end, I was very pleased with the results!  As for the trim, Luke and I have decided to keep the oak trim the way it is, despite the fact that we know that the room would look even better with crisp white trim.  We just haven't figured out if it would be too weird to have just one room with white trim, while the rest of the main floor has oak.  Since this will be a kid's room eventually (provided that we're still in this house when we have kids), our opinion might change by then.

After shots (be warned, some of the shots do not show the true color of the paint.  For some reason, some of the pictures show the French Grey as brighter than it really is)

In progress

In progress

Immediately after the tape came off, but before the outlet plates were put back on.

To the left of the craft table is where the photo collage will go!

The bedding definitely doesn't match the walls as much as they seem to here...  A nice white bed frame will also help contrast and define the colors!

This picture captures the color the best.

Ugly light fixture that will also need to go...

View from the hallway.  Any ideas as to what we should put on that wall of the guestroom?

The next steps are to buy a new white bed frame (IKEA, here we come!), a queen sized mattress and to create a frame collage thing on the wall next to the closet.  The plan is to start off by printing some of my youngest sister's photography work and put in in white frames and then going from there.

As of right now, this is one of my favorite rooms in the house now to just sit and catch up on emails, read, etc.   I just can't get over how much I love the color!

Spring Break Fun- (it's long...)

Thinking back, the last true spring break trip that I took was probably when I was 21 to Las Vegas with my family.  Needless to say, it was a pretty eventful trip (including a power outage on the strip, causing some people to panic, and one of my under-aged sisters figuring out that they weren't carding at the bar and being discovered on the floor of the bathroom by my dad...).

Other than that, Spring break has pretty much just meant hanging out at home and getting things done in Minneapolis.  This year, Luke and I decided that it was time that we get up off our butts, and actually take a trip out to see friends who live in different states.  This year, Nick was the lucky winner!  I had never seen Colorado, nor the mountains, and since we were able to snag plane tickets for pretty cheap (comparably) we found ourselves prepping for a trip to the Mile High City!

Day 1:

Thanks to Luke's mom, we managed to get to the airport early enough to get one of the best boarding groups (A) on our SouthWest flight (though we found out later that we could check in up to 24 hours early online to reserve the better boarding group).  We made the best of being there nearly 4 hours early by checking out the breakfast buffet located in Terminal 2.

Luke gives the french toast a thumbs up!

Fruit and yogurt was the only really edible part...

After breakfast, we found out that our flight was delayed by an hour, so Luke took time to nap, while I continued to enjoy the book Room by Emma Donoghue on my Nook.  At about 12:50, we finally boarded the plane and took off for Denver.  The flight was uneventful, and we made it there in one piece :-)

Once we got into Denver, we took the Super Shuttle into downtown to get to our hotel.  Now, I want to take a moment to RAVE about our hotel.  One of Luke's coworkers suggested that we stay at the Courtyard Marriot and we are super glad we did!  When we first walked in and gave the receptionist our reservation information, she said "Oh dear.  We are all out of the room that you booked."  Luke and I exchanged an "Oh crap" kind of look, until the lady went on to say, "Well, I've taken the liberty to upgrade you not to a junior suite, but to a full king suite at the same price."  We said that we'd take it and went up to our room.  It was amazing.

Bedroom

Hallway into the living room

More of the living room

Living room again

Bathroom with amazing wallpaper!

Living room at night

Living room at night

View of 16th Street Mall from our room

The one night we spent in Denver was fun.  We tried out Rock Bottom Brewery (it reminded us of Granite City) and sampled a few of their microbrews.  After getting a bit tipsy, we wandered down the 16th Street Mall (again, like Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis), which is a pedestrian-only street filled with restaurants and shopping.  The best part of the night was the book store we found while perusing: The Tattered Cover Bookstore!

Of course we would spend hours in a bookstore on vacation!

Awesome building off of 16th Street Mall

This was the only store we actually bought anything to bring home (fitting for us though), and I walked out with a new graphic novel memoir titled Stitches, and Luke found a couple of history magazines.  The rest of the night included watching cable TV in bed and getting some sleep before our big drive through the mountains.

Day 2:

We started off the morning at Sam's No. 3 for breakfast.  It was HUGE!  I've never had breakfast portions so big, and I left wishing that I had a place to store leftovers because I had at least half of my meal left.  Luke, on the other hand, managed to wolf his whole meal down...

Giant breakfast burrito

Monster cinnamon bun that we boxed up and ate while driving through the mountains

Massive skillet breakfast

After breakfast, we checked out of the amazing hotel, and drove over to the Denver Art Museum.  There were some pretty interesting exhibits, and we were glad that we took advantage of it!  While we wish we had allowed some more time for us to be there, what we were able to experience was cool.

Sculpture outside of the DAM

The drive to Rifle took about 3.5 hours, and with the help of our trusty GPS named Charlie, we made it without getting lost (though, 171 miles of our trip was spent on I-70).  I was having a minor panic attack for the majority of the way there since I had never driven through the mountains before, but Luke did a great job manning the Ford F150 we had rented (it was the last car available).

When we finally got into Rifle, we drove up to Nick's house and he showed us around and we got ready to check out one of the nearby towns and grab dinner.  We also made plans to go see Battle: Los Angeles later that evening.  The first stop we made was in Silt, where there is a statue in the middle of a roundabout that displays a rock climber's bear bottom.  Apparently it is quite the controversy right now!

Then, Nick took us on a tour around Glenwood Springs, and ended with dinner at a nice restaurant called the Juicy Lucy Steakhouse.  After, we went and saw Battle: Los Angeles and were extremely pleased.  We ended the night with a tour of the Rifle Police Department.  It was fun to see where Nick works.

Day 3:

This was probably the most intense day of our entire time in Colorado.  The day started with shooting Nick's guns at the private gun range.  I had never shot a handgun before (only a .22 rifle growing up), so I was a bit nervous.  Lucky for you, I've got some videos of us shooting:


After shooting, we went back to Nick's house, washed the gun powder off our hands, and then drove about 1.5 hours to the Colorado National Monument East entrance in Grand Junction.  While the mountains we drove through were beautiful, having the ability to drive up to the tops of the canyons in the national monument was amazing! 

Proof that we were all actually together!

This cactus poked me... I wanted to kick it.

Luke decided that he wanted to throw a snowball into the canyon...

... so he did!

Anybody home???

Man-made door in the canyon thing

We exited the canyons in Fruita, and had dinner at a local pub brew.  After an exhausting day, Luke and Nick played xbox, and went up to read and fell asleep with my Nook still on.

Day 4:

This day was also dedicated to traveling.  After waking up a bit later than anticipated, Luke and I packed our things, said goodbye to Nick, and headed out back through the mountains to Denver.  By this time, I was used to high speeds, curvy roads, and sharp grades in the roads, so I was no longer panicking around every corner or down every hill (though we did drive through some rain and snow at the beginning of the trek, so I was only a teeny bit anxious)  Since we were short on time, we had to quickly get gas to fill up the rental, drop off the truck, and then speed walk back in time for our scheduled pick up by the Super Shuttle at the hotel we stayed at on Day 1.

Can you spot the Bullseye???

Cloudy trip out of town.

We got on the Super Shuttle, and it took us an hour to get from downtown Denver to the airport because of all of the construction going on.  We both started to doze in the van, so the ride didn't seem as long.  Once we got to the airport, we got placed in the C boarding group for our flight back home, so that kind of sucked, but now we know what we need to do differently next time we fly SouthWest.  Anyway, I kept myself entertained by watching season 1 of Friends on my laptop, while Luke read his book.  At 6:45 (the time our plane was supposed to take off), we realized that they still hadn't started to get people lined up for boarding.  Turned out that another flight was late, causing our flight attendants to be late as well.  45 minutes later, they finally show up and we were able to start the boarding process.  Luckily, Luke and I found two seats together despite being in the C group, but it was in the very very back row of the plane.  The flight was very turbulent at first, and I was gripping my seat for dear life, but everything turned out just fine, and we made it back only about 45 minutes late (apparently we had a good tailwind?).

Overall, our spring break to Colorado was one I will never forget, and we were so glad to be able to see Nick (it had been over 1.5 years).  We'll definitely be making a return trip at some point!