Grades

I'm just so excited about the grade I got on my Orwell essay that I had to post about it :)

I had to take History of Western Civilization to complete the credit requirements for an Associates Degree. It felt like the work load from this class was equal to that of last semester (and I had 11 credit hours then...this was only 3!)

Last Monday I had a 5-8 page essay due on the George Orwell novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, with these requirements:

Each student is to read 1984 by George Orwell.
Each student is then to prepare a five to eight page essay explaining Orwell's vision. Do not simply restate the plot. Instead the paper should consist of three sections. In Part 1 explain how government works in Orwell's world. In Part 2 explain the historical antecedents that Orwell drew on to write his work. What did he draw from Nazi Germany? What about Soviet Russia? Then, in a conclusion, explain what the message of Orwell's work is and what we can learn about the early post-war period from reading Orwell.
When the paper is complete, in either Word or WordPerfect, submit it to the Course Dropbox.

And if there were more than 10 errors (spelling, capitilization, punctuation, etc.) then you could get no better than a "C" on the paper.

Well, I didn't start reading the book until after Aislinn's visit, and that is a hard book to read (at least for me). But I managed to finish and spent the entire week and weekend before the due date working on my essay - which came out to 6 full pages :)

So anyways....I ended up getting a 94 on the essay. Which totally excited me because I haven't gotten above a 78 on any of the unit exams :( I'm hoping to finish the class w/ a "B" average, but I'll have to wait to see my final grade until probably next Tuesday.

Flowers

In an effort to save money I figured it would be economical to make all the bouquets for my girls with fake flowers. Little did I know, that Walmart had already done most of the work for me! With a little bit of floral tape, ribbon, some help from Sunny and another trip to Walmart...........well..............voila!

Now I just have to figure out what to do for my bouquet..........any suggestions??

We Moved.....AGAIN!

Just two short weeks after Aislinn was here Dan & I moved into our much nicer and safer apartment in Verona. We had a LOT of help, thanks to my future father-in-law & brother-in-law & his friend Dan M., and Dan's friend Adam.......technically we had 3 Dans, 2 Adams, 1 Mark and 1 Steve helping us move :) Thanks for everyone's help! We couldn't have done it without you!

Here's some shots before the actual move....notice how nice and uncluttered it is....

And shortly after....

Dan began painting on Friday and so far has our bedroom wall, the dining area wall & the bathroom wall done. Although, he painted the dining room wall the wrong color :( It still looks nice.

I love the view from our balcony:

Aislinn's Visit

Holy crap! I can't believe it's May already! Where did April go.....

Oh yea....

April 10th - 13th was Aislinn's visit! We had a great time. It wasn't nearly enough time, but we made the best of it.

After a rough start (Aislinn arriving 2 hours late because of the weather in Chicago) we finally made it back to Madison around 1am. We got up bright and early Friday morning and took the Merrimac Ferry across the Wisconsin River to meet Porsche in Baraboo for breakfast.

It pretty much rained or drizzled the entire weekend...and as you can see from the picture the mornings were a little foggy. We didn't let that dampen our day though. Aislinn had to call home to let everyone know she was on a ferry (she'd never been before).

I was hoping to get to show Aislinn the resort that I used to work at, but the fog was too thick...so oh well!

We had a great breakfast at the Log Cabin in Baraboo (I highly recommend it!) and it was wonderful getting to see and spend time with Porsche.



After breakfast Porsche took us by her new apartment and gave us the grand tour.

We had to cut the visit short so Porsche could get ready for the wedding she was in that weekend. So we headed up to the Dells for a little sightseeing and shopping.

Next, we headed down to Portage and showed Aislinn all the landmarks from living there for almost 4 years. Then we came full circle and ended up back in Madison for our appointment at David's Bridal. After that we stopped out at the new apartment so Aislinn could see it since she was going to miss the big move.

Then it was off to Target to do some Club Wedd registering :) We ended the day with Dan & Aislinn getting haircuts. We had a quiet evening at home where we ordered pizza and I highlighted Aislinn's hair....I believe strawberry margharitas were involved too!!

Saturday meant pedicures and a trip to Wally-world!! Afterwards we stopped at Adam & Amandas so Aislinn could visit and see the bridesmaids dress in red (since Amanda has hers).

We all had a great time and I was sorry to see Aislinn go, but I know she'll be back in 6 short months!!!!