I have that song "how do you know" from Enchanted stuck in my head right now. Super cute song!! Here's a link if anyone wants to see it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hv350WPnBNk

It was funny b/c when we were watching the Oscars, this song was up for an award, and they played it sometime in between presenters. Well, in part of the song, if you've never seen it, a Jamaican guy starts singing. Well, when we were watching it on the Oscars, Sara was like "wft??" - she had never seen the movie before and the Jamaican guy is pretty random. I explained to her what happened in the movie, and then she got it, but I can understand having never seen the movie before how that'd be weird.

Anyway, first day back to work - yuck. The day actually went really well, but I was not wanting to get up in the morning. I would've given anything to have stayed in bed for another 16 hours. I didn't get to sleep till 3:30am last night, so that's in part to blame for the sleepiness ;)! I did drag my butt downstairs first thing in the morning and made a latte, so that helped perk me up for the day. I will say that it was good to see the kids, and my coworkers again. Aside from being chilly outside taking the kids to recess, the sun was shining - which usually always makes for a good day!!

So yea, uneventful day at work... it ends about there.

I got some homework and other misc. projects done when I got home. My aunt Coleen gave me a feather mattress when we were down in Madison, so tonight I washed the cover that was on it, and am about to put it on my bed momentarily. When i took the cover that was on it, off to wash, there was a tag on the feather mattress itself saying that it had been sold for $300! Geez!! I will be sending a "thank you" in the mail to my aunt! That was super sweet of her. I'm thrilled b/c i've always wanted one, but they're so darn expensive I just couldn't afford it. YAY! Mom isn't too thrilled with me - there are feathers all over the living room floor. I am going to vacuum those up tonight as well. I don't want to have to deal with the wrath of my mother after she just vacuumed the house days ago.

Well.... that's about it. Like i said - uneventful day. I'm craving a vanilla latte at the moment, but since it's 10:20pm, i probably shouldn't, or I will be up until 4am tonight. I have a cute picture to post. Last night I was working on my laptop, and Lucy was asleep next to me in her cage. Well, at one point she rolled over onto her back (mind you she's sound asleep), and her head was hanging out of her cage, but the rest of her body was in it, and her little mouth was open. I of course took a picture of her - it was super cute!! She almost looked like she could've been dead. I'm glad she's not ;)!! I don't have my camera near me, so I'll upload it later.

Alrighty - that's all for now!!  Till next time...

Well, spring break has unfortunately come to an end!! It went way to fast, as it always does. I will try to sum it up briefly.

Saturday: It was an early morning since I had class (school) the night before till 10pm. Of course I was wide awake b/c I get my latte before class, but  I don't get home until 10:45pm or so, and by the time I'm asleep, it's late-late as usual. So saturday morning, starting at 9am, I taught 2 combo classes for Allison at dance. She's in Florida right now, and flaunted the fact by sending me pictures of her eating breakfast by the palm tree surrounded pool, located right on the beach to the ocean! Hah, no... i loved all the pictures she sent!! It's a great way to vicariously enjoy a trip to the beach... esp when you're living in Minnesota. I just recently got one from her where she wrote "hi Allie" in the sand - awww. Anyway... i'm off track... saturday.... I taught for Allison. Then I sort of helped Carisa with her little-littles. There were only a couple of them, and Amber was feeling really sick. She asked if I'd sit with her instead and talk w/ her to help distract her from feeling so yucky.
During the L5/6 ballet class, i drove to Dunn Bros and Brugers and got Carisa and myself some coffee and bagels - yumm!! My bagel was green for St. Patrick's Day!
In the company ballet class it was only Carisa and I. That's not unusual, but it has been a while since it was only just the two of us. It was actually a lot of fun b/c Tina really worked with us one-on-one correcting little things till we got them right. I love her ballet classes! It is great when there's the time to actually have a teacher really get down on you for the itty-bitty things, full combinations at a time. We worked out butts off :).

Sunday: I went over to Carisa's so we could work on dance resumes together. It was funny because I stopped and got us coffees before I went over. When i got there she was like, "I made coffee for you!". We both laughed, getting a kick out of the fact that we were both very much on the same wave-lengths for the sake of giving the other coffee. Anyway, we both got asked to teach at Metro over the week, and neither of us had a dance resume made up, so we got together so we could put one together to give to the folks at metro. She finished hers, and I only got a start on mine, which was all i needed to do. We ended up going to JoAnn Fabric b/c she wanted to start a x-stitch like the one that I'm making for my mom. Hers is going to be a picture of her and her mom when Carisa was just a baby. Ever since Willy Wonka ended, Carisa and I haven't seen much of each other, so it was a blast to hang out again.

Monday: Although it was my 1st day off from work for spring break, i was still in an elementary school from 8am-3pm. I got my last set of service hours done for school. I have now completed 21 hours in an urban setting elementary classroom. Whew! 21 down and about 100 left to go... sigh...

Tuesday: I taught a ballet class as a guest teacher at Metro. It was my first time teaching there, and I was nervous as ever!! Tina recommended me and Carisa to them, and they called the both of us asking to come in as a guest teachers and teach a class over their spring break. I didn't know what to expect aside from that I was teaching ballet. I didn't know how many students I would have, what levels I'd be teaching...etc! I ended up having 20 or so students of a variety of levels, and I even had some of the teachers take the class too. I ended up going very well, and I actually ran out of time and didn't get to everything I had planned - a good thing :)! So yeah, that was fun!

Wednesday: Mom and I spent the afternoon on Grand Ave shopping. After getting our coffee, we went to a bunch of the cute shops. We stopped in the bead store and she picked out beads she'd like me to make into a bracelet, anklet, and earrings for her. She also let me pick out some beads I wanted to make myself something with, and paid for them ;)! Making jewelry is not a cheap hobby, so I was thrilled to have her offer to pay :D!
      After spending the afternoon with mom, I headed off to dance. We had Cinderella rehearsal, and that went fine as usual - nothing much to report on that end. I went home afterward and edited some more music for Amber for Cinderella. I also watched some STV and worked on my x-stitch that i'm making for mom.
     That night at 12am I drove out to the airport to meet Carisa for her lunch. For those who don't know, aside from being a dancer, she's also an airplane mechanic and works on airplanes at night. Occasionally when I don't have work the following morning, I'll drive out and met her for her lunch break in baggage claim of the Minneapolis airport. Yea, i'm a dork, but it's fun none-the-less. I was there till about 1:30am or so. After I left, i drove over to dance to drop off  a prop for Cinderella (my lil' wooden ballet barre my dad made me years ago), and the newest music cd for Cinderella for Amber. I wanted her to have all the music and stuff before I left for Madison. I didn't get home till like 2:45am. It was a LOOOONG day!

Thursday:  Washed a ton of clothes and packed for Madison. You would think packing for 3 days wouldn't take that long, but omg, it took me every spare moment I had!! I met Carisa at Metro Dance Center at 1:15pm because we had been invited to take dance classes that the other dance teachers give each other on thursdays. First we had an hour of ballet from Tina, and then we did an hour of strength and conditioning/jazz class with Becky. I had the greatest time!! I am really bummed that class time happens to fall during when I am at work - boo :(! It was so much fun though. It was fantastic to dance in such a big studio - at least compared to what I'm used to.
Tina had invited Carisa and I to go over to her house for a bit before she (carisa) had to teach. Carisa's class time got moved though till later, so she was able to go home for a bit before teaching. We will go to Tina's house another time. Carisa and I did stop at Caribou together though before we went our separate ways.
Plans changed a bit, and it ended up that only mom and I went to Madison, instead of mom, dad, matt, and I. Mom and I left at 8:30pm. About 4 hours later than intended. Oh well! We listened to Wicked much of the way down, and then listened to the entire Wizard of Oz movie on my ipod. We both drove half way, so the other got some time to sit and do nothing. We arrived in Madison, WI at Aunt Peg's at 1:30am. Aunt Peggy was actually still awake, so the 3 of us stayed up and chatted till about 2:30am before we went to bed. Plans for the next day were to leave early for Chicago b/c there was a blizzard in the forecast.

Friday: Aunt Coleen met us at Aunt Peggy's house at 12pm, and we left right from there for Chicago. After making a stop at Caribou Coffee, we were on our way. It was snoooooooooowing like crazy!!! Roads were horrible, but Wicked wasn't until 8pm, so we had plenty of time to get there. The normal time to go from Madison to Chicago is about 2 hours. Well, it took us 4 1/2 hours. There were a TON of cars in the ditch and a TON of semi-trucks jack knifed. At one time there was a semi actually coming toward us, and passed us in the left lane, driving on the wrong side of the road!!!!! We were all like... "uhm...... that's not right!" What had happened was the truck had skidded and driven across the median, and ended up on the wrong side of the freeway! Poor driver - that must've sucked!
Thankfully we got to Chicago safely! The drive didn't seem 4 1/2 hours long because it was filled with conversation between the 4 of us. We got there around 4:30pm, and walked over to Macy's, which is just kiddy-corner to the Oriental Theater where Wicked was playing at. We had a wonderful dinner in the Walnut Room on the 7th floor of Macy's. Aunt Peggy and I had the best martini's ever!! We both got a State Street Martini, and what was cool about it, was that we were on State Street :)! After a delicious meal, and 2 1/2 hours of chit-chatting, we headed over to the theater to see Wicked!! YAAAY!!
Our seats were fantastic!! It almost felt like a dream to actually be back there seeing the show again. It was OF COURSE amazing as can be! Aunt Peggy, Mom, and Aunt Coleen are official Wicked lovers now :)! When listening to the music driving down, and "For Good" started playing, Aunt Peg had asked "Am I going to need a kleenex during the show?" I said, "No i don't think so." After the show she was like, "I did too need a kleenex!! I was sobbing during that song!"
Right as curtain call started, I dashed out of the theater and to the stage door located in the back of the theater. The last time I had been there was in Sept with Carisa on the haunted tour we took of the city. When we were there, I spent the entire time paying more attention to the Wicked cast members playing a bean bag game in the alleyway than I was paying attention to the guy guiding our haunted tour. Hehe - do you blame me?  Anyway, this time the weather was cold and drizzly, but that didn't stop me from waiting to get pics and autographs with the cast ;)! I'm such a nerd, but don't care. It was funny b/c I was the only one waiting out there, yet they still put up this barricade thing around the door. Aunt Peggy ended up joining me later by the stage door, and mom and aunt coleen went and waited in the car for us.
I was fortunate enough to meet quite a few people from the Chicago cast of Wicked! I was able to get autographs and pictures from: Jennifer DiNoia (Elphaba... Dee Roscioli is normally Elphaba, but Jennifer is the standby and the one we saw perform. She did an amazing job!!!), Erin Mackey (Glinda), Stanton Nash (Boq), Gene Weygandt (Chistery), Heidi Kettenring (Nessarose), Don Richard (Elphaba's father, and performer with Wicked since the tour), and was able to meet many of the chorus members of the show! It was really exciting!!
I guess it's somewhat bitter-sweet because a huge part of me longs for, and wishes that it were me who had just performed on stage, and that were me leaving from the stage door. I love performing so much, and I hate that I only get to do it a few times a year. I would give anything, and I mean ANYTHING to be able to perform in any one show for weeks at a time. I think part of the reason I love meeting people who perform in big shows, aside from the fact that I absolutely love the show itself, is that I really look up to the people who are performers. If I take a moment and look at what I am doing with my life, I feel really miserable and sad when I see that that is what they are doing for their living, and then I look and see that my living is going to be working in a classroom with students from 8am-3pm monday-friday. Of course I love the classroom, and of course I love working with kids or I wouldn't be going into it, but my heart aches to be on stage. I would give anything to always be able to smell that theater smell when you first walk in the stage door. I would give anything for that pre-show excitement/nerves while putting on makeup and warming up. I would give anything for that first moment you step on stage and your look out into the audience and have the lights shining down on you. I would give anything for the exhilaration there is just to be performing and dancing on stage. I would give anything for that final applause, bowing for the audience. Even scrubbing and scraping makeup off of your face after the show.... I wish that was something that could be a part of my life all the time, instead of just some of the time. I am very fortunate though that I get to perform as often as I do, but still, I wish that it were more.
Anyway, sorry about that tangent there... So yea - after I got my autographs and pictures, it was dashing out to the car to head back to Madison. By the time we were back on the road it was 11:30pm. Mom paid for 1/2 my ticket to Wicked as an early b-day present. The other part of my present was that she bought for me the Grimmerie Book, which is a book filled with behind-the-scenes stuff about Wicked. I couldn't really read it in the car since it was so dark out, but I was able to browse through it. The snow cleared up by the time we were heading back to Mad-town. We stopped for coffee, and of course sat to talk, so weren't back on the road till about 12am. I slept most of the way back. We arrived home at 2:30am. I literally went straight from the car, changed into my pajamas, and into bed when we got back to aunt pegs. I was exhausted!! It was a loooong, yet very VERY exciting day!!

Saturday: Big family Easter dinner at Aunt Coleen's. Right when I got up, I made my Aztec Salsa. It was very popular over Thanksgiving, so I picked up all the ingredients to make it before we left for madison on thursday. Me, Mom, Aunt Peggy, Uncle Greg, Jacob, and Diana arrived over at Aunt Coleen and Uncle Mike's at 3pm or so. Slowly everyone else arrived too. There were about 20 or so people this time. It was a smaller than normal Easter gathering, but still fun nonetheless. The food was plentiful and fantastic as usual. Conversations and laughs were abundant. Uncle Dan and Anne took me, my mom, and my cousin Jordan to see Anne's horse. She has a horse at a stable only 10 minutes from where we were, so we took a drive over there. Anne took her horse out into the arena and let it run around a bit. We all fed the other horses in the stable little carrots and such. It was fun. Well, we ended up staying at Aunt Coleen's till 11:30pm. There were college basketball games on all day long, and of course they were still on by the time we left - that's why we stayed so late.

Sunday: Happy Easter! Mom and I stayed home with Diana whilst Uncle Greg, Aunt Peggy, and Jacob went to church. When they got home, mom and I packed all our stuff up and went over to Grammy and Grandpa's. We were there for about an hour. Grandpa was in a VERY talk-a-tive mood. At one point he said he wanted to take me somewhere, and that I was driving. So I grabbed the keys, and Grandpa took me to the new super wal-mart that is right across the freeway from where they live (only 5 minutes away). It was pretty funny. Grandpa showed me all the things that were good deals, and that he liked buying. We were only there for like 10 minutes, and then went back home. After saying goodbye, and stopping at Caribou for a latte, mom and I were on our way home. I drove for the first part of the trip. I was able to hook my laptop up to the AUX system on dad's car, and mom and I were able to listen to the movie Calender Girls. The weather was really weird for the first hour of my driving. It would be partly cloudy and nice out, and out of no where turn into a white-out conditions blizzard with the biggest snowflakes ever!! Literally - it came out of no where. Then as fast as the snow came, it would disappear. This happened about 7 or 8 times. It was weird - but I guess that's Wisconsin for you. Apparently they have gotten 100 inches of snow this year!! Crazy I tell you!! That is a lot of snow!
Mom and I stopped at a little truck stop restaurant and had supper there. The food was very good, and much better tasting than the McDonald's across the street. It was from there that mom took over driving. We arrived at home around 8:30pm.

It is now 1:36am, and time for me to call it a night. This "short" entry ended up being a lot longer than I had anticipated. Well, it was a nice spring break, and It was kind of nice to go back thru and evaluate all that I did. I miss everyone in Madison, but it's nice to be back home. I missed my Lucy kitty, and Louie pup. Lucy is sleeping next to me right now on her back, laying in her cage. She loves her cage. She always goes in there by herself which I guess is a good thing. I've got two small fleece blankets in there for her to sleep on, so I am sure that helps.
Well, tomorrow it's back to work. I wish I were excited, but I am really not :(. I hate going back to work after a nice long break. Breaks never seem to be long enough. Oh well.... in 38 days I will be heading off to Florida for Michelle's wedding, and I very well know that that trip will arrive before I know it! It's hard to believe that Wicked is already over - the same time happen with FL too. I have a dance performance in a week, so maybe I should think about that first (yikes - i just realized it was that close!!)

OKAY - enough chitchat.. TIME FOR BED!! Bye for now friends!

What a fun weekend!! I drove down to Rochester Saturday morning to go horseback riding with my awesome cousin-in-law, Emili. I got a late start, so had to speed my whole way there. Hehe - fortunately I didn't get pulled over!! 80mph baby! I listened to some good ol' Wicked in my car. I'm listening to the audio book to prep myself for the performance we're seeing in 2 weeks. I've already read the book, but it's good times to listen to it and pick up parts that i skimmed thru.

Anyway, Emili and I drove to the ranch, and arrived there around 10:30am. From there we went out to where the horses were in the field, and got the ones we'd be riding. I have only ridden a horse once before, and all I did was sit on it as it walked a trail. I didn't do much of anything. This time though I actually lead my horse, Holly, into the stable. From there they had me brush my horse, and even clean its hooves. Omg, i was scared for that part when they told me to do it!! All i could think about was getting kicked - esp when I had to do the back feet. What you do is run your hand down the leg of the horse, gently squeeze the tendon, and it'll take the weight off its leg, and then you lift it up and clean it. Not hard, but very scary at first!! They then taught me how to put a saddle and all the other stuff on it. After that I got on my horse, and took off! This is stupid but the thing that impressed me the most is how easy it was to steer!! It was a private lesson for Emily and I, and our instructor's name was Christina. She was super sweet!! She first taught me how to just walk and sit correctly on my horse. From there I learned how to trot. It's crazy b/c all I had to do is click my tongue and Holly took right off into a trot!! It was amazing :D!! My instructor told me that she thought I would be ready to try cantering. Cantering is getting your horse to do a gallop. Normally she never does that with beginners, but she thought that I looked ready b/c I was catching onto everything quickly I guess. There were a few other ppl there with horse and they commented "wow! she never does that with beginners!" So yea, it felt really great that Christina thought I was ready to try. Cantering was a lot of fun. It was a little scary b/c there is SOOO much to think about while you're bouncing up and down: heels down, sit back, stomach contracted a little in, shoulders a little forward.... and on top of that you have to steer!! I am DEFINITELY going back to learn more, so I look forward to doing it again, and this time getting more comfortable with it. There are trails right across the street from the stable we were at, so this summer Em and I are planning on going horseback riding on those trails - YAY!

Anyway, i originally planned that after the lesson, I'd go back to Emili and Andy's place, eat lunch, and then drive home. Well I ended staying there with Emili till Andy left for work. Then the two of us went to visit Andy at work, and ended up hanging out there for like an hour and a half. Emili invited me to just spend the night a couple times, and I turned it down assuming that I'd be leaving soon. Well, it got later and later into the night and both Em and Andy were like "just stay!!" Finally I laughed and said "yea alright :)!!". Emili and I stopped at the store before we headed home and got cookie dough to make cookies for Andy when he'd arrive home. We made CUUTE pink bunny sugar cookies, and choc-chip cookies. It was a fun night of chit chatting and watching Andy play on the Wii. I am glad that I stayed.

This morning I got up and braided Em's hair for her before she took off for work. Andy was still asleep when she left, so I played on the Wii for a bit until he got up. We filled up the morning playing on Wii, talking, and eating cookies. Later in the afternoon we took a trip to Barns n Noble and just browsed around. Andy got 3 new books, and I didn't get anything. I have enough books at home that I need to finish reading first. Besides, I hate paying full price for a new book when I can just got to Half Price Books and get them for, well, half price ;)! Andy and I went back to the house, and right as I was packing up to leave he said "if you wait 5 minutes Emili will be home." When Em got home we threw in a pizza and had that for dinner. Finally around 6:15pm I left. Hah - so much for leaving at 2pm on Saturday....27 hours later.... i leave to go home.

I was able to stop at a Caribou Coffee before the trek home, b/c fortunately they have 'em down there in Rochester. Now because of daylight savings, I got a free shot of espresso!! I was quite excited about that!! The drive home went very quickly. I listened and sang along to the Broadway Wicked soundtrack the entire way, and before I knew it I was home. I made one quick stop at the Caribou where a friend from dance works. It was literally right on the way home. I wasn't sure if she worked tonight or not, but figured it wouldn't hurt to pop my head in and see. I lucked out - she was working!! It was fun to see her, as it always is when I stop in.

Anyway, i'm home now. I'm sad that the weekend is over because it was really a great one!! It was so much fun to spend so much time with Emili the past 2 days. She is one of the nicest people you could meet. A genuine sweet heart!! I really enjoyed the one-on-one time we had, and the time spent getting to know her better. We have a lot in common, and we get along really well. I love even more, that once her and Andy are married, we'll be officially family. Even though they aren't married yet, I still consider her family anyway. I hope that i'm able to see her and Andy more frequently this year. It's too bad they live 1.5hrs away. Well, I hope this week goes fast. Spring break is next week already! I'll be seeing Wicked in 12 days!! YAAAAY!

I uploaded pics from horseback riding. Check 'em out. Also below is a bumper sticker for facebook that I made for Allison. On Wed at dance we had a full run-thru of Cinderella. I am the evil step mother, and we had to try dancing in our costumes. Well, Amber wants me to have a big butt that sticks out like that in the Disney Cinderella movie, so Allison was a sweetheart and helped stuff a blanket into dance pants (don't worry - i was wearing a leotard and tights) to make it look like i had one of those huge butt things they had way back then. We had a good laugh about it. Enjoy!
Alrighty, time to go!! BYE FOR NOW :)