Friday night fun!

Fall Break has begun!  AND it kicked off with an evening of fun!  Amanda and Bethany organized an autumn party.  The dinner menu included pumpkin chili, cornbread and pumpkin cheesecake...all were quite tasty!  After dinner we carved pumpkins.  Here are some photos of the fun...

The first cut is the deepest.

Bethany and her cupcake carving!

Levi & Amanda with their ladybug!

I did a spider!

Alex & Bethany work on their creation!

After the pumpkin carving was finished I headed over to another evening activiy...Girl's night with Rachel & Kim.  We waxed our eyebrows, did our nails, ate chocolate fondue, and watched a couple chick flicks.  I didn't take any photos of that party, as I'm not sure "grooming" makes for good photos!  :)  It was a really fun time though!  

What we are leaving behind...

You've read a lot on here about our amazing new campus residence hall - Enns Hall.  We built Enns for many reasons.  Here are a few - a desire to have all our residence halls "on campus" rather than a 20 minute walk from campus, our lease for the Karklu dorm expires in early November, and Karklu is falling into disrepair.  It is a very old building that served us well, but it was time to upgrade!  Here are some photos I took this week as I was making a final round through the building looking for items that we might put to good use on campus.  Compare the state of this room compared to what you see in a typical dorm room in the states...

Notice the desk is warping and peeling away on the front right corner and the saggy (and stained) mattress.  The photo isn't really close enough to show the general state of exhaustion that the furniture shows.

Notice the warped flooring in this room.

This is the sink area - notice the stained floor, exposed and leaking water fixtures, and generally sad feeling of the area.

Community Life at work

Just wanted to share a photo of my fabulous team!  Here we are in the Michelsen Lobby during our weekly meeting.  We were enjoying some leftover pumpkin dip while recounting what we activites our staff had been organizing during the past week and then beginning to plan ahead for the fun of the holdiay season - which will quickly be upon us once we return from Fall Break.

Levi, Olena, me, Amanda, and Alexandra

Sunday afternoon in the park

Amanda came over for a little "Sunday with Susie" time today.  We went to the grocery store and then took a stroll through Sculpture Park on the way home.  Here are some photos from our gorgeous fall afternoon in the park...

Maple leafs are my favorite!

Beautiful moment

Amanda!

me!

Sculpture

Graffiti

A brightly colored birdhouse!

Harvest Party

I've been hosting lots of students this month, but hadn't had a social gathering with my faculty/staff friends this month yet, so I planned a little Harvest Party for Saturday night.  It was basically an excuse to decorate with autumn decor and to make food with pumpkin in it!  :) 

Lovely flowers and gourds that I purchased at the market.  I picked the leaves off a vine in one of the alleys on my walk home from the market.

Steve & Robin were waiting for the rest of their couch buddies to return with plates full of sloppy joes, chips, and veggies & dip.  A simple, but tasty dinner!

Betsy and I made pumpkin donuts for dessert!  SO YUMMY! 

Cupcake perfection!

When I made the cupcakes for Vlada's birthday I made more than was actually needed for the class.  I brought ALL the cupcakes to school though because I wanted to share them with others.  People like my friend, Jerry, who was also celebrating a birthday yesterday, and others from the Student Life department.  One of our student workers is a photographer and took the photo below with her camera.  I was amazed by how fabulous it turned out...it made my cupcake look like it belongs in a magazine! 

Thanks to Vaiva Čekatauskaitė for this fabulous photo!

Progressive Dinner

Half of our Student Life team lives on campus.  So, for our October gathering we decided to do a "progressive dinner" to all of their apartments.  Everyone (and most of their families) showed up for the event.  It was a fun evening of good food and fellowship!

Levi and his kepta duona!

Amanda with her soups - curried pumpkin and broccoli blue cheese.

Olena with her gorgeous salad spread.

Alexandra and her vegetarian baked ziti.

Bethany and her chocolate peanut butter pie!

The whole crew!

front - me, Vaida, Amanda, and Levi

back- Kim holding Greta, Margarita, Alexandra, Andrea (Vaida's daughter), Ieva, Andrew, Isak, Olena, Ina, Bethany, and Sergiu

FYS today

Today in FYS we had a couple treats.  First we had Oreo cookies!  Ecaterina is from Moldova and had heard of Oreos, but had never tasted them.  She even said that one of her life goals was to taste one!  The day she said that I put a facebook status up asking for a care package with some Oreos.  Well, no one from the states sent a care package, but someone else from LCC told me that one of the local candy stores actually carries them!  So, this past weekend I made it to the candy store and bought some Oreos.  The package had 16 cookies in it - exactly one for each student in the class! 

Ecaterina before her first bite of chocolaty goodness!  :)

We also celebrated a birthday in class today!  Today is Vlada's birthday, so we had chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting.  Erveryone enjoyed the treat!

Me, Vlada, and Ina. 

The lovely birthday girl!

Here is my class - with only one student missing.

Feliksas, Kristine, Pogos, Donatas, Vlada, Yauheni, Virginija, Oleksandr, Ecaterina, Dima, Victoria, Luidmila, and Zydrune.  Ina and Daria are in the front.

Here's a silly shot that Victoria took of me with the class!  :)

More Student Leaders!

Tonight I had the last bunch of Community Life student leaders over for dinner.  Tonight it was the Intercultural Program Leaders that joined me for dinner.  We had chili for supper and then some chocolate crunch brownies that I made with my newly discovered marshmallow cream!  It was a delicious and fun meal!

Eri, Julija, Olena, Alise, Toms, Sarah, Roberts, and me

A "serious" photo of the group! 

Covenant Players

Sunday we had special guests at church.  Covenant Players is a travelling drama group.  Their dramas were the bulk of our message this week - with songs and scripture included between the skits.  They did an excellent job and provided a thought provoking service.  Afterwards we had a chili supper that Betsy & I organized.  It was a fun evening.

Girl's night out!

Saturday night I went out with Kim and Ieva.  We had a "Girl's Night" - we got our nails done, ate dinner out, and shopped.  It was a lot of fun! 

Ieva getting her nails done with Kim by her side.

Ieva got flowers painted on two of her nails on each hand.

Kim & Ieva showing off their nails.

All 3 of us showing off our nails! 

Check out the snowflake on my thumb!  :)

The Girls - me, Ieva, and Kim

Wax Figure Show

I went to the mall on Saturday and happened upon a Wax Figure Show.  There were about 30 wax figures total displayed in one hallway of the mall.  It was kind of random and kind of cool.

"Wax Figure Show"

Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, FDR and Adolph Hitler

The Beetles

Danny DiVito

Bill Gates

and me with Princess Diana

More dinner guests!

Tonight Amanda and her team of RAs came over for dinner. It was a fun evening!  We had one of Amanda's favorite desserts with our meal, which made Amanda (and the rest of us) quite happy!  We had Gooey Butter Cake (GBC) - a staple from my set of sure fire hits with students at Goshen College back in the day...somethings work no matter where you in the world.  :)

The Neumann West Res Life team

Ira, Iuna, Melisa, Ana, and Amanda

me & Amanda with what was left of the GBC!

Enns Hall RAs

Alex and her RAs came over last night for dinner.  We had potato enchilada and lemon cheesecakes.  Both were quite tasty!  We had a great time chatting and getting to know one another better.

Bekzhan, Alex, Vanya, Tanya, and Kristine

Cinnamon Rolls & cards

After Serve Day, a group of us went over to Maxine & Vernon's place for cinnamon rolls and cards.  It was a large and quite eclectic group, but we had a blast!

After raining all during Serve Day, the sun came out and gave us this beautiful view from Maxine & Vernon's kitchen window.  Isn't the tree lovely?

LOTS of cinnamon rolls!

Jennifer & Marlene are getting some of the sweet goodness.

Intense game of Hand & Foot

Dennis, Jerry, Vernon, Maxine, and Leona