A weekend in England!

As my days in Lithuania dwindled I realized that the ability to travel inexpensively in Europe was also dwindling.  I decided to take advantage of the cheap airlines and flew to England April 5th - 8th to spend a couple days with my best friend from childhood, Rebecca and her husband, Earl.  We had a great time exploring a nearby village, playing games, cooking fun food, going to church, and the grand finale was an afternoon in Windsor where we went to Windsor Castle - where Queen Elizabeth spends much of her time!  

Windsor Caslte

Beautiful archways

The flag flying above meant that the Queen was there!

Can you imagine how gorgeous those gardens are in the summer?!

St. George's Chapel on the grounds of Windsor Castle

We went to Sunday evensong there...beautiful service!

I had an EARLY flight out on Monday morning, so here's Rebecca and me saying farewell at the airport.  So glad I got to spend some time with her before heading back to America.  Being with her is always refreshing and fun.  LOVE her!  

Happy Birthday to Amy!

Amy's birthday was a few days after mine.  Rachel and I took her out for breakfast at Navalis on Saturday morning to celebrate her special day.

Rachel, Amy, and me

A week before our birthday, the gals in our supper club celebrated our March birthdays with cakes in our dessert that night.  How sweet!  :)

SURPRISE!!!

Amanda and Alisha pulled off the Ultimate Surprise party for me the Friday night after my birthday.  We had done brunch at a local restaurant on my actual birthday and I thought that was the extent of my celebration.  Little did I know that they had another trick up their sleeves!  

They threw me a Lithuanian birthday party...with kepta duona, balandeliai, rice, tinginys, and sakotis to eat and fun Lithuanian flag inspired decorations!  

Here's Josh and Amanda as Josh was texting me to come over after I had firmly told Amanda that I was NOT going anywhere that night...I was just too tired.  I just LOVE how her arms are blurred from moving so fast.  I can just imagine how she was fretting over it and her nervous energy was being expended through her arms!  :)  Love that girl!  

Here is the moment of my surprise!  I was TOTALLY in surprised and screeched with delight!  And I love how this captures Alisha on the side bellowing out "Surprise!"  :)

me laughing with my devious girls!  :)

festive decor!

Completing the crossword about me

John, Max, Mark, Jennifer, Bethany, and me

Gretchen, Shari, John, Max, and Mark

My Lithuanian birthdaycake...sakotis.  A delicious sweet cake made on a spit.

I was blowing out my candles...not sneezing on the cake as the photo appears

And it wouldn't be a Lithuanian birthday without fresh flowers!

Thanks to Marlene for capturing these moments on her camera!  

The last week of March was the "Spiritual Life Week."  There were different events planned each evening of the week.  I only made it out to one event.  It was a Talk Show where Mark Gingerich was the host and then the "house band" for the show was the three RDs - Amanda, Alisha, and Josh.  They called themselves Amanda and the Love Cannons!  

Mark interviewing someone from a local social services agency.

Amanda and the Love Cannons

Happy Birthday to ME!

My Birthday began with a lovely brunch with the Community Life women at Navalis.

Amanda, me, Alisha, and Olena

I was met in the hall of DeFehr by one of my FYS gals who had been waiting for me so that she could give me some birthday flowers...beautiful roses from a lovely young lady! 

Elvyra and me

And then when I actually arrived to my office, it was decorated with balloons and a big sign from my SLMT colleagues!   

Margarita, me, Vaida, and Egle

The fun sign in my office!

This is what a happy 42 year old looks like!  

TriS fun

The last week of March we were "supposed" to have a TriS meeting to discuss the Study Abroad trip to Russia over spring break.  My co-leader Marlene is the president of LCC and it was literally impossible to find a time for all of us to find a time to meet that worked with her schedule.  So, the rest of us "secretly" met one evening without Marlene to make a special treat for Marlene.  We baked her some cookies (peanut blossoms) and made homemade cards.  The following day we dropped them off at her office as a surprise.  It's always fun to bless someone like that!  :)

Making cards at my place

Caitlyn, Justine, Travis (he's so shy & reserved), Krista, and Taylor

When we dropped off the treats to Marlene

Caitlyn, Travis, me, Taylor, Marlene, Justine, and Krista

Happy Birthday to the LCC Muppet!

Alisha LOVES the Muppets!  Her birthday is at the end of March, so Josh threw her a Muppet/puppet birthday party!

SURPRISE!

Loving her Muppet cupcakes!

I made cupcakes that were supposed to look like Miss Piggy and Kermit!

Amanda and I made a puppet together!

Then we used the puppets that we made to act out plays of scenes from Alisha's life!

Parade of Stars 2013

Parade of Stars is one of my favorite campus events.  We see so much talent and laugh til our sides hurt at this fun evening where students compete by nationality.  Since this is my last year at LCC and I oversee the Intercultural Education area, I pulled a few strings and was a judge for the event!  :)

The emcees Ina (Albania) and Anton (Kyrgyzstan)

Team Russia

Team Moldova

Team Latvia

Team Belarus

Team Ukraine

The Intercultural Team who organized it all!

Latvia..WINNERS (again!)

This year the Parade of Stars dealt with a bit of controversy.  Due to an error in the scoring process the 2nd and 3rd places were incorrectly awarded.  I was SO proud of the Intercultural Team and how they handled the situation.  They could have just hidden the mistake, but instead they called a meeting for everyone involved, explained the error and awarded prizes to those who rightly deserved them.  They received a bit of backlash for the incident, but learned a lot from the experience.  I commended them multiple times for doing the right thing, even when it was difficult.  I have a feeling that this will stand out to them as one of the more important learnings from their time on the Intercultural Team.  I can't say enough how proud I was of them!  

RA selection

Life became even more busy after Spring Break, so I haven't blogged since then.  Never fear, I will (hopefully within the next few weeks) finish this blog about my time at LCC.

A few days after returning from Spring Break, the RDs and I went out to Demas's cabin to do RA selection. The heat wasn't on in the cabin, so it made for a very chilly work session. Maybe that's why we were done so quickly?!  :)

Alisha, Josh, and Amanda all bundled up going over the RA candidates.