Susie in Lithuania

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Games and fun!

As the days began to be noticiably longer, eveyone's desire to hang out and have fun became noticably greater as well. I had a group over for dinner and games in early April. We enjoyed a rousing game of Dutch Blitz. Well, MOST of us enjoyed it...Jerry was fighting a bit of a cold and was putting his best effort forth in the game. Despite those best efforts most of his scores were in the negative numbers. In fact his best score for a hand was a solid zero. It wasn't until we were putting the game away that we realized the deck he had been palying with was short about 7 cards! Poor guy, didn't have a chance! He was a very good sport about it all! :)

Bethany, Jerry, Maxine, and Robin

Vern enjoyed lounging on the couch while we played. :)

Alex's birthday

Alex's birthday was in early April. We celebrated at our bi-weekly Student Life staff meeting. She has such a fun loving and kind spirit. It was fun to celebrate with her! :)

A surprised Alex enters the rooms with smiles and laughter!

Blowing out her candles.

Karklu Farewell!

We are building a new residence hall at LCC this year that will be open for students and faculty to live in this August! With the new hall being open, we will no longer be using Kaklu - a residence hall that we rented for the past 15 or so years. So, during board meetings we had a party to celebrate the wonderful memories of this special place. We decorated the halls with a "through the years" photo gallery, had an LCC style hot dog bbq, had board members who were involved in getting the building ready for us to use speak, gave tours of the hall -with a special stop on each floor that featured a fun activity from Karklu's past, and ended the evening with a fireworks finale! It was a great event - full of fun, laughter, and the sharing of old and making of new memories. :)

Some Moldovan students at the entrance to the party!

Gabija and Olean splitting the buns.

Alex, Olena, and Becky peeling the hot dogs.

The hot dog line.

Hot dog fixin's...LCC style.

Fun outfits made from the famous Karklu curtains!

A new look for Student Life!

In April we decided to give our Student Life offices a new look with a coat of paint. We took our plain white walls and transformed them with a blast of red paint and added words that represent the work that we do in Student Life. It turned out better than I expected and is quite the conversation starter for those who pass by our offices. A student, Adomas, did the words for us. Three cheers for Adomas!!! :)

The wall behind Vaida's desk as you enter the offices.

Adomas hard at work.

Our awesome wall!

Cooking Lessons

At the beginning of April I began "cooking lessons" with our office manager Vaida. Vaida is a Lithuanian and knows how to make all the Lithuanian staples, so Kim and I asked her to teach us how to make some Lithuanian foods for fundraising banquets that we were both planning for our time in the US. We spent the evening making kepta duona, balta misraine, potato pancakes and tinginys. It was fun to work in the kitchen with these ladies and to make authentic Lithuanian food!

Kepta Duona - fresh from the pan!

Me rubbing garlic on the kepta duona

Potato pancakes frying up in the pan.

Potato pancakes - finished product

Me showing off the finished product.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Italian scarves!

I like to bring back little gifts for my Community Life staff when I travel. I brought us all matching scarves for our hair back from my birthday weekend in Milano! Here we are modeling them! I SO enjoy working with this group of women. They made my first year at LCC wonderful!

Becky, Alex, Gabija, me, Olena, and Veslava

Student Life Birthday party!

The Student Life department celebrated Veslava and my birthday with a surprise party at a local restaurant. It was so much fun! In traditional Lithuanian fashion we received flowers. Mine were especailly beautiful and meaningful, as Vaida had fashioned a celebratory wreath out of fir branches from her yard. Wreathes are made to commerate special occassions - such as a 40th birthday. It was a fun way to celebrate with this wonderful group that I am priviledged to work with!