AATSEEL Conference Submission

So Tyler, Alyona, and I submitted a proposal to present at the AATSEEL (Association of American Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages) conference that is being held in Wisconsin.  I really hope we get to do it!  Tyler has been painting, so I spent a bit of today working on the proposal.  Alyona had started it off for us, I finished it up, and Tyler made it sound great.  Our working title is: This Isn't Your бабушка's (grandmother's) Textbook:  Moving Toward a Multimedia eFormat in Russian Language Learning.

Little Update

Well, we survived our first and second week of school!  We love our classes, and Liv has loved getting to play with her friends while we are at school.  We've had a great couple of weeks since I last blogged.  Here's a run-down of the happening:

The Friday before school started we had a grad student get together with the other Slavic students at Natalie's house.  We got to meet the two incoming students and see old friends.  The next night, we got together with some friends for a BBQ at the park.  Bonnie and Adam did a fabulous job hosting!  The food was delicious and the company was even better!  Stacie and Spencer, Erica and Jake, Mami and Jeff, and the Waltons were all there.  Liv and Lydia had so much fun playing in the little stream by the park and swinging in the swings.  I'm afraid Liv gets Lydia into things she wouldn't be otherwise, but they just have so much fun!

We have also started going to our new ward--the Clear Creek ward.  We miss seeing our friends from the other ward, but love our new ward, too!  We have seemed to really lucked out here with amazing Sunday School teachers, and this ward has not disappointed!  We loved our lessons from Gordon and Julia in the old ward, and our new teacher is absolutely amazing, too!  I don't know his name yet, but we think he is quite impressive.

Tyler and I have also started our new callings as institute teachers.  We lead the Friday forum.  Last week Tyler made so much good food for it, and Sister Tibbs was so great to cook for us for today's Friday forum.  We have loved getting to know more people through our calling.

We Love the Rain!

Liv was so fascinated with the rain.  It was just pouring down!  She wanted to touch the rain, so we let her go at it.  She ended up soaked, but she absolutely loved playing in the rain!

She had a ball!

Mothers' Group at the Park

More Catch Up

 Liv's little sailor dress she wore on Sunday

 I will not be surprised at all when Liv decides she wants to play soccer

 A cute little bridge by our house

 She loves wearing daddy's glasses

 Liv's getting better at climbing this rock wall

Liv saved me a place on the slide

Liv as of Late

 Lovin' the glasses and stroller!

 Liv always wants to go down by the basketball courts.  We ran into our friend Adam playing.  

 Liv saw some kids doing this and wanted to try it out

 Liv loves her PB and honey!

"I'm flying!"

Preliminary Pictures

Here are our first pictures of our house.  I haven't taken any upstairs yet, and we haven't painted anywhere, or even finished decorating because we're waiting to close so we officially own the house :)

 Living Room

 Our new chairs!  The pics on the wall are just random, not what is actually going to be there.

 Kitchen--we'll be putting down new tile for floor, back splash, and possibly counters

 1/2 bath on main floor

Basement:

 We will be making a curtain to cover up our storage, and the dresser on the right will be refinished and go in our bedroom

 Our study area in the basement

 Full bath downstairs

Big Lots Run

We finally found the perfect chairs at Big Lots!  They have Latin, not French, writing on them, and they are a good size for our living room.  Liv had a lot of fun in her cart with her tiger and a really soft pillow we found at Big Lots.  I will be posting pictures of the chairs in the next post, which I realize should have gone here, but hey, I already have so many pics here.

 The boxes to the chairs proved to be chair enough for Liv

I realize this is a random photo, but look how huge my braid was!

Last Morning at Burberry Lane

Here are our last pictures in our old place:

 Liv just woke up and isn't sure she's ready to move

 Liv found the teacup and saucer I painted at Jennifer's birthday party in LA

Liv's favorite toys lately are her chapsticks :)