Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

I'm a SoCal girl through and through. It's true that I grew up in the midwest, but I dreamed of moving to Southern California for as long as I can remember. When I finally moved out to San Diego, it was a dream come true, and I soaked in every minute of enjoyment in the years I lived there, and it truly became my home. So why in the world am I sitting in my apartment with 10 inches of snow outside my windows? That is a question I frequently ask myself.
My husband, Juice, and I moved away from family and friends in San Diego in order to head to Croatia as full-time youth workers. Unfortunately, we're stuck waiting for our work permits come through from Croatia, so we've set up temporary residence in the suburbs of Detroit....and Juice is experiencing his first ever snow day. He's out excitedly shoveling snow, and I'm inside enjoying the view from the window, but wishing I could see Mount Miguel instead. Sigh.
What are your thoughts? Love the snow? Hate it? Never seen it before? :-)

Big Wheels Keep on Turning…

Hey-ya, Juice here. Beth and I had a wonderful thanksgiving with family this past week. In fact the whole family is around for one more day. Tomorrow, her brother and sister-in-law drive themselves and their 3 kids back to Wisconsin. Around the same time, Beth and I will be driving to Taylor University in Upland Indiana to meet with some college students about missions for SEND International.

On the bigger scale we’ve been gaining weight in the language department. The first couple lessons we took was cute. We learned our ABC’s, our numbers, vocab; but things aren’t so cute anymore. Now we are learning to conjugate our verbs and adjectives, decline our nouns, decline the noun correctly with the properly declined pronoun… I had no idea a language could be so complicated. I think today was an eye opener though because we’ve been studying personal pronouns (i.e. I, You, He, She, etc.) and if I’m not mistaken, a noun, such as a car, in possession of a pronoun must follow the proper declention of the correctly declined pronoun… did I say that right? And did I say that already? And were those supposed to be separate sentences or one?

FNevertheless, the sounds of our new language are beginning to become familiar. And, the brain cramping is turning away from cramping and more into many raised eyebrows.

So much to do, so little time...

I realize that there is much to learn about blog layout, and I have yet to venture into the trial and error portion of editing various portions of my blog. Perhaps I shall ask my friend Mandie to help me since I seem to recall her having experience in this field (from our college days). However, I did not want to wait until my blog was all shiny and pretty to begin writing, otherwise, I would never start.

So here I am, on the floor of my messy apartment, with a pile of Christmas presents next to me (yes, I was at Kohl's at 4am on Friday), having just finished my Croatian homework for tomorrow's three hour session. It's amazing how busy I thought I was in college. Has anyone else had that experience? You thought you were so busy with all the exams and papers that were due. Perhaps you had a job along with various extracurricular and dorm activities. And now, we have been ushered into full-fledged adulthood with spouses, perhaps children (although we are not at that stage yet), jobs, loans, bills, mortgages, social obligations, family obligations, and college seems strangely un-stressful.

That is what I am pondering as I prepare to head to my tutor's house tomorrow, and I know that my face will be frozen into that "deer in the headlights" expression for just about the entirety of our session. Oh well, perhaps this week I will be able to wrap my brain around the Croatian she dishes out at me.

Welcome to our crazy world!

This is my first attempt to enter the blogging world as a contributor. Enough people have suggested that we record our journey to and in Croatia that I decided to start this blog. Please check back often as we will post updates on language school, life, and, of course, Juice. We hope you will enjoy the ride with us!