A SUPERbowl Weekend

There is very little room for boredom when you live in a dorm, but somehow God gives us the energy and inspiration to make it even more adventurous then it already was. This weekend is a perfect example of that. Usually Friday night consists of the girls falling asleep on the couches for a couple hours before dinner and then we watch movies until lights out. Saturday is always a late start day, then gratises (chores), then free time. Often we are driving students back to other dorms and picking up our girls from sleepovers. There is always a lot of cooking to be done on the weekends since the school kitchen only provides meals on week days. These are usually 18 hour days for us dorm staff...crazy long, always on our feet, but so rewarding.

So if you thought a normal weekend sounded exhausting this weekend might make you think we are a little crazy. There are a lot of "American things" that our girls don't always understand. In this case it was the odd obsession with the Superbowl. Megan and I are not huge football fans, but we thought we would take this opportunity to educate our girls a little bit on the tradition of celebrating the facing off of two teams of men. While we didn't actually watch the Superbowl (cause it started at 12:20AM in Germany) we still had a party, cause we LOVE parties!

So this is what this weekend looked like (keep reading to see how we kept the excitement going on Sunday):
Friday night - Pizza/movie night!
Saturday - All day prep for our Superbowl party, PARTY, watch The Blind Side!
(Then RAs made lunch for the next day. YAY for crock-pot sloppy joes and being asleep by 12am)

Here is how it all went down...of corse I'm going to provide you with pictures!

But the fun wasn't over yet...


Another reason we did all this work of cooking and decorating (with the help of our good friends and subs, Heather and Brittany) was to get our girls in the mood for the PowederPuff football game on Sunday.

Sunday!!! #GoHawks
...Oh, I mean...GO Blauen!

It was a blast cheering on the girl's dorms as they competed against each other. Most of them didn't know what to do, but who cares! I mean seriously...anyone who knows me knows that those girls probably know more than I do about the sport. It was so much fun laughing along with them as they took out the quarterback, or whoever was near them...no matter if it would be helpful to the winning of the game or not.

The cheerleaders!

Practice. Get those game faces on girlies!

Since we are such a small dorm (compared to the other girl's dorms) we joined up with the Liel girl's dorm.

 Lets do this!

Katie, an RA at Palm, getting taken down. Epic.

Amy (one of our seniors) was a little over dressed, but thats ok cause it made for a funny picture. 

RAs vs. Students!!!

We love these girls!

And just when you think an afternoon can't get any better, you get a sunset like this. 

What a Marvelous Gift | Thank you!

Have you ever gotten a gift, Christmas, birthday or otherwise, that left you speechless? One where you sat there, holding it, thinking: I can’t believe they put this much time, effort and thought into something for me! Well, I got one such gift this year and I have been waiting to write this post to thank everyone who was involved. Let me explain…

I was not able to go home for Christmas this year to be with family, but that was made better by the prospect of spending it with old family friends in Wales. I would have time to rest, relax, do absolutely nothing, travel, watching Downton Abbey, walk on castle walls, eat real fish and chips (which I have missed since going to Ireland a few years ago), work on puzzles, play games, meet lots of new people, and celebrate Christmas and the new year. Anticipation of all those things (and probably some denial of how much I would actually miss being home) was making me very excited for break.

Well, it was the day after my amazingly wonderful co-RA, Megan, had returned to the States. I came down the stairs of our house and happened to glance at the mailboxes on the wall and to my surprised there was a thick, envelope sized, purple package in mine. 

Curiously, I opened it up and out fell a big pile of colorful envelopes with dates on them starting on the 19^th of December, but there was one that said “Open Immediately”. The note inside was from Megan and it explained that I would get to open one letter every day of break until the 1^st of January. I was thrilled! I love notes and Megan is wonderful at writing encouraging words, but I had no idea how great this gift was going to get.

The first six days were notes from Megan. On Christmas Eve, the sixth day, I opened my Facebook and found an additional message from Megan. It contained a forwarded message from a dear friend from college. I was utterly confused how Megan was forwarding me a message from this person since I couldn’t think of any connections between them. But the wonderful surprises were just getting started! On Christmas my letter was from my parents and brothers, the day after that was from a dear uncle, and then a cousin, and then another friend, and then another, and another!!! I was more and more excited every day to find out who that day’s note was from.

 

I want to thank all of you who took part in this gift to me! You have no idea how God used your words to encourage me every day. There were days when there was something bothering me and then I would open my note and you had written EXACTLY what I needed to hear. This was the gift that just kept on giving every day, making me feel close to home and not a continent away. Thank you all for this wonderful Christmas surprise! Your love was so tangible in those letters and I love you all. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

p.s. I also want to thank those of you who had sent letters to me while I was away. I loved getting all your Christmas cards and pictures!