Yays and Nays

Well I haven't put up any pictures lately, because we haven't done a whole lot lately! So here are a few from our trip to Venice yesterday. I had to finish up some Christmas shopping so we went down there for the day.

Look at that scraggly hair...Ashley I need your help!!! I just made my first appointment to get my hair cut tomorrow at the salon on base. I'm real nervous...I had a choice between a style cut and a basic cut, she told me the basic cut was just straight across, no layers or any extras. So I opted for the style cut, but I'm nervous as to how it will turn out. I really need some highlights too, but I'm not ready to turn that responsibility over to a random hairdresser! I had one hairdresser growing up all the way through college. Then one of my best friends, Ashley, decided to start doing hair, so she has taken good care of me since college! I trust her with everything...knowing me since 2nd grade she always does the perfect blonde color for me! We'll see how this turns out!

Here is a picture of our street from behind the field. You can see the town center of San Quirino (the steeple and bell tower).

Finally a blue sky day and the mountains are visible!! Just a little picture with the snow capped mountains...so pretty! The blue skies only lasted for 2 days...it's back to cloudy, cold, and rainy today! The mountains are getting more snow though!

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So here are some ups and downs over the past few days...

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YAYS:

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-My car arrived! Woo hoo!

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-Taylor's tasking to Baghdad got cancelled! I didn't mention it on here previously, but last Wednesday Taylor was tasked to leave for Baghdad on Saturday (tomorrow). He was supposed to finish someone's deployment who is leaving early. The people on base here were fighting it to get it cancelled. Technically, Taylor is not supposed to go anywhere for 6 months since he just completed a year in Korea, but there are waivers for everything. So, thankfully, the tasking was cancelled for him and another poor guy is going to have to leave home for the holidays to finish out the deployment.

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-I got a job! I will be working at the Youth Center in the school age program (age 6-12). I will work about 20 hours a week as a counselor. The center is open from 6:30am-8am and 2pm-6pm M-F. There is a hallway of classrooms with different activities in each room, art, science, study, snack, etc. and there are counselor/teachers in each room working with the kids. I think I'll be one of the counselors in the room! So I'm happy to soon be bringing in some income! I will also be able to sub during the day (2 days a week) which will be great once I can get that started.

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-Taylor and I are planning a trip to Austria for Christmas to do a little skiing! Our plan is to go to Innsbruck, Austria and see what it's all about! Taylor is planning the trip...but we don't have any details tied down...more to come on that later.

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NAYS:

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-I got my car, but sadly the only English radio stations are 106 and 107 and my car will only tune to the odd numbers...so I get 105.9 and 106.1. Apparently it is an American thing...so I listen to 106.1 and keep the volume down low so that I can hear the music, but not as much of the static. It's humorous, but obnoxious. I really need to add to my 40 song collection on my Ipod!

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-I got a job, but I'm not sure when I get to start, I'm waiting on transcripts to arrive before I'm allowed to start the paperwork process. Sooo, it could be a couple more weeks!

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-They are currently not hiring subs at the high school, so I have to check back again in January/February...

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-I am finally admitting it is too expensive to do Christmas lights outside our house :(. The lights are so darn pricey here! I even looked at a couple Italian stores. I went exploring today...found a "mall" and an Ipercoop (modified Walmart). After taking notes at all the stores I determined my best deal was at the Shoppette on base and I paid 17.95 for a strand of 200 colored lights only usable inside. I bought 2 strands for our tree, but I stopped there! I can't order them online either because I need 220V power. So be thankful for Walmart back home and your $3.00 strands of lights that you can use anywhere.

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Alright, that's all for now. I need to do a little picking up and hopefully unpack some more boxes downstairs. I have found a successful way of sorting through the junk in Taylor's boxes. And I say that in all truth. Taylor has a lot of nice things that I really love (furniture, lamps, decorative pictures), but he is so bad about throwing things away so he keeps EVERYTHING! I've started a triage system. I go through the box first and throw away things I KNOW are trash and then throw anything remotely questionable into another box for Taylor to go through and decide upon! So far so good!

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Ciao ciao!