Art

Here are a few of my paintings over the past 2 years

Positano, Italy-oil
Wedding gift for Erin

This is my friend Natascha in Vienna
Waterlily at Schoenbrunn-oil

Waterfall I &II-oil
One of these is for Linda

I am now finished with my classes for the semester. I took Drawing I and Design I. Here are some of my class assignments.

Drawing I
Rocking Horse-graphite

Bottles and Vase-graphite

Statue of David-graphite
Classmate I

Joe

Roanoke, VA-ink
Fruit-pencil

Nude sketch-graphite

Final Project-self portrait grid drawing

Design I
Now, if you talked to me at all during the semester, then you would know how much i disliked this class. I have never been so uncomfortable in my life! and I had no idea what I was doing. I managed to do well in the class, but I'm glad it's over.

Collage-project 1

Figure vs. Ground Study
Reflection of Vienna

Texture Rubbing
My favorite is the 4th square on the bottom row...oreo!
Final Project
Symbolic representation of my future career path

Duchess vs the snow

We got 20-21" in Nova this past weekend. Way more snow than we had in 2 years in Vienna...strange! It was so beautiful and we got a snow day from work on Monday.

Our first hokie games in 3 seasons!

The Nebraska Game

The Miami Game...it rained the entire day, but it was worth it.

This was Bryce's first hokie football game. Hopefully the next one will be a little dryer.

Halloween

I just thought this was cute. Duchess helped me hand out candy and she was a huge hit with the trick or treaters!

Goodbyes in Wien, Visit to LA, Visit to Raleigh

Our last days in Vienna

Us and Matty
Ryan and Caleigh...she already doesn't like him! This is Caleigh when she was tiny...I hear she's much bigger now. 16lbs!

CD cover of the year

Hanging out on the steps of the Rathaus

This is me, Natascha, and the painting I did for her.

Our first visit in the US was to see Jennifer in LA

Krispy Kreme Donuts were a must. They really are better than the ones in VA.

Awww, sibling love
Me and TJ enjoying Donuts...they are cerrrrazy good!We got soaked at Seaworld watching the dolphin show...and even more so on the rapids ride!

Next stop, Raleigh to visit Nicole and the 5 kids

Here we are with the kids and the presents we got them-soccer shirts for the boys, a ballerina picture for Gracie, and bear in Lederhosen for Gaby

Us and Nicole

Update for October

We have officially moved out of the hotel and are now living in our new home! Yaaay!!

It is a mess, but we are enjoying no longer living in a stinky hotel room. Ryan is working really long hours and I've been busy with work and classes. We'll post some pictures, once we settle in...but that may be a while.

Duchess seems happy with new place. I'm pretty sure she likes it much better than the hotel. There are lots of dogs for her to bark at every time we take a walk, so I think she loves it.

Once we get settled in, we expect visitors!!

My 25th Birthday

Well my 25th birthday means I can finally rent a car! Yay!!

Today has been quite an adventurous day and many brithday firsts for me.

1-I went to the DMV and renewed my drivers license...in case you weren't aware, the DMV is no place to celebrate a birthday!

2-Ryan and I had our final walk through of our almost house

3-We now own that house!! That's right, we closed on our house. Yaaaay!! We own a house!!! We will start moving in on Oct. 9.

4-Went shoe shopping to replace my shoes that were ruined on their way from Vienna.

5- Ate an amazing meal at Mortons. This was my first experience and holy moly! It was awesome. The steak literally melts in your mouth and they served me crab legs the length of my arm!!! They were scary, but deeelicious.

Needless to say, it was a very memorable birthday.

House Update

We are one week away from closing on our house! So far things are going smoothly!!


What have we been up to lately?
1) Going to VT games...yup, we were there for the Nebraska game. It was 2 minutes of awesomeness, followed by 56 minutes of crap, and ending in 2 minutes of pure bliss. Why you may ask? Well, if you're asking that, you obviously didn't watch the game. I'll help you out...here's how it ended...


pure awesomeness.
(and we're going to the Miami game also)

2) Buying furniture and piling into our hotel room

3) Ryan working a heck of a lot of overtime

4) Still adjusting to living in the US

5) I've been going to art classes, and i really love it

you know...just the usual...

Photos of the house that is almost ours

Lovely 70's style facade

L shaped kitchen

Sunken Living Room off of the dining room

Sunroom...this is a nice bonus.

Part of the future Man Cave/Hokie Heaven

Now I'm just hoping that posting these photos hasn't jinxed us in some way! ;)

House Hunting Update

We put an offer on a townhouse last Sunday, and we found out on Tuesday that they accepted our offer! We had our home inspection on Saturday and the inspector did not find anything seriously wrong. If the contract goes through, then we will close on September 30! (Happy Birthday to me!)

It is a townhouse in Reston. It has 3 bedrooms, and a small basement, but most importantly it has a sun room! We are super excited and will keep our fingers crossed that the contract will go through.

Also, the temp0 died so we had to buy a new car. We just go it on Friday-08 Honda Civic. I pretty much love it!

We are doing well, but we are still adjusting to life in the states. I must admit that I am already tired of living in a hotel...and in Sterling. We are sooo far away from everything. But, if we close on the house on Sept. 30 then we'll move in around Oct. 15, which will be much better.

We hope all of our Wien friends are doing well and we miss you!

My Apologies

Hi everyone! We have lots of photos to load, but we've had some difficulties getting them onto my computer...when we figure out the problem, i'll be sure to post the pictures!

Less than a week

Well it's official...less than a week left to go. Our 2 years went by quickly!! Today was my last day as the CLO. I leave my job with a great sense of accomplishment, much excitement and only slight sadness. My job was great and extremely challenging in many ways; it really was a great fit for me. Now if only I could find something that fits me as well in VA. I had an interview last week, so we'll see what comes of it. We packed out 2 days ago, so we are living in an empty white walled apartment that is only a fragment of the home that we made for ourselves here. I said several goodbyes today, and have many more to go by next Tuesday. Though saying goodbye will be difficult...more difficult for me than Ryan I think, it is a welcoming change. I am more anxious about moving back to the states than I was about coming out here! I think that's strange. We are excited to visit Jennifer in LA, the Greenes in NC and the rest of our family and friends in VA. We will see you all very soon and we can't wait!

Greek Islands: Samos & Patmos

The Islands of Greece: Samos and Patmos

We visited three of the Grecian Islands, Samos, Patmos and Santorini (we'll save that one for last). Patmos is the closest island to Turkey, and it is here that St. John was exiled and wrote the Book of Revelation. The island is pretty nice, but it is really windy! We spent two nights on Patmos. We reached the island by ferry after flying from Athens to the one room airport of Samos, which was beautiful. We relaxed on the beach in Samos for a few hours, before catching the ferry. I did some drawing and Ryan did some reading. Here a few pics.

This is someone's back yard!

Here is one of my drawings

Beautiful water!

So after enjoying Samos for a bit, we ventured to the dock, to catch our ferry. After the cars and people were unloaded, we got on. I had envisioned something much smaller than our boat, and the cargo area that we had to walk through smelt like diesel and fish...mmmmm!

View of Samos Bay from the dock
Our boat
Super excited to be on this boat!
One of the many islands we ferried past

One of the bays we stopped at along the way to Patmos

Patmos

We arrived at Patmos freezing, because we did not wear appropriate boat riding clothes.

Our first glimpse of Patmos

The famous St. John's Monastery is on top of the hill

The Bay

We hiked up to the cave where St. John lived and wrote Revelation. This is the building they've built around the cave, which is part of the monastery.

I pretty much love mosaics

This is the entrance to the cave. It is considered a sacred place, so no cameras allowed. Inside, it is a cave with an alter, chairs, and a lot of random gold stuff. There is a rock shelf where John's scribe wrote his account of Revelation, and there are indentations in the rock where John is said to have slept and a place that he put his hand to stand up.

Now, unfortunately we could not take photos any where near the monestary, so we do not have pictures to show you. We did see the skull of St. Thomas, lots of old goblets, paintings and monks!

These are the views as we walked up the mountain to the monastery.

Our hotel! The owner has a restaurant around the corner from William and Mary in VA!

Bye Patmos!