Fort Desoto Beach

Anthony and I finally had a chance to go to the beach today! We've been wanting to do it for awhile, especially since we live so close to the coast now but with Anthony working weekends and me working during the week our schedules never seem to line up. The weather was perfect and it wasn't too crowded. I did miss not having very many waves, but that's what you get on the gulf coast :)

Anthony was able to get some fishing in:I have been dying to kick back, relax, and soak in the beach:
And what can be better than relaxing and reading a good book with this as a background?

Of course, our trip would not be complete with the appropriate amount of craziness! Anthony and I decided to take a walk to the far north edge of the park's beach to check out some cool looking trees coming out of the water. As we got closer, I laughed a little bit at an older man walking in front of us wearing a G-string speedo! I even remember thinking that this guy must feel really out of placing wearing something like that in good old America (Speedos for guys are a strictly European trend, right?). As we keep walking, I noticed a few more string-speedo wearing older men, but I was listening to music and looking for fish in the water so it didn't really register as something to be concerned about. We passed a few more groups of people before we got to the end of the beach where it turned into a protected conservation area.

After about 15 minutes of fishing and lounging, I happened to glance up as another older man started to walk out of the water. "Dang, another speedo" I thought, but as he got closer and closer to the beach all of a sudden I realized I was wrong, he wasn't wearing a speedo, in fact he wasn't wearing anything! The realization dawned on me that we had inadvertently wandered into the unofficial nudist/clothing optional part of the beach. Not only that, to get back to the clothes-wearing part of the beach we had to walk by several groups of people that I now realized would probably not be wearing any clothes. How awkward! I seriously didn't know where to look as we started to walk back. I could look at the water, but then I might run into someone standing on the beach and that wouldn't be good for obvious reasons. I could look ahead of me, but every time I caught of glimpse of one of the naked old guys I had the irresistible urge to giggle and once I started I knew I would be able to stop. I settled for looking at my feet and biting the inside of my lip so I didn't burst out into immature guffaws. Whew, what an experience! They need to post those "unofficial" beach areas on trip advisor or something!

Strawberry Picking

Anthony and I had so much fun today! We got up early this morning to go to a cub scout field trip to a local hydroponic farm. It was really neat! They grow everything in multiple styrofoam containers stacked on top of each other with a pole through the middle. They don't use soil for growing plants, but something called "growing medium" that is really light. It looks something like this:

They end up using tons of less water because they water the top plant once, and it trickles down to water all of the plants below it. They also have less pest problems because the plants are off of the ground and they don't get any bugs from soil (since they don't use soil). Lucky for us, they are also a u-pick farm! They had a large strawberry patch and Anthony and I stayed after all of the boys left so that we could get a-pickin'. It was one of the more pleasant experiences I have had with picking berries. Since the plants are stacked on top of each other you don't have to bend down all of the time to find berries! Most of them where eye level or slightly lower.

Once we got home and I started washing and cutting them up, Anthony came up behind me and started eating them. After awhile he turned to me, his mouth red from the berries and said "I can't stop!! They are too good!". They were so sweet and juicy that it made me want to buy my own hydroponic setup and start my own berry patch!

Of course, I do still have my garden that I started last March. I haven't been posting pictures of it because I am a little mad at it at the moment. The plants keep growing bigger and bigger, but most of them have yet to produce any veggies! The only plants that have been persistently giving me anything is our bean plants. The squash plants have taken up half of the entire box but have yet to give me a single squash. The pepper plant has grown to almost as high as my neck, but no peppers. Patience, patience I suppose.

Ahh, my back!

For the past few days I have been experiencing what it is like to have a bad/strained back and I never appreciated how not-fun that is. I never realized just how much I use my lower back until this week, which is ALL the time. (In case you didn't know, like I didn't). So, I have become a pretty lazy person this past week. No working out, really no activity that requires moving more than sitting and lying down unless it was something I HAD to do (like my calling, work stuff, etc...). Not being able to work out is also making me a little crazy. I swear that my jeans are tighter and my legs are flabbier. Unfortunately I can't think of really good cardio exercise I could do lying down in bed while reading a book and having Anthony bring me food. (Because that is all that I have wanted to do all week).

You would think that I pulled something lifting weights or doing something that made sense when it comes to back pain, but I have literally done nothing to cause this! All weekend I didn't feel well with headaches and side effects from my medication so I just vegged out, watching movies and cross-stitching. On Tuesday morning when I got up to get ready for work, my lower back hurt like the dickens and I assumed that it would just go away. Here we are on Friday and it still hurts! The only thing I can think of that I did was Monday night at 3am our car alarm went off and I jumped out of bed from a deep sleep to find our clicker and turn it off. (No burglars, just an evil, hateful alarm that doesn't like human beings to get a good night's sleep).

This morning it was so much worse, that I ended up getting pointers on lower back stretches from a friend at work. We were quite a sight, side by side on the office floor doing different positions and stretches to try to find a way to convince my muscles to let go. Now I am trying to get up and do some stretches every hour and it feels like things are getting better. Hopefully I will be 100% soon!

Cub scouts has been going well. We had our first den meeting on Wednesday and Anthony and I attended our first round table last night. The previous den leader said that one of the cubs was so upset when he found out she was leaving that he wanted to quit scouts! But, after Wednesday he told her never mind, because we were "fun" :) You can't get a better stamp of approval than that!

I bought my leader uniform on Tuesday night and they were having a sale on skirts for women leaders since they are being discontinued. I tried it on without the shirt and it seemed fine, so I bought it. When I got home and put it on all together, I looked hideous! I showed Anthony and he did a double take and then started to laugh! His theory is that the boy scouts were trying to make the women leaders look as hideous as possible to minimize any cub-crushes. A few days later I went and bought some olive-colored pants to replace the skirt, again shopping without the uniform shirt. I was so pleased with myself and sure that I had fixed the problem. I got home, put the pants on and showed off to Anthony just how cute they were. After putting on the uniform shirt: BAM, instant hideousness. Anthony couldn't help laughing at how much I hate that shirt. It has a supernatural ability to make me and anything else I wear with it look seriously ugly. Not cool!

New Callings

Anthony and I both have new callings in our ward! A little over a month ago I was called to be a primary teacher for the 5 year olds so I have been learning and experiencing primary for the first time (as an adult that is). It has been a wonderful experience so far, but definitely an adjustment. I am loving all of the wonderful things the children say and do and I feel good learning how to teach and nurture the children. It helps me feel that much more excited and confident for when Ant and I have our own children to teach! However, it is a little disappointing to not be able to go to Sunday School or Relief Society anymore. I've had to make an extra effort to read the lessons on my own time and I've been reminding Anthony to make sure to give me a good report of what I missed after we get home from church.

Then, a couple of weeks ago Anthony got released from his calling in the Young Men's and was called to be a primary teacher too! So I had to let him off the hook as my Sunday School insider and we are holding our own little Sunday School at home after church :) He is going to be teaching the next class up from me, the 6 & 7 year olds. He was so intimidated! He has never had to teach young children before and I think he felt really out of his element. I keep telling him that he is going to be great! He is just one big kid himself, so I know he will find a way to relate to his class.

At the same time, Anthony and I were called to be den leaders for the cub scouts in our ward. This was definitely unexpected for me! I kept thinking back to when my mom was a den leader, and I guess I always pictured that as a "mom" calling because they know so much more about what they are doing. Still, I am really excited to get to do this together with Anthony and learn something completely new. Our first cub scout meeting that we got to observe was a court of honor, and let me tell you it was a culture shock! There are so many different terms, ceremonies, songs, that seem so foreign as an outsider that it was almost funny to me how much I didn't understand. Not to worry, I am sure I will be an insider in no time :)

Work is going great for me, same old same old. Anthony is suffering through his women's health rotation :( He says that he doesn't mind doing baby stuff and he thinks that it is neat when he gets to measure a pregnant belly to confirm how many weeks along the mother is, or feel limbs and the baby's position from the outside, but he really doesn't like and feels uncomfortable doing...other stuff. The good news is that Anthony has the option of doing half of this semester at another location if he isn't interested in women's health as a specialty (can you guess who signed up for that ASAP?). He is going to be doing the other half of his rotation at an urgent care clinic and he is so excited! He is going to try to get evening hours when doctor's offices are closed so that he can see the most interesting of cases. The gorier, the better for Anthony!

What to say, what to say...

I promised myself that I would post more often, I just need to get more creative with the topics that I deem postable. With everyday being pretty much the same around here, I often think to myself that I need to remember and enjoy all of the little things in life or I will waste my entire life focusing on major events and look back and wonder where all the time has gone. And really, when you think about it, it is the little things that make life interesting and are the things that make your life unique and special. All of the major events that we wait for and anticipate can all be looked up and researched by posterity, but how much more special is it to write down and remember all of the parts of your life that made it uniquely yours.

Anthony and I drove to Merritt Island last Sunday to visit his mother for Mother's day. It was really fun and it reminded me of one of my favorite things about visits like that. Believe it or not, it is actually the drive (as long as I'm not driving! Still not a fan of the interstate driving). Anthony and I always find such interesting things to talk about in the hours spent in the car together. On the way home, we were both getting kind of sleepy so I tried extra hard to come up with questions to keep us talking and awake. I asked Anthony what his absolute ideal job would be if it paid whatever amount of money that he wanted. He didn't have to think long, he almost immediately proclaimed that he would be a fishing captain. He would get other people to pay him to take them fishing on work days, and then go fishing by himself to scout out new spots on his off days. After a few seconds I turned to him, seriously, and asked why he didn't ever pursue it. He simply said that he knew it didn't make enough money to support a family comfortably and that he always knew he wanted a family someday. Truly, how selfless to give up your dream for the sake of people you haven't met yet. Amazing.

When he asked me the same question, I was pretty stumped. I never grew up thinking about careers, because I always knew that I wanted to be a stay at home mom and I really didn't know many career paths that allowed for that. Even now, a lot of the choices I made about school and work were all centered around eventually having kids and not about career advancement. Now it is strange to find myself in a full time professional job and starting to learn about office politics, promotions, getting ahead, building up my skill set, and planning for my future career. I never thought I would really be in this position, but I am learning to embrace things as they come and learn what I can from every situation. I don't know if I ever really thought of a good answer for Anthony. In the end my dream job would be doing rewarding work with people I enjoy. What the actual tasks are really aren't that important to me.

I'll leave you with yet another tidbit from Antiques Roadshow. If you don't already watch this show every week, you need to. For real, PBS rocks my socks.

This is a collection of jade pieces that a woman brought in, given to her by her father. Her father bought them in China during the 1930's and 40's, probably only paying a maximum of 100 dollars per piece. This ended up being the most valuable appraisal in all of Antiques Roadshow history!!! One of my favorite parts of watching the show is seeing the owner's reactions. Her's was so funny to me, Anthony and I couldn't stop laughing. I guess it isn't really appropriate to include what she said, but basically nothing came to her mind but expletives when they told her that the entire collection was worth $710,000-$1,070,00!

Our new wheels

My new car (an example picture of it anyways). It is a 2003 Honda Civic with 89,000 miles on it. I have been loving driving it around! It rides so smoothly, I even didn't mind driving on the interstate, which I have always hated!! I am thinking that I always hated driving on the interstate so much largely because my old car would shake and shudder when you push it past 60 miles an hour.
Anthony's new truck, a 2002 Ford Ranger with 70,000 miles on it. (This is the actual truck). He is so excited to finally have a truck!! His boat fits perfectly on the hitch that was already on it and he has all of next week to get some serious fishing done before school starts up again. Finally he won't feel out of place hauling his boat around (since now his vehicle is actually taller than the boat).


It is so nice to have things settled down. Finals week is over, thank goodness! I was getting really tired of going in to work two hours early every day. I underestimated how many things I actually get done before work so to miss out on that on top of everything else was a bummer. This semester there wasn't too much drama. Only a few temper tantrums from students and professors and most of the snafus weren't our fault. In fact, I've been getting a lot of good feedback from some of the more notorious departments on campus about how things have been running. When ever I get things like that, I stash it away in a file so that I can put it all together when it comes time to interview for the job that I have been appointed to twice now. This time next year if I still want to stay in the position I have to go through a formal interview process with other candidates. Like they would have a chance :)

It is so nice to feel like I know what I am doing in most aspects of the office. Case in point: our assistive technology guy was out of the office on Friday, so I was able to help a student out and finished up converting her textbooks to digital files, gave them to her, and then was able to intelligently answer her questions about how she is going to view her online tests for next semester (she has some limited sight). I also like getting to know the students and some of their personality traits and quirks. The students who work for me are wonderful too, and they even surprised me with a cake and a card a few weeks ago just to thank me for being a good boss. Can you believe that? I almost cried, it was so thoughtful!!!

Not to be too one sided, I should update you on what is going on in Anthony's life too. He finished his spring semester at the end of April and without a car he hasn't been able to relax nearly as much as he wanted to. He basically has been playing video games and searching for cars until last Tuesday. He's got one more week left before school starts and now that he has a way to get his boat to the water, you can bet he is going to be fishing all day every day :) He is going to be starting clinicals at the health department in a few weeks and I am really curious to see how he handles lady exams...I think the plan is that he is going to do what is minimally required of him and then try to block out the experience and pretend that it never happened. But, I am looking forward to him learning more about women specific ailments because then I can ask him questions and he won't look at me and say, "Umm, that's not my area. I haven't learned that stuff".


Well, since we don't really have a life outside of school or work, that is about it for us. TTFN.

Car-ma (Get it?!)

As of tomorrow afternoon, all of our car problems will be completely resolved and everything will be back to normal. Can you believe that? I think that we had such a long stroke of bad luck that we got a good dose of good luck to help balance things out (car-ma :)

Monday morning started the intense car search, since now we were in the market for two cars and needed them pronto. We decided on a Honda Civic for me since they are so reliable, easy to fix and maintain, and probably won't die on me. Anthony still wanted a small truck, but he decided to be less picky on some of his requirements so that he could get something soon. I knew that finding something for me would be no problem since I am really not picky as long as the car is an automatic and runs when you start it (I know, high maintenance right?) but I was concerned about finding a truck for Anthony. He is particular. Like, really particular. You wouldn't think that he is since he is such a laid back guy, but all of this car shopping brought me back to when we were shopping for our condo when we were engaged. At least back then I had that new love glow to get me through this personality trait of his. These past few weeks I really had to exercise a lot of patience and even then, I wasn't very successful a lot of the time. When we did find a truck Anthony liked, I told him he better get so that we can stay married :)

So, Monday afternoon I found an 03 Honda Civic for sale by a private seller about an hour south of Tampa. It was a really good deal and we wanted to avoid sketchy used car salesmen as much as possible so we called the guy to set up a time to look at it. Tuesday Anthony was able to drive down with a friend to look at it, everything checked out on it, and he went ahead and bought it. He drove it back home, came and picked me up from work, and as soon as we got home we got on the computer and started looking around for trucks. Almost immediately we saw a truck that had the main specifications that Anthony wanted for a REALLY low price on craigslist. We almost blew it off, assuming that there must be something wrong with it but decided to call just in case. The truck was at a dealership an hour north of Tampa, but according to the salesman the carfax was clean and we decided it was worth looking at. He told us that quite a few people had called and said they were planning on coming to look at it so we jumped in the car and raced there. (I never know if the salesmen are just giving you a line when they say that, but I always fall for it anyway).

As soon as we got there the dealership was closing soon so we immediately jumped in the truck to take it for a test drive. While we were pulling out, a burly tatooed guy pulled in, angrily beeped his horn, rolled down his window and shouted, "What are you doing with the truck!?". When we told him we were test driving it, I thought he was going to jump out of his car and attack us! It turns out he had missed the turn to the dealership and because of it, we got to the truck before him. I felt kind of sorry for him, but at the same time I felt like it was our turn for a little bit of good luck. The truck was great, the price was great, so we wrote them a check. On the way home I couldn't quite wrap my head around how much money we had spent in one day! It made me a little sick to think about it, so I tried to put it out of mind and remember that we won't be poor students for forever...

Today I got out of work early and we drove to Wildwood to sign the title of my car over to the junkyard and to get my tags so I can transfer it to my new car. After that, we drove up to Ocala to meet up with my mom and to return her mini-van. Tomorrow on my lunch break I am going to go the tax collector office to transfer my registration and title and that will be that. Whew! I can breath normally again, yea!

To prove that we have learned from our experiences: we got a car alarm installed in my car the morning after we got it, we added comprehensive theft and collision insurance on both vehicles, and are now card carrying members of AAA. Expensive life lessons, but at least they were learned, right?

A Truly Horrific Weekend...

This past weekend shall live in infamy in the Lagana household as one of the most trying couple of days that I have had in a VERY long time. Let me break it down for you:

Friday evening: I came home from work kind of stressed, but generally happy. Finals week was coming up on Monday and I had been preparing for it nonstop for at least a month. It takes a lot of coordinating, organizing, mediating, and student and professor hand-holding to get us to a place where we can administer over 200 exams in just one week. I had an extremely busy day, the highlights of which involved excessive sweating and manual labor, and making my first ever crisis-intervention report on a troublesome student (!). I totally needed a break when I got home and instead of going to the gym Ant and I got sushi and watched TV. I went to bed early and proceeded to sleep for 12 hours straight. Seems like a pretty good start to the weekend right?

Saturday: wrong. Around 2PM I started to get one of my migraines. I usually only get them once every few months but lately they have been more frequent. I tried to suck it up, took a lot of medicine, and attempted to sleep my way through it. Four hours and at least one incident of uncontrollable vomiting later, I started to feel human again. Anthony was supposed to go to work, but his shift got cancelled so even though we really need the money he stayed home with me and fed me soup :)

Sunday: I got up early before church to prepare my lesson for primary. I was still feeling a little woozy, but I was fairly certain that I would only feel better as the day wore on. Church was great, my kids were great, and I was starting to feel hopeful that this weekend wouldn't be a total wash. After church Ant and I drove the 2 and 1/2 hours to my mom's house and right as we were pulling into the driveway I realized that I am starting to get another migraine!!!! I was beyond upset! Not only was the timing horrible, but I wasn't in my house with my own medicine, and I usually get at least a few weeks reprieve between these horrible episodes. Three hours, a series of mystery pills from my mom's medicine cabinet, and yet another bout of uncontrollable vomiting later I start to feel doped up, but human again. To catch up for lost time, we stayed late at my mom's house. But hey, I figured I could catch some sleep on the ride home. After all, I've got to be at work extra early tomorrow morning for my first official day as a full-time salaried employee and for the first day of finals (again, which I have been preparing for for a month).

We start for home around 9PM. Feeling good, talking and joking, at around 11:30PM Anthony makes a startled noise and starts pulling us over to the shoulder of I-75. That's right ladies and gents, my car died. With my dogs in the backseat, me still hung over with sickness and medication in the passenger seat, Anthony got the number of a 24 hour tow company and called them to come and get us. (I know what you are thinking, and No, we do not have AAA. Why? Because we are idiots.) We got the car and ourselves towed to an auto shop (closed for the night) but based on our description to the tow-guy, things didn't look good. He solemnly made the symbol of the cross over our car and told us that if his 16 years of experience are worth anything, he is pretty sure that my car has now passed into the great beyond.

LEST we all forget: Anthony and I are relying solely on my car for transportation because HIS GOT STOLEN three weeks ago. To quote my mom, "If we didn't have bad luck, we would have no luck at all!"

My mom and my brother came to our rescue and picked us up from the exit around 1AM, took us home, and my mom generously let us borrow her minivan for the next few weeks until we can sort out our transportation nightmare. This morning the autoshop confirmed the tow-guy's suspicion that my car is beyond saving, so we are now in the process of signing a car over to a junkyard. Again.

So the car search continues...only now we are shopping for TWO cars.

Here are the positives I have gleaned from the past days:

• I did not die or stroke out (although I could have sworn I was going to do both at multiple times)
• Anthony is alive (although still a little sad that he hasn't been able to spend any of his semester break fishing yet. Actually make that a lot sad)
• We didn't crash when our car went bad on the interstate. This really is a blessing, I know not everyone is so lucky.
• We hadn't purchased Anthony's car yet when mine died, so we were able to scale back our budget for Anthony's to accommodate it. (Instead of spending all of the replace-a-car funds and then have to replace another car)
• My mommy is awesome and has the heart and means for saving the day
• I have a full time job (officially as of today!)
• In spite of everything, Anthony did well this semester and things are on track for his graduation
• I have wonderful friends who help me laugh instead of cry and give me advice on how to play hard-ball with car dealers. (Not like I could ever do it, but I could always imagine that I could be tough one day :)

See, the list goes on and on! I refuse to let this get me down, we will get through this and since I know I will laugh about this one day I've decided why wait? Let's laugh about it now! :)

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a grape?

I have crazy dogs. Truly, they are both neurotic on different levels. The more crazy of the two, Bitsy, is OBSESSED with chasing shadows almost 24/7, can't stand water, has specific texture and moisture requirements for the terrain she will or will not walk on, takes literally five minutes to decided the EXACT right spot to poop or pee on, and has to be comfortable at ALL times and will spend hours searching for the most comfortable position on the couch.

On of her more funny and cute quirks is that she loves to play with any kind of treats we give her. Most dogs just wolf it down, but not her. She gets it, throws it around, chases it, throws it somewhere else, licks it a little bit, takes a little bite, throws it around somemore, and repeat until it is all gone. I have never seen another dog do this! I gave her a grape today and when I saw how funny it was I decided to get a video of it. So here is the video with the second grape. She wasn't as playful with it as the first one, but it still took her over a minute to eat a grape....

Picture Dump!

I have quite a few pictures to share and they don't really go together, so I will just put them all together in one post. Soooo get ready for some randomness :)

The police found Anthony's stolen car! Here are some pictures from the junk yard:

You can see that they took the entire front bumper, the headlights, and the front side panels. What you can't see is that they also took the battery and various engine parts. Here you can see that they took the taillights and the license plate. BUT they left the tow hitch. You mean they didn't want a tow hitch from a Honda civic hatchback? Weird.

This is an example of what basically the entire interior of the car looked like. All of the side panels and the front dash was taken apart and wires and parts were removed. The entire air conditioning control panel was missing, along with all of the ignition and inside the steering column.
The best for last:

They took the driver and passenger side head rests!! Who knew that 10 year old Honda civic head rests were worth anything to anybody?

These next round of pictures are of my blossoming garden. Everyday Anthony swears that it has doubled in size and that I am secretly pumping it with performance enhancers to make it grow. I swear I don't do anything to them, can I help it if I have the magic touch? Now if only I could make money grow the same way... I am beyond excited for the day when it finally starts producing something that I can eat!

Finally, I happened to have the camera out as Anthony was getting ready to drop me off at work before he headed to clinicals (ah, the joys of having only one car) and I couldn't resist taking a picture of him all professional-ed out. Isn't he adorable!!!! I am so proud of him, and it is really neat to see how much he has grown and all that he has learned in just a short amount of time. I can't mention anyone having any kind of medical condition without him knowing everything about it and starting to grill me about what medications they are on and what treatment. Plus, it is cool to be able to ask him whenever I don't feel well and have him diagnose me!

Do really good news and really bad news cancel each other out?

We've had a roller coaster week at the Lagana household. There have been awesome highs and horrible lows, and I haven't decided if the good has made the bad not so bad or if the bad has put a damper on the good...

The good first: I've been offered a full time job with benefits! Basically, I get to do the job I have been doing for the past 5 months I just get paid more and I get to have health insurance. Definitely a win! Plus, I've already gone through all of the growing pains of learning what it is I am supposed to be doing and I can keep trucking along and keep getting comfortable in my position. All of this time at work I have been able to be a apart of some exciting projects for the office and now I get to stick around and see them through. It is all very rewarding!

For more good, Anthony has had wonderful grades all semester and is only a few weeks away from being done with this semester. After that he only has two more semester to go until he is completely done!!! We are so glad that graduation seems to be sneaking up on us!

The bad: Anthony's car got stolen a few days ago. It is so disheartening to realize just how many bad people there are out there. I still want to believe that everyone is inherently good, but it is getting harder and harder to keep that optimism.

In the past few months:

• Anthony's radio was stolen out of his car. We were bummed and filed a report with the police, but counted ourselves lucky that the windows weren't broken and everything else was left in the car.
• Someone tried to break into my car while I was at the gym. A wonderful good Samaritan stranger chased the guy away and stayed by my car until I came back. This was in broad daylight in front of a shopping center and a busy street!
• Anthony's car was completely stolen from our apartment complex. (I'm thinking the same people that stole the radio decided to come back and take the entire thing). When Ant talked to the police while filing his report, the cop told him that the crime is getting really bad in our neighborhood and thieves are actually kicking down doors to rob apartments! No joke, we are going to borrow a gun from a friend of ours and Anthony is going to quit working night shifts so that I'm not home alone at night anymore.

So, we are trying to stay positive. Anthony's school schedule is going to be crazy busy this summer so he wasn't anticipating working very much, but now that we need to buy another car it puts a little more stress on us. Plus, I can't stand the thought of staying in this neighborhood much longer so we are actively looking for another apartment. The sooner we can move, the better! I never thought I would wish that I lived in the country in the middle of nowhere, but I hate feeling so helpless and unsafe. But, I am sure everything will work out for us :)

Spring is in the air

Spring is in full swing here in Tampa! It has been so wonderful to enjoy the beautiful weather and to watch all of the new life popping up everywhere:

First, garden pictures Week... 4(?). I think it has been about a month. My garden is doing great!! I am having a little bit of a problem with bugs chewing on some of my leaves and one plant has totally given up the ghost, but one out of the large number of things I have planted is a pretty good mortality rate! Here you can see my garden expansion. I've added a tomato plant, 4 squash pots, and 4 pots of spinach. I am also trying to get a sweet potato to sprout so I can plant parts of it. So far it isn't working too well :) But, the new seeds are doing well and should be breaking through the surface soon (I had to dig in and investigate a little bit). I am trying not to smother my garden with attention but sometimes I can't resist digging some things up just to see how they are developing!

Second: I try to take walks around the campus during my lunch hour and for the past few weeks I've been keeping track of new ducklings in several of the campus ponds! They are so cute!!!! One day we walked out to see two mama ducks with 19 baby ducks waddling around them! I couldn't figure out how the duck population could stay at a manageable number with so many babies every year, but I was unfamiliar with how many predators there are for those baby ducks.... While we were watching them a seagull swooped down and tried to carry off one of the babies! We threw sticks and yelled at the bird, but it didn't seem to care. The next day we went to check out the babies and there were only five left. The next day, only two. Anthony told me that lots of things eat the baby ducks (turtles, fish, other birds, etc...) I could of died happy thinking that all of those baby ducks went to visit an aunt and uncle duck in a pond on a farm far away and that is why they mysteriously disappeared.

On a more positive note, the other day I got to watch a pair of doves meticulously pick and choose the perfect sticks for building their nest. Now everyday that I walk by I see the mother dove sitting on the nest and I am looking forward to hearing her little baby birds chirping once they hatch!

Third: Yesterday we had an interesting spring-reproduction moment in our house! Anthony's anemone that he has in the little tank for the baby clowns did its own form of reproduction by splitting itself in half! It was really cool and, to be honest, kind of gross to watch. We could see everything since it was stuck on the glass wall of the aquarium. Anthony kept rushing around like an excited father, and he couldn't believe his luck that he was going to end up with TWO anemones. Apparently it is rare for an anemone to do this, much less for us to get to see it. Then, after the excitement died down a bit, Anthony looked over and the anemone was splitting AGAIN! In one day we got to see the anemone go from one big anemone to three smaller ones. Here are the pictures of the process: This is the view of the anemone from the bottom. You can see it is stretching it's stump out in different directions.Split #2 Three anemones!

Anthony wanted me to emphasize how rare it is to see this. Usually the anemone splits at night when the lights are off and no one is around. Plus, if they do split, the usually are somewhere in the tank, on a rock or in the sand, not pressed up against the glass so we can see everything. Isn't that neat?

In other exciting news, I have a new calling! I'm a bit bummed about being released from Young Women's. I felt like I was just getting the hang of everything and getting to know the girls, and getting released was a bit surprising since I just got called in August... But, on the bright side my new calling is to be a teacher in Primary! This is yet another first for me. I haven't ever served in the primary before so I am excited for a new challenge. I have already started picking my mom's brain about how to manage energetic 5 year olds (she has had a lot of practice). Luckily a lot of the other leaders in primary are professional teachers so I am sure they will have a lot of good tips for me too.

There are exciting new developments brewing on the job front, but since I don't have anything official that I can say yet, just know that hopefully (fingers AND toes crossed!) everything will be settled in the next few weeks.

Anthony is doing well in his classes, studying hard and working hard. This semester is going much better than last semester and it is hard to believe that we are few weeks away from it being over! Anthony's clinical coordinator took pity on him and instead of assigning him to the women's prison for his women's health rotation (where she said, and I quote, "They would eat him alive") she decided to assign him to the heath department. Whew!