Corpus Christi

This summer we spent a month in Corpus Christi while we waited to find out where I would work.  We had lots of fun and did pretty much everything there is to do while we were there.  Here are a few pictures:

The Lexington, "Blue Ghost"

A sea turtle at the Texas State Aquarium
Jellyfish at the aquarium
Old bridge that used to cross the bay
The big bridge in Corpus
Dolphin at the aquarium
Seagulls on Mustang Island
Sailboats in the bay
The Atlantic Coquinas were really thick this year
We went to a sea turtle release at the National Seashore while we were there

Magic Kingdom

My favorite park!  I could have easily spent 2 days at this park!

Cinderella's Castle

The Mad Hatter's Tea Party (the spinning teacups)

The River Boat (from Huckleberry Finn)

Funny poster outside of one of the shows

Downtown Disney

We went to Downtown Disney a couple of times while we were in Orlando.  It was good entertainment and it wasn't as exhausting as the parks.  It mainly had places to buy Disney souvenirs and restaurants.  We didn't really want to spend lots of money on the video game park and Cirque du Soleil, so we stuck to window shopping and eating.

These are some pictures from the T-Rex restaurant.  It had really neat atmosphere and great food.  The food was a bit pricey, but we somehow managed to spend under $20 for our meal.  If you have ever been to the Rainforest Cafe, T-Rex was a lot like that.  We sat in the ice cave where there were "fossils" embedded into the wall.  Every 30 minutes there was a light show with sound effects to simulate a meteor shower.  It was lots of fun and I definitely recommend it. 

Here we are with the Rainforest Cafe and some lego statues in the background.
The sea monster and dinosaur below are made from Legos.

This was a really good looking statues outside of the Rainforest Cafe.

Disney's Animal Kingdom

The park was the best zoo that I have ever visited!  Here is the African Safari ride.

The famous tree of life.  Notice that there are animals carved into the trunk.  P.S. The tree is fake.
We thought all of these signs leading up to the Everest ride were funny.

Time to play summer catch up

We are finally getting settled in our new place and have our own internet connection!  Now I can play catch up on our whirl wind summer!

Maloney Update

Things new with us:

1. We went to Disney World to celebrate graduation

2. We have been at the beach enjoying life

3. I have accepted a job, I start in August

4. We will be moving away from our town very soon

We will really miss all of our friends when we move and hope that everyone will come and visit.  Of course, we will be back every once in a while to see everyone.

We have a weak internet connection where we are staying, so I will have to upload pictures later.  I would rather not give out more info on where I will be working since my blog is public.  Feel free to call or email me if you are curious.

Anniversary

Today is our 6th anniversary!  We went to the gazebo we were married in and talked about what we could remember from our wedding day.  It was fun, but now I am at home alone.  Grant had to go on a trip for work :(

We went to Disney World last week.  I will put up some pictures one I find a new charger for the camera battery (I left it in our hotel room).  We had a ton of fun and I can't wait to go back!

Graduation

My graduation is tomorrow.  I am so excited!  Commencement is on Saturday and I am singing at it with the choir.  It will be awesome.  The guest speaker is Robert Rodriguez!  There will be fireworks shot off from the tower after the ceremony.

Be your own travel agent!

We are going to Orlando next week and I found some really great deals online.  I frequently plan vacations that I would love to go on, but can't afford yet.  I find great deals all the time on Hotwire and Kayak

Hotwire has very low prices but has the disadvantage of not knowing exactly what hotel you will be getting; their star rating system is pretty reliable.  Kayak searches hundreds of travel websites for you to find the best deal and will give you a link directly to the website you wish to use.  On both Hotwire and Kayak, you can sort the results by price, star rating, location, etc.

While trying to find a good deal on a flight, I recently discovered Cheap Airlines.  By using Cheap Airlines, we saved about $150 more than we would have by using Kayak and several other travel sites.

On the move...

We are moving! Where? We don't know yet.  I take that back, we are moving all of our stuff into storage.  We will be going on a working vacation (work for Grant and vacation for me) for about a month. After that, who knows where we will live.  I have to find a job and I would like to live somewhere near my work.

We started packing this week and have gotten 33 boxes packed and stacked in the garage and almost all the laundry, including blankets and curtains, is finished.  I think this will be the smoothest move yet!

Hopefully, we will have plenty of help when it comes time to load up everything and move into the storage unit and again when it comes time to load up everything and move into a new place (wink wink, nudge nudge).

It is finished!

I am finally done with college.  I am in disbelief!  I have been ready for this for a long time.  A new chapter of my life is about to begin and I can't wait because in that chapter, I will be getting paid.  Please pray that I find a good job.

1 week!

I can't believe it is almost over.  I have a ton of homework to do before my last seminar class! 

2 weeks

I have only 2 weeks left of classes! Yipee!  Summer is almost here.

4 weeks

4 weeks left of classes!!! I can't believe it.  It's almost over.

Things we have been doing lately

I haven't posted any pictures lately, so I am playing catch-up with this blog.

We went to the river parade in San Antonio for St. Patrick's Day.  Each float helped to dye the river green.

We have been hiking and fishing several times at McKinney Falls.  Here is a picture of all the beautiful trees the first week the leaves were out.

I went to the shooting range for the first time and chickened out.  I ended up sighting the whole time since the old-timey gun my husband has doesn't have a modern scope.  The owner of the range is determined to end my fear of guns.  The first and only time I have ever shot a gun (excluding air rifles) was this past summer at the Parks and Wildlife Expo.  This is a picture of the ground in one of the shooting stalls.  The range is an outdoor range.

Goodbye Redbox

We are officially boycotting Redbox and you should too!  A DVD we returned was lost and they have charged us $25 (full price) for a movie that we don't even have!!!!  They also don't seem very interested in keeping our business as evidence from the customer service rep's attitude.

I was told that this could happen if we put the DVD in the case backward.

We could have had 3 whole months of Net Flix if we had known this would happen.

Busy, Busy, Busy, Excited, Excited, Excited

I have several pictures that I have been meaning to post, but it is a little bit of an ordeal to get them on here since they are all taken with my phone... The pictures will have to wait.

Right now, I am gearing up for a long haul of busy weekends.  I won't be off the hook until May 8.  It's okay, everything that we are doing is going to be fun.

Today, I started at my new student teaching assignment.  I have finished with middle school and am now on for elementary.  The first day was great and I really love my cooperating teacher.

Starting today, I am counting down until the last day of classes... 7 WEEKS!!! Yay!  I am not really counting down toward graduation, just the end of class.  If you are interested, my graduation is on May 22 at 3 (this is where I walk across the stage with the College of Fine Arts) and commencement is on May 23 (this is University-wide and I will be on stage to sing with the UT choir, but they won't call my name).

As graceful as a swan...

on the freeway.

This is a picture of a swan that I saw on I 35 this morning.  Luckily I was traveling north, while the was traveling south.  There was a pretty big back up of traffic behind it... of cars, that is.

Test results

I PASSED!

Job Hunt

I started applying for jobs today.  Wish me luck!

Movies

Grant and I like to watch a lot of movies, so I thought I would give a review of a few we have seen lately.

Australia:  This one's story was okay, but what I really loved about it was the little boy that sings in it.  The story has some adventure and some romance, but it manly just wants to show off how hunky Hugh Jackman is.  It seems that he is posing to show off his muscles in every scene.  This one is worth renting.  I would like to buy it for the singing little boy.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button:  We saw this one right after Christmas.  I really liked it a lot.  This is one I will definitely want to buy.  The story is about a man that ages backwards... he was born old and died young.

We saw Hancock in the theatre when it first came out, but recently rented it again.  It was worth it.  It is a comedy about a super hero who is basically a loser.  I probably wouldn't buy it, but I would definitely watch it again.

I got Planet Earth for Christmas.  I know it is not really a movie, but I don't care.  We have watched the first 2 episodes so far.  It is so good.  The scenery is overwhelmingly beautiful and the commentary is not distracting.  It is definitely worth buying.

Fun Weekend.....

This was supposed to be a funny cartoon about being sick all weekend....

Happy New Year!!!

We had lots of fun last night at First Night last night.  I am so glad we were able to spend New Year's with such good friends.  If you didn't go this year, you should definitely go next year.  There were lots of fun events and some really great fireworks.

One event that really stuck out in my mind were the singing Tesla coils.  Someone who was there already put a video of it on youtube.  The sound is coming from the electricity.

Amanda's Senior Recital

My Senior Vocal Recital is coming up in just a few weeks.  It will be on November 22 at 3 p.m. at First English Lutheran Church (3001 Whitis Ave, Austin, Tx).  I will be performing works by various composers including Brahms, Schumann, Haydn, and Debussy.  It should last around 35 minutes and there will be a reception to follow.

Blogger Burnout

Blogging can be lots of fun, but I am burned out for now.  We have been doing lots of new and fun stuff lately and I have picture, I'm just tired of it for a little while, especially with all of my homework that has to been done on the computer....it was all I could do to write this short piece.  I am a bit tired of the computer right now.

Anyway, give me a call if you want to catch up.  I am into the phone since I don't have to do homework on it.  Hope to talk to you soon!

Disney World, here we come

We are leaving for Orlando on Wednesday night.  On Thursday, we are going to Disney World. And on Friday morning, we are coming home.  Our flight and hotel room were gifts from a time share presentation we sat through.  I think we will be going to Epcot.  Pictures to come after our trip!  I am so excited!!!!  I have never been to Disney World before.

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once and a while, you could miss it."

I admit it, I skipped school on Wednesday.  It was worth it.  You should know that I hate school....especially summer school.  Sometimes you need to take a Ferris Bueller day to stay somewhat, emphasizing somewhat, sane.  Grant and I decided to get out and the only thing we could think of to do was to go on the Mission Trail in San Antonio.  We just went to Sea World on Saturday and even though it is my favorite place in the world, we decided  that twice in 5 days was a little much.  In case you didn't know, there are four other Spanish Missions in San Antonio besides the Alamo.  We skipped the Alamo this time because we have already been there on several occasions.

And now, here they are, for the first time on my blog, the less known San Antonio Missions (cue lights and music).

Mission Concepcion

Mission Espada

Mission San Juan

And now my favorite, Mission San Jose.  There are little two-room apartments in the outer wall of this Mission.  They were so cute.  About every 5 or six apartments there was a wood-burning oven outside in the courtyard.  Maybe we will move in to this Mission if I get a job in San Antonio.....seriously, it would be an awesome place to camp or have a retreat, but I don't think the park rangers would like that so much.  This mission was complete with a working mill...pretty high-tech for the 1500s.

I definitely recommend going to see Mission San Jose.  The others are okay if you have nothing else to do, but Mission San Jose is pretty awesome.

My Art Project

In my art class I was assigned a project of creating a representation of power or sacred space.  I could either write 4 pages about what it would look like or I could actually make it.  I chose to make a representation of power.  My picture is of God hand the reigns of the world over to mankind.  Basically, what I am trying to show is that the world was created for man and given to him as a gift.  I worked really hard on it and Grant helped me a lot.  I hope you like it

A lesson learned

If you have these

Get thisA lesson learned on our camping trip to Mustang Island.  This stuff works on mosquitos that appear to come from the Jurassic period.

Grant bought some for a very high price from a travel health company when he got his shots for Costa Rica.  It turns out that someone sells it on Amazon.com for about $7.  I recommend it!  It is in lotion form and therefore has less deet than the sprays.  This company also boasts about its non-absorption into skin.