New adventures for the Tietjens!

(sorry about the silly pics; my mom called my kids and told them to make sure they took pictures of mom on her 1st day of school! LOL)

So a new year has to bring new adventures right?? Well, we are definitely headed into some uncharted territory for us, and only time will tell how this will turn out. I think the events over the past year of loosing everything due to this wonderful economy, has caused me to reflect on how things could have turned out different; my solution was a college degree. I felt like if Devin or I would have had a college degree then we would have definitely had more options and definitely Devin would have had many more doors to open to try and look for work. (not that he would have necessarily found it; I know its really hard right now for even those with amazing education resumes!) I reflected on what I could do to try and help our family if times like this rear their ugly head again. (not that we are through the woods yet!) So school kept coming back to my mind and I tried to talk Devin into it. Telling him that I felt that we have been given an opportunity to get an education and we should jump on it. We don't have a mortgage, or car payments, so why not? (not too sure how much more poor we could be, so why not be poor college students and get something out of it haha!) Despite my best efforts Devin wasn't thrilled about school, but I decided that I could at least take a few classes. So I got all set up, which was SUCH headache, and started classes the 1st week of January. It took a week & a half of me being in school for Devin to catch the bug! He actually came to ME and said, "I'm kinda jealous, I want to go to school..." I laughed so hard while I listened to him tell me all the great reasons he should go, and how fun it would be to go to some classes together! (guess how many of the things he said were the exact words I used to try and convince him of this 6 months ago?!?!) So last week we spent scanning all the classes that were open for Spring late start, got all the financial aid stuff figured out and TADA!!! Devin and I are BOTH students! We are actually only taking one class together, but mostly due to the fact that that there were very few choices for him. So I am taking 3 classes, English 101 (LOVE LOVE LOVE), Computers (with Devin), and Food & Culture (online, just started, looks very promising!) Devin is a crazy person and decided a FULL schedule was the way to start off! He went from not wanting to do school, to deciding to just be a full time student? How does that happen LOL! So he is taking weight training, English, Macroeconomics, History, & Computers. We are both really excited, but ask me around finals & we will see how fun this is. Not sure how everything will work out, 8 kids and two parents in school, BUT I know this is right for us.....crazy, but definitely right!