Fa la la la la.

Christmas break is HERE!! Finally! I stayed up all night Sunday (7:30 am Sunday to 11 pm Monday to be exact... thank you Jesus for the energy you gave me that day!) trying to finish assignments for my last classes on Monday and was ready to welcome Christmas break with open arms.

I still have two "finals." One- a 5 minute french skit that we spent FOUR HOURS recording. 5 minutes... 4 hours. What? The other- super easyyyyy. So basically... I'm done done done. HELLO CHRISTMAS BREAK! Whoooo baby baby.

Christmas break has started off with a bang. Tuesday we had our Christmas Young Life Party. I'm still convinced I have the best looking Young Life team. Really. Look at these faces.

 

Told ya. Go bobcats. 

 

They're kinda sassy too.

random thoughts...

1. Monday nights are the long. Real long. Approximately 3 hours long. 3 long hours of night class. But, it's all worth it when 7:45 rolls around. I'm thankful that Monday nights now consist of carpooling with Chelcie to class, making a fast food run after class (meals under 3 dollars? Yes pleaseee! best decision we've ever made), and then usually over to crossroads! This Monday was a real treat... Chick-fi-la fed us for free! Thanks Chick-fi-la. Thursday mornings are also equally as great thanks to Box Top Thursday and free breakfast!

2. As of yesterday I am going to see Needtobreathe and Ben Rector in Chattanooga. The resulted in lots screaming in the living room with my roommates. I've been trying SO hard to get tickets! I've called the venue 5 times checking for tickets and been looking everyday online for resale tickets. Ahhhh I can't wait!

3. It's finally here. My favorite time of year. FALL. I love every single thing about this season. Leaves changing. Cooler weather. Pumpkins. Pumpkin flavored everything. The return of Pumpkin Spice Lattes. Football. Bonfires. Halloween. Thanksgiving. Really anything and everything related to fall... I love. I'm happy. This season is great. And it's only the beginning!

4. Speaking of fall... Chelcie and I just made these delicious pumpkin cookies. YUM. Delicious. Thanks Pinterest.

5. Windy Gap is this weekend. I'm excited. I'm excited for the kids that are going. I'm excited to see what God has in store for them. I'm excited to watch Him work. I'm excited to spend a weekend at one of my favorite places. I'm excited to be with my teammates and being able to be with our friends from Central together for a whole weekend.

6. Our flag football season ended Monday. Bummer. But I still think we were the best team in the league. I'm not real sure what our team name was? Oh well, go team. Good season. Soccer starts next Wednesday!

7. Remember when I said I was gonna get better at blogging?? Twice in four days!

8. I haven't stopped listening to the new Steve Moakler CD since I got it. It's SO good. So good. If you don't have it... get it. Now. Go. You can thank me later.

Dear blog, I haven't forgotten about you.

I know it's been a long time... A few months really. But I haven't forgotten about you blog! I'm gonna work on blogging more often. (maybe disregard my previous efforts)

But in our time apart, I've...
...moved into a new house! Now, I live with Lindsey, Jamie, Chelcie, and Sarah Hope. They are great. and funny. and awesome. I love it.

This is where Jamie and I like to study sometimes. Multi-purpose room? I think so.

...I've started my senior year of college. WHAT?! How in the world did senior year come so fast? I feel like I just moved into the dorms. But nope... that was 3 years ago. Almost time for the real world. Weird, weird, weird.
...I've been student teaching at Newhopewell Elementary for the past few weeks. Go Owls. I LOVE these kids. I get to spend time with about 15-20 kids from 1st-5th grade. They are SO funny. I love them a little bit more everyday. Sadly, only three more trips to this school! I'm gonna miss these kids so much. BUT, then I get to spend 5 weeks at Central! YAHOO.

...I've been working. Not as much as I was this summer. Just a couple times a week. But something I love about my job- I'm reminded everyday of how funny and quirky people can be. I kind of love it.
...Jesus has reminded me how big his love is over and over again. He's shown me his love is bigger than my selfishness, bigger than my fears, bigger than my need to be constantly in control. He's also shown me how easily I forget he's capable of the impossible and has continued to surprise / remind me of this. And for that I have been so thankful.
...I've been hanging out with these girls. Central High School's finest. They are JUNIORS. I can't believe it. They're funny. They're beautiful. They're full of energy. They make me laugh. They're just all around awesome.

...I found out I'm gonna be an aunt! Well, I'm already an aunt. What I really mean is my sister's having another baby! Little Kyndall will be here in February and I can't wait!!

Well... that's all I've got for now. Missed you blog. Glad we could catch up! Promise I'll be back soon...really!

bring on the sunshine.

It's finally here! Summer. I've been waiting for you. Thanks to the education program, apparently I don't have finals during finals week, so I'm done a week early. And it is SO great. I can't tell you how good it feels to be done. All that's left is a conference with my Reading Ed teacher... we'll see how that one goes. But for now, I'm embracing summer and all it has to offer me. So far (the past 3 days) have been great. And the future looks even better.

Summer so far...

Ice Cream Olympics. Fact- top 5 favorite days of the year. Unfortunately, I had my last class of the semester during it. Butttt I got to show up to see the mess afterwards. It was top notch. Thankfully, I have some great high school friends willing to hug me while they were covered in ice cream, making me feel like I'd been there the whole time.

 

Proud of these girls. True ice cream Olympians right there.

 

All stars. Lookin so good after ice cream wars.

End of the year leadership. Central YL might be the best looking team in Knoxville. It might be a proven fact. Or maybe I'm biased. But I'm leaning towards proven fact. I mean look at these faces.

 

Did I mention we got new leaders? Well, we did. About a month ago. We got SIX. Unbelievable. Lindsey, Abbie, Chelsea, Cayce, Chase, and Conner. They are crazy. And awesome. And funny. And some of my favorite people.

 Here they are running in a flying V around the Fountain City duck pond. Told you they were awesome.

You might not be able to tell what's happening here, but they are chasing and trying to catch ducks. Incredible.

This is a really random post. But it makes me happy. You know what else makes me reallyyyyyyy happy? Christine came to town this weekend. It was SO good to hang out with her. Missed her. Plus Olivia was there. and her precious 8 year old friends. We played the "Favorites" game for hours. Followed by truth or dare... you've never truly played truth or dare til you've played with 8 year olds.

One last thing that makes me happy- Matt comes back from Rome this week. WHOOO!

Finally. Summer 2011 Goal: Blog more. Maybe. We'll see. I have high hopes and see great potential in the thought. 

Stone Age Sassies.

I got to spend a whole week with these girls at Camp Koinonia. We like to call ourselves the Stone Age Sassies. (Camp Theme = time travel) These girls taught me so much, made me laugh so hard, and showed me so much Jesus in the way they loved. And these girls are so brave and adventurous-  we went horseback riding, canoeing, made arts and crafts, shot rifles and bow & arrows, and danced & sang any chance we got. I really don't even know what to say about this week except that it was so wonderful. And I wish SO much that you could spend the time with these girls that I got to spend because each one of them is SO stinkin awesome.

Meet some of my friends...

This is my friend Cassie! I got to hang out with her all week. She's awesome and can ride a horse like nobody's business.

Amber might be the most loving person I've ever met. And she gives great hugs.

 

The talent was probably my favorite moment at camp. Every cabin group got up in front of the camp and sang and danced to their favorite songs and yelled cabin cheers at the end. You can probably imagine there were lots of Beiber fans- at least half the performances were to "Baby"

 

Love birds: Kara and Shawn Mullins. My favorite couple.

 

Though Amber and Eric are pretty up there too...Eric can be a little flirt, Amber had to remind him of the one girlfriend rule a couple of times.

The boys LOVED dancing with Cassie...and Cassie LOVED dancing with them

Oh man I miss these kids. Camp Koinonia you were so good.

Study break.

For some reason, the only times I blog (which let's be honest, it doesn't happen that often) are the times I times when I should be doing school work. Like right now. I SHOULD be writing my paper. But what better way to get my fingers to typing and my mind in writing mode? Because my mind definitely is not in school mode right this second. Instead, I'm thinking about how in two days the car will be packed up and we will be headed to the beach!! One more day of classes. One day of work. Then up bright and early Saturday morning and we're off to Clearwater. I. Cannot. Wait. I need to get out of Knoxville. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Knoxville. In fact, I'm usually sad to leave it. But right now, the thought of getting away from school and busyness has never sounded so good. A whole week of lying on the beach and not having a to-do list sounds so wonderful.

A few things I've been meaning to blog about:
1. DANCE PARTYYYYYY- 90s themed. Strobe light. Spice Girls. Jerseys. Destiny's Child. Neon shorts. Bright shoes. Britney Spears. Jumpsuits. Pleather. Overalls. Celebrating the birth of Jamie Long. I think this was the best dance party yet.

Get it girls

You can't really tell what's going on here. But I also don't have any words to describe it. You can use your imagination.

 2. Capernaum Club- holy moly. Talk about awesome. there are no words to describe how much I loved this. I got to take 6 kids from Central to join a roomful of kids from all around Knoxville that have special needs for a Young Life club just for them. They LOVED it. Justin Bieber even made a few appearances. My favorite part? Sean sitting behind me saying "This is the happiest I've ever been in my life, I think I'm gonna cry!" It was so wonderful. Basically, everyone got to spend the afternoon just being themselves, hearing about  how much Jesus loves them, singing, and tying it all together with a dance party at the end. So so great. I wish these happened more often. One thing I wish I did- take pictures. Shoot.

3. Kaitlyn's Engagement Party- Saturday Lindsey, Laura, Emily, and I headed to Nashville to celebrate with Kaitlyn and her friends and family that SHE'S GETTING MARRIED. So excited for her. I loved seeing her so happy to be surrounded by people she loves. The party was in the coolest barn that belonged to Kaitlyn's fiance Matt's family. It was so pretty! The party was filled with lots of dancing and delicious food (two words- chocolate. fountain. YUM). It was wonderful. Congrats Kaitlyn and Matt- can't wait til the wedding!

Tomorrow night- Gym Night. All of our campers and their parents for Camp Koinonia are coming to mingle and play some games and get to know each other a little better. It's going to be so great. I've already met my camper Cassie a couple times. She's awesome. I am so looking forward to spending a whole week with her. Did I mention our cabin name is the Stone Aged Sassies? Perfect. I cannot wait for tomorrow night. Or to be at camp. Hurry up April 10!

Alright... time to finish that paper. Then it's spring break for me! Clearwater, here I come!

it's been too long...

Missed you blog. I promise I have a good excuse this time- I haven't had a computer for about 20 days. The month before that? I have no excuses... But now thanks to Beezy for pretending to be my dad, the Apple store gladly returned my computer to me.

Just to mention Christmas Break... it was great. Besides working at an ice skating rink. It was SO cold. But I got to work with Lindsey, Ryan, and Scott and got to make some interesting friends. But it was still cold. Christmas was wonderful. The break overall was so refreshing and much needed. It mostly included some fort building, game nights, family time, a birthday hike and a couple of celebrations, and a LOT of sleep. It was awesome.

For now, school is going again (unfortunately... summer- hurry up!) But I reallyyyy love my classes this semester. They're all education classes, and then for one of them I get to spend a week at a camp for kids with special needs. It's going to be SO great.

Thankfully this semester my roommates and I get to return to our Monday night tradition of roommate dinners. It's the only night of the week we can all get together and hang out since all of our schedules are so crazy. We couldn't have roommate dinners last semester because none of our schedules matched up. Lindsey started it up last week and made chicken casserole that was sooooo good. Then I made this buffalo chicken pizza tonight that Delaney and I make sometimes. We keep meaning to take a picture of roommate dinner but always forget. But here's one of my roommates. They're the coolest people you'll probably ever meet.

Well that's all I got. I don't really know how to wrap this up... so here's some highlights from Christmas Break. 

Oh... and Happy Birthday Matt!! Miss you BFF.