My Christmas Holiday....

This year's Christmas has been by far the most different to me, but at the same time probably the best! Here is a run down of how things went for me this season...

My Dad's side of the family come to my parent's house the Sunday before Christmas. It is a lot of fun to play 'dirty santa' with them and celebrate the holiday.

I then drove back to Kennesaw for the week because I had to work! I got back in town Christmas Eve and my Mom's side of the family came over! We all exchange gifts, eat yummy food and enjoy each other's company since most of us don't get to see each other a lot. There were a few families missing and it wasn't the same without them, but it was still nice to enjoy the ones who were there!

Once everyone leaves, my immediate family does Christmas on Christmas Eve (not quite the traditional way, i know) . We've done it like this my whole life because Santa brings all of his gifts Christmas day, so we enjoy the family gifts the night before! Danial was a new addition to our family Christmas and it was really nice having him around! I can honestly say, that having him was the best Christmas present I could have gotten!

We also have an exchange student staying with my parents for a year, her name is Saliha! She is from Germany (she's actually Turkish) and she has been a fun addition to the Therber family events! I really enjoy the time I spend with her when I get to go home! Christmas Morning Danial and I got up early and drove to his parent's house in Calhoun, which is about 30 minutes away! We opened presents with his family, had a delicious breakfast and then took a nap, hung out with the family and then his mom's side of the family came over to exchange gifts!

This year was different for me in a few ways. I have been working a lot this semester and have not taken out the normal loan that I would other semesters and so I've had to rely on working to pay my bills. Most semesters I would be able to be home all of Christmas break, but because of my dedication to work, I was only able to be home a total of about a week. Since I had to work so much, I didn't have much time for Christmas shopping and had to do all of it last minute, although I knew in my head what all I was looking for. Danial and I didn't spend much and were actually blessed with a few of the things we wanted to get our families! This year has really made me understand what it means to value the true meaning of Christmas and not get so caught up in the commercial aspect of Christmas!

I think things have hit home with my family and I. Things are never going to be the same because I now have responsibilites and commitments to other things that keep me away from home more so than not! It's going to be something we'll have to get use to, but it really allows us to enjoy and appreciate the time we do get to spend together!

I have fallen in love with my soon to be second family. Danial has a great family and I feel so blessed to have such great future in-laws! They treat me like their own and I feel so at home when I'm with them! Nothing can take the place of my family, but they would definitely be my pick of a second family!!!!


Once Christmas was over, my mom, my sister, Tabatha (getting married in Sept), Tab's mom, Megan, Erin and I went wedding dress shopping :) It was a lot of fun and I think I found the style of dress that I like! I'm really excited to start the planning now that Christmas is over and I look forward to all the fun adventures of being engaged to Danial and planning our wedding!!!

p.s. The date has been set to November 7, 2009..... more to come :)

The 'not so healthy' me....

is GETTING BACK INTO SHAPE!!!

I have officially become disgusted with my body(not that I'm not satisfied with what God has given me, but the fact that I have stopped taking care of myself)!

Over the past year (not quite that long) I have allowed myself to gain about 13 lbs due to a lack of working out and eating whatever I feel like!

Danial and I have gone back and forth with wanting to work out and eat healthy the 7 mos that we've been together and finally decided that today would start our "honeymoon diet". We've decided to work out together so that we'll get into the habit together and hopefully continue to work out together when we're married because to be honest, when I'm actually in the rhythm of working out, i really enjoy it. I'm also going to stop eating my routine bowl of ice cream each night, potato chips and soda.

Danial came over at 9:00 this morning and we went and worked out. Can I just say, that it took all I had to do the stair stepper for 15 mins and the elliptical for 10. I have never felt so out of shape and grose!!!! We then came to my house and had a healthy lunch! My goal is to lose 3 to 4 lbs by next Monday!

My long term goal is 16 lbs (and i know some of you are thinking that I can't afford to lose 16 lbs, but trust me, I CAN!!!).

I can still wear most of all my clothes, although none of them fit the same and I have lost the energy that I use to have when I was working out on a regular basis! So...hopefully I will stick to this and get back to my lifestyle of working out on a regular basis and at the same time, not eat junk food all the time!

Let me know if you want to join me :) and I can't wait to tell you when Danial and I have both met our goals.... we'll keep you posted!

Life long friends...

Saturday afternoon, Danial and I ventured down 85 to visit Meredith and Craig! Meredith has been such a close friend of mine since middle school and between her and Craig being in Gainesville and me being in school, it's been hard getting together! We went to dinner at Olive Garden, stopped at Krispy Kreme on the way home, watched a little football and their wedding video and went to church with them this morning!

On the way home Danial and I talked about how much we enjoyed getting to talk to them and spend time with friends that will always be there when you need them! Craig and Mere had some great advice to give us "Mr. and Mrs. to be". It so great getting to see their new BEAUTIFUL house.

Mere and Craig have been so blessed and I'm so excited to witness their future adventures and blessing!!!! I love them so much and am glad that I get to share their friendship with Danial!

The Engagement...

I thought the best way to share the news with you would be to walk you all through the sweet, creative and thoughtful way Danial proposed to me!


Monday was my birthday and Danial asked me several weeks ago where I wanted to go to dinner. I told him Bahama Breeze! I know I work there, but I never get to enjoy it since I do work there, so I thought it would be nice to spend my birthday at one of my favorite restaurants.

I was told to be ready at 6:00 pm and of course I was cutting it close, like always! Danial calls me around 5 til and tells that there's something at my front door for me! I ran down stairs and found a yellow envelop that said Clue 1 on it!



Here are my envelopes that I found throughout the night!


















The answer to this clue was Starbucks




















The envelope contained typed out instructions along with my first clue to the scavenger hunt that he was going to be sending me on for the night! Keep in mind, at this point I had no idea, i just thought he was being very creative for my birthday b/c the whole time he has told me that he hopes I've never been to where he is taking me for my birthday!!!

I finished fixing my hair and then head out to the first place of the scavenger hunt, Starbucks(where we first sat down and had coffee and got to know each other)!

At Starbucks, I found clue 2 and the clues followed like this......





The answer to this one was Taco mac (where we went to eat after the youth retreat we both worked, which was where everything started between us)























The answer to this one was Shogun (the japanese stk house that we actually went to was in cartersville and the part about 'a good sense of direction' is an inside joke)
























The answer to this one was my house















Once I got to my house Danial was standing there waiting on me and like any girl, my first thought was, "where's my gift?" hahahaha... He told me that he had another clue in his car and so when he opened the door for me to get in I found clue 5.







We went to Bahama Breeze for dinner and it was delicious! I had steak and chicken kabobs and Danial had the shrimp and lobster pasta, YUM YUM!













What was so funny about dinner was the booth that our greeter, Bianca, sat us at's light was burnt out and so my friend Dennis went outside and got a candle from the patio and made us a 'candle lit dinner'. It was so cute! ANYWAYS.... once dinner was over I had my last clue in the car waiting on me that said....






















So....Danial blind folded me so that I wouldn't have a hint as to where he was taking me (little did I know, he was really just driving up and down Barrett Parkway several times so that I wouldn't know we were headed straight back to our campus!






This was where it all went down. This is where Wesley met every Wednesday in the spring, which is where we met for the first time!













Once we got to where he was taking me he continued to keep me blind folded and walked me to where I was going to get my birthday present! We walked for what seemed like a mile, but was really only about 200 feet. He sat me down and told me that he was going to place my present on my lap. He put a box that was wrapped on my lap and when he took the blind fold off he was down on one knee and immediately tears streamed down my face! I was so overwhelmed that I didn't really hear half of the things he told me, luckily he typed out what he said for me to read later, ha!

Once I gave him a hug and said yes(not even caring that there was a ring involved) my family and his family all popped out from hiding!!! It was a great end to a perfect night! We then went back to Danial's house where he had a lot of my friends waiting for us to celebrate with us!













































I couldn't have asked for a more perfect proposal and a better fiance :)! I hope you all enjoyed my story and I look forward to sharing this journey with you! Danial and I are so excited, YAY!

***If you go back to the first four clues that I shared with you, each of them have several letters that are white and they spell out individual words that are hidden within the riddles! The first clue contains WILL, the second clue contains YOU, third MARRY and fourth ME! he was very creative with everything :)

Viewer discretion is advised....

So all semester I have been dissecting things in my Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy class! This has been, by far, the hardest class I've ever taken. Throughout the semester I've written 5 essays and after each of those essays I've had to grade 3 of my peer's papers, we've taken 2 lecture test and I'm about to take the 3rd test in lab.

Lab has been my favorite part of the class, lecture is another story!!! Our first animal that we dissected was a dogfish shark(I named mine Harvey)! We then dissected a mudpuppy and I can't remember what I named her :(.

Our last assignment for lab has been to dissect a cat. My cat is HUGE, I think one of the parents was a tiger,ha!!! I named my cat Mr. Whiskers!

I also have met a really good friend in this class (we've had other classes together before) and her name is Jana. She's such a sweet girl and we work so well together!!!

I thought I'd share a few pictures of what lab is like everyday!





This is Jana :)

















Meet Mr. Whiskers
















This is Jana's cat completely revealed!
(Mine wasn't so pretty)

Our family dog is missing...

Sunday night my parents let our family dog(fergison) out to go potty before bed. It was around 9:00 pm and after several minutes, my mom went to call him back in b/c he had not come to the door and he wasn't anywhere in sight! My family looked for him until about 11:30 and then called it a night!

My family is really upset and has called anyone and everyone, the vet, pound, friends and family, radio stations and my mom is putting an article in the paper today! They put fliers out Monday afternoon and a lady called saying she had seen him that morning, but it was a really weird story that didn't make much sense!

Needless to say, our family still doesn't have fergison and we're not sure what's happened to him. At first we thought maybe a coyote had gotten him, but we haven't found any signs of that.

We're praying that an honest person has picked him up and will hopefully return him sooner than later! It breaks my heart, one bc my family loves him and even though he's just a dog, he's a part of the family! My dad is taking it really hard and that makes things worse! I also hope that if he's not dead somewhere that he's not too sad, although I know he has to be b/c he's with someone strange!

I'll keep you guys posted and I hope fergison comes home!

November 6, 2008

This date marked Danial and I's 6 months! I know, I know... we've got a long way to go :) It's weird that in some ways it seems like we've been together forever, but in some ways it seems like we haven't been together long at all!



Thursday, Danial and I celebrated by going to dinner at P.F. Changs! It's become one of our favorites and we still had a gift card that we needed to use, so we figured why not enjoy a great dinner at a reasonable price!



I thought I'd get him something, not expecting anything in return of course, b/c it was only our 6 mos. anyways, right! I went to steinmart a

few days earlier and picked him out a really cute outfit b/c he's been in need of some jeans and I figured I'd get him a button up to match ;) He loved it!



Danial actually got me something, which he usually always does and it was a really thoughtful, but different gift! He got me a coffee mug (for hot chocolate), a movie for us to watch that night after dinner (sleepless in Seatle) and some pjs b/c I LOVE PJ'S! so.....why so weird....well... b/c the pj's are a full length, footed, ONSIE!!!!!! hahahahahahaha..... they're the most amazing thing I've ever owned and have worn them almost every night since he got them for me :) I love them and they'll probably be one of my favorite gifts that he'll ever get me!



I figured I'd share a picture with you :)

Weekend in Knoxville

Danial and I went to Knoxville this past weekend! His Dad's family all live there and his Cousin, Spencer, plays for Maryville College. We went up to watch his game (senior night) and spend the weekend with the family. We drove up early Saturday morning b/c we had to work Friday night! We followed his sister and brother-in law up there and stopped at Waffle House on the way!


The beautiful drive up to Knoxville

Danial's Sister Staci, husband David and their son, Jackson



Danial's dad, mom and a few of their friends



Danial's Grandmother, Ann


Spencer, Danial's cousin

We went to the game, which they won and then ate at TGI Fridays after it was over! That night we stayed at his Grandmother's house! We then went to church with her in the morning, helped her get her Christmas tree down from the Attic and had a yummy breakfast before we headed home!

We had such a great time and hope to visit more often! The weather was perfect and the trees were so beautiful, I love fall!

Pumpkin Carving....I know, a little behind :)

Danial and I carved our first pumpkin together!!!We looked on the internet for awhile, trying to decide what to carve and we found a Lady and the Tramp picture and loved it!!! Here is our huge, awesome pumpkin....





The finished product!

We were proud

Danial did a lot of the hard work :)

Our pretty pumpkin with the dog's pumpkins

Lilly got her own pumpkin

Mojo's pumpkin (doesn't it look just like him)

Picture update

Here are some pictures from the night Danial and I had dinner with Mere and Craig! Sorry it took so long :)

The Four of us!

I love Mere and Craig

PF Changs is one of my favorite restuarants and I love getting to go there :) Danial had never been there before he met me and now he loves it as much as I do!

"Five"

Ten years ago I....
1. Was in Middle school (8th grade, and 13)
2. I had just got back from a trip to Brazil
3. I was cheering for Lakeview Middle School
4. I had my first real boyfriend named Josh ( i think we were still together)
5. I had just become really good friends with Meredith and Tiffany

Five things on my to-do list today...
1. Study for my class
2. get some pictures put on a cd
3. keep calling my parents to find out if our dog has been found :(
4. spend some time with Danial at some point
5. go to work this afternoon (i think i have to be there at 6)

Five snacks I enjoy...
1. a big bowl of icecream!
2. tomato, basil wheat thins
3. fruit (if someone will wash and cut it for me)
4. any kind of chips...I LOVE CHIPS!
5. sweety & salty popcorn with a coke zero

Five things I would do if I were a millionaire...
1. pay off all my school debt :)
2. buy my dad his dream car, a dodge viper and of course give some to my mom
3. get Danial whatever car he would like
4. open up a hospital for people who couldn't afford healthcare
5. travel the world!!!!!!!!!

Five places I've lived...
1. Battlefiend Estates -where I grew up
2. Dailey Hill - where my parents live now
3. Kennesaw- freshman dorms (more like luxury apt) with three girls -meg, erin and nicole!!!
4. Cleveland- I went to Lee for a year and lived with Meredith and Brittney, fun times...
5. Now I live in Kennesaw again in a townhouse that my parents bought. my roomates have been, my sis(moved back home)... then Megan(graduated and is now back in chatt. working at the childrens ER... and now a girl who's name is also Lindsey(just got engaged, graduating from nursing in the summer and will be moving to fl)

Five jobs I have worked...
1. Chili's-first job
2. O'Charley's- 3 yrs
3. Ridgedale-summer camp counselor
4. Lifeguard- several summers worth
5. Bahama Breeze-currently paying my bills while still in school!

I tag Staci, Tiffany and whoever else hasn't been tagged!

I'VE BEEN TAGGED

...I figured this would get around to me!

7 things about myself (these are always hard for me)

1. I love fall! I also love the cold weather! I sometimes, eventually get tire of the cold, but really I think i could do without summer, b/c I enjoy summer for about two weeks and then I'm over it! I think I get that from my Dad.

2. I am a huge family person! I love my friends and probably have some of the greatest friends, but if I didn't have any friends and only hung out with my immediate and extended family, I would be completely content! I have the greatest family ever....

3. I'm horrible at taking pictures and need a new camera desperately! I never take pictures for any occasion, even if I take a camera with me! I'm horrible at it and am hoping that if and when I ever get a new camera that that will change b/c I love the memories and I really like to scrapbook when I have the time!

4. I love to dance and sing and just act crazy sometimes, more often than none really! I am very random and have a really goofy side that some people don't ever get to see! I make really off the wall comments and just love to have fun with life and laugh until I cry!

5. I am a very impatient person! I have gotten better with this, especially while driving. I use to get sooooo aggrivated with people b/c of how horrible they drive, but now I try and have a little simpathy. I don't like waiting, I hate being late (although sometime I am late myself) and I loose attention easy if things get drawn out or boring!

6. My favorite t.v. station is Tru t.v. ("not reality, actuality") I love the forensic files, world's craziest videos, cops, all the shows that come on this station. Also, one of my favorite shows is Law and Order, SVU! I could watch them all day!

7. I love to be alone! As much of a people person that I am, I love to have my Lindsay time! I lived alone for awhile close to a year ago and I loved it! I like to have my time to relax, take a break from entertaining someone, spend time with Jesus, or just to be by myself! It never really gets to happen much anymore and that's ok b/c I spend most of my time with Danial and I wouldn't trade that for anything, but every once and awhile, it's nice to spend a little time to myself! It would be fun, to me, if for one Saturday, I could stay in my p.js and watch movies non stop from the time I got up until I went to bed :) lets be honest though... I would end up asking Danial to come over and join...well... maybe after a movie or two, haha!

I tag Staci and Posey!

Three girls and a Wedding!

This weekend one of my friends from college got married to a guy from Cleveland who went to Lee (kind of funny) Anyways... they met when he moved down here to work for the church that she also works at!

The wedding was beautiful and the food was sooooooooo delicious!

My best friend, Megan, was in the wedding and Tabatha came down for the wedding as well! After the wedding was over, the girls came back to my place and stayed the night! It was so much fun catching up and spending time together.... we even took a 2:00AM trip to Waffle House!





Danial and I at the wedding



Megan, Tabatha and Allison



The Waffle House trip

After almost six months of being together....

Danial finally got to meet one of my best friends in the whole world!!!

Thursday, Danial and I decided we would eat at P.F Changs for our date night since my mom had given us a 'buy one, get one free entree'(we didn't get to use it this trip...but that's another story)! I then immediately thought of inviting Meredith and Craig to join us since they love that place as much as I do and we had yet to get together since Danial and I had been together!!!!!

We drove out to the mall of Georgia area to meet them and we had a great time! It was nice catching up and for them to finally meet my sweet heart :) I miss them more than anything and do not get to take advantage of how close they are because of how busy all our lives are, so when it happens it's such a great pleasure! I can't wait to do it again and make a longer night of it!!!!!

I took pictures of that night, but for some reason that usb is not working right on my computer so I'll have to hold off on posting them! I'm sorry... i'll post them as soon as I can figure out the problem!

.......... We also picked out a pumkin that afternoon before we had dinner and was suppose to carve it when we got home, but it was too late! Hopefully we'll carve it soon and that will be another post for another time!

When will I ever graduate......

I've waited awhile to talk about this, mostly because I haven't had a chance to talk about it, but also because I'm finally coming to the realization of the issue!

I sat down with the advisor over the Biology department a few weeks ago and realized that my advisor, myself and the registrar's office missed a class that I have to take to graduate( I even had my appeal approved to graduate months ago and have been getting graduation things in the mail)!

After a few hours of crying, questioning, and talking things over.... I realized that everything happens for a reason, even having to stay in college another semester for just one class, which was what I did this semester!!!

This past sunday's service helped confirm that God wants me at Kennesaw for another semester for a reason. My Pastor from home along with good friends of ours Curtis and his wife were talking about the river flowing. No matter where the river takes me, I'm not going to get in the way! I want to 'be in the boat'!!!! I don't know what the reason is for me staying another semester...maybe God wants me there to continue the bible study I have and to stay involved with Wesley. Maybe he knows that something better will work out for me if I wait to look for a job in the summer opposed to the first of the year... I have no idea, all I know is his plans are greater than mine!!!!

I'm really ready to get out of college for awhile and have been, but I've finally become ok with the idea of waiting a few more months to graduate! God knows what's best for me and obviously it wasn't time for me to start life in the 'real world' yet and so I'm willing to wait for his timing!

Until then... i'm still going to class, writing papers and studying for test...FUN FUN!

Thursday nights are my favorite!

Danial and I have set aside one night out of the week, that we dedicate to us!!! No matter what is going on during the week, we know that Thursday will be him and I and we get to do whatever we want, as long as we're together hanging out! A lot of the times we spend it alone, usually fixing dinner together, playing cards, working on a puzzle, or watching a movie. It's hard to make it a 'go out' night since we're trying to save money, that we don't really have to begin with :). This past week our Wesley group planned an event to play glow in the dark putt-putt, also known as monster golf! Only about 6 people showed up, but we had a great time! Danial and I dressed up as Danny and Sandy from Grease. If you dress up, you get a key and you get to go back in a few weeks to try and unlock a chest that is full of all kind of cool prizes(we're going for the wii). We took some pictures on our friends camera so hopefully I can post some soon :) After it was all over we went and had mexican food (we changed out of our costumes, haha) and then still had time to watch a movie after that! We had a great time and I love spending Thursdays with him.... it's something that we both look forward to b/c quality time is hard to come by during the week!

Not much to say!

I just wanted to write really quick to say sorry! I haven't posted anything in awhile for several reasons!

1. I haven't really had a lot of time
2. I haven't had anything to talk about and...
3. the things I could talk about would be crazy, not so fun, things going on in life right now... so....

When I have a little more time to sit down and write, I'll catch you all up on things that have been going on. Unfortunately for college students... things are not quite as exciting. I work, study, do homework, and that's about it :)

But hopefully some new and fun things are soon to come.

Much love...XOXOXOXOXO

A 'not so good' start to the week...

This weekend was the ladies trip to Savannah, which was great! It was really nice to have some girl time and to spend some much needed 'quality time' with my mom! I love my mom so much and she has no idea how much I really miss getting to see her everyday!

Tonight I had to go into work, from being off all weekend, it was not the most exciting thing ever! I got there at 4:00 and to make a long story short... I left around 9:00 with 11.00$ in my pocket!!!!

I had two tables the whole five hours that I was at Bahama Breeze tonight... sad night, I know! It's really hard going to work right now, knowing that it could possibly be really slow (especially during the week) due to how bad the economy is. The road that leads to the Bahama Breeze parking lot was completely blocked almost the entire night from the HUGE LINE at the gas station, one of the few that has gas at 4.80$, right next door!

I thank God that I was able to make 11.00$, since it's better than nothing, and am praying that things will get better soon....

Sept. 15, 2008

Today I got a phone call from my dad at 3:28pm telling me that Karen Sherman passed away!

I talked to him this morning and he had told me that she was sitting up in her bed talking some, when before that she had been kind of out of it! Later today I talked to Karen's niece, Katie, and she said they had taken 1000 cc's of fluid off her abdomen, which made her feel a lot better!

It helps to know that she was hopefully not in as much pain today and was able to enjoy her family some!

She will definitely be missed!!! She was such a sweet person and never missed an event that her kids and nieces were involved in! I know that God is going to take care of her family and surround them with so much love and support!

Life is so hard sometimes, I can't imagine going through things without the Lord on my side!

My heart is broken!

This morning I was woke with a phone call from my mom telling me that a good friend of our family "probably won't make it through today!!!"

Growing up I shared a backyard with one of my best friends from school, Katie! Her cousin's use to live next door to my parents (before I was born) and I actually was named after their youngest daughter! Their family is very close and Katie's mom has a twin whom was born with Scoliosis! She happen to be born before they had all the new treatments for this and when they did come out with ways to treat it, she was too old!

She has been going through a lot the past several months, not being able to work while being in and out of the hospital. Her husband, Garland is a great friend to my dad, one who comes to the house every Wednesday to play cards, and also is currently working with my parents on flipping a house. We have been on vacation with their family and had many great memories from sports to proms to buisness arrangements and just fun get togethers!

Karen, the lady I'm talking about is so young and has two kids, a boy who is a year older than me, and a daughter who is several years older than me! My dad called me this afternoon and said that he was going to the hospital to stop by. They have moved her to a room and told the family that there is nothing they can do. They actually told the family last night that she wasn't suppose to make it through the night and she's still holding on!

I'm not sure how all of this is suppose to play out, all I know is my God is bigger than all of this! Karen has been through so much and I know that she would be so much better off in heaven although it breaks me heart to think that she would be leaving her husband and kids here at such a young age!

My prayer is that God wraps them all up and comforts them through this horrible time! I can't imagine losing a parent.... my heart is completely broken for the whole family and I am praying that God is glorified in this extremely hard time!

An update on my dad...

My dad has an appointment on Tuesday morning for a heart cath! Hopefully they will go in and realize that a minor surgery will fix it and they don't have to do open heart surgery!!! It's crazy to think that my 52 year old dad could possibly be faced with open heart surgery! :( I know that God has a plan and he is completely in control of the situation!!! Please keep our family in your prayers and I will keep you all updated!

Prayer for my dad...

God is so faithfull...

a quick update:
I was able to get enough money to stay in school, yay, praise the Lord!!!

Now for the next miracle...

My Dad had to go in for an EKG several days ago and it came back abnormal. Yesterday they did a stress test on him and realized he has some blockage in his heart :( We haven't found out when, but the doctors are calling us back to let us know when he needs to come in and have a Heart Cath. to figure out where the blockage is so they can go in a fix it!

God never lets us down and I know that he will come through for my DAD! Please pray that everything will be alright and that through this my dad can grow closer to God :) Thanks and love you all!

surprises aren't always so exciting!

So... I haven't been able to blog for awhile because life has been a little CRAZY! I started school of course and two weeks ago got a job, YAY!!! I'm working at a restaurant here in Kennesaw called Bahama Breeze! If you've never been there, you should try it, and if you're not from Kennesaw, it's worth the drive :) Anyways....

For the past two weeks I have been at Bahama Breeze training and have had maybe 2 or 3 days off. In between that I have had class on Tuesaday and Thursdays plus trying to study and keep up with my class. This class I am taking requires so much work, I've never felt so overwhelmed with ONE class!

So... I had a meltdown yesterday, yes those happen every once and awhile! I have been waiting on my financial aid since school started. A few things that have been put on hold while waiting for this money has been my book, for the class that I am three weeks into, my comcast bill and groceries! So here's how the story goes...

...Since i had assumed that my money would come this week, it was suppose to be in last week with everyone else's, I used my roomates rent money to help buy my book today. I also used part of it for the comcast bill, yes, things are tight :)! Anyways, yesterday I called the financial aid department because I didn't understand what was taking so long and they informed me that I wasn't recieving my money because I wasn't taking at least 6 hours worth of credits! so.... had they told me that THE FIRST TIME I WENT TO THEIR OFFICE TO ASK ABOUT THE MONEY, I would have been able to add a class and therefore recieved my money. Since yesterday was the first I had heard of this crazy rule, it is now too late to add a class and I have until next week, the 11th, to come up with $1200.00 or my class is dropped and I don't get to graduate!

So of course I had my cry session and still am just going on hope and faith that somehow God is going to provide the money for me so that I can finish my degree and move on with my life! It's crazy how things happen when you least expect it and it totally changes your life (or so you think it changes your life)! I have no doubt that things are going to work out, it's definitely a challange for me to let God be in control of this one!

To move on to a more exciting topic... I had my first section tonight on my own :) I took my last test (the fifth one) tonight before my shift and am officially a server! It was a lot of fun to finally get out on my own and make some money! I only had two tables, but the tables I did have, one being Danial and some of his friends, haha, definitely treated me great and overall it was a fun night and I learned a lot! Tomorrow and Saturday night are my last two nights with two tables.. hopefully I get the hang of the computer system and will be completely comfortable come Monday when I actually start a real shift with three tables!!!

Life goes on and things always work out... I'm staying positive and looking forward to seeing how God blesses me :)

A small wake up call...

So.... I just finished my first week of school, wow! I can't believe it's already that time again and before we know it fall will be in full gear! I am only taking one class this semester, which I'm really excited about, although the class I am taking is the hardest class of my major. I'm taking Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy and the professor is by far one of the hardest professors in our department!

This week we are in charge of going to lab on our own (b/c labs don't officially start until next week) and learning about Hemichordates which are marine invertebrates which use to be a member of the phylum Chordata, blah blah blah...ANYWAYS!!!
I have a test that I have to take over all the material Tuesday. Needless to say, this semester is going to be full of extra time in the lab studying dissected shark, mudpuppys and cats, writing essays over chapters in our book and taking about 6 test overall for just this one class!!!

I have been trying really hard to keep other things in my life a priority as well, b/c sometime school can get overwhelming and can become my 'life'! i was at the gym this week and while i was there one day i decided to ride the bike and watch a little TV. On one of the walls there are about 6 screens and so i was torn between the news and the Olympic ping pong matches. There were two girls riding bikes next to me and they were also watching the news...

The news was talking about a teacher who was being charged for having a 'relationship' with a student. One of the girls next to me was going on and on about how she couldn't believe that would happen and in my mind I was thinking "why is this girl making a big deal about this, it happens all the time." Then I was stopped and couldn't believe that I had just thought that! I realized that i had become so insensitive to this sort of stuff b/c of the commonality of the situation! I hate that because our world has become so corrupt and full of sin that Christians like myself look past it all and think of it as something that "happens all the time"!

I'm not really sure how to go about fixing this yet, but I've definitely made myself well aware of the fact that I should look at things a lot differently. It also reminds me to have no tolerance of sin and I'm praying that the Lord can completely make me disgusted with the things of this world!!!

Cookie Monster

So... Danial likes to call me the Cookie Monster because I'm always baking something. I love to cook and I always find excuses to make the best homemade cookies around :) (Hopefully you all can try one sometime) Well... i'm dissapointed that I didn't get a picture of it, but a few days ago I got a call from a friend of mine that is in Wesley. She told me that our Wesley leader (David) just gave her his Wesley credit card to go buy stuff to make cookies for a freshman event they were having at school!!! Needless to say... We were in charge of baking almost 2000 cookies... yes, 2000!!!! I started Thursday afternoon and finished them yesterday around 2:00 in the afternoon! I ended up baking about 500 myself... It was fun, but I'm glad it's over!!! If anyone needs advice on baking cookies... I've got it down to an art, HA! Lets just say, Danial had a great excuse to call me the 'Cookie Monster' the past few days!

Girl and God time :)

I wanted to let everyone know that starting next week I will be leading a girls bible study at my house. The girls are from my Wesley group that I attend and one of the girls, Sarah, will be helping me! I'm only taking one class this semester, which will finish my major here at Kennesaw (YAY) and so I was very excited how God worked things out for me to be a small group leader for Wesley! I met with Sarah last night and had been praying prior to her coming over. We both shared our thoughts and Ideas and realized that we were both on the same track! I gave her a few ideas of what I had done in the past and I think we've decided to study the women of the Bible, since I enjoyed it so much before and she said some girls had mentioned doing something along those lines last year!!!

I say all this to ask you to join me in praying that God can be glorified through all of us girls this semester and that our intentions in this group will be nothing but for his purpose!!! I'm so excited about this and hope to show God to these girls in a different way and at the same time grow in my walk!

Thanks and I love you all....I can't wait to share more throughout the year!

Michigan...Where 'EVERYTHING' is better!

So... My family had debated on where to go this year for the longest time. We wanted to go somewhere different because we have a time share that we can use, but because of the gas prices and other reasons we decided to drive up to michigan and stay with some friends of ours! Danial went with us and my Aunt Chris and her two girls flew up and joined us for the week.... nothing like a week with your cell phone turned off and spending time with the people you love most :)

I have to say, this probably has been one of my favorite vacations! We had the best time... everyone got along, we did more than you could imagine in one vacation and the weather was more than perfect!!!

We left out on Friday evening about 9:00 PM and drove through louisville and decided to stop right outside of Indianapolis at about 3:30 AM. We woke up the left out the next morning at 8:00, had to eat at Waffle House and was back on the road. Of course when we first arrived in Holland, MI we had to eat at skiles pizza whom my dad claims has the best pizza around, and he's probably correct, it is delicious!




Sunday we went to visit my great Aunt and Uncle. My Uncle Truman had a stroke and is in worse health than my Aunt Artie so she has to take care of him! My Aunt Artie is none like any other person on this Earth, thank the Lord, hahaha....SHE'S CRAZY, but I love her!




After that we went out with her daughter's family (my dad's first cousin, The Teermans) on their boat to lake Michigan! It was such a beautiful day and we had a blast... Their boat is about a 35 ft. cabin cruiser..... we anchored and went and played on the sand dunes and just relaxed!










Monday we first had to eat at Russ' for breakfast! They have the greatest pig in the blankets that ever exist :) We then drove around town "site seeing" and then that afternoon we headed up further north to stay at our friends lake house in Hart, MI!

Tuesday was lake day...... we spent the whole day skiing, tubing and jetskiing :) enough said...









Wednesday we drove up even further north to the upper peninsula to Mackinaw Island. This was a great day! Mackinaw Island is an island that uses no motorized vehicles and the only way to get to the island is by boat or snowmobile in the winter :) We rented bikes and road around the entire island, then we took a horse and buggy ride around the island..... it was so awesome!











Thursday was our kayak day!!!! We all went down the Pine River, which is close to the lake house... that was a lot of fun, the water was a lot colder on the river!!! (pictures will soon be available)

Friday we hung around the house for the first part of the day, after eating waffles with strawberries and icecream and played cards!!!





We then had jeep wranglers reserved and drove them on the sand dunes!!!! That was the great adventure..... my mom and dad are crazy behind the wheel, we all had a blast! It's amazing how much fun you can have on mountains of sand, and yes i said mountains, when you under 4-wheel drive :) It was a great conclusion to an amazing trip!








Saturday was our drive home and it was definitely a long day!!! We left at 10:30 AM and arrived in the Therber's driveway at 9:15 PM ~ We were glad to be home, but sad that the trip was over!!!! It's been several years since the four of us have been on a vacation together so it was really nice to spend quality time together. Can't wait to do it again!!!