Ohhhh CC!

This week all the Covenant College students are heading back up the mountain for another year of school. And I am jealous! I've been following facebook and reading everyone's happy comments about being back and seeing people and the nostalgia is hitting me hard! OH if I could just rewind a few years and enjoy that time all over again! College is so wonderful and carefree... no real life 8-5 jobs, no house payments, no huge responsibilities, and you can even skip class if you want to sleep in! Sure, you have the papers and the homework and the occasional huge, overwhelming projects, but that's all part of experience and most of the time you pretty much live a carefree life. THINK about it: you can plan your day so that you don't have to wake up until 11 or 12! You have someone else making all your meals. You live with your best friends. There's always something fun going on. You feel independent but you don't have the whole weight of full responsibility on you yet. Oh man, college was good.
Here are a few pics to illustrate my college experience:

Well, we did party some...

And we played some...

We goofed around a lot...

Oh yeah, and we studied...

But we had to take breaks so we wouldn't shoot ourselves...

We ate a lot...

So then we worked out a lot...

But over all, I made the best friends in the world...

And I finally graduated...

Go CC!!!!!!!!!!!!!

p.s.

Just in case you read this, that post was for you Mrs Bruns and I will put up pics soon!

Being Pregnant Motivates Me...

And I'm serious. There's nothing like knowing that a baby's on the way to get me off my rear and doing things to prepare. For instance, since I've been pregnant I've/we've painted two rooms, ripped up the carpet in our living room/dining room, cleaned out a huge closet full of technological stuff and pieces of paper from Cole's schooling (oh yeah, we had fun... not), cleaned the baby's room-to-be, rearranged and de-cluttered our room, and are in the process of putting down hardwood floors. After that I will actually get to decorating the baby's room. We've also started talking about making a will (weird!) and setting up a college fund for baby Nickell. Not to mention lots of serious talks about what kind of parents we want to be. Knowing that a little one will be here in five months really makes me think. Wow!

Soon to come: I'll put up the pictures of all our projects once we have the "after pics".

Oh beach...

So due to the lack of creative juices lately, I haven't posted anything in a while. I think two weeks of vacation zapped my energy and turned me into a slug :) You know how you always think that you'll get books read, letters written, and be all rejuvenated to come back to regular life? Yeah well, usually you end up sleeping in late, sitting around waiting for something to do, watching tv or movies, and generally not exerting much effort. So then you get back to the daily grind and you're completely exhausted with "doing nothing" and totally not ready to get up at 6:45 and work all day. Yeah, I want to go back to the beach...

The Sand Lobster!

Handstand competition

The Marshall/Johnson cousins minus 5

P.S. I can't make these pics larger without loosing the quality.

VACATION!

After coming back from Miami and working one week, I'm off the beach for TWO WEEKS! Wahoo! Aren't you jealous? :)

Brain Dead

So I thought I would come back from Miami with all these funny stories and witty comments, but I think I've gone brain dead in the creative department. I only have four things to say:
1) It was hot. I think I lost 10 pounds in sweat.
2) I hate Florida. And it should never under any circumstance be called southern.
3) I love Haitians - they are so friendly and hospitable.
4) Do tha stanky leg!

How I've missed this....

Yesterday I arrived in Chattanooga to spend a couple days with Carolann before picking up some youth girls to drive them to Miami for the mission trip. I only get to see CA about every 5 or 6 months and I know that once we have kids and life gets busier, that will probably decrease a lot. So sad, but that's life. Anyway, last night the two of us and Nicole ate dinner at Tony's where we stuffed ourselves till we all felt pregnant with food babies, then walked accross the Market Street Bridge where we were almost run over by a crazy person, and lastly stopped and ate some icecream that we really didn't need but really enjoyed. It was SO much fun and we just talked and laughed the whole night. This is one thing I have really missed living in Aiken. While I love it and love my life there, I still haven't made deep friendships like the ones I had in college. When I'm sad or extremely happy or just need someone to talk to, I still call Carolann or a friend from Asheville instead of being able to sit down with someone in Aiken. Friendships just take more time now than they did in highschool and college and I miss those connections.
So, I am going to enjoy every minute of my time with CA! I wonder what whacky plans we have for today...

See ya!

I'm off to Miami for our High School summer mission trip! Pray that I won't get overheated or gag on my food too much while there :) Of course, I can always play the pregnant woman card and opt out of anything too strenuous. Haha!

Yay morning sickness!

Since Danielle suggested that I keep people up to date on my little bun in the oven, I thought I'd would inform you all of the recent nausea I've experienced thanks to this little one. First of all, whoever named it morning sickness must have had a very rare and easy pregnancy or have been a man. It doesn't just take over your morning, oh no, it comes back again right after lunch and again as you try to wind down for the night. Basically I don't know how women gain weight in the first trimester because the nausea always seems to come about 20-30 minutes after I've eaten. This means rather than just throwing up a polite little amount, I throw up my entire breakfast, lunch, or dinner. My poor husband tries to offer comfort but I just shoo him out because it's rather embarrissing. I mean, I haven't been this sick since I was a little kid with a stomach virus! Anyway, enough of that. I feel sorry for any men reading this :)

Foods that make my gag reflex kick in:
Any cooked vegitable
Most veggies in general (I'm gagging down cucumber slices as I type)
Mushy fruits like bannanas or cantalope
The smell of cooking meat! Ugh!!
Coffee - surprise surprise, who'd have ever thought!
Cookie dough :( so sad
The smell, but not taste, of Chickfila
Lots of other things depending on the day

So here's to you who can eat a well-balanced diet without gagging. Meanwhile I'll enjoy my pasta, pizza, icecream, and crackers!

Lonely, I am so lonely, I have nobody...

This week Cole is in Atlanta with the kids for Gold Rush, a youth conference, and so I'm home all along, sad and bored. I really hate it when he leaves. It's fun for about the first hour, then I realize that I could never make it living alone.
The first night as I got home from work I had all these good intentions of cleaning and organizing things, but rather than being productive I decided to turn on the tv for "just a minute" as I ate my ordered out pizza (yeah, I'm lame) and ended up getting sucked in for the next three hours! Which just made me mad at myself and even more lonely once I turned the tv off and was by myself with the silence. I tried to call Cole around 10:30 but he didn't answer. So I tried again at 11 and then gave up, figuring he was still out with the students.
As I tried to fall asleep while feeling sorry for myself, I kept hearing these thumping sounds like sounded like someone was knocking on the door! I tried to ignore it, but right as I would start to doze, I would hear it again. Now, I confess, I am a scaredy-cat and I can no longer watch even slightly scary movies because of how much they affect me. (I've been known to get mad and hide behind the couch if Cole doesn't turn off horror movie previws fast enough and I jump if he comes up behind me without saying anything.) So as I lay there, I thought to myself, "No worry. Cole just bought that new gun and it's loaded in the safe. I'll be fine." And then, "Maybe I'll just check the safe and make sure." So I rolled over and reached out to hit the combination on the safe. And guess what... it didn't open. I tried again, making sure I entered the right combination. Nope, still didn't open. So I'm laying there thinking, "Great, someone's knocking on the door at 11 at night, I'm home alone, and the gun my husband bought for moments like this is stuck in our new safe! Wonderful."