1,250 Miles Later...

What a crazy two weeks it has been! I packed all my belongings in my little Corolla and traveled a total of 1,250! It has all been really fun and I have made so many memories that I would not trade for anything.

The week before I left VA was the best week and I feel like I made time to spend with people that have truly played a huge role in my time there. Monday and Tuesday I worked and then came right back to my apparent so I could pack so I was able spend time with people the rest of the week. Wednesday I got to go out with Joe and his Mom to just talk. It was encouraging and they are two people that have taught me so much about many different things. Mrs Anderson and I got along very well and were similar when it came to personalities and how we thought through things. I don't even know where to start with all Joe has taught me, and I am so blessed that we can still be friends. I would say if I could choose one big thing that I have learned about from everything that Joe and I went through would be how to really love someone. It was a great time with both of them and I was so glad that they made time for it as well.

On Thursday I got to babysit my little Owen after work because his parents went to a Christmas party. We had fun and I got to keep him up later then normal because it was so hard for me to put him to bed. We read many books and then sat on the couch and watch Baby Einstein. I stayed over at their house because it was late and they lived closer to school so it was really nice to be able to not have to do the whole DC traffic on my last day at work!

I went into work early and stopped to grab some doughnuts and hot chocolate on my way in for my colleagues. That morning started off super rough and I had to vent on my lunch break, but when I got back from break things had changed and it was so much better! Many parents gave me Christmas gifts and even some goodbye gifts. It really made me feel like I made a difference in both the parents and their child's lives. I got slippers, a mug, gift cards, bows, and my favorites were individual school pictures of their kids! I loved my students like they were my own kids...I will and already miss them so much! This was a sign that one of my close friends made me, I loved it!

My Mom got to come down Friday night on a train and stay at my place to help me get my car all packed and ready to go. She did an awesome job packing it all and I even had extra room! I don't know how she did it but she did! It is so crazy that all I own fits in my little car.

We left the house and 6am on Sunday and stopped at the nearest Dunkin to start off the trip the right way :)

On out trip up we passed a DD and they had this doughnut dancing outside and we just HAD TO turn around and get a picture with her!

Made great time on the way and it feels so good to be back with my family.

My daddy and I got to put up Christmas lights around the house. They are not perfect by any means, but we made the best out of what we had to work with. 

Kristin's birthday was on Tuesday so when she came back to my parents house the next day I had this waiting for her! She and I want to go out to dinner or lunch at some point to celebrate both our birthdays. 

On Thursday Dad, Kristin, and I got to go visit my Grandma and take her to have lunch with my Aunt. We had a great time on the trip down there and the sunset on the way back was amazing! I always love the time that I get with my Grandma she is such a wonderful woman. We will be with my Dad's family for New Years Eve/Day and I can't wait to blog next week about all of our little traditions.  

Christmas Eve we (Dad,Mom,Kristin,Wes,and I) went to a church service and then watched The Muppet Christmas Carol which is a movie that we watched every year. While we watched the movie my Mom taught me how to make snowflakes, not just any snowflakes, snowflakes that spelt our names. They turned out really cool and we had a lot of fun making them.  

After the movie everyone wanted to go to bed so my brother and I collected goodies from the kitchen and set up his new Xbox in his room. We totally lost track of time because we were having too much fun and we played until 4:12am! We never really got tired, but called quits and ended up crashing out hard. There was plenty of laughing and one point we both were just so over tired everything was so funny!

Christmas was such a special time of just being together as a family. For breakfast my Mom and I made baked doughnuts...they were good just not as awesome as the fried ones :p

My oldest brother and his family came later Christmas evening and are staying until Monday afternoon. For dinner we had pork and lamb with many sides and then had cookies for dessert.

I just love my siblings so much and I am so blessed that we are all so close and get along. This was on the way to church this morning, love this time that I have been able to spend with them.

After church we went to the famers market where my mom sells milk and meat from her sisters farm. It was cool to see all the locally made products from food to art. It was so interesting and cool to talk to the local people I love getting to know new people. 

I am excited for this week to come as I spend it with family and friends! I can't wait to blog again next week and I will have to update you on job stuff because I am very excited! Have a great New Years week and remember to just cherish the time with your family because you never know what the year will bring. 

With a Pinch of Love, 

Lil'Chef 

A Redneck Thanksgiving

I hope you all had a wonderful thanksgiving break and are ready to make this last little push to make it to Christmas break.

I was GA bound right after work on Wednesday and nothing hit me about the break until I clocked out and it all came over me. I was so excited yet felt like I had lots to get done before I flew out and was scared I would spend a lot of time in the DC traffic. I got home with 30 min to pack so I just threw the clothes I thought I would want in a bag and called it good. Aubrey was so kind and came to pick me up so I would not have to park my car at the airport and we were both prepared to sit in traffic, but there was hardly any! We had also planned some extra time for the long security lines and they were not bad at all. I walked right to get my ID checked and found my gate and had 3 hours to wait ;P I was very thankful though because I would rather be early then to be stressing about missing my flight.

 As soon as I got on that plane and in my seat I fell right to sleep and slept until I felt the wheels hit the ground, guess I was tired! Lolo and Ali (her younger sister) came to the airport to pick me up and it was so good to see them both again. We talked the whole way home and then after Lolo finished a few quick thanksgiving things we all fell asleep around 1am.

Thanksgiving morning I was up at 7am wide awake so I did my devotions, showered, and was ready for then day. At 9:30 I went and woke Lolo up and we just talked in her bed for a while until we needed to get up to help with the thanksgiving meal. Before we started cooking all of the girls went on a walk, it was such a beautiful day for one and to just be with the sisters was so nice. This is the only really nice picture that Lolo and I got together, but it is by far my favorite one! Then it was time to get back to the farm and start cooking. I hope Lolo got pictures of the food because sadly I did not. 

 We always have a lot of fun when we cook together, and we just had to take a picture in the kitchen like old times. Every part of the meal turned out perfect and just being all together at the table felt so good!

After our tummies were all full of food we played clue! We played it so many times over the break, but it was fun to just be able to play something together and spend time that was not in front on the TV.

Lolo's Grandma always buys the biggest bag of skittles when she comes to visit and it made my day when I saw that my favorite colors were left. When I use to live with them I knew I would never have to fight anyone else for the citrus flavored ones :) 

On Friday I went to the Cartey's house for a day and it was so much fun. It felt like I never left in some ways and in others it felt as if I had been gone forever. When I pulled up to the house the kids were all waiting outside for me and my heart started racing just with feeling how much they missed me. When I hugged Momma Jenn my eyes teared up and when Kalin hugged me she said "no, I am not done, I am not letting you go...ever". I had missed this family so very much!! 

Josh (their oldest) had a football game that night and Jenn was helping with the teams pregame meal and we all went to help. As we were pulling out to head home for a couple hours before the game started Jenn had asked me about what food I missed most and I said that I missed Cook Out's milkshakes...so she put on her blinker and she bought us all a milkshakes (yes, she spoils me). I got a coffee one and it was just as good as I remember them being! 

This is me and Colton! We were getting ready for the game and he wanted to take a picture with me :)

This is Kalin (she is so special to me, and was on the school soccer team I helped coach last semester), Hayley, and I at the pregame meal! I love these two girls so very much!

So I taught Colton how to snapchat so he was having WAY to much fun sending snaps to Kalin. We must have taken a million pictures but I had him save this one because it was a fav.  

At the football game! GO PRINCE!!!!

You can't really tell in the picture, but the moon was so big! 

This is Josh and I after the game! I was very proud of him, he gave his all and had a great game. They won 30-10 and it was so much fun to cheer them all on!

This was where Kalin and I slept! We had all gone to Ihop after the game and did not get home till 1:15am, but as girls always do we talked until 3ish! 

Then on Saturday I just got to hang out with the family and we even got to watch the GA football game. Momma Jenn and Keith made an AWESOME lunch to eat while watching the game! I did not want to leave AT ALL because I had such a great time! It was so very hard to say goodbye, but this family means so very much to me and I know that they will always be there for me and just because I live somewhere else I hope visits will become regular. I am hoping that Jenn and Kalin can come visit me sometime. 

This Sam and I                                         This is Colton and I

This is Momma Jenn and I!  She put so much time aside to just catch up with me and ask how I was really doing. I am sure that she could have done so many other things, but she really spent time to just talk with me! I can't really say in words how much she means to me because I don't think the works exist. I look up to her as a mom and I love how she loves she kids and makes sure that they have a great for the Lord! She will always be on my speed dial and I think I will always go to her for questions that I know she will understand! She means a lot to me and I was so very thankful that she put aside the time that I could be with her and the family!

Lolo picked me up from their house at 4 and then we went on our date. This was the only time we had just her and I and it was good. We went to a Asian restaurant that we wanted to try out and it was super yummy! 

Sunday was a perfect day full of randomness and fun! It was Lolo, Ali and I that went to church together and then we wanted to get some lunch at Five Guys! This picture sweet Ali posted on her snapchat story and I just had to steal it for my blog! 

I love Five Guys, I think that it is the place I like to go to when I am wanting something delicious and bad for me. I LOVE to go there just for the peanuts, honestly, and I did not even finish my burger because I had eaten so many peanuts. Then they laughed at me because I got some more to put into a bag to take home and they ended up being the perfect snack later that night! 

We did a lot together and I loved spending time with both these girls <3

After our lunch we wanted to just hang out so we went to the mall nearby and just walked around and window shopped.

We had way too much fun in Party City! We all got 15 pieces of candy for a dollar and ate it while we watched movies at the farm that night. It was such a random day.....those kind of days tend to be the best ones.

Overall a wonderful Thanksgiving break!!! I will tell you about my work week and my weekend in my next blog, there was just to much to fit into one blog! It will give you something to look forward to next week! 

Hope you all have a wonderful week! I love Christmas time and the feel of everything around it! Can't believe it is just a couple weeks away! 

With a Pinch of Love,

Lil'Chef 

Happy Thanksgiving To Be

So I think it is about time that I can tell you all that I have been blessed by so many people that I was able to buy a plane ticket to go to GA for Thanksgiving! Yes, I could not be more excited and thankful. I did not have the money to by a ticket, but some very special people gave me money specifically to go towards a ticket. If your reading this and you were one of those people I have prayed that the Lord will bless you in a larger way then I could ever because it meant so much to me. It is because of your help and support that I am able to go see friends and families that I miss so much! I leave Wednesday and can't wait to see Lolo who gets the pleasure to pick me up at the airport at midnight ;P

(I have a quote here but it won't upload the pic...SORRY) I will put one in later :)  

I don't have many pictures from this week because I was so busy with nothing but work. Kinda a boring week blog wise....sorry! I just have had no life this week :)

With that being said I have a busy three days ahead of me, but it will be nice because it will make time go by! I had a great week with my kids, but it was a very overwhelming one too! On Friday we had a thanksgiving lunch where parents could come and eat with there kids. Everything turned out great and we had a good amount of parents show up. By the end of the day though I was so done! I was very overwhelmed at the end of the day with 8 babies and a co-teacher that is new so she is still learning. That is all fine and I get that, but just don't max me out at 8 babies PLEASE! Then I had to write an incident report up twice because it was not worded perfectly, so lets just say I was so ready to get out of there and start my weekend!

I made some more of my pumpkin cinnamon rolls over the weekend and it felt good just to do something mindless. 

I had a ton of errands to run yesterday some were fun and others not so much. I did not get to knock them all out, but hey I got the ones that needed to get done!

I also had some bananas that were going bad so I made some pancakes with just a banana, an egg, and a Tbs of peanut butter. I liked it last time I made these but this time I used extra crunchy peanut butter and it put a different texture in them which made them so yummy!!!   

I will give you the heads up that next weekend I probably won't be blogging because I will be wanting to spend every moment I can with people in GA. That just means you all can be looking forward to lots of pictures and updates two weeks from now! 

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoy the time you have with your family and friends during this holiday season. Just remember to set your scales back 10 lbs this week and you will be in great    shape :)

With a Pinch of Love,

Lil'Chef