Welcome, Christmas Break!

*Sigh of relief* Oh how I am thankful for Christmas break to have finally arrived! After a very long and stressful semester, I am glad to be back in the big city of Georgetown, SC! It is sad to admit that all I have felt like doing since I have been back is plopping down on the couch and watching cheezy reruns of One Tree Hill (Lame, I know). Okay, okay, I am not usually this lazy, and for the record I have gotten over a dozen presents wrapped in this amount of time, however, I am plain exhausted from this dreadful semester.

Despite the fact that all of my professors could have all tied for 'The Dumbest Person with a Doctorate' award this semester, I still managed to make all A's! Woohoo! (Sorry, I just had to mention it!)

I looked at my grades the other day and noticed that my over all GPA is a 3.69. This means I am probably going to graduate Cum Laude, while being .01 away from Magna Cum Laude. Since I student teach next semester I will not have an opportunity to increase my GPA because Student Teaching is a Pass/Fail class and affect my GPA any---unless I fail, of course.  This may sound like I am complaining about graduating with just Cum Laude, believe me, I'm not. I am really just happy to be one semester from graduating!

Before I left for Christmas break I was able to make a few last minute wrap ups to the semester, most of these were very exciting.  My favorite experience was meeting my cooperating teacher that I will be with all next semester! I had hoped to meet her earlier in the semester when USC Upstate held a banquet for the student teacher candidates and their cooperating teachers. However, my teacher did not show up to the meeting, which left me slightly worried.  I emailed her after the meeting and explained who I was and made a little note that I was sorry I was unable to meet her that night. She quickly responded to my email and said that she was excited and ready to meet me, sorry she was unable to attend the meeting, but frankly did not even know she was recieving a student teacher. After getting all of our misunderstandings taken care of, we were finally able to meet, and I am far less nervous now! She seems to be so precious, and just so happens to be friends with my cooperating teacher from last semester! :) Ahh, it is amazing how things always fall into place!

I will be student teaching at Boiling Springs Intermediate School in a 5th and 6th grade resource classroom. I have heard only wonderful things about this school and I am anxious to start my final semester of my undergraduate career! Although some say I am crazy for being excited about teaching in a 5th and 6th grade resource (special education) classroom, I can not help but look on the bright side of things. A benefit to being in her class: she gets an hour and 45 minutes for lunch! WOW! How could I get so lucky?!? There has got to be a catch, right? She is always on duty! :(  I will have to be at the school by 7:20 every morning. Thankfully the school is only 5 minutes away from my apartment, and I am more of a morning person anyway!

I know student teaching is going to be difficult, but I am extremely anxious! I am just ready to dive in and get things started! I have a feeling my nerves will subside after my first lesson, but until then...please pray for me!

Another exciting thing to conclude this semester was when my advisor muttered 6 precious words: "You are all set to graduate!" WOOHOO! That is a phrase that will make any student and their mamma wanna dance!

As I think about how all of my other semesters have flown by, I can't help but realize that this one will too. This is IT! This is my last Christmas break living at my parents' house. (I must mention at this point that I will miss my parents very much at this point next year.) This is my last Christmas break not married (Ahhh, still hard to believe!). This is IT! The wedding is swiftly approaching---and I am getting more and more excited! All of the wedding plans are coming along nicely, I am making all of the deadlines, and praying more persistantly with every passing day that the weather will cooperate on our big day!

Welp, that is it for a few days! I hope everyone is having a fabulous holiday season!

A Very Special Chest....

For most people, the Christmas season always brings lots of traveling. My traveling started this weekend when Justin and I headed down to Tifton, GA for a Christmas gathering with his Granddad's side of the family. It was great to see everyone and meet people I've heard about through stories. It is always a great time to spend time with Justin's family. They never fail to make me laugh! :) As I continue to meet Justin's friends and family the more similarities I am able to identify between his family and mine. :)

Although our main reason for traveling to Tifton was for family, our trip came with two intentions. The second reason for our travels was so Justin could deliver a beautiful cedar blanket chest he built for two of his friends from college.

In October of 2005, two of his good friends from the forestry school lost their home and everything in it in a fire. They were renting an old farmhouse from a professor, and faulting wiring consumed everything they had - most tragically, their two dogs were unable to find their way out. Even their cars, which were parked near the house, were destroyed. The outpouring of support from the forestry school got them back on their feet in no time, but of course there are some things that can never be replaced. One of those things was an old cedar chest that had been in one of the girls' family since the 1800s. Curiously, there happened to be an old cedar tree growing beside the house that was killed by the fire. Justin was able to get his hands on a small 8' log from that tree several months after the fire.

 He had the log sawed into lumber with the intention of making something for his friends. Over the last couple of years, him and his friends finished school and went their separate ways. One of them married another good friend of his from the forestry school. Last year, he called Justin up with a proposition: he wanted him to build a cedar chest to replace the one that burnt in the fire. He didn't even know Justin had lumber from the house fire. (How cool!)This was the push Justin needed to use that lumber to build something beautiful for one of his friends.

Although Justin was given a push, he was not given a very specific date, so he put it off until the last minute. A couple weeks ago Justin recieved another phone call from his friend asking if the chest could be ready by Christmas. Justin agreed, even though he knew it would require many late nights in the shop.

As we know, Justin was scheduled to deliver the chest on Saturday morning. At this point Justin had the body of the chest built, but still had a ways to go...at 8 pm on Friday night.

Once he installed the molding he moved on to oiling the chest before he put the first coat of blonde shellac. 10pm.

This chest required three coats of shellac. Each coat takes an hour to dry, and has to dry before the next coat can be applied. Justin finished up around 1am. That gave him just about 5 hours of sleep before having to get up and make finishing touches.

TA-DA! The finished chest! You can't even tell there is a hidden drawer in the front, can you!?

Justin's friend only had one request, a secret drawer. Justin said that puzzling out and building this drawer almost doubled the amount of time to build the chest. Dovetails still work even if they're not perfect, but everything had to be just right for this drawer to work properly.

Another view of the chest and the drawer.

 Another secret compartment! :)  The side of the till slides up to reveal it. This is where Justin hopes the owners will store the note he wrote to go along with the chest. It explains where all of the wood came from, how long it took, the maker, and who it was made for.

On the way down to Tifton I asked Justin if we could just keep it and tell his friend that his fiance' just couldn't let it go! :) Justin replied, "this will probably be the hardest thing I'll ever have to give away until I have a daughter."

This Christmas Brings New Traditions

As Justin and I begin to enter into the first Christmas season that we will not be spending with our own parents on both Christmas eve and Christmas day, we are reminded of how our lives are changing. Although this change comes with the price of becoming busy beavers as we scurry from the coast of South Carolina to the middle of Georgia early Christmas morning, we can not help but be so thankful for having two wonderful families to be able to share such a special time with.

Growing up we have both experienced the holidays with our families and have been apart of the traditions our parents and grandparents have created. 

Of course every family celebrates different events in their own unique way. Christmas is no different. So as Justin and I were talking about putting up the Christmas decorations, we began to swap stories of the different traditions our families have started and stuck with over the years. We have some similar traditions, and some...not so similar, but one thing we are in full agreement on is: we LOVE real Christmas trees!

Both our families have always had live trees, so we decided we were not going to break that tradition! Another reason: I love the smell of them!

Our small tree, isn't it cute?!

After reflecting upon different traditions, we decided that we were going to start a tradition of our own. Since we will be decorating the house for Christmas together for the rest of our lives :), we decided that would be a nice time to start a tradition. Justin said his family, on Christmas eve, has finger foods, so that is what we decided to do for our "decorating" tradition. Since Justin will not be at his parents' house on Christmas Eve this year (sorry Mr. Tony and Mrs. Mona ;)) we thought we would play off of a tradition that his family had.

Our finger foods included: homemade apple cider, beanie wienies....

...sausage balls, fruit salad, Hillshire sausage, and chocolate covered pretzels! I promise, we had a lot of left overs! :)

After dinner, we tackled decorating around the house, mainly, the tree! :)

  Three strands of lights, 85 ornaments (including candy canes and our very special Niagara Falls ornament that Justin purchased just a few hours before he proposed!), and a golden angel later, we were in awe. All we could do was sit and stare at our tree for quite a while.  Although we are both in favor of hand crafted and homemade ornaments, especially when little ones start running around, we concluded that it is nice to have a tree where all of the ornaments match!  Now, all that is missing are little red bows! :)

I guess, since I've talked about some of Justin's traditions, I should talk about some things that make my family unique around Christmas time. The first decoration we always put up is the Nativity Scene.  This is my family's way of never getting too wrapped up in all of the hustle and bustle that comes along with the holiday season that we forget the true meaning of Christmas.

Also, since I grew up in a neighborhood, my family and I would always, after decorating and lighting the tree, would go out in the front yard and see how it looked from the road. It may sound silly, but it was a way for us, as a family, to admire our work and get excited about the upcoming events!

I love the traditions I have experienced with my family and I can't wait to be included in those of the Tyson family (I've already been introduced to the infamous Thanksgiving noodles! YUM!), but I am excited about growing with Justin and beginning to build traditions of our own! :)