The Best of 2008

2008 has been a wonderful year! I was thinking the other night, reflecting over this past year, and how great of a year it really has been. And what's even more amazing, every New Year's that I can remember, I have thought the same thing--God has blessed me with so much more than I ever imagine, much less, that I deserve. So, I have decided to do a "Top Ten of 2008". These are special moments and events, and more importantly with people, that have meant so much to me this year.

10. Football season, not necessarily all of the scores by the end of the game, but the memories made as my last UGA football season as a student.
9. My (becoming more frequent) visits up to Chattanooga with amazing friends that are becoming more and more like family to me.

8. My 22nd Birthday in Athens with some of the best friends a girl could ask for :) And more desserts than I should have eaten-haha!

7. Being a senior at UGA (Which wouldn't have been possible without my finding a major so I can graduate on time!!)
*This one is two fold...Senior year comes with the excitement of what's coming next, but also loving and appreciating my friends in Athens more than ever (Like going to see Wicked and Matt Wertz when I found some free time)

6. Blobbing in the thunderstorm and weekends during the summer in genereal
...Well, this picture of from another blobbing, or blabbing experience, which was equally as fun and thrilling...
5. Being a leader for a D-Now Weekend and going on an incredible mission trip to Washington DC with Crossroads
4. Seeing two amazing, Godly women become a Mrs.
-Alex (even though I don't have any pictures with just her :( ) become Mrs. Walker :)
and Emily's wedding was such a fun celebration of seeing her and David come together as husband and wife!3. Working at camp with so many wonderful other people on staff and seeing kids coming to Christ at camp
2. Getting baptized at camp in front of my parents and camp family...the story is incredible how it all played out, but that will come in a later post for sure :)
1. Charlotte being born--What an amazing blessing in my life and I know for everyone that knows her

Words can hardly describe how much this year has meant to me and how blessed I am for each of you that read this blog (all 4 of you haha) to be in my life. This year has been what it means to me because my friends and family...God is teaching me more and more about true love that can only been found in special friendships and all the fun that I have had with each of you have brought me to appreciate each of you that much more. Thank you for being apart of my life in 2008 and I cannot wait to see what God has planned for me in 2009--I mean, it'll be a big year since I'll be graduating and moving to only God knows where...prayerfully Chattanooga though!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

Ohhhh We're halfway there!

This Christmas break has been as close as perfect can be :) I'll try to give a short (ish) recap of this past week and a half since my last post (hence, the title of my post, because I'm halfway through my Christmas break):

Saturday through Tuesday, I forced myself to stand behind the watch counter at the mall for Fossil. I have been doing Fossil watches every Christmas, some Thanksgivings, and some Mother's/Father's days since my senior year....in high school. So for 5 years (probably 2 years too long), I have done pretty much nothing for 8 hours a day during the holidays, but it's all worth it when I get that glorious check in the mail :)

Also on Saturday, my 87 year old grandmother (more commonly known as Mimi) flew in from Mississippi and she got to meet her great-grandaughter (my niece, Charlotte) for the first time! :) She was so excited to she "Lil Miss" as we like to call her. Katie and Lee were with his band for a few days at Universal Studios so my parents and I got to keep Charlotte until Christmas Eve, when Katie and Lee came as soon as they could to see their much missed daughter. It was so fun to have Charlotte around the house--she's crawling really well by now, babbling a whole lot about a whole lot of nothing and can walk when you hold her up with your fingers; My heart hurts I love her so much!!

After Charlotte left with her mom and dad, I was relieved of standing all day from working at a mall (never again will I work for Fossil...I can't take the boredom anymore), but Mimi was still here :) We went to the Candle Light Service at my home church (one of my favorite parts of Christmas, hands down) and had our traditional homemade pizza for dinner.

I woke up on Christmas morning to presents from Santa and a delicious breakfast of monkey bread. Later that afternoon, Kirby and Daniel came down from the Cleland household in Chattanooga. (Thanks for sharing them, Anna! You get them back in a couple of days!) We mostly just vegged most days--which is wonderful. It's been for-e-ver since I've been able to do that without some sort of guilt in needing to do something else instead. I'm reading through the whole Chronicles of Narnia series and I'm about halfway through The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which is the 5th book out of 7...granted they're only like 200 pages each and on a 5th or 6th grade reading level--but it's so great to read through them as a believer and trying to see C.S. Lewis' relation to the Bible through the books.

Sadly, Mimi had to go back to Mississippi, but what a HUGE blessing to have her around the house for the holidays. We're so blessed that she is still able to come out to visit us--oh! And I forgot, she and I (along with Kirby and Daniel) made our traditional trek to Dairy Queen so she could enjoy a banana split (predictably, I got a strawberry blizzard) and we also got to look at Christmas lights--some more ridiculous than others...This guy pays around $800 on his electric bill during the month of December--WHOA!

Hopefully, the remainder of my break will include lots of time with friends from high school because I have only met up with one so far. I still don't know if I'll have time to make it up to Chattanooga, this break is going by faster than I had imagined!! I'm grateful for the relaxation as well as staying busy enough. I tried my best to keep my post short, but again, I failed. ha! And PS-I mailed my application to work at CVP again this summer :)

Labor of Love

This break has been so wonderful and I haven't even officially been on break for a whole week yet!! It feels like I have though, mostly because I was in Chattanooga this time last week, came back to Athens for finals, home to Marietta for a night...woke up on Thursday to drive to Chattanooga, where I got out of my car into Forrest's truck to ride up to Nashville for the Andrew Peterson concert (Ah-may-zing. Absolutely amazing), came back to Chattanooga waaaay past my bedtime (It was 2:30 because I got into bed, 3 before I feel asleep). Then, I woke up on Friday to come back to Marietta to babysit my precious niece for the afternoon (gasp for air from exhaustion!)and then woke up this morning to work for Fossil for 8 hours (ugh)...which is what I'll be doing for the next 3 days-standing behind a watch counter, bored to tears, but getting paid :) But after I get off of work each night, I have time with my Mimi (87 year old grandmother) that's in town visiting and Charlotte is in town until Tuesday too while Katie and Lee are in Disney World with Lee's band. Whew, what a first week of break!

But the real point of this blog, a huge reality that God has been teaching me these past couple of weeks: Jesus was a human being. Okay, so I know that this is something that we hear Sundays in church is that Jesus was fully God and fully human and doesn't sound like too huge of a revelation. But what my mind has starting to wrap itself around is that being human means that, much like you and I, Jesus got tired, even at times exhausted, and needed to sleep. He thirsted, and needed to drink water. He had to bathe. Jesus experienced emotions. He was tempted, but the most incredible part is that he didn't give in. A song on Andrew Peterson's "Behold the Lamb of God" album is Labor of Love (one of my all time favorite songs). The talks about how "It was not a silent night", the night that Mary gave birth to her son, Jesus. The song goes on to say:

It was a labor of pain
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love

Listening to this song, I'm reminded that Mary was in pain when she gave birth to Jesus and that just because Jesus was fully God, the other part to remember is that he was fully human. Being in labor (from what I've heard at least) is so painful and exhausting and Mary's labor was no exception. When I think about Jesus in the flesh, I almost picture this superhuman life--never tiring, never needing or wanting anything except for performing miracles. God has been showing me through so many different ways that Jesus had physical, human needs and most importantly--he died in a method that many other humans, usually criminals, died....but even bigger than that, the biggest thing to see in all of history, he died on that cross in pain for our sins. Jesus died a painful death that he in no way deserved, but did on our behalf to reconcile our eternal relationship with God. That was a labor of love in the purest form.

Hellllooo Christmas Break

I just officially completed my second to last semester of school-EVER!! WOOHOO!!! Even though technically, I'm taking an Independent Study class that I should have started, hm, like 2 weeks ago? I'll find time for that later. In the meantime, I'm too excited about surviving my 21 hour semester!!

Hilights of Fall Finals 2008:
-Falling at of my chair while studying
-Having my last few days of classes canceled so I could bum around
-Not really stressing too much about my grades :) (but I still studied plenty, Dad)
-Making a gingerbread house with Kathryn
-Going to the Camp Christmas party in the midst of Finals
-Celebrating with Ms. Brittain (my adorably sweet "old lady")
-Studying at Starbuck's for 5 hours straight
-Realizing that I only have to go through the agony of finals one more time :)

Things to Look Forward to during Christmas Break:
-Andrew Peterson concert
-Babysitting Charlotte for a few days
-Making some mola working for Fossil
-Reading a good book (to be determined...)
-My Mimi flying in to see our family for a week
-Getting a banana split with my Mimi (it's our traditional date)
-Rest and Relaxation :)
-Candlelit Christmas Eve service at church
-Spending Christmas with the fam (my favorite part of the break)
-Nicole and Luke getting married!!!!!!!!!!!!
-Hopefully having some visitors from Chattanooga come to Atlanta
-Hopefully going up to Chattanooga to spend time with friends (specifically, time with Kasey)
-Not being in school :)

The weekend I've been looking forward to since August

This past weekend is one of those weekends that I'd looked forward to, well, probably since the day that I left CVP at the end of the summer. I had two finals on Thursday and got out of Athens as soon as I could to get home to Marietta. After sleeping in on Friday, I made my way up to Chattanooga and felt even more at home when I made the turn onto I-24 to Chattanooga. I stopped by la Casa de Cleland before meeting Jerry at Big River for a delicious lunch! I had never been to Big River before, but ordered what most everyone had reccommended-a cheeseburger :) SOOOO good! And to finish off the meal, I got a slice of pumpkin cheesecake (Camp paid for the meal, which is why I didn't have to think twice when the desserts were listed off-YUMMMM) Even better than the meal was the conversation. Jerry had planned to come down to UGA this fall to meet up with me and J-Frank, but it was at the very beginning of our Fall Break so timining just didn't work out. We caught up on my semester, how settling into their new home was going, and the main focus of the conversation-this summer. (That's a whole separate paragraph...) I made my way back to Anna's house, gave into my food coma and took a nap, and when I woke up, it was time to get ready for the night! We borrowed some tacky Christmas attire so we could go over to the Rocha's for their Christmas party (my first ever Tacky sweater Christmas party!!) before going to Sticky Fingers for dinner with friends from camp that were already in town. We felt so bad for anyone that wasn't sitting with us at the restaurant becauses we were SO loud. What did you expect when you get 14 people that are like family who haven't seen each other in over 4 months?! It was so fun just to catch up and see all of their faces, knowing that they were sitting with me--I just couldn't stop smiling!!

Saturday was equally as wonderful, if not better than Friday. After trying to sleep in (I think this semester has trained me to always wake up at 9 am, at the latest), Mrs. Cleland, aka my Chattanooga mom, fixed us some breakfast before we headed out for a day of shopping. The "I don't really care" car headed to the Dollar Tree to pick out our White Elephant gifts, then of course to Rock Creek. Megan Stephens came to pick me up so she and I could have one of our heart to hearts on the drive to camp. Having the Christmas party at camp was such a wonderful idea and it felt so festive with all of the decorations! I was on emotional overload from seeing so many wonderful people...I never wanted to leave!! It was such a blessing to see so many people that I count as my extended family. I couldn't help but smile with every conversation that I had!! The crowd trickled down to only a handful of us, so we decided it was time to leave. We basically shifted the party from camp to the Cleland's where we ordered pizza and hung out until nearly 2 in the morning.

On Sunday, we woke up to make our way to Red Bank Baptist where Dr. Dooley gave a sermon on "How the Grinch Almost Stole Christmas"--such a wonderful sermon! After church, I went to McAllister's to celebrate Chris Raynold's birthday. His mom even surprised him with a delicious, chocolatey cake!! Soon after lunch, I hopped in my car and made the trek back to Marietta. I took an hour or two break at home with my parents before going back to Athens to face the last of my finals....We had a tribute to our elder's that we've been visiting all semester and I still have two finals staring me in the face for tomorrow. So, I can't avoid it any longer--time to study.

Charlotte's crawling!!

My niece is crawling!! Charlotte has always been incredibly precious, but now that she's on the go she's just even cuter! Here's a video that I took of her last weekend at Katie and Lee's house. She wouldn't crawl towards us at first, so you'll get to look at her waddling boo-tay from the back. :)


And here's a video from the side...she loves my watch so I put it in front of her as incentive to get it. As soon as she reaches her goal though, she's done. haha Isn't she adorable?!?

This story again??

This weekend has been so fun, fairly restful, and completely unproductive in any aspect of school...all together a great weekend. :) It was so great to dress up for Semi Formal on Friday night and hang out with girls from the sorority and really enjoy the social aspect of being a sister. But that is not the point of this blog, instead I'm going to talk about our Sunday school lesson from this morning.

I was surprisingly in Athens this morning for church (a rare thing that I'm not out of town over the weekend!!) and was excited for the chance to go to Sunday school and church with some friends. After some snacking and catching up with friends, the college minister told us to open up our Bibles to John 4. When I first heard this, I honestly thought, "Again? Really?" John 4:1-26 is the story of the Samaritan woman at the well that I'm sure a couple of you have heard a time or two. There are plenty of stories from the Bible that life long church goers are bound to hear on several occasions, but this one in particular is one I have heard more than a handful of times. My second summer at camp, "Backpack Jack" shared the story of the woman at the well every week on the night of Tacky Prom. This summer, Jerry shared the same story on a weekly basis as well. Add on to that the times that I have heard a lesson taught about this woman's encounter with Jesus at Crossroads or my church at home...I was beginning to this that I had heard every aspect of this story that I could have heard. And then I caught myself in that thought, realizing that I was limiting God's ability to teach me something!! Silly me!! This morning we talked about sharing our faith in everyday situations, the ones that we see as mundane and when we often think that we are too busy or are going to embarrass ourselves by asking someone how we can be praying for them or to share the Gospel. Yes, that was wonderful encouragement to hear this morning, but the lesson that was really imprinted on my heart was to not limit what God can teach you, even when you think that you "already know everything"--ha! What a crazy idea....Just a word of encouragement to each of you this Sunday afternoon (or whatever day you might be reading this on), no matter how familiar you might think something is, don't let that limit what God can teach you in that moment.

Sonic

You know those certain songs, particular smells, or even just being somewhere in particular that brings back memories? Well, my roommate, Kathryn, and I went to see our friend's dance recital and decided that our dinner wasn't quite filling enough...So of course, we made the easy decision of going out to get a little night time snack and after much debate, we picked Sonic. "America's Drive In" will always remind me of my summers spent at Camp Vesper Point. As soon as we pull into the car slot to order, I start rambling on and on about the countless times over the past three summers that a bunch of the staff would pile into a car and turn up whatever music we wanted (simply because we can and don't have to listen to our "Christian music only" soundtrack, not that Christian music isn't absolutely wonderful, but change is good too). I, of course, ordered my usual strawberry limeade and as I slurped up my drink, I continued to talk my roommate's ear off about girls nights both in and outside of camp, explaining what blabbing is ;) and everything else about CVP that came to mind. I'm glad that God gives us little things like Sonic that spark memories about something as special as camp....I needed something like that on a cold, rainy day like today. And to have even more memories to look forward to as the annual camp Christmas party is quickly approaching! :) I wouldn't be surprised I if ended up at the drive in with my best friend Kasey and a hand full of other's from this past summer in just over a week! Until then, I might have to stop by Sonic for "Happy Hour" to have more recalled memories.

Family hugs

My routine of updating my blog has been thrown off and I apologize to the 3 people that read this! Between school, Thanksgiving break, and more school, I've barely had enough time to sit down in front of the computer and write about anything remotely interesting or thoughtful. But, I will do my best to recap my much needed and very much appreciated Thanksgiving Break. It's a little lengthy...so strap in.

Last Friday afternoon I headed to Marietta and went straight to visit my mom at school so I could see her spunky group of 2nd graders. We shaving creamed the desks to clean them before the week long break from school and they had SO much fun! I wish I had brought my camera because over half of them wrote "Thank You Kristin" in the shaving cream because I had to run by Target to pick up an extra can so they would have enough--so precious! Soon after that, my mom and I packed up to make the 3 hour trek up to Knoxville, TN (home to Kirby and Daniel, partial home to Daddy Dave). Kirby and I had a Girl's Night In together (Our dad was sick so mom took him back to "The Cave" and they went straight to bed after eating.) It was so wonderful to talk openly with my sister, my best friend, about whatever came to mind. There is just a peace that I have when I with her and wish that she and I could spend more time together. Saturday was spent shopping :) Me, mom, Kirby, and Daniel (what a wonderful, patient husband Kirby has--he came around with us girls all day and even helped me pick out some jewelry for Semi Formal!) Sunday morning, I went to Kirby and Daniel's Sunday School and service before meeting our parents for finger-lickin' good barbeque :) Before we left, I took pictures of my Land Rover (yes, my Land Rover) that my daddy is taking apart and is restoring.

My mom and I made it safely back to Marietta and let the relaxation begin! I forced myself to put aside all of my books, my laptop, and binders for the week and rested! I turned down hanging out with some friends which is something I rarely do, but really felt like it was so necessary for me to rest to my full potential. I read most of a wonderful book, The Shack by William P. Young. That book will be worth a post of it's own after I finish it...but please, if you get the chance--read this book! So encouraging and enlightening for my faith and my view of the Trinity. My mom and I went shopping and I bought interview clothes (crazy!) Now I just need to get an interview to wear the outfit too.....Still praying hard and feeling led to Chattanooga! :) On Thursday, I helped my mom cook most of the Thanksgiving dinner because she was sick after catching it from my dad.

Friday morning, we all packed up and drove to Athens for the weekend. My parents and I met up with Katie, Lee, and Charlotte to eat out at one of our family's favorite restaurants to celebrate mine and Katie's birthdays (her's was this Saturday--she's 28 now!) Saturday, I woke up early, bundled up, and headed to my last UGA football game as a student. After going to home football games for the past 4 seasons, it has never rained...until my last one! It was cold, wet, and rainy--and we lost. Georgia Tech, 45--UGA, 42. It was a rough game to sit through and watch, or rather stand through to watch because I made the mistake of sitting down once and this was the outcome (with my roomie to point it out):

This past week was so wonderful and restful so dragging myself back to school was kind of rough this morning. I only have 6 more days of classes for this semester with Semi Formal this weekend to look forward to and the CVP Christmas party the weekend following!

I titled this post "Family hugs" because this past weekend reminded me how special a hug from a family member is. Hugs are great from anyone, especially friends, but they're especially wonderful from family members. The warm feeling and security that you feel when you embrace a family member is so unique and I am so grateful that I was hugged my parents, sisters, brother in laws, and licked by my Mitzi over my break! :)