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.