Top 5 Tuesday

January Favorites!

1. Since being back at school I've been spending more time with my friends here. Last semester I didn't socialize as much because I needed to do really well in school. Well now that its a new year I'm getting to spend way more time out with friends, and I love it!

2. Work. Now its kinda weird to say I love my work, but since I've been back I've enjoyed working more hours and getting to know the people that I work with and the swimmers I see daily.

3. My community group! We kicked off our first group on Sunday evening. (More to come about that later)

4. The future plans and trips. I've got so much to look forward to this year and I'm extremely excited.

5. And my absolute favorite of January, I rung in the new year with some great people. Between spending Passion with my boy, and soaking up some great quality time at home, the beginning of the year was off to a rocking start!!

What are your favorites?

Go on over and check out Just Peachy's  blog! She's doing a great giveaway!!

$5 Burger Night

Last evening my roommates and a friend all went out for $5 burger night at Copper Cellar. Its a local restaurant here in town and just a short walk from our apartment. They have burger night every Wednesday, and it sure does pack out the place. Just about everyone on campus (ok a majority) shows up.

via Google

The restaurant is fairly nice and has a downstairs seating section that is incredible. We were fortunate to eat downstairs last night (the cellar) but unfortunately I didn't snap any pics. The burgers were incredible! We all loved what we ordered and can't wait to go back next Wednesday. The conversation was top notch. It was so great catching up with girlfriends and discussing the happenings of life. So much laughter, loved it! And of course afterwards we went for some ice cream. Burgers + ice cream = perfection. If you're ever in town on a Wednesday this is definitely a great place to go. Do restaurants in your town offer any special nights?? Have a great Thursday!

Girls Night Out

Friday night our college ministry had separate girls and guys night socials. This social was by far one of the funnest!! All of the girls got together for a fun filled healthy night, yeah I know healthy should scare me away but this was great! We all arrived and chatted for a bit, had to catch up at the end of a long week. And then a lady at our church, who is a personal train & in her 2nd trimester!!, gave us a talk on how to properly exercise, what order we should do things in, and some exercise in confined areas. She had some really awesome tips with a stability ball and I can't wait to try them out. After that we all headed to do some zummmba!!!

We had so much fun doing this together! All of us were just giggling away and really enjoying the music. I know I will have to buy some of those songs too, because they were that fun. And it will most likely speed up my morning routine to have a little dance music going. After that we ate some delicious foods. I am now obsessed with Ken's Raspberry walnut dressing.

This is the icing of the cake to your salad!! Besides salad we also had sugar free muffins that were amazing!! All you need is your cake mix, an egg, a can of pumpkin and voila your done! Best part about these, they get more moist the longer they sit out. So three days later and they taste better! (also only 1 point for weight watchers so I was told) There were veggie bars, antioxidant drinks (I'm now obssed with diet cherry antioxidant 7up) and more. There wasn't something I didn't like which is weird coming from a picky eater like me. After munching we had two different info sessions, one for nutrition the other for beauty. I went to the beauty session where we did a demonstration for eye make up on me. Lemme tell you this girl knows her stuff! I've never gotten my eyes to look the way she made them. Also I tried out this lipgloss that matches to your skin tone, so it appears a different color on everyone, genius! We finished the night off with candling.

If you watch the Kardashians, its the same as the episode were they put a candle in Bruce's ear and all of the buildup comes out. This was totally fascinating yet incredibly gross as there was a lot of buildup. After the social some girls and I headed to get fro-yo. I mean come on, we had just been so healthy! And thanks to my wonderful eye makeup (and the computer freezing) mine was free. Hooray!! The night was so much fun, and I'm looking forward to putting into practice all the things I learned. What are some of your health & beauty tricks??

WILW

Today I'm loving..

1. That I'm finally getting things marked off my to do list. Y'all I've been swamped since classes started. This whole homework is assinged before class starts thing is not ok with me. 

2. I got both my Nutrition and Nursing school applications turned in today. (Send little prayers for me!) They are both stressing me out, fingers crossed I get into nursing school   ;-)

3. I'm finally shadowing a wonderful nurse practitioner. I'm getting all the behind the scenes looks and loving every minute of it.

4. That this week is almost over and I'm that much closer to February 4!

5. I got one present marked off my shopping list. Hooray!!

What are you loving this week??

Its Ok Friday

Its Ok.. that it took me an entire day to organize all school supplies, syllabi, and my closet. I moved back on Tuesday and spent all of Wednesday preparing for classes on Thursday.

Its ok.. I ate the most amazing chicken fried rice made by Lean Cuisine. I know, I was shocked. I'm usually cautious to try asain inspired microwave meals because they tend to dry out.

Its ok.. that I have a countdown till when I can see my boy again, spring break, and my 21st birthday.

Its ok.. I've finally gotten back into the gym and have so much more energy! I need to be up early this semester for classes and work so the extra energy is wonderful.

Its okay.. that I finally have found a sweet nurse to shadow on Friday afternoons. I'm so excited about getting to know her and learning more about a nurse practioners career.

Pizza + Cookies + Bad Teacher

For one of our last nights together during Christmas break the boy and I decided we would make homemade pizzas! We've done this before and they came out great so we were excited. We got all of our supplies together and in the pizzas went.

adding some pineapple

ready to go in... 

all done! yummmm

They came out deeelicous! So for deserts what do we have? Cookies of course!
*The boy was snap happy that night*

And we finished the night by laughing away at Bad Teacher. If you haven't watched this you should! It is absolutely hysterical!! Starring Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake it couldn't be any better. Now I'm back at school and today is the first day of classes! Eek! I'm off to my second round of classes today!

Lucky Lilly

On Friday I spent some time with my best friend from high school. After grabbing some mexican at our favorite restaurant we made a trip to TJ Maxx. And oh boy did we score lucky!! They had just received a new shipment & we scored some new Lilly things.

On the far left is the Essential life of Lilly. I had never seen nor heard of this book. It is so cute! On the inside is the story of Lilly, along with party hosting tips & recipes. I also got some new pencils and a notebook. My current Lilly notebook is almost completely full of sermons so it was time for a new one, and schools starts back next week, uggggh. So pencils were necessary.

Have you scored anything lately at TJ Maxx??

Passion cont.

Days 2 & 3

We woke up super early, ate some breakfast, chugged some coffee, caught the Marta and started off with community groups. My sweet community group was from all around the south. One of them even knowing a high school friend, such a small world!! The talks all included: Beth Moore, Francis Chan, Louie Giglio, Christine Cane, John Piper, & some a few other peers. The music was incredible. The second night, Hillsong United did their concert, love! And we also recorded a new song to be released that tells the story of the 27 million slaves. We had a candligh vigil for those, and to let know Atlanta freedom will ring. Its incredible to think we raised over $3 millions dollars!! I'm blown away by my generation. Over those days I learned so much. More about myself, my boy, and what God is doing with us. I know he has put us together for a divine purpose because we both have a heart for the same things. I'm so excited for this journey. If you would like to read more CNN did an article and video.

Passion 2012: Freedom

Well I must explain myself where I have been the past few days. On the 2 of January I picked up my & off to Atlanta we went with my church in Knoxville. We were #headedtothedome , the Georgia dome that is. No we weren't there to watch a football game, but to worship Jesus, & with 45,000 other college students to learn more about the word, human trafficking, & what we're doing with our lives. I'm going to a day by day break down, because I can't put it all into one post. So lets start with Day one :)

Monday:
6:50 Arrive at my boy's house
7:15 Pull onto interstate
9:00 Arrive in Knoxville. We didn't have to be at my church till 9:45 so we cruised through some neighborhoods he's never seen and munched on Chik fil a mini buiscuits.
10:00 We all leave our church
The ride down was fun. We stopped along the way at the most swanky McDonalds I've ever been in. Made some jokes, and slept a little bit. Once we got closer to Atlanta we were pretty excited.
2:30 Unload van
3:00 I roomed with some pretty awesome ladies. One of which has been spending the past four months in Haiti. It was so wonderful catching up and hearing all of her tales.
4:00 Group Meeting
We then headed to the Marta and journeyed downtown. While our leader waited in the incredibly long line, we hunted for food and just hung around on the couches.
7:00 ish. We headed into the dome for the first session. Louie Giglio, who pretty much runs everything, opened the night up. This was when we got a glimpse of what human trafficking and 27 million slaves looks like. And how our generation could END slavery.
9:30 First community group meeting. I was part of the light pink group, & met people from all over the south.
11:00 Late night. That night was David Crowders last concert, EVER. Broke my heart. I wanted to cry as we had to leave the dome. We quickly had to leave and make a dash for the  Marta so as not to be stranded at 1 a.m. We made it back to the hotel, and immediately crashed. We had a big couple of next days ahead and rest is very important.

I'll be back with day two!!

2011 in Pictures

Ok, I'm going to attempt to get this past year in pictures all together.Here it goes..

I went for my second year in a row and attend Passion Conference in Atlanta. 

Love these sweet girls

My boy and I attended our first Nascar race together this spring. It was gorgeous weather for March! We're talking 60s here. And then experienced afterwards wiping the entire grocery store of their shrimp, yep thats my family!

Please notice the mullet

I had an amazing community group at church that I got to grow with. These girls will always hold a special place in my heart. At the end of the semester we took a trip to the aquarium!

I had the most splendid Easter break. Filled with a good ole easter egg hut, pastels, and church.

The day I got home from spring semester I attended my boy's spring formal. This was so much fun!! I got to pick out a new dress, we got flowers, and dinner was amazing! The people were fun, and we had such a great night. I'm glad I got to be apart of this night with that graduating class.

I went as a big girl to Alabama, for the first time, for a Kenny Chesney concert. This was the best concert I've ever been to!!

Oh, and I fell in love with The University of Alabama, major oopsie.

In June we visited my boy's school for his orientation. Love this place!! And I've met some incredible people through him I now call friends.

Fourth of July

I turned 20! And had the most perfect birthday spent in Georgetown shopping and indulging on cupcakes.

Worked with some really funny people over the summer.

Ran my very first race and had a blast doing it!

Spent my fall break helping torndao victims in Alabama.

Visited my boy for a weekend.

Went on an enchanting Christmas date

And lastly, rung in the new year last night with a wonderful friend!!

Wow.. so many pictures, and so many changes throughout the year. But I'm so happy with this year. It was so full of joy.