MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE, AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Nick's college graduation: Lucy, Amanda, and Nick

Lucy is all smiles with her dad

Me, Amanda and Lucy at Nick's graduation

Me and my beautiful niece sportin' our cool hats

After hours of making dough and baking cookies, it's time to attack them with icing!

Our finished products...7 hours later!

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas....in Texas?!

Hey everyone! I feel like it's been forever since I wrote anything. After I finished my exam and headed on home, it had felt like 2 weeks had passed. And now I've been here for a week already! Crazy. I went to Dallas for a 2 days to meet up with Monica (an old high school buddy who just got engaged!! Congrats, again, Noto! I have to use your last name as much as I can before you get married!). I also got to spend some quality time with my niece, Madyson, and her momma and dada;>) She is so freakin cute...smiling so much more than even three months ago. I will have to get some pics of her up.

Then I headed on up to the big town of Wichita Falls to see my brother-in-law walk the stage for his college graduation. Being at MSU always brings back so many memories...all the soccer and studying I went through for 4 years there! There was one time where Kim and I woke up one morning and decided to take my car to go get washed, but we refused to change out of our pyjamas. But while it was being washed, I started to get this craving for fudge. Not just any fudge...Fudge Factory fudge, which was in the other big town of Sherman....2 hours away! So we drove directly from the car wash to Sherman, in our pj's, only to get there and find that they had no more fudge!!! We actually waited another 2 or 3 hours for them to make it before we finally left around 5 pm. So, what started out to be a simple car wash turned into a day long quest to find and eat fudge! Crazy times, huh?

I've also spent a lot of time with my newest niece, Lucy, and my sister. We made cookies ALL DAY yesterday, and had soooo much fun doing it! Just so everyone knows, and to make my sister smile while reading this, my favorites were the Christmas tree cookies:>) So MUCH fun to make! I think I have gained at least 3 lbs (1.5 kilos) in the last week!

I'll be heading on down to Houston this Friday to see my brother in prison. I haven't seen him in 4 years! It will be an extremely long trip (6 hrs. there, 6 hrs. back), but it's worth it to see him around Christmas time. I would think that visits from family and/or friends around this time of the year would help the people stuck in there, even if it's only a little bit.

Well, I'll be posting pictures soon! I hope everyone is having a nice holiday season thus far, and I really hope to hear from you all soon!

Merry Christmas!

I'll Be Home for Christmas

It's hard to believe, but it's true...I survived my exam. Of course, they will torture me for another month seeing as they will send me my results by snail mail in January. But no matter! In just a few hours I will be on a long flight home to spend three weeks with my family and friends, which I'm really looking forward to:>) Nothing too exciting happened last week. I got sick, and I now have NO voice! I'm sure that, for some of you, that's a blessing from above. But, for me, it's frustrating! I couldn't go out with my school buddies on Friday night to celebrate the end of my studies, and I couldn't go out to another 'school buddy' party last night. I did, however, stay at home and celebrate my roomie's birthday. I talked for a little while, but then just ended up sitting there listening to everyone else's conversation and not being able to contribute. At least there was good food, good music, and a great ambience:>) But having no voice sucks!
Still have NO idea of what I'm going to do when I get back...I will, of course, be job-hunting 100% of the time. But it will be strange to not be working or studying...I don't handle that very well. I have to be doing something constructive with my life, otherwise I feel useless! Oh well, I will worry about all of that when I get back:>) So, I'm going to leave you all here. I should be in Texas 'round 3 pm tomorrow! I'm sure I will keep this blog alive during the three weeks I'm at home, so I'll be talking to you all soon;>) Take care!