Wrapping up 2014

I feel that lately I start out every post with something along the lines of, "life is busy" or "I am so busy". But it's so true.
I really thought it was just a season of life, and I guess it is. But this feels like a really long season.
Don't get me wrong- I am incredibly happy with my life right now. In all honesty, I am so thankful that I am where I am. God has this crazy way of making everything work out, and it is really cool for me to be able to see some of this stuff that I've gone through, come to fruition.
Words to describe the month of December.. Fun. Busy. Joy. Love. Sleep. Peace.
It was a really really really good month. I could write paragraphs about it. But instead, I'll just put up a bunch of pictures with short captions to highlight the big events of the month.

Let me share my month with you….

To start it out, we had the Tennis Club presenting our check to the Florence Area Humane Society on December 3rd. Our club raised over $2000! I am so proud to be president of a club where we do great things to impact our community. This picture was one taken afterwards with two of my amazing officers, Bailey and Abbey. 

Then that Saturday the 7th, there was the annual First Pres youth progressive dinner Christmas party! It always ends with a white elephant gift exchange and a very very very cold picture. The top picture is probably my favorite one of me, Bryan, and Mac. The three that make up the First Pres senior class! Then the bottom is the group pic. Thanks to the Jacksons, Clevelands, and Morgans for opening up their homes to our crazy bunch. 

Then, on the 11th of December, Abbey and I had a meeting.. we were both late getting to school.. and long story short ended up going to Chick Fil A. Totally delicious.

December 13th.. Miss WF! Still in shock over that. Great night, great friends. Here's a good pic Tay snapped real quick in the middle of the chaos. 

December 16th was Christmas at EFM. 

So I was voted by my senior classmates as the winner of the superlative "Most Likely to Save the Day"! It was very sweet of my classmates, especially because I was not in any way expecting it. It blows my mind to think that four years ago I was brand new at West Florence, brand new in the public school world, I knew hardly anyone.. and yet I won Most Likely to Save the Day? Thanks to all my friends who voted me that, it really did mean a lot. So on the 17th, I took my picture for the yearbook with the boy winner. I wore a superman shirt because, hello, most likely to save the day!

Then on the 18th I hung out with my favorite 9 year old on our last day together before Christmas break. Love her. She requested this picture. 

Christmas Eve lunch is spent at Nana and Bigdaddy's. My mom's family. This is the annual grandchildren/grandparent pic. 

Christmas Day is spent at home. Dad made a wonderful turkey. Alice made some delicious sides. The day was celebrated with family and close friends. It was truly one of my favorite Christmases yet. 

So the Monday after Christmas Mattie, Abbey, Anna, and I headed to Riverbanks Zoo to see their Christmas lights. Since most of the animals were asleep, Abbey and I settled for taking a picture with a great metal elephant. I did find an alpaca who took a sweet picture with me. And then of course we took a selfie to commemorate our trip. 

New Year's Eve was spent with the lovely five pictured above, along with many others. It was an awesome time. I love my friends. Getting to ring in 2015 with them was such a good time. Maybe it's just cause I'm in a sentimental mood, but I just keep thinking about the fact that we have arrived at second semester.. and we're all going to be leaving each other soon.. I don't know. I was just happy to  be with them that night. Oh and Hailey, thanks for hosting us at your house. Your family is awesome and I love them and you.

That wrapped up 2014. It was an awesome year, filled with ups and downs, happy moments and some not so happy moments. 

And now? Now we are officially into 2015. It started off with a bang. And by that I mean that I slept most of the day. 

Really I don't have any pictures of anything I did until the 8th of January. I can say that we started back at EFM for the Spring Semester. I was pleased with the number of kids we had. It was one of the more trying nights I've had over there, but it all worked out. 

Okay so the 8th of January I was bored and decided to try my skills at making buttercream roses, as seen below. 

I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out, considering I found an old pamphlet of papers with directions on how to make buttercream roses in a cabinet full of cook books at my house. After further discoveries in said cabinet, I have come across a whole small box full of papers and pamphlets about different icing techniques, recipes etc that were my moms. That obviously made me happy.

Then on the 9th First Pres Youth had our annual Christmas Tree Bonfire. This year the Player's graciously allowed us to take over their yard and it was so appreciated. I was able to get Amanda and Hailey to come too, and I loved having them there. I also wore a GREAT hat I got on Christmas from my uncle. It's really wonderful.

So because I was in a baking mood, I offered to make cupcakes for youth group on Sunday night. 

I'll be honest, they turned out way better than expected. 

I made both chocolate and vanilla, and then iced them with a vanilla buttercream dyed blue, and then topped them with white chocolate snowflakes.

The snowflakes were honestly the most difficult part. It took me a long time to pipe them all out. I ended up making around 60, and then choosing my favorite 40 to go onto the cupcakes. 

Lots of melted white chocolate.

And then I took this silly picture just cause I could. 

Because honestly these took me a while to make and I just wanted to look at it for a while before I ate it.

It was pretty good. 

(Can I say that since I made it?) 

Well, I had the 8th grade boys tell me they were great so I'll go with it.

That same night we had the Emerts come speak at the church, and the youth went down to the Fellowship Hall to hear them speak.

Wow.

I wish I had more words to say.

I almost cried several times while listening to them speak.

If you don't know them, they are a sweet family of 5 who packed up everything and moved from Florence to a town called Choma, in a country called Zambia, which is located in a continent called Africa, a year ago.

They went to my church and I babysat their kids sometimes. But even more than that.. they were my East Florence Mission friends. 10th grade, the Emerts became my EFM people. Courtney picked me up and took me and then dropped me off at home week in and week out, even though it was out of her way. Jeremy was willing to play with any of the kids, young and old, and went out of his way to take some kids home that wouldn't have been able to come to the mission because they didn't live near. 

Their three kiddos, Olivia, Jude, and Lincoln accept everyone no matter who they are or what they look like. It came as no surprise to me when Courtney informed me one week that they were planning on moving to Zambia in January of 2014.

And they did. God put the pieces of the puzzle together for them. And my sweet friends went from ministering to local children in their town where they knew everyone, to ministering to children and adults in a new town where they knew very few.

So when they were speaking, speaking about what Courtney does in their "Kid's Club" or how Jeremy has been able to help start a Sewing Project where women learn skills to support their families…

It made me smile, because I knew how much of an impact this family had on me, and I knew that they were making such a huge impact on families 7,816 miles away. 

 It was a blessing to hear them speak. If you wanna read more on their story, here is the link to their page: http://poetice.org/emertfamily/

I took this picture with Taiter, Jeremy, and Courtney after they spoke. I love their family oh so much. 

Okay so a few more things before I wrap up this blog post. I wrote a post back in August about five goals I had for this year. I was prompted to find 5 and choose them by my dear Ann Collins after I basically had a pity-party for myself before Senior year began. I want to go back and revisit them and say a little about each one.

1. Spending time with my school friends
I can definitely say that I have done well with this goal. This semester has been full of dinner dates,    movie nights, football games, after football games sonic nights, and so much more. These five have really been a key part of this semester, along with many others.
This is a picture I put on instagram after homecoming but I just love the bottom picture so..

2. Being a positive influence and showing Jesus to my East Florence Mission kids

Well, if you have read any of my blogs I hope that you would know that I have been definitely working on this goal. It isn't easy. But my kids are showing signs of learning, and that thrills me. I love when they really understand something and ask questions. I am still working with them, and I have a long way to go before the year is over. They still remain a huge part of my life.

3. Going and staying with my college friends.

I haven't done too well on this one. I've been to see Taylor a few times at USC but that's about it. I plan on trying to do this more in the next few months. 

4. Encouraging, praying for, and reaching out to the younger girls in the youth group

Well let me tell ya, these girls are a hot mess… And I LOVE them. I've had the opportunity to be with them a lot this year. Since we don't have that many girls in the youth group right now, middle and high school girls groups are together. Originally I was frustrated by this. But I've come to get used to being the oldest, being a leader, and I enjoy spending lots of time with them. I'm excited to see where this semester takes us. The picture below was one taken on Great Escape. Serious rafting faces.

5. Making this year a fun one.

2014 

was

awesome.

If you don't believe me go look at my past blogs from this year. It's been wonderful. I have loved every minute of it. So far 2015 is great. I can't wait to see what else it brings. I am trusting that God is going to provide everything in order for me to head to USC. I am trusting that senior year is going to finish out. 

I know God is in control.

I started new classes Thursday. I have just one at school, Medical Terminology. And no. I'm not interested in anything in the medical field. But it should be good.

And now I'll be honest. I definitely only finished this blog because I went to Passion 2015 in Atlanta this past weekend, and I cannot wait to blog about it, and I refused to let myself blog about that until I finished and posted this one.

That was totally a run on sentence but if you've read any of my other blogs you know that I honestly just don't care about grammatical errors on my blog. 

So thanks for reading. Thanks for dealing with my grammatical errors. And if you've been with me since the beginning, thanks for helping to make my 2014 a fun year. I'm glad I started this blog.

And I can't wait to see where 2015 takes me.