Hello, my dear Xangan friends. Long time no see, huh? I apologize for falling off the face of Xanga like I did, but there is a viable explanation for it. For you see, Harding has Xanga blocked. Silly, I know, but 'tis one of it's only faults. My first semester is over now and I'm home for Christmas (I now understand so much more what it means to be "home for Christmas!" Such a seemingly simple, yet beautiful statement!), so I thought I should drop by and update. =) But oh how do you update when you haven't spoken in five months? I think I shall just give you a taste (through pictures, naturally) of this last semester.

My camera broke last year and so I have been without, thus I don't have all the pictures from my friend's cameras of some very important events of this semester. But here are the ones I do have. =)

Emilee and I are roommates, we hardly knew each other before this past summer, but since we both were coming to Harding we decided we might as well room together rather than rooming with a perfect stranger. And it has turned out better than I ever could have expected! God has truly blessed me with a wonderful roommate.
(This picture was taken at Impact, the weekend before classes started.)

Mark and Emilee are both from my youth group back home, it was definitely nice having people we knew as we moved 500 miles from home. This picture was taken our first week of school, at Hastings I do believe.

My home away from home. Our window is directly above the columns on the left side (you can just barely make it out through the leaves on the tree). I love our dorm!

Campus-wide hide and seek! Which turned out to be really lame, as it wasn't organized well. But we had loads of fun dressing up for it! We looked pretty much amazing, if I do say so myself.

Trip to Little Rock. We went to a sports store looking for a yoga mat and tennis shoes, found these amazing Arkansas razorback hats and couldn't resist. It was such a fun day though! Good memories of shopping, getting lost, driving on the wrong side of the road, and of course a round of the Alphabet Game on the drive back to Searcy!

Our trip to Heber! Heber is about 30 minutes away, a beautiful and relaxing break from the hectic life at school. We went that first month of school, brought a picnic and watched the sunset. Such a great day!

Having my sister at Harding has been great, we get to see each other a lot... but not too often. She has me over every now and then for lunch, we work in Admissions together (more so at the beginning of the semester before our workload - hers especially - got to be too much), and I've gone to a lot of the basketball games with her. It's a lot of fun getting to spend time together before she graduates in May. =)

Midnight Madness with Brett, Penny, Ryan, Kim, and Lauren. (And Amanda, Carly, and Stephanie who weren't there yet.) Lots of fun welcoming back our basketball team!

Rae, Lauren, Chip, and I went on a trip to the grad school in Memphis at the beginning of November. Harding took a couple of buses one Thursday, canceled our classes, and toured us around the grad school. We even got to see some family while we were in town. =)

Four of the sweetest girls on campus - Allison, Maggie, Alicia, and Elizabeth. (They're having a "tea party" here at the Underground. This was the best picture I could find of the four of them on facebook, I really need to get everyone's pictures from them.)

Now this was a fun night... Before Thanksgiving was packed with tests and studying and then on the Wedesday before Thanksgiving break, we all of a sudden found that all our tests were over and we had nothing to do. And oh we had a blast! We had a free rental from the McDonald's rental thingy and went out to Riverside Park and watched The Pursuit of Happyness. Unfortunately some scary people showed up at the park and their dubious activities caused us to have to pack up and leave. This picture was when Chip left us at one point to talk on the phone and we were "terrified".
Lauren, Savannah, and Chip have all become dear friends. We have studied together, partied together, laughed together, cried together, praised God together, and have been there for each other this past semester. I couldn't ask for better friends! 

Saturday before finals we had a girls night at my sister's. We had homemade pizza, played a game of Apples to Apples, made ornaments for Rae's Christmas tree, caroled, and had a fun night of old and new friends.

Some of the other freshman female Bible majors (there are about 4 more not in this picture), we're hoping to start a prayer group in the Spring. This was taken at the last Alpha Chi Malachi meeting, we had a Christmas party at one of the professor's homes.

My walking buddy, Elizabeth. It's amazing the things you find to talk about as you walk all over campus (and Searcy when we managed to find time before dark) fulfilling your Wellness requirement. One of the sweetest girls you could ever meet.

Two dear friends, Lauren and Laura. They have challenged me like few others in my walk with God, such wonderful examples of Christ's love! I could go on and on about them, but suffice to say - I love these girls dearly!

My first semester has been amazing. There are so many other people I long to tell you about, so many other events and experiences, and so many stories of how God has molded and shaped me over these past few months. I have learned so much - scholastically, emotionally, and spiritually. I have changed so much, grown so much. And I cannot thank my God enough for all the blessings He has showered on me this past semester. He has been there for me through the tough times, the happy times, and all the many inbetween times and provided me with exactly the support I needed for each and every time.

"I will give thanks to the LORD because of his righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the LORD Most High."
-- Psalm 7:17

"Rest in this - it is His business to lead, command, impel, send, call, or whatever you want to call it. It is your business to obey, follow, move, respond, or what have you." -- Jim Elliot

So I've had a post written for two or three weeks now. Never could decide if I wanted to make it public or not, so finally I decided not. I wasn't really sure that it made all that much sense anyways. So instead I thought I'd do a picture post, and I realized that I never really did a post on my trip to South America last summer. And since the group just got back from Guyana, I thought now would be a perfect time to do one!

But oh it was so hard not to be going with them this summer. I know that I made the right decision in not going, but that didn't make it easy. God is so awesome though. He has shown me so many different tangible reasons for why I wasn't supposed to go; which definitely did much to ease the sadness while they were all away. But enough rambling... pictures! I had so many I wanted to share, as well as quite a few stories to go with them, but for your sake, I cut out quite a few - and the stories. If nothing else, it was a great walk down memory lane for me... I hope you enjoy! =)

 
    

 

The children's ward at the hospital in Kitty...
  
 
 
 

River trip to Fort Zeelandia, Bacarra Falls, and other fun such places...
 
   
 

'Being happy doesn't mean that everything is perfect. It means that you've decided to look beyond the imperfections.'
-- Unknown

What a wonderful week! Wow... God is so very awesome. I needed this past week. It wasn't perfect, but it didn't need to be. Things have been so stressful of late, but I'm hoping that's going to change soon. At least I can hopefully stop focusing on the not-so-happy things. And that's what this is... a post of all the happy things from last week! =D

Sunday - Sunday afternoon I watched A Knight's Tale! And while I'm not really a fan of Heath Ledger anymore, I love that movie... It had been far too long since I'd seen it. Such good memories... I love you, sis!
'Better a silly girl with a flower than a silly boy with a horse and a stick.'
'It's called a lance.... hellooooo!'

And then that night we had a devo out at the bay, which involved a really good discussion on selfishness, lots of singing, and way too many bugs. But ah, it was so uplifting! We even had an audience of three while we were singing... one of which stayed to talk with us afterwards. Apparently we reminded him that not all teenagers are all off into mischief. =P

Monday - I did a rather significant amount of schoolwork and finished reading Emma by Jane Austen. And while it in no way could compare with Pride and Prejudice, 'twas still a pretty good book. I just love ending the day with that feeling of accomplishment...

Tuesday - I got my first official pay check! Which was pretty cool, I must say. It is nice getting something "material" - if you will - in return for all the stress of the past few weeks.

Wednesday - I found out that I'm going to have another little niece or nephew come November!! Yep, my oldest sister, Melissa is pregnant! =D I love babies. Though unfortunately will probably rarely see this one, as Melissa and her husband live in Prague. But hey! Still verra fun news! =)

Thursday - That morning at work was thankfully rather slow as there were only two of us working (the other two girls were sick). About 10:30, 11 o'clock there were only about 4 or 5 kids (when usually there are around 15ish at that time of the morning). So Laura and I kind of just sat and talked for a long time. After a while God entered the conversation... and we ended up having a really good discussion. She wanted to come to church on Sunday. Let me tell you, I was absolutely ecstatic. What an answer to prayer! And while she ended up not coming, I'm hoping maybe next week. Your prayers for her and me would be more than appreciated. I feel so inadequate in talking with her, but am trusting that God will provide me with the right words at the right moments. Something that is slowly - but surely - becoming easier to do. But it is hard not to worry over every little detail or to "plan" out what to say, you know? (Which have you noticed - they never fail to not say what you had decided for them, which of course completely ruins your planned out conversations... what's with that?)

And then that afternoon, while working at the front desk, who should walk through the doors, but.... Ashley! I met Ashley 2, 2 1/2 ago online. And we definitely met face to face for the very first time Thursday afternoon!! *grins* She lives up north and was on a school trip down here. I had to work and we despaired of getting to see each other (which would have been entirely too depressing to have been so close and still not have gotten to meet). But as they literally drove right past where I work, she convinced the amazing tour director to stop and let us get a quick hug and squeal in. And while only lasting for 5 minutes at most, it was so verra cool to finally meet! =D

(Random side note - Ashley was the one who forced me into watching The Phantom of the Opera for the first time... it has since become one of my all time favorite movies. She will ever hold a special place in my heart for that particular recommendation.)

And then later that afternoon I came home; eventually got online and read all of your fabulous comments on my last post. They made me smile. =) Seriously, they really did. Thank you, my friends.

Friday - We had a girls night! With a bonfire, s'mores, and lots of off-key singing. An all around good time. Pictures might be forthcoming, once I get them.

Saturday - I got a new skirt! Which I absolutely wuvvles. I had been wanting something special to wear for Easter - silly, I know. But what girl doesn't? Especially after having gone through her meager closet and realizing that almost every cute outfit has black involved. And for some reason, black didn't really seem appropriate for Easter... So mum and I went out shopping Saturday. And oh my word, I found a gorgeous dress. I. fell. in. love. But it wasn't quite modest enough. And the way it was made, you really couldn't wear anything under it. I was devastated. But survived. And ended up finding a really cute white skirt. Not quite as exciting as the dress, but still verra fun! It made me happy. =)

Sunday - Was Easter! My sister and her family came over, and ah we had a wonderful day together! Family is such a precious thing. Though my alarm clock did somehow end up not going off, giving me only about 20, 30 minutes to get ready; which definitely put a strain on my big plans for looking all cute for Easter. But ah well, I managed well enough, I suppose. And it truly was such a fun day. =D

 
"Coloring" eggs!
And of course, the egg hunt!

So by now that's all a week late, but I'd been working on it off and on all week, and only now have had the time to finish it. I thought I'd go ahead and post it anyways. Happy posts are always fun. =)

I do hope you all have a beautiful weekend of happy things!