Thanksgiving ~ Ohh snap!

Well, this was a great Thanksgiving. I just have to state a few of my personal hightlights from Ashley and I's trip to Virgnia for the last 5 days.

1. Cooking a corn casarole with Ash (that was a first)
2. Watchinig grandpas smack grandmas' butts
3. Listening to the entire May family sing "Give Thanks" completely off key
4. Apples to Apples and Loaded Questions
5. 6 dogs, 1 cat, and 1 VERY annoying bird
7. New winter coat, hat, and shoes!
8. Spending the day shopping with Ash, Mrs. May, and Daryl...need I say more?
9. Sleeping in the same room with a bird that wouldn't shut up
10. Harmonizing with Ash to "O Come, O Come, Emannuel" in the middle of Walmart
11. Watching Ash and her brother wrestle on the kitchen floor (I guess that's what I missed out on since I don't have any brothers!)
12. Bringing home twice as much as we left with :) That's always a good thing.

In all seriousness though, I am truly thankful for Ashley at this time of my life. And I've realized just how important family truly is and how much I miss them all being so far away. Never take relationships with friends and family for granted. I have been truly blessed and thank God for giving me such an amazing support system.

Now the next 2 weeks are going to be absolutely ridiculous. All I have to say is--FINALS. Ashley and I have decided we're going to study like crazy, cut out all sugar from our diet, and pray...a lot. We'll see how this goes.

Alright, well we made it through 3 performances on Sun.! It was amazing to see how God moved through the dance and how people recieved it. We did a hip hop to a song called Stand Out and the words are very powerful and pretty blunt so we were praying that God would move in a mighty way... and He sure did! One of the other girls in our dance hit me two different times during the dance (our space was limited on the stage). It was pretty hard to keep from laughing the rest of the dance, but it turned out ok, thank goodness! :) My cousin's girlfriend and friend from an hour away came to see us and it was fun to get to spend a little time with them afterwards.

Well today Ashley and I are heading to her house in VA for our Thanksgiving break and we will be gone until Sun. We're very excited for a break, but have a TON of studying to do to prepare for our finals.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!!!

Contentment

Psalm 118:24 "This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." That has been sinking in. It's been often recently (even in the last week) that I've had to continually remind myself of that verse. So far, this has been one of the most disapointing weeks for me since I've been here at the training program. While I was nannying over the weekend, I fell down wooden stairs and have a contorsion (internal bruise) on my right knee/calf/shin area and sprained my right wrist. I spent all day in the ER on Tues. and thankfully that is all that I did. Some thought my leg was a lot worse. I spent all day Sun. and Mon. thinking I was out of dancing for at least a month, and for obvious reasons, that would defeat the purpose of why I'm here in N.C.--I am here to dance! We are performing in church for the first time this Sun. and praise the Lord, the Dr. said I should be good to go by then.

I think the Lord was just trying to get my attention. I've gotten so caught up in the reutine of things here I was forgetting to truly be thankful for this gift of dance that the Lord has given me. Last night I had my first choroegraphing creative outburst and couldn't get to sleep until 3am. It was the first time in months and the moves were just flowing through me. It felt soooo good. I did an entire 5 min. song almost all in my head within 2 hours.... that could only have come from the Lord! It was was like He knew I just needed to be reminded that it's not about me, it's not about my choreography, or my body and what I can do with it. It's about how He created me with this gift and passion for dancing to use for His glory and nothing else! "I can do all things through Him who gives me strength!"

Ok, I really can't figure this whole blogger thing out and I need some help! How do I follow/subscribe to other peoples' blogs? And post pictures... etc...?

Alright, so when our dance program here in NC started we were encouraged by our directors to journal and I am not a (hand) writer what-so-ever, so I realized a couple of days ago I should start a blog because I would do that so much more than a regular journal and that way my close friends and family can keep up with me while I'm away this year. So! Here is my first entry. :)

I am absolutely loving college life. I wasn't sure if it was cut out for me or not, but I really do love it. :) Even though I don't enjoy the homework part so much, I really love learning. We have about 8 dance and 4 bible classes a week. It's a lot, but it's definitely worth it. There's 6 of us that are on our Glory Dance Team and all from out of town, but most of our classes have others in them as well. We have been working on a hip hop dance for the last 10 weeks and we are performing it for the first time next weekend and we could not be more ready! We are so excited to see how God is going to use us to minister to those in the audience both Sat., and Sun. The 6 of us have really become like a family here and also with others that aren't even on our team. The more we're here the more we realize how God has strategically placed each of us here for different reasons and to truly encourage and pray for eachother on a daily basis. We are all SO unique with very very VERY different personalities and temperments, but we are truly united as a team and want to grow as much as we possibily can throughout this whole experience this year.

I have 1 roommate, Ashley, and she has become one of my best friends. She is 23 and so grounded in who she is in the Lord and a great encouragement to me. We make eachother laugh constantly and it keeps our spirits up when we might be getting homesick or overwelmed with school/work. I love her to death! :)

Oh, and I made it through midterms with A's (so far...we have yet to get some results), but I was pretty excited about that!

That's all for now!