Charlotte or Bust

Saturday I had a very full, but fun day. I traveled with 5 other friends from church (plus a baby) to Charlotte. We left around 7am and didn't get back til 11. Needless to say I was very tired and grumpy (sorry Justin) when we got back. We got to our first stop, Ikea, a little before 10 when it opened. I had never been to Ikea before but had heard great things about and it's a Swedish company and I am Swedish so I liked it already. Wow, largest store I've ever been in. I now have a very large wish list. Thankfully, their stuff is inexpensive so I can have reasonable priced dreams. Can't wait to go back when I'm working again! After Ikea, we hit up Concord Mills Mall and shopped til at least I was dropping. We made one last stop at the Trader Joes and had dinner at On the Border. What a fun day with great friends! I didn't even mind the 2 hour 40 minute trip since I learned great things about my traveling companions. Can't wait to do it again guys!

A Look into my Sister's World

My sister, Elisabeth lives in Illinois with her husband Aaron and their 18 month old. Her neighborhood was hit by a tornado Saturday night a little before 9 pm. The following is a look into what went on that night:
"Prior to 9pm the alarms went off 3 times and we were back and forth from the apartment and basement. Aaron was watching a black cloud that was coming toward our building. As it got closer, we decided to go back downstairs. We just made it to our apartment door when the wind very violently picked up. We ran to the basement door and as I opened it, the screen door flew out of my hand. We got inside and Aaron tried to close the storm door and with all of his weight, could not. The tornado lasted about 5 seconds, but the damage done was unbelievable. Our apartment building lost the roof and a portion of the brick building. As you saw from the pictures, there were wood fragments, insulation, downed trees and peoples stuff everywhere. Our apartment was the only livable one in the building, so we stuck it out until we had to move last night. While it was for sure the scariest moment of my life so far, the blessing and peace of the Lord has been unbelievable. There were houses a block from us leveled but no deaths or major injuries. None of our stuff inside was ruined. We are alive! We spent most of the day Sunday and Monday cleaning up and helping neighbors. The apartment insurance company forced us to leave the building yesterday and our land lord had an open apartment across town that we were able to move into last night. While it was hard to leave our home we know it was the best thing to do, we're suppose to get several inches of rain today and tomorrow and there was the concern of our stuff getting ruined because of water or the ceiling collapsing. Aaron and Laura called friends and within an hour we had trucks, trailers and movers helping us. The move only took 3 hours. We are overwhelmed by the love and help we have had from friends, family and church members at Holy Trinity. The blessings that we have received from so many are hard to comprehend. Its amazing how the Lord takes a disaster like this and brings wonderful things out of it."

Here's a photo of her apartment building:

Since the Semester has ended...

The past couple of weeks have flown by since I've been out of school. I thought I'd be really bored, but I've kept pretty busy catching up on house and personal stuff I had neglected over the past semester. I've also been gone the past couple of weekends on mini vacations with Justin.
Last weekend Justin and I headed to Busch Gardens on Friday with his brother, Daniel. It was my late birthday present from March and I had a really great time. Justin gets sick on roller coasters so he only rode a few with me. But Daniel continued to ride with me until we were beat. The next day we hung around at Justin's mom's house and that night had a cookout with his dad and siblings. Sunday we met up with my aunts, my parents, and brother at Maggiano's in Richmond. We enjoyed an Italian feast that we had been planning for since Christmas but ended up not being able to go because of all the snow. Then once I was in school, I was unable to take any weekends off. It was delicious as usual and we had a great time together, though short.
This weekend, we headed down to White Lake, NC on Thursday night for a weekend with Justin's family and friends. We had a great time on the Lake swimming, tubing, jet skiing, go-karting, and as always, grilling some amazing food. The weather was even pretty decent most of the time. Still, after two consecutive weekends away, I'm glad to be in my own bed tonight with my kitties :)

Goodbye Grandma

A little over a week ago, I lost my grandmother. Growing up, she lived in the next town over from us so I saw her frequently. She liked to decorate cakes and made all of our birthday cakes with whatever animal or shape that we wanted. For our birthday present she would take us to the mall, have lunch with us, and let us pick out our birthday present. Sometimes we would spend the night with her. We always went to Taco Bell and Dunkin Donuts. She loved animals. She owned a little poodle for many years, and liked to feed the birds and many stray cats in her back yard. She was good friends with my other grandmother, who passed away about 3 years ago. We used to all go to the beach together when I was younger. She was one of the nicest and sweetest persons I've ever met. She never had anything bad to say about anyone. She had 2 sons, 4 grandchildren, and 3 great-grandchildren. She would have been 90 in October.

All of us at Sandbridge Beach:



Last Easter:

I miss Gadget

This past couple of weeks have been hard in several different ways. First, my cat Gadget disappeared on the 19th. It has sucked not knowing what happened to him, whether he is alive or not, suffering somewhere, or just found a new home. I don't really know why he would have run away since he's allowed outside and he wouldn't really have a reason to leave me so the conclusion I have come to is that he's no longer alive. This makes me really sad because he was my favorite of my cats. He was really sweet and we definitely had some really good times together. I really miss him :(

Me and Gadget:

Gadget as a baby:

At the beginning of last week, I still had 8 tests hanging over my head. It's been really hard to sit down and study day after day and seem like you aren't really getting anywhere. But as of right now, I only have 4 left. I can finally see the end and sight and believe that I'm almost finished and am probably going to make it to next year.
Knowing that summer is near, I still haven't really figure out what I'm going to do this summer. I'm only taking one class so I'll have some free time during the day. Any suggestions?

Yesterday was the 3rd anniversary of the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech. Sometimes I still can't believe that it happened to my school; it still seems pretty surreal. I did the memorial race in the morning with my friend Megan on campus and then kind of took the day off from school for the rest of the day.

The past few weeks have been going pretty well for me school wise which is amazing since a lot of my school mates have not been doing so well. I tribute that to the grace of God and continuous prayer about school! This semester is coming to an end which I'm really excited about since it's really really hard to study with all of the nice weather! I have three more weeks of class and then a half week of finals. I still have 2 tests left and then 6 finals to accomplish in that time which seems pretty impossible but I know God will give me the strength to get through it all. I think I would be feeling pretty discouraged right now if it weren't for my faith. I am still pretty worried about my skills final that I have coming up on the 27th. It covers all of the body systems we've covered this semester. I basically have to pick one of the systems from a cup and do that assessment on a partner. Each system entails lots of information to look, listen, and explain about. I am pretty nervous about it since there is so much to remember and it's the first test where I've had to perform something. But it's like I was telling my mom, I think I'm where I'm supposed to be and as long as I do my part, the Lord will do the rest. This semester has by far been the greatest period of reliance on God for me. I've had it pretty easy most of my life and I've never felt so humbled before. I'm grateful for all that God has taught in the past months and I hope that I will be able to continue to rely on him even when life is not as difficult.

Sunscreen

It's that time of year for everyone to be outside all the time, exercising, doing yard work, or playing with the kids. I want to strong remind everyone to wear sunscreen when you're outside. Not only does the sun cause skin cancer (even if you don't burn, sorry that's not a good excuse) but it definitely causes wrinkles! So if you don't put it on for any other reason, put it on for the prevention of aging skin! If not, when you look old and I don't, I'm gonna laugh at you!

My favorite sunscreen this summer: