Holidays and a New Year

Well the past month has just flown by!  I headed to Marion on Christmas Eve Eve to meet Justin and spend time with his family.  We had Christmas dinner Saturday and opened presents at Alice's.  Christmas morning was spent at Scott & Louise's house with presents and snackies.  Justin and I drove to Raleigh that afternoon and had dinner and presents with my mom and dad.  I got a few little things here and there and my big present was my very own TRX.  I'm pretty excited to have my own!  Justin and I spent a very lazy, relaxing week in Raleigh which was exactly what my stressed out brain needed.  I got to ride Ivan twice during the week, which was great.  I enjoyed spending time with Justin and the orange kitties, cooking meals, going out to eat with friends, and just doing nothing.  We went and ordered our wedding bands, which was very exciting!  Mine is the matching band to my engagement ring.  It was fun watching him pick out what he liked, as he has rarely ever worn jewelry.  He ended up with a very nice white gold band with a few stripes of brushed and non-brushed gold.  They should come in around the beginning of February.  Turns out, we bought wedding bands 2 years to the day from the day he bought my engagment ring.  That was not planned, but pretty cool!  We went and saw War Horse, which was pretty good.  It had a happy ending, was very predictable, and portrayed some of the sad realities of war.

Justin making peanut butter balls

Opening Presents

Scott & Louise's Christmas Tree

The boys being lazy :)

Ivan loves hay fluffies...

Punk and Baxter playing

 

We headed back to Knoxville on New Year's Eve day.  We stopped by Granite Falls to visit my grandmother on the way.  She was in the hospital, but was better than I've seen her in months!  She looked and sounded strong.  She is currently in a rehab center where she is gaining her strength back a little bit each day.  I talk to her on the phone occasionally and she sounds better each time!  We continued on our trek to TN, stopping at Dead End BBQ for dinner (aka best BBQ in the world).  We came home to my attention-starved kitty who had made a complete mess of the carpet.  Poor guy had some intestinal problems, so we rented a RugDoctor the next day and cleaned up the carpet.  New Year's Eve consisted of us sitting on the couch, drinking sparkling red grape juice, and watching the ball drop. 

Justin stayed with me in TN for a week, helping me with my sample collection on Tuesday and Thursday.  I hated that he had to come with me to the slaughterhouse in the FREEZING cold super early and staying all day...but it was extremely helpful having him with me!  While in town, we did a little shopping, went and saw We Bought A Zoo (awesome movie, everyone should go see it!), ate some local favorites, had a chili night with my friend Milly, and just enjoyed our time together.  We enjoyed our small glimpse of what awaits when I come home for good, which made it very difficult on Sunday when he had to go back home.  It's amazing how much more enjoyable "doing nothing" is when he is here versus when I'm alone and have nothing to do.  We both have really busy semesters coming up, so hopefully the next 4.5 months will FLY and we can get married ASAP! 

Asher wanted to sip some sparkling red grape juice on New Years Eve

He loves his daddy :)

We ate the last piece of my birthday cake together.  The next time we eat this cake, it will be on our wedding day!

Soft kitty, warm kitty...

My semester started this past Wednesday.  I am only taking a once-a-week seminar class, so I do not have any courses to worry about attending or studying for.  I am a TA for the Repro class I TA'd last year, except now I am the one in charge.  Megan Goodwin, who was an undergraduate worker in the lab until this week which officially made her Dr. Edwards' new graduate student, is the up-and-coming TA who will be in charge of the course next year.  I am teaching her everything that goes on behind the scenes so she will be able to meet the extremely high demands of Dr. Edwards next year.  We have another grad student TA, which is very helpful!  It is great having another set of hands!  I will be finishing my experiment, running statistics, writing a thesis, and defending it this semester (hopefully by May so I don't have to worry about defending after the wedding).  So it will be very busy, very stressful, and very crazy.  I am just ready to have all of these big hurdles behind me so I can head back to Raleigh and start "the real world" with Justin.  I'm ready to be out of research and to find a job that I enjoy where I can help people.  I'm very thankful for the TA opportunities I have, which give me the one-on-one interaction and teaching role that is so rewarding.  Who knows where we'll be or what I'll be doing in the future.  I'm prepared to take life as it comes to me, learning along the way, and enjoying the experiences I encounter as much as possible.

Wedding planning updates:
- Wedding bands have been purchased
- My shoes should come in any day now so I can get my dress hemmed
- Mom is working on the invitations
- Save The Dates are out
- My bridesmaids have an appointment to go pick out their dress in 2 weeks
- We booked our honeymoon - Grand Cayman
- We have 2 wedding showers the first Saturday in February
- We have a meeting to go over music for the ceremony the same day as the showers
- We are at t-minus ~4.5 months!!!!