Beginnings and Endings

About 2 hours ago I got a call from my counselor at Cal Baptist telling me that I got accepted! I am beyond excited and can’t wait for this new beginning in my life and I feel like I’m finally getting on the right path to pursue nursing. I have been praying about this for quite some time and yesterday I was a stressed mess worrying about whether not I got in and when I would be able to register and all the fun that comes with starting a new school. I was uncertain about if I would get accepted for the spring semester and had already prepared my mind and heart for taking online classes at RCC next semester. So when I got the call this morning I was ecstatic and relieved and couldn’t help but marvel at how the Lord times things and answers prayers.

With this new beginning though comes a few endings, some of which are good and some that I am dreading the end. Let’s start with the good endings… Cal State Fullerton. Need I say more? If you truly know me you know that my year and a half spent there has been less than satisfactory and I wanted out asap. I will not miss fighting to get into my classes or battling 20 cars for one parking spot. This is one ending that was much needed in my life. Quitting Disney, however, is a more emotional ending for me. My 7 months there have been wonderful and it has been an experience I will never forget. I’m hoping that I will be able to come back to the mouse in the future but I’m waiting to see what exactly the Lord has planned for my life. 

The most emotional event happening in my life within the next 4 months is Matthew leaving for his new base in Spain. Over the last 5 months our relationship has been growing so much and we are both still in awe of how the Lord led us to each other. We know the only way that we will be able to make it through is through the strength of God. Your prayers will be more than appreciated through this time of uncertainty in our relationship as we don’t know how often we will get to talk, if we will even be able to communicate by phone at all, and the 9 hour time difference that makes talking regularly even that much more difficult. 

Now onto some fun stuff I know I haven’t written in forever and I would like to share some of the recent events in my life with you. 

In October I went to visit Matthew along with his Mom, Cindy, my mom and my brother. We spent the first night in Aiken, SC, and had a nice dinner at Olive Oil’s with Harry and Margaret. The next morning was nice and rainy and we began our 3 hour car trip to Charleston. We stopped off at a plantation on our way there but decided it was too rainy and muddy to go on the tours so we continued to our hotel. We stayed in downtown Charleston within walking distance from pretty much everything and after a yummy southern lunch at Jestine’s, Matthew and I took a nice walk in the cool weather. The other days we went to Fort Sumpter, Matthew took me on a nice date at this wonderful French restaurant, Mistrels, and all five of us took a carriage tour of the city. Our last day in Charleston was spent at a beautiful plantation and then back to Harry and Margaret’s for dinner. Saying goodbye was once again difficult but I knew that I would see him again soon

Over Thanksgiving break Matthew flew me out to Nashville where his Grandmommy and Granddaddy so graciously took us in for four days. I fell in love with the city and his family and couldn’t have asked for a better Thanksgiving.

 

Saturday, December 13 was my last day as a part of the Pixar Play Parade at Disneyland. It was hard checking out my costume for the last time and knowing that this may be the last time I perform with some of these people. I had a great support system behind me though with all my pixar pals and My mom, Jon, and Kristy came to watch my last performance. As I entered the final gate to finish the parade I definitely burst into tears but knew that I may be able to come back for the summer run. After the parade I went into the park with Daryl, Jon, Kristy and my mom and watched Fantasmic before heading off to Denny’s to a late night goodbye dinner with 15 of my favorite Disney people. I am so grateful for the experiences that I had in my 7 months at Disney and I know that it’s a job I will never forget. 

Well that’s pretty much the jist of things lately. Matthew comes home in 9 days and I know that it will be a wonderful Christmas and having him home will be amazing. I’m beyond excited to be starting all these new chapters and I’m even more excited to see the work that the Lord will do in my life. Have a Merry Christmas everyone!

Let the Good Times Roll

I really haven’t been posting anything lately because with the start of school comes tons of homework and exhaustion. But I’ve been looking through some old pictures on my photobucket lately and figured I could post some just for kicks

 

Hopefully I’ll be writing a little bit more in the future. It’s just hard to find time lately. 

Peace & love

Georgia on My Mind

This last weekend was spent with my mom and boyfriend, Matt,  in Georgia where he is currently stationed for satellite school at Fort Gordon. While the trip was amazing and fun getting there was a different story. Our trek to the south began at John Wayne Airport where everything seemed to go too well (great parking spot, easy check in, etc.). We arrived at our first destination in Phoenix, Arizona easily and the only problems we experienced there was going through the steps to find our terminal. “Find the man in the purple shirt, he will then tell you to go down the moving walkways to the corridor where you can turn left. Go through security check point A then find another purple shirt man. Go down the stairs, do a backflip, secret handshake, recite the alphabet backwards in spanish, run four miles, take a bus and you will so easily be at your correct terminal”…or something like that Once we found our terminal (and caught our breath) we ate breakfast and hopped on our second flight to Atlanta. Once in Atlanta we found out that we couldn’t land due to severe thunderstorms so we had to fly around until the runway was clear. Our next flight was soon after we were supposed to land so landing late worried us a little. We finally landed in rainy Atlanta and rushed to our terminal. Our next flight was on a 30 seater plane (what I like to call rinka-dink) into Augusta. When we got to our terminal our flight had been pushed back an hour. In another ten minutes, it was pushed back another hour…and so on and so forth until our flight that was originally a 6:45 flight turned into a 9:50 flight. The plans of seeing Matthew after we landed were canceled. The lightning was going crazy and the rain was pouring as we finally boarded the plane. My doubts about this tin can with wings getting us to Augusta in this weather were growing as the sky continued to light up. Our captain came over the intercom and informed us that the runways were closed due to the lightning but don’t worry, we were next in line to get up in the air…oh and our crew had been clocked in for 15 hours so in 45 minutes they were no longer legal to fly us (minor detail right?). The runways opened up and we were literally 2 minutes from taking off when “Hi folks we were just informed that we are no longer legal to fly due to being on the clock for too long.” Our plane was turned right around and we found ourselves sitting at the gate for another half an hour while they tried to figure out what was going to happen with our flight. They finally got us off the plane and back into the terminal while they looked for another crew to fly us. While in the terminal we made friends with this couple from Aikon, South Carolina who we immediately began exchanging travel stories, then life stories, then just random stories haha. We explained to them that once we got off our plane in Augusta we wouldn’t be able to get a rental car because the place would be closed and that’s when they promptly offered to drive us to our hotel. After a few minutes of telling them that would be way too much we finally gave in and it looked liked we would no longer have to worry about getting a taxi early in the morning. Our plane finally took off around 12:30 and we arrived in a hot and humid Augusta an hour later. 

Harry and Margaret, the couple we met in the airport, drove us to our hotel room at 2 in the morning. We of course had no idea where we were since we had never been to Georgia before, but they seemed lost as well. Our gps was of no help to us as the street our hotel was on was not in the system. After driving around for awhile we finally found our hotel and Harry, like a true southern gentleman, got our luggage out for us and walked us into the hotel to make sure that we had a place to stay for the night. We were overwhelmed by the kindness of these strangers and agreed to have drinks and dinner with them the following night. Mom and I finally got settled in and went to bed and about 3 hours later we woke up to begin our day of getting the rental car and finally being able to pick Matt up from the base. It was beyond wonderful to see him when we first pulled up to his barracks and i couldn’t wait to jump out of the car and give him a huge hug. He showed us around a little bit and then we went to lunch at Sonic (they have tons of sonics in the south. It’s like del taco there haha) and then decided to go to the Riverwalk and walk around a bit. That night we drove to Aikon to have drinks and cheese and crackers with Harry and Margaret before they gave us a tour of the town which has tons of history. They told Matt and I a good place to go for dinner and he and i took the rental car to Olive Oils, a quant Italian restaurant that had amazing food. After dinner we went back to the house and took Matt back to the base so we could get some rest for the next day.

We woke up fairly early in the morning on Saturday, picked up Matthew, and began our journey to Savannah, which took us about 3 hours. Once there, we went to Tybee Island and walked around on the beach for a little bit, saw some starfish chillin’ in the low tide, and decided to leave an hour later because the beach in Georgia is not a place to cool off haha. That night Matt took me to go see Dark Knight in this tiny building called a movie theatre (we could barely find it) and later I introduced him to one of my favorite movies, Meet the Robinsons. The next day we got out early and Matthew and I walked around  Savannah dressed up and took some really nice pictures out and about in his whites

Leaving Savannah that day was really hard because we both knew that night we would be dropping him off back at base for good. When we got back to Augusta we hung in the hotel room with my mom, watching the office and savoring every last minute we got to spend with each other. Dropping him off back at base was very emotional and it was really hard to let him go. We prayed together and after 5 minutes of just hugging haha I knew if I didn’t start moving my feet I would never walk back to the car. We finally let go and walked our separate ways as hard as it was to do. 

While saying goodbye really stinks sometimes I think it gives us perspective on how precious the time we spend with certain people is. We don’t know how long it’s going to be until we see each other face to face again but we both know it will be worth the wait if God keeps this relationship going. My time with Matthew this last weekend was so special and we had so much fun just hanging out together and with my mom, and let’s not forget Harry and Margaret . Adjusting to not seeing him was difficult but things will get better and we will both be able to focus on what we need to in our different parts of the country. 

Coming home from vacation always stinks but life gets back to normal and I can’t wait to go back to the south. Now ‘aint that peachy?