Thanksgiving

As the holiday season comes around, I would like to stop and take a moment to reflect on the things I am thankful for.

• My Saviour and his unconditional love for me
• My family [my parents, Evan, the Cripe side, and the Rookstool side]
• My amazing best friends [Bradie, Cassie, Joni, Emily, Brittany, Beth, Carrie, Kellyn, Steph, Brittney, Ben, Dustin, Jordan, and Alex]
• The good times in life
• The struggles I have been through over the past 20 years and how they make me stronger
• Izzie
• The education that I am receiving at HU. I cannot wait to be a teacher!
• My past, present, and future [I am thankful for how the past has shaped me, how the present is everchanging and I look forward for what is to come in the future]

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Music Review

Recently I have been listening a lot to John Mayer and Carrie Underwood. They both have a new Cd's that came out in November and they are both really good! I wanted to share them with you!

John Mayer's CD is called Battle Studies and one of my favorite songs is Half of My Heart which he sings with Taylor Swift. I like a lot of the other songs too [Perfectly Lonely, Assassin, Who Says & Friends, Lovers or Nothing]

Carrie Underwood's new CD is called Play On. I don't really like most of her past Cd's, but my friend Jordan told me that I had to check it out. And he was right, it's so much better than her other ones. The songs are much more mature. My favorite song is Change, but they're all so good!! What Can I Say is also really good! It's a duet with Sons of Sylvia.

So if you're bored today, you should check out some of these songs! Have a great Saturday!!

New Moon <3

Last night at midnight I went to see NEW MOON with my roomies and two other friends [Michelle and Ashley.] We got to Jefferson Pointe around 9:30 and then we all got some Cold Stone! So good! However we had to eat our ice cream in the freezing cold while we stood in line. But it was worth it to get there early because they let us in the theater at 10:00. We found a theater that was pretty open and got some great seats! The wait for the movie went by pretty fast! As you can see below that I am for TEAM JACOB!! I have been ever since I read New Moon.

EYE CANDY!!

Bradie and I were so excited!!!

We had to buy candy for the movie so of course we got New Moon candy

We had to wait in line and it was freezing! We were also cold because we were eating Cold Stone in line ha!

We got some great seats and we were ready for the movie!!

I had to buy a Jacob Black cup!!

The movie was so amazing!!!! So much better than Twilight! I am for sure going to see it again!! We had a great time and I wasn't too tired today when I went to my second grade class in the morning!

NASHVILLE!!

This past weekend I went to Nashville, TN and let me tell you it was one of the best weekends of my life!! Steph, Ben, Alex and I drove down to see Jordan at Belmont! Jordan didn't know that Alex was coming and he was very surprised! The look on his face was priceless!! Jordan showed us his campus, all the sweet places in downtown Nashville, the celebrities houses and the Grand Ole Opry! It was awesome! I don't know why I live in Indiana ha. I took a bunch of pictures but these are just some of my favorites!

Only 3 more hours to go : )

The lights of downtown Nashville

Sweet view of the city from a bridge

I love this picture and I love my amazing friends! They are my oldest and closest friends! I love you guys!!

Toby Keith's house

The gated neighborhood where Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood and Joe Don from Rascal Flatts live! The houses were HUGE!!!

Group picture in front of the Christmas tree at the Grand Ole Opry Hotel. They hotel was so nice and nothing like I expected!

The Grand Ole Opry!! I wish we could have gone inside!

Such a good restaurant!! We waited for an hour, but it was so worth it!!

I love this girl like crazy!!

Ben was so funny and he was the DJ for basically the whole trip. He picked great non-screamo music and he put up with all our pictures : )

Jordan was obviously the official tour guide of our trip. I never get to see him since we live so far away and it was great to be united again!!

Alex was able to take time out of his busy ND track practices to come with us! I was so very glad!! It was great to catch up with him!

We had fun standing on the side of the road for about an hour, can't you tell?

We walked to a sweet restaurant and on the way we took a picture with the Belmont sign : )

Amazing cookie dough egg rolls! The egg roll shells were like pasteries, not actual egg rolls.

Halfway Gone

Sorry I have no time to blog but I just thought I'd share with you a song I heard today and I really liked it! Now it's back to writting a million lesson plans!! Wish me luck! 2 MORE DAYS UNTIL NASHVILLE!!

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All Work and No Play

My motto for the next couple of days must be "all work and no play." I have so many things to complete before the weekend so that I don't have to worry about anything while I am in Nashville. Therefore, am I'm probably going to be in the library for hours and won't have time to blog [unless I need a study break.]

My to do list:

• Study for Language Arts final
• Finish Social Studies unit [3 more lesson plans & overview]
• Finish Language Arts unit [4 more lesson plans & meeting with my group]
• Finish my WebQuest for computers
• Early Childhood Education reading and online quizzes

My countdowns:

• 1 more day of junior block classes
• 3 more days until Nashville
• 9 more days until New Moon at midnight [btw I already have my ticket!!!]
• 16 more days until Thanksgiving break

One last thing, one of my friends told me to read Psalm 63 and so of course I listened to him. I loved it and I want to share it with you!

O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land, where there is no water.

I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.

On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.

They who seek my life will be destroyed; they will go down to the depths of the earth. They will be given over to the sword and become food for jackals.

But the king will reign in God; all who swear by God's name will praise him, while the mouths of liars will be silenced.

Home for the weekend!

When I came home this weekend I did not expect anything to be different besides my dog Izzie. She is still growing like crazy!! However when I walked into my room there was new lamp sitting on my table. My loving mother bought it for me when it was 50% off at Hobby Lobby. I love it!!

I was also craving pumpkin pie this last week and I didn't even tell my mom, but of course she knows me too well and already had one made for me. It was so good! She even sent some back with me!

Anyways I had a great weekend at home. The weather was amazing!! I even went for a jog and took Izzie with me. She does so well now, she doesn't even have a leash. I have decided that big dogs are way better than small dogs. I also got to spend some time with a couple of my friends and that was really great! But now I have to come back to reality and all the work that I have to do this week. My junior block classes are ending, but I have one big final and two of my units are due [which means tons of lesson plans]. But this weekend is going to be awesome!! I am going to Nashville in FOUR days!!!

NOVEMBER!!

GUESS WHAT...IT'S NOVEMBER...WHICH MEANS CHRISTMAS MUSIC!!!!

I have been listening to the N'SYNC Album every day for the past couple of days. I love it!!

As this week continues, my pile continues to go down, which is always a good thing! This week has gone by so fast because I am have been doing homework non-stop. I am pretty much done with homework for the rest of this week, but I have a ton of stuff to do this weekend. For now I am just going to relax and have some fun with my friends!

On a sidenote, the countdowns have begun:

• 5 more days of junior block classes
• 9 more days until I go to Nashville
• 21 more days until Thanksgiving Break

Happy Halloween!!

I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween!! Normally I am not a big fan of Halloween but this year my friends decided that we needed to dress up and get off campus for the night. So Cassie, Emily and I went to Ball State to visit some of Emily's friends from high school. Let's just say that Ball State's Halloween parties are a lot crazier than Huntington's Masquerade Blade : )

I dressed up as a sailor! Ahoy!!

Elf, sailor and nerd

Here we are in our characters : )

The 3 of us with Emily's friend Courtney

My weekend was so much fun, but I have a crazy week ahead of me. I only have a week and half left of my junior block classes which means that I have a lot to do before then. I'm going to be in the library all week!! Here's a list of all I have to do this week:

• Readability Check Lesson Plan
• Reflection Question
• Handwriting Assessment Book
• Literature Book Set 4 (read ten children's books)
• Work on S.S. and L.A. units (total of 8 lesson plans)

I hope you are all having a great Monday!! Oh and one last thing, if you read my blog, I would love if you'd add me as your friend on facebook!!