I just finished my last class as a Junior! Golly this semester buzzed by. Usually the end of the year comes so slowly, I’m counting down the days, the hours, and even the minutes before the end. This year though I remember thinking, “Just a couple of weeks left,” and then next thing I knew i was in my last class. I think some of my favorite classes I took this semester was Children’s Literature and Doctrine II. It makes me so sad to think that today was also my last day to take a Covenant Bible Class. Being an Elementary Education major my Senior year is pretty much mapped out with education classes. In the fall I do what’s called block scheduling where I have three hour long classes on subjects such as, How to Teach Math to the Elementary Student and Essentials of Instruction. All classes that are much needed as I go into the spring semester student teaching full time. As much as I love my education classes, I wish that I could have a little bit more time to take some more bible or missions courses. It just goes so fast guys. I’m going to be a senior next year! Can you believe that I have been writing this blog since I was a Freshman. It seems like I have changed so much since then and I know that next year is only going to bring more growth and more changes. Time just goes by so fast sometimes!

So I don’t mean to toot my own horn or anything, but this is a big deal for me! For the past week I have been running everyday, and I do not like to run! It all started about a week in a half ago when I had a girl who was visiting the college stay with me. She asked me if there was any good trails around. After telling her about how many trails there were, she asked if we could go on a walk that evening. I hadn’t been on any of my trails to the pond or to the bluff probably for months. As we walked on my regular path to the bluff and then around to the pond and back up to the school I remembered how nice it was to have this escape from life up on campus.

So the next day I decided that I should on a run and then take a back route to the bluff I normally go to and then walk the rest of the way to school. So I ran as far as I could go and then took the back path to the bluff where I stopped for a while to pray. It helped so much to get things off my mind. And the weather this past week has been absolutely amazing, which has definitely helped with the motivation. Well anyways, the next day it happened again and then the next. And now one of my friends asked if she could run with me and so we run as far as we can and then walk back to school together talking about life. Yes, I knew this New Years Resolution was a good idea!

Tonight was “Girls Night In” for my dorm hall. Each of the girls halls in my dorm planned an event for all of us to do. So the night started on Rowen hall and they had finger nail painting and facial masks. It was a lot of fun seeing the girls put on this honey, banana, and yogurt goop on their faces. Then they would lay back and put cucumbers to cover their eyes. On the other side of the room was a table with several different choices of finger nail polishes. They had blues and yellows and pinks and reds. We all sat around talking and painting our nails. After an hour of pampering ourselves we headed to Harambe hall for some sweet treats.

Harambe had chocolate fondu with marshmellos, pretzels, and fruit. I mean, what more can a girl ask for. We sat around and talked for a while enjoying the chocolate before going to our next event: watching the show “Friends” on Halcyon hall. They had popcorn all ready and popped for us and couches set up. We watched the very first episode of friends and then headed over to our last even of the evening, Chi Alpha’s club glitter! That right how else could you end the night then a good ole’ girls dance party. Club glitter is a common event for Chi Alpha to do, but it was fun having all the other girls from the dorm.

I had a lot of fun tonight, even though all us girls live in the same dorm I don’t feel like we know each other as well as we should. Events like this definitely help! After the night in was over a few of us girls from the hall snuck back and watched a couple more episodes of “Friends.” :)

What a beautiful day today was!! It was so perfect that I decided to go for a run, and that doesn’t happen every day. :) I ran for a while and then on my way back to school I ended up taking a detour to one of the bluffs. The beauty of the day: the birds singing, the light breeze, the view from the bluff captivated me. I spent some time with God down there, it was just what I needed. Life just gets so overwhelming when this time of year comes around…it was so good and so needed just to sit and be for a while. When I got back up to school some girls friends and I did our traditional Sonic happy hour run we do on days like today. I love our Sonic runs! We roll down the windows, turn the music up loud and sing like no one is listening.

Then we came back up we headed down do Bakertree. Bakertree is a traditional music event, where anyone can sign up to play. It outside on the lawn and people spend the whole day out there sitting on blankets with friends, doing homework, or playing on the blow up slide that they set up. Dinner was also served outside. It was a great dinner too! Hamburgers cooked on the grill outside, potato salad, pasta salad, baked means, and lots more. It was just like a picnic in the park.

Unfortunately I got so caught up in how wonderful today was that I didn’t get the homework that I needed to done. :( So tomorrow is going to be an awfully long day! One thing at a time though.

Only two more weeks till classes are over! These two weeks are going to probably be pretty miserable because I have a big project or paper do every day now until their done, but only two weeks and then it’s over. I just keep telling myself taking it one day at a time Sheryce, one project at a time. Hopefully that will help me get to the end. The biggest things I’m worried about is a Doctrine Paper due on Monday. Yikes! But it seems like a lot of my classmates are just as worried about it as I am. So at least I’m not the only one in this boat. Tonight I went to an event for “Free Tuition Day.” Advancement planned a night of student Jepordy and served Root Bear floats and Krispy Kream donuts. Yummy! Plus the first 300 students got free t-shirts, how could you say no to that? It was a perfect study break…but now it’s back to the books. I know, I know I sound real depressing this time of year with all the studies. It’s really not that bad, just a few weeks of craziness and then summer! Yay!

I get to go on my first ever cruise!!! Yay! My four older sisters have been planning on going on a cruise for the past year. My sister Nicole decided to go with her husband as a sort of anniversary present to themselves and opened it up to the rest of the sisters. One by one each of my sisters decided to go along with their husbands on the cruise. This past fall I tried to work it out so that I could go as well, but just couldn’t talk myself into spending that much money and didn’t want to get in the way with all my sisters and their husbands. So I told them that I couldn’t go. Ever since then it has been a sort of a running joke with all of us that whenever I’m around they’re not aloud to talk about the “c” word. Even though it never worked. My sisters have been so excited about this cruise for months now, and can’t help but talk about it. Our family hasn’t ever really gone on big vacations together.

Anyways back to the story. So last week my mom called me and was acting really weird. She said that she really needed to talk to me. I got so worried thinking that someone had been hurt or something bad had happened. But when i finally got her to tell me what was going on, it was nothing what I thought. She told me that my sisters and her had been talking and they all really wanted me to go on the cruise. They decided that they were together going to pitch in so that I could go on the cruise with them! I couldn’t believe it! Ahhh! I am so excited!

So in exactly three weeks I will be cruising the Caribbean with my four amazing sisters and brother-in-laws. I feel so completely honored by how much they sacrifice for me. I don’t think I could ever imagine being apart of a more amazing family. I am so blessed!

Thank goodness a break! We get a four day weekend for Easter Break and it is very much needed. My original plan was to go to Florida with a couple of friends, but when that fell through I decided to stay here at school. It was a very good decision too. I have been doing homework none stop since break started. And the more I do, the more I realize that I still have so much more to do. I am so overwhelmed. Just one thing at a time I keep telling myself. Take it one project at a time, one paper at a time, one presentation at a time. But hopefully by the end of this weekend I will fill a little bit more ready for the rest of the semester. Less then a month left! It goes by so quick guys, be prepared. I can’t believe that I only have one more year here. I hate thinking about it, I don’t want it to be over yet. :( Alright guys I’m off to the books again. Enjoy the holiday weekend!

Today was Student Appreciation Day here at Covenant. I don’t know who came up with this, but it was a wonderful idea. The staff, teachers, and administrators all worked together to make a day to show Covenant students how much they appreciate us. The Cafeteria prepared absolutely amazing meals for the day that included steak, french toast, fondue, and lots more scrumptious food! They had free slushy’s and ice cream for us in the afternoon and had campus wide drawings for special prizes throughout the day. And if that wasn’t enough, all the teachers wore t-shirts that said “I Love Covenant Students” on them. Then tonight was one of our dorm events, Founders Music Video Night. All the halls in the dorm make a music video to their chosen song. Aw, yes it was a wonderful day…and I feel very appreciated! :)

Alright everyone who comes to Covenant, the Yellow Deli Cafe is a must! Tonight was my first time there and it was absolutely amazing! It has such a cool atmosphere. You walk in and there’s dim lighting and all the booths and furniture is this dark wood. There’s a staircase that goes up to a second floor where there are more tables and then a lounge area. It’s a perfect study place. They are open 24 hours, which for us Covenant student is such a perk! Then the food there is sooo good. They have unique food that you wouldn’t normally find at restaurants, like home made honey buns, pomegranate juice, and all sorts of sandwiches. But boy was the food good! I got some chili and tea.

Anyways even though Yellow Deli was real cool, the best part of the night is that we were celebrating my friend Jenae’s birthday. Yes, another birthday. There’s a whole bunch of my friends who have them all clustered together. :) Anyways, she turned the big 21 yesterday, and since we had school we had to have a late night celebration. It was a blast though, a big group of us went there and even embarrassed her by asking the waitress if they would sing happy birthday to her. It was a very fun evening! I have been so blessed to have my friend Jenae in my life!