I am finally back at home in Franklin, TN enjoying my Christmas break after a long and hard semester. It feels amazing to be able to breathe again and to just enjoy sleeping, eating great food (we’re about to have peach muffins and banana bread for breakfast), and just doing fun and random things. I’m going to start building a coffee table today, as well as a little rustic work table for the kitchen. I’ve made a few plans and measurements, but I really don’t know how they’ll turn out until I can get into the workshop and start building. Things that I make seem to evolve and change a lot in the actual process of building them.. :)

Family tradition that I’m excited about? Roasting chesnuts on Christmas day…

I am one class away from being done with fall semester 2008 (other than finals, of course). I cannot wait to be done! So close. Today was a good day. I slept really well last night (a first in a while…), and then had my last class periods of intermediate accounting, youth ministry, and cost accounting.. :) It was definitely a good day. I handed in my last project for youth ministry, and now all I have to get past is my four finals. I’ll be studying pretty hard the next week and a half.

I’m thinking of heading over to see my Opa and Oma in a little while.. I haven’t been over there since Friday. My Opa hasn’t been doing very well the last few days. He had his 81st birthday on Saturday… the doctors didn’t think he would make it that far. I’m just enjoying the time I have with him now. Prayer for my family would be great.

I’m about to hand in a 19 page paper for my Business Research Paper class… thank the Lord, it’s done. The title for the paper is Corporate Culture and Values: Ethical Decision Making for Contemporary Management Accountants. It’s also the first half of my Senior Integration Paper (SIP) that i’ll be writing my senior year.

It’s still warm from the printer…

Rock City is so beautiful right now. They have the whole place decorated in Christmas lights, and it looks amazing. I went with a couple other friends on Friday night. We left around 8:00 p.m. and spent three hours walking around, looking at the beautiful lights, enjoying hot chocolate, and spending time together. You can see the white deer that Rock City has as well – nevermind the caves, tunnels, and rock formations that Rock City is known for. It’s definitely one of the more famous attractions of Lookout Mountain, and it is definitely worth going to. The Rock City Starbucks is right across the road too…

Picture Taken by a Friend

Ok, I think I might start a series of posts about different places on the mountain and down in Chattanooga that are great places to spend time… Lookout has some amazing places in and of itself that are definitely worth going to. To name but a few – Cloudland Canyon, Rock City, Ruby Falls, Little River Canyon, the Rock City Starbucks (I’m there all the time), the gas station on the mountain (place to be – you can get little pints of mayfield ice cream for $0.99), the park (can’t remember what it’s called), Fairyland neighborhood (just a beautiful place to go for a walk), and all sorts of other amazing places…

I’ll get on that.. and tell you more specifics about each one.

Twenty more days until Christmas. Wow. I’m excited. School is finishing up here… three more days of classes and then finals. I’m ready to be done. I’m excited for home, for homecooked food, for the warm fire in our living room, for good books, for family, for friends, for sleep (oh my goodness), for amazing food (yes, again), for music, for crazy movie nights and game nights, for starbucks coffee, for cool Christmas presents (hoping for some C.S. Lewis and Oswald Chambers books…), for Christmas lights and our Christmas tree… and everything that Christmas is going to entail this year. BRING. IT. ON.