Vroooom! It's February!

Wow, I'm a slacker, I haven't updated my blog since November! My bad!

Where shall I start?

In came December and the start of cold weather. On the 16th, on my way to a delightful cookie exchange, I got the phone call. My grandmother died (dad's mother). She meant so much to me and was like one of the people I took for granted to be there in my life. I thought she'd have at least another 15-20 years left on her. Just shows you that you can't take things for granted and to be sure and cherish the things you have! So, I bumped up my flight and flew home on the 20th instead of the 22nd. Of course, RI got a huge storm on the 20th, so I was a little delayed coming out to ID but I made it! My parents, brother, Camden, and Scott were all waiting for me :D

The following morning on Monday, December 21st, we had the memorial service for my grandmother. One of our dear neighbors from the deli is a funeral home and they hosted us. Of course, they are like family to us so it was nice to know that Grandma was in safe hands! A family friend spoke the gospel, then my father spoke a few words about taking the time to love the people around you a little more. Then a few others spoke and shared their memories.

On Christmas Eve, Scott took me flying and we went flying over Kuna, Homedale and various other scenic Idaho. It was a humorous adventure since first, we had to de-ice the plane ourselves (it was a small plane that could seat like 2-4 people) then while we were flying, our radio went out, thus we lost control with the tower and they in turn, didn't know where we were since we didn't show up on the radar and that meant that other planes could hit us. So we kept our eyes peeled! Afterwards, we had a Christmas Eve party at my Aunt Rose's house! It was wonderful!

Christmas morning, my parents and I pulled out my dad's laptop and got my brother on the webcam and celebrated Christmas through that method, haha, it was weird though to not have my brother there. It was definitely a very unusual Christmas from not having Grandma and not having my brother. I enjoyed my time at home with my parents and the rest of my family.

With my luck, when I flew out on Dec 30th, it snowed a few inches in Boise and thus delayed travel plans while I was en route. So here's how my travel went for this day, I got to Boise airport at 5:45am, to my amusement, Southwest did not have anyone running their ticket counter until a smidgen after 6am. Then I flew out at 7:10am. I had a touch and go in Salt Lake City, then I landed in Phoenix. I was 1.5 hours late and had missed my flight. They re-booked me to go through Nashville then onwards to Providence and I would get in at 10:20pm instead of 6:00pm. Excited to go to Nashville (I like checking out random airports haha) I tooled around Phoenix killing time. Then I discovered the Nashville flight was overbooked and they were looking for volunteers. So I volunteered myself, got myself a hefty flight voucher (over $500 bucks yeah baby!) and flew to Las Vegas and onwards to Providence where lovely Maria was awaiting to get me at 12:30am!

On Dec 31st, for New Year's Eve, I got together with my friends and we went to Maria's house, where I made crepes (my specialty apparently these days haha) and watched a movie, then watched the ball drop. It was a nice and relaxing New Year's eve.

On January 1st, I had my bags packed again (like I ever unpacked from the first trip haha) and flew out to Atlanta, GA! I was going to the Passion 2010 conference which was a few day conference all about God with special speakers ranging from Louie Giglio, Francis Chan, Beth Moore, John Piper, Andy Stanley and some other wonderful people! Hillsong United also played as well as Chris Tomlin, David Crowder and a few others. WOW, what an eye opening life changing experience. The theme was Awaken and over 20,000 people attended. One of the most memorable parts was after John Piper spoke, Louie Giglio challenged us to go to our next spot without talking, so 20,000+ maneuvered about without speaking! This trip was also priceless in the fact that in my group that I went with of 25, with all the activities and events, we went nonstop from like 5 or 6am in the morning to 1 or 2 or 3am at night and we were slap happy silly or wicked cranky all the time and this made this trip truly memorable.

For the moment, I'll leave off here, and I will continue next week with more up to date stuff! :D Gotta love suspense hehe.