Recap!!

I've been meaning to post some pictures from the past two weeks, but haven't gotten a chance to do so yet!

So, for Thanksgiving - I went to Tallahassee at got to see my adorable nephew! He's getting so big and he's so stinkin' cute!


Me, Hayley, and the parentals went to the farm for some good eatin'. Hayley was slightly overwhelmed by the amount of family there and gave up on trying to remember people's names, but I think she had fun :)


I could not believe how grown up some of my cousins look now! I almost didn't recognize the girls!


Aunt Susan and I, showing off our mad shotgun skills!!


Hayley shooting Dad's pistol... she actually did really well!


So last weekend, David and I went to this AWESOME place about 2 hours away called "Fall Creek Falls". It's so gorgeous! We hiked for a few hours and took some pictures of the amazing view! What a great morning!


One of the many falls...



So pretty!

tagged

So Brittany had a friend that told her to do this, and now Brittany has passed it along to me. The instructions: post the 4th picture in your 4th folder. Brittany made me laugh when she wrote about me, "woah girl, can't imagine which of your millions of pictures that would be". Normally, I'd agree! But, my personal computer is shot at the moment, but I do have 1 album on my work computer! Here's the 4th picture in that album.


It was taken at a Nashville Predators (hockey) game about a month ago. This guy was at a Halloween party dressed like this and one of the players told him he'd give him 2 tickets to the game if he wore this!

It only made sense to me to take a picture with him!

Hey Jude

This is adorable.

Recap

This past weekend, Meg and Crutch came up/down for a visit! I showed them around Nashville and it was good reconnecting with them.




It's getting to be really cold here, last Friday - the high was 39!! I'm getting used to it and I really enjoy it. I finally bought a pea coat... it's very warm :)


Last week - Matt, Elizabeth, David and I all went to the Opry Land Hotel to look at lights... this hotel is crazy insane - and the lights were awesome outside!


Every TWIG on these trees were lit up!


This is a pretty good capture of us being goofy... I blame the cold weather!

John Piper on the Prosperity Gospel + Hillsong

Not a new video... but still a good one.



This is a somewhat new song by Hillsong - it's called "Desert Song"

Thoughts from those way more scholarly than I

This morning I was surfing the web attempting to be more sophisticated than I really am. I ran into some pretty interesting stuff.

In his book, "The Irresistible Revolution", Shane Claiborne discuses a fully devoted "Christian" in response to his friend telling him that he has given up Christianity in order to follow Jesus. Claiborne writes, "I wondered what it would look like if we decided to really follow Jesus. In fact, I wasn't exactly sure what a fully devoted Christian looked like, or if the world had even seen one in the last few centuries. From my desk at college, it looked like some time back we had stopped living Christianity and just started studying it. The hilarious words of nineteenth-century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard resonated in my thirsty soul:"

"The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand it, we must act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God."

Mhmm... I couldn't have said it better. Thanks Mr. Kierkegaard.

It's been... forever!

I know I'm pretty terrible at updating this... it's now been over two months since my last post! Wow.. I'm lame. Well, let me get to it! The weather in Nashville has been absolutely awesome! Florida never see's a real "Fall" season, so it's been so neat to watch all the leaves change - and the temperature drop at dramatic rates! It's currently 30 outside right now! Moving from Florida... I definitely don't have enough winter clothes. I'm finding myself making frequent trips to Target to get more sweaters!!

David and I went to a park the other day... the trees are so gorgeous. It's a little ridiculous that I get to live here and see this every day!

This picture looks like it would be in a calendar!


A view from the park...



I love this town, it's so gorgeous!!

This is going to be an exciting weekend - Meg (from Illinois) and Crutch (from Florida) are both coming up/down to visit me :) I told Crutch to be prepared... the high for this weekend is 48!

Labor Day weekend

So this weekend my friend Meg came down to visit me! She just started grad school at University of IL Urbana. It was really good to see her and catch up! We did some exploring around and I gave her a tour of downtown Nashville and the area.


On Saturday, we went to Centennial Park and played Frisbee and soccer with some people we met there! I forgot how exhausting running around a park for hours can be! It was fun though :) They say Nashville is the "Athens" of the southeast, so in the park there is a exact replica of the Parthenon!


There's a museum inside with a statue of Athena, but we didn't go in.

So later we were driving around and I was showing Meg the huge houses that are here. I promised her that she wouldn't see houses bigger than the ones I was going to show her... here's one we passed...


Yes.. that is ONE house! It's one of the many mansions we passed. Meg was totally loving it!

Later that day, I took her by the station so she could see where I work. The view from our building is so cool. The best view is from our small conference room/lounge upstairs..


The picture doesn't really do it justice... it's much better in person!

That's what I love about Nashville - driving down the interstate every day, I love looking around me and seeing mountains - they are so pretty :)

Downtown

So last night, Donna's (from work) daughter and I were hanging out and she mentioned that she had never been to downtown Nashville. My immediate response, "Oh, we're going now!" So we got there and started walking around - The best part about downtown is there are people everywhere and music is always playing loud :) Anyways - so as we got closer to the heart of downtown, we saw all these people on a street corner in a big crowd, they were all looking at something. When we got closer - we saw this big group of break dancers dancing on the corner! They were AWESOME!



We watched them for at least 15 minutes and the came back and watched again! They had a couple of buckets collecting money... I'm sure they made a lot!

Nashville!

So it's been a while since I've posted on here... I just got internet in my apartment today! I've been really busy - I work everyday from 6a-3p, which means I have to wake up at 4:30 every morning! I thought it'd be really hard, but I've been in this routine for almost 2 weeks, and it's not bad :)

I absolutely love my job! I work with the best people and it's really fun. It's been challenging so far, but very well worth it!

Nashville is a great town - it's such a different place than back home, but I love it! The scenery is awesome - driving down the interstate in mornings when the sun is rising over the mountains is so pretty!

I took a picture of the sunset one night...

Nashville Bound

Saturday morning - I woke up early, said goodbye to Hayley and got on the road headed to Nashville.


I was following my parents who were driving my dad's truck with the U-Haul. I never really realized how much stuff I had until I had to move it 8 hours away!

I saw some pretty random things on the drive up there, which made the ride entertaining! Somewhere in Alabama, we passed this farm of about 12 animals grazing - when we got closer, I realized that all the animals were fake! It was really weird, but then I remembered I was in Alabama!

After 9 long hours - I saw the light at the end of the tunnel!


We met up with Kara-Lyn, got some dinner, and went to sleep!

My last night

So last night - a group of us went out to the Winery to hang out for my last Friday in town. Rick was playing jazz - which is always pleasing to the ears! We had a really good group of people - Me, Hayley, Tim, Rob, Jay, Disel, Rachel, and Ginny.


We couldn't believe that I was actually leaving...


The night was fun - we had a lot of laughs and good times, making my last Friday in Tallahassee really fun :)

Going Away Party

Wednesday night, Mrs Dudley got some people together for a going away party. It was really really overwhelming. There were a great number of people there - all my close family and friends. To me, it was a picture of the body of Christ - everyone coming together like family. I was very grateful for everyone coming out - it still didn't feel like I was about to move.

Earlier that week, I got to spend time with one of my favorite people in the world - my nephew Gabe! He's so cute, I'm really going to miss him.

Skate Night!

Saturday was my last Saturday in Tallahassee - Hayley thought it would be fun to get some people together and go skating... not roller blading - but old school skating! I haven't skated since I was about 4 or 5 years old, so we knew this was going to be funny. To spice it up a little more, Hayley and I decided to dress in 80's clothes. "Why?" you may ask... Why not??


Rob and I were talking and it seems like all of our friends are getting engaged now. We decided to jump on that bandwagon too!


It only lasted a few hours... because my multicolored glow-in-the-dark rope ring broke! Oh well, it wasn't meant to be! haha

New Layout!

My brother and sister-in-law made me this most amazing layout! Isn't it awesome??

Goodbye

As the time gets closer for me to move, I've had to start saying goodbye.Last weekend, my mom and I went down to St. Pete to break the news to Ato and Ata (my Cuban grandparents) and to say bye to them.

We had a chance to walk downtown by this pretty park and enjoy the outdoors. It was a bittersweet time because I love them a lot and will miss them - but I'm glad that we got to spend some time with them!

Yesterday, my dad and I went to St Augustine to visit Steve, Brittany and Gabe to say bye. We had a really fun time - eating lunch, visiting the Winery, and walking through Ripley's Believe It or Not! I'm going to miss them, especially Gabe! He's getting to be sooo cute, and I won't see him again until December!


Then, me and Dad went to the farm to visit family and say bye to Granny and Grandpa. The farm is always fun - Granny made a delicious meal and I got to spend some time with my cousins and family.

Getting closer...

The big move takes place in about a week and a half. I can hardly believe it! I get asked all the time "How are feeling about it" and it honestly hasn't hit me that I'm moving 8 hours away! I'm starting to pack up my stuff and get things figured out with my new home in Tennessee. There will be a lot of change coming up in the next few weeks - not only a new home and a new job, but I just found out that I am required by the state of Tennessee to get a TN license and a license plate! Weird.

On a completely side note - we sang a brand new Chris Tomlin song at church the other day. It's called "Jesus Messiah" and it's absolutely awesome! Check it out here.

Only weeks away...

The big move is only weeks away... I'm almost certain that I will be leaving August 15th. This whole experience has been so surreal - I've never moved before, and I'm about to move 8 hours away!

I guess I should explain how it all happened... my life changed in about 8 days - here's how:
A few weeks ago, my boss forwarded me an email from our General Manager of our Nashville station regarding a job that had been opened for a few months. I had seen the job when it was posted, but not even considering it because I was still in school. My boss encouraged me to email Jeff in Nashville and get some details on the job. He wrote back saying they needed someone soon and it seemed out of the question for me because I wasn't graduating until December. I was okay with that - I wasn't ready for a big move... yet.

Later that day, Jeff wrote me back telling me to call him later that week to discuss some options. That Thursday, he asked if I could get stuff with school worked out so that I could finish online and possibly move up there as soon as possible. I took the weekend to think and pray about it - looked things over with my mom, and my brother did his share of research to help me out with my class schedule. My mom said that I should talk with FSU - and she actually knew someone up there that may be able to help me out. God really started putting everything in place because the lady my mom knew helped me out and got me situated with everything that I needed to finish school online. It seemed like one of my big obstacles was taken care of. It felt like doors were opening and that I was meant to go to Nashville.

After seeking much council and spending much time in prayer - I felt very confident this is where I should be. Then, I realized one small problem: finding a sublease to take care of my rent at my house in Tallahassee. That week, I declined the job - saying that it was a great opportunity, but not the right timing. I was relieved. Money stresses me out - and the thought of having to pay two rents was totally out of the question. I was at peace with staying in Tallahassee. The next day, I got a phone call from Jeff and his General Manager telling me that my "no" to the job wasn't the right answer! Through them, God provided a way for me to cover my rent for a few months in order that I may move and find a sublease.

It was a very crazy 8 days - but through all of it, God has really shown himself to me and how much I need to trust him.

I am trusting that He will continue to provide for me while I am up there -and that I might find someone to sublease from me here.

I leave in just a few weeks - it's the weirdest feeling ever! Very bittersweet. I've lived in Tallahassee all of my life - and now I'm about to move just outside an actual "City"!

Here's a picture of the Nashville Skyline. I absolutely love this city - and as sad as I am to say bye to Tallahassee - I know this will be a Great Adventure!