My Winter Vacation

One of the things that still gets to me is not having a winter break, spring break, and especially a summer vacation. My mom works at a school, so she gets this time off. Every summer she almost has me convinced that I need to go into teaching or working for a school in some way...but not quite.

Since Christmas and New Years fell on a Thursday, and The Bridge was kind enough to give us half days and one of the two Fridays off, I used some of my vacation time. I left work on Tuesday Dec 23rd at noon and will be going back into the office tomorrow. Along with spending time with family and friends, Blake and I were able to spend some great time together and we got a lot of wedding stuff taken care of.

Here is a recap of this past week and a half...

Tuesday Dec 23rd:
Off work at noon
Appt with the florist
Christmas Eve Eve-Dinner and Bowling with the fam
Made candy for Blake's mom while she took care of embroidering something for Blake until midnight

Wed Dec 24th:
Finished making candy
Watched movies with the fam
Went to Visalia for Christmas Eve with the soon to be in-laws
Opened up presents with my family here in Fresno

Dec 25th:
Christmas!
Breakfast at Grandma's with one side of the fam
Opened up more presents at home
Christmas lunch with the other side
Played Rock Band
1st annual Ridgeway German Gingerbread House Buildoff

Dec 26th:
After Christmas shopping...bought Christmas decorations for the house next year!
Lunch with the parents
Movie-Marley and Me

Dec 27th:
Lunch with the fam
Movie-Valkyrie

Dec 28th:
Awesome sermon on prayer
Brunch with my girls!

Dec 29th:
Coffee with Rachel
Wedding stuff the majority of the day with Ash
Hung out with the Phillips...Blake and I kicked 2 six year olds butts along with their parents! :)

Dec 30th:
Ran a bunch of errands with Blake
Movie-Bedtime Stories
Dinner-Elephant Bar

Dec 31st:
More wedding stuff with Ash and Blake
A group of friends went out for New Years and danced the night away!
Oh, and we had Denney's at 2 in the morning like we were in college again

Jan 1st:
Watched the Rose Bowl at the Phillips'

Jan 2nd:
Blake and I escaped Fresno for some sun on the central coast...there is another whole post with this one...

Jan 3rd:
Coffee with Ash before she left me again to go back to SoCal
Lunch and stuff with Blake's parents
We saw that our house was painted the wrong color (this too, is another post...)

Jan 4th:
Sermon at church was great...very thought provoking, allowing for great reflection time.
Errands
Lunch with Luke and Sarah Mundy!
More errands
And work....I got a lot done this afternoon and am ready to get back to work.

It hit me yesterday that there is less than a month before missions month starts. And instead of dreading it like I did before I was able to get away from work, I am looking forward to it. Don't get me wrong, I love my job and I believe in this years project 110%, but there is so much that goes into it, and when you are in the middle of planning a wedding and building a house, it becomes a little much. But the Lord renewed me today. I am ready to tackle these next two months, not because I can do it on my own, but because I know that Jesus is walking through all of this with me....all the joy and the frustration.

So although I don't get a "winter vacation", if I can have some time off like I did this year, I will be in good shape. And it looks like I will get a spring break this year too...2 weeks off, the majority of that in the Caribbean, is not too shabby....