Home and Houghton

Well, 2013 was a doozy of a year. A funeral, a bridal shower, a trip to FL, a college graduation (entailing a trip to MD/VA), a wedding, a trip to NC, a trip to MD, a highschool graduation, a transfer to Houghton, another trip to MD over Thanksgiving break, and the completion of my sophomore credits. Adventures in our back acres, dancing Scottish country dances with homeschool friends, taking my sister's senior pictures. Working at Bilerio's fruit farm, and finding a cute baby snapping turtle and a huge, huge toad. Picking blueberries barefoot in the rain. Making friends with the boss's cat. And then at college...so many things happened this past semester, and I really don't think I can summarize them. I made a lot of really awesome friends, I took 17 credits, I started working custodial, I started attending Fillmore Wesleyan Church with Evan and helping out with the children, made pizza, shot nerf guns, attended concerts, and managed not to fall asleep in any of my classes. I got to go home a couple times...once to go out to Indiana for a wedding :) And several of my friends came and visited me...I got to give several campus tours. Jennifer and Elizabeth came out the beginning of December and we went to Prism:




My last final was on December 19th, and classes start on the 13th. Break's been good: I've made and eaten a lot of food, caught up with a lot of friends, gone roller-blading with friends, gone sledding with the little siblings, watched a couple seasons of White Collar and Sherlock, and celebrated Christmas.
(Speaking of Christmas: I made gingerbread eggnog trifle, and peach-cranberry ginger crisp. Both of them were new recipes, and they were really, really good, so the links here and here. And yes...for the second one, I substituted peaches for pears, and if anyone's wondering, you really don't need to add any liquid with the peaches. That's the only thing I'd change if I did it again.)

 A bunch of friend and sisters and I went and saw The Desolation of Smaug. Our family enjoyed the fellowship of lots of people, especially when involving homemade ice cream :) And, I attended a Scottish Country dancing ball this past Friday.

 Rachel and I rock the "northern country girls go to a ball" look, I think? :)

 And we were able to pull some decorations out of storage for the ball...reincarnated wedding reception flowers paired with pinecones was very wintry and festive!

 

 Shiloh has done a great job teaching our homeschool group the various dances over the past 6 months, and she did a great job announcing dances, teaching dances, and MCing the whole thing.

 And the dance demonstration groups did a great job!

I have about a week left before heading back to college. We're planning to go sledding again, make ice cream and cookies and hot chocolate, and hang out with friends by eating food and watching Sherlock with them. And we've been collectively battling against the raging cold and violent winds that have been blizzarding around us. Apparently right now, it's 1 degree fahrenheit, but with a wind chill of negative 22. I have a new rule that I just made up that says that I don't go outside if there's a windchill of anything in the negative numbers, so I'm trusting weather.com.

Anyhow, I hope you all are having a good break! Keep in touch over the semester :)