A Christmas Limerick

Today's challenge, a Christmas Limerick...boy was it tough!

The Christmas tree is glowing,
The sky starts snowing,Carols being sung,
And stockings are hung.
Oh how we love that Christmas is coming!

Christmas Traditions

I can't believe I missed day one of the Hello Ladies Christmas challenge, so I may just do a two in one....but first today. Today's challenge is to talk about our family traditions.

My family has a wonderful tradition of celebrating Christmas Eve with a Norwegian cold table. We put out lots of cheeses, meats, crackers and much more then celebrate being together by passing it all around the table for a nice light dinner. After dinner we go to a late night Christmas Eve church service. My favorite part is singing Silent Night and lighting candles at the very end knowing that its now 'technically' Christmas day :) After we get home, we're allowed to open our Christmas Eve gift, specially labeled by mom and containing new Christmas pjs! It may not be a surprise, but its always fun :)

Christmas day is a whole other story and isn't as much about tradition, but about visiting with family and loving on each other :) My bother and I take turns being the 'elf' )which sometimes involves a hat) and passing out rounds of Christmas gifts to the whole family. Its always loads of fun!!!

Yesterdays challenge was to list our top five Christmas songs...so mine are (in no particular order)
#1 - Grandma got run over by a reindeer (always listen to it when putting up our tree)
#2 - the whole Nutcracker suite (when I was younger my dad and I would go see it, just the two of us)
#3 - Silent Night (my favorite is singing it a capella in church on Christmas Eve)
#4 - Rockin Around the Christmas Tree (don't know why, but I love it and it makes me think of Home Alone and being a kid)
#5 - Sleigh Ride (the one with a whip that sounds like your on a horse drawn sleigh through a snow covered forest, I played it with the band in high school and have always loved it!)

I hope everyone is having a very Merry Christmas season!!

Love & Hugs!

Christmas Season and a Challenge!

Ok, so I may not be traveling at the moment, but one of my favorite groups is doing a Christmas challenge so for the next 12 days I'll be posting in response to their challenge :)

The group is called Hello Ladies and they make the most adorable onesies and other goodies! If you want to join in on the challenge their blog is http://thehelloladies.blogspot.com/

yay for Christmas!

back into travel blogging

Ok, so its been awhile, and I've been in the USA but I have been busy. Nothing had truly inspired me to blog until this last week when I went to Cape Cod, MA with one of my bestest friends, Melissa. We met up there to visit with some of her family and had a wonderful time!

So my best picture of Cape Cod comes from the movie Summer Catch, a cheesy flick about the summer baseball league in the Cape. And I would be lying if I said I wasn't hoping to meet my personal baseball boyfriend, but alas the season was over. But this was even better, we were actually able to see the Cape and have a great time visiting her family too.

Our highlight was a whale watching trip out of Hyannis, near where we were staying in S. Dennis. The Whale Watcher, our boat, took up up and out of the Cape past Provincetown. About 10 miles off the coast we found dozens of beautiful and amazing humpback whales. The crew on our boat was able to name a dozen of them including three mothers with their calves. The youngins would swim right up to the boat and check us out too. The elders were busy feeding in preparation for their trip to the Caribbean where they fast during mating season. While I took loads of pictures here is my absolute favorite as a group of them dove for some fishes.


We also took time to see Provincetown, where the Pilgrims landed and the very tip of the Cape. It was a great time with a fun atmosphere! We visited the Pirate Museum dedicated mostly to the discovery of a ship said to have tons of Spanish gold on board. We also spent some time shopping in the 'hippie' shops and I even had a delicious lobster roll (local favorite).

Another day we visited a few of the lighthouses and beaches too! It was all beautiful and I would love to go back in full summer to see the crowds and warmer weather.

Now its back to my part time jobs and job searching. For those who may or may not know...I've had a few promising interviews for recruiting jobs but have yet to find the right one. I'm hoping that God has something amazing for me and I'm trying to be patient.

Hugs & Love!

a quick seattle visit

I flew out to Seattle on Wednesday for an interview. While the interview didn't go entirely as I had hoped, I was hugely happy to visit. It was wonderful to see all of my friends!! Thanks to those who were able to make it out to dinner tonight, it was fabulous to see you and catch up with you :)

It is interesting where life takes you. Right now, I am literally looking for jobs all over the world but my network and job search led me to an interview here. And maybe it didn't go to plan, but then when catching up with friends someone mentioned a possible option for me, also in Seattle. So who knows where I will end up but things do like to point towards here ;)

Now I am headed back to Little Rock and I am looking forward to seeing some of my cousins and celebrating ones bachelorette night! I must say, while its not something I am used to, it is fabulous to be able to participate in family occasions such as this. My family and friends are amazing and I love them all (and everywhere they are)!

Recently I have been very inspired by Lee Safar and her Dream Angel posts. She was an amazing singer that I met in Sydney and I would love for those of you still reading to check out her inspirational posts. You can find them on both her artist website http://www.leesafar.com/ or her Dream Angel website http://www.dreamangelnetwork.com/.

Hugs and Love!

on the job hunt

So I've been back in the states for a bit now and my time has been mostly dedicated to job hunting, which can be most boring. However, I have also been able to spend some time with dear friends. First, I had the pleasure of staying with my friend Jamie and her fiancee Alec at their new home. It was wonderful to catch up with Jamie and get to know the love of her life a little bit better. While there I also helped set up and clean up around the house. This included increasing my knowledge of dryers and wireless internet systems :) And to top it off, Jamie and I ran in the Indy 500 mini-marathon. We ran on a blustery and cold Saturday morning but we did it, we finished 13.1 miles :)

Before - Friends through and through :)

After - brrrrr all that energy running and I can't stay warm

Now I've mentioned the job hunt...so not my most favorite topic, but it has been moving along. I had an interview with a boarding high school in Arkansas that I am still waiting to hear back from, and recently I had a phone discussion with a recruiting agency in Seattle. I'm now planning a trip to Seattle so that I can meet with them in person and hopefully wow the socks off them. In the meantime though I have secured a part time sales job that would start after my trip at one of my favorite shopping locals :) But if you know of any great jobs for me, please let me know as I would be happy to look into them. I'm currently hoping to move my career into recruiting for the engineering industry, but I am also considering test engineering jobs as well.

Other than that, I am adjusting to the approaching summer in the south (aka warmer here already than it will probably get in Seattle for months!). And I'm helping out with the political season since I have a very politically involved family :) Its fun to be able to support those that you love dearly and see them (hopefully) succeed!

Hugs & Love!

Back in the USA

Wow...I'm back in the good ol' US of A and not sure if it really is worth keeping up the blog. Any requests on topics? Maybe I'll just let you know about dream trips or next trips or you let me know what you want to do next and I'll look into it like your very own travel agent. What do you think? I need input to keep going.

Your Travel Addict :)