Halloween Number 3!

Today is Halloween, one of my FAVORITE holidays. Why? Because you can be anything you want to be, fact or fiction, for a night.  It's amazing. One of my favorite parts nowadays, though, is waiting for the door to ring and greeting the little trick or treaters! Too cute.  I swear, as I write this blog I am anxiously waiting for the doorbell to ring. Too fun!

This Halloween, Jason and I carved our pumpkin. I have to say that this pumpkin turned out to be one of our best so far.

We then watched our annual "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown".  Such great times. I hope everyone has a BOOtiful, SPOOKtacular Halloween!

Jason's White Coat Ceremony

I have never really, truly understood what a White Coat Ceremony was.  I knew it was something special.  Sitting through Jason's kind of opened my eyes. A White Coat Ceremony is a right of passage for a new medical student. As they are "cloaked" by the doctors that will be teaching them through their years of medical school, they take upon themselves the true responsibility of being a doctor.  It becomes the "real deal".  They start thinking like a doctor, acting like a doctor, and understand their calling as a healer.

The ceremony began with a procession of medical students with their white coats draped over their arm. It was amazing to see Jason finally come down the aisle.  I have to admit I teared up a bit.  For anyone that knows Jason, you know that he has worked hard and has wanted to be a doctor for a long time.  It is a true love for him.   With Jason having a last name starting with the letter "A" he was the second student to be cloaked.  He look so awesome up there.  Unfortunately the picture I took when he was being cloaked was ruined...I am not happy about that one! Ugh.  The ceremony ended with the all of the students with their white coats standing and reading the oath of the doctor.  It was pretty cool.

We were lucky to have Jason's parents come into town. I was super excited to finally get to entertain in our home here in Spartanburg.  Our weekend was filled with antique shopping, eating, hiking, eating, more antique shopping, and more eating.  It was so much fun.  We love y'all, Andersons.

Here are a few pictures of the activities:

Another School Year Brings Another Birthday :)

Well, I started my 6th year of teaching, but first year at Chesnee Elementary School on August 15, 2011. It was quite a start!  Transitioning from one way of doing things at Colony Bend to a totally new way is a lot of work. I have definitely kept busy!  I teach 5th grade Reading, Writing, and Social Studies this year! I am so loving the kids.  They work hard and are a blast to interact with and be around.  The 30 minute drive there at 6:10 every morning is a nice time to ponder and listen to scriptures.  I have really enjoyed that time of reflection to myself.  It gets me ready for the day...at least in the right mind set.  What a blessing it is to be spritually fed to begin your day. 

As each school year starts, I know that my birthday will be coming around the corner quickly.  I turned 27 this year! I am getting old! Yikes.  My birthday was a nice day.  It started off like any other.  I went to work.  There I was greeted by a huge banner on my door and my kids singing "Happy Birthday" to me.  How cool was that!  My other class sang to me at lunch.  At Chesnee, teachers eat lunch with their students every day.  Just a side note.  Anyways, when I got home, Jason took me to dinner at a Japanese restaurant named Fuji.  It was actually really good.  :)  Then we drove around everywhere to find a decent birthday dessert.  Jason doesn't  "cook cakes" so we ended up at Ruby Tuesdays.  We ordered a chocolate and Italian Creme cake. Yum!  They even gave us an extra red velvet cupcake.  That is the cupcake that I was able to put a couple of candles in while Jason sang me the most lovely rendition of "Happy Birthday" I have ever heard.  It was a great day.  I got to spend and talk to the people I love most. 

I have to say that it has been an interesting few days to begin my 28th year of living.  I think I have started losing my mind. I actually almost walked out of my house without any shoes on!  Crazy times in the life of Kristin Anderson.  One day I will get a grasp on things...one day.

Jason is doing great in school.  He has had his first two tests, and he did really well.  He has another two coming up on Monday.  Keep him in your prayers!  These are some toughies!  I am learning so much (more than I really would like to) about viruses and what they do to the body. Pretty interesting stuff. 

Happy Birthday, Jason

Happy Birthday, Jason! It was his 29th birthday. We had a great day. It started with cinnamon pancakes, bacon, and scrambled eggs...Jason's favorite. It was pretty tasty if I don't say so myself. :) We let our stomachs digest as we watched a couple episodes of 24, and then it was present time! I gave Jason a few medical books and a gift card to Academy. We headed straight there, so Jason could stock up on lures. Good times! We then decided that were were in the need to hit a few golf balls. We found a driving range on the side of the road...but guess who didn't have cash. Us! So, Jason went to ATM in the gas station and bought a scratch off to break the 20.  He won 15$!!! Can you believe it??? We had fun at the driving range.  We actually hit the ball pretty good. After that we drove to Texas Road House. It was soooo good!!Afterwards, we came home and had yellow cake and chocolate frosting. We had a great day celebrating Jason and his wonderfulness.  Happy Birthday!!

Hiking Trip Number 2

We decided to head out to North Carolina again and hike the Gorge National park.  It was quite some hike.  After an hour or so of hiking, we finally got to Rainbow Falls. It was sooooo pretty. We started off on the bottom side of it. We were able to swim in the pool below it.  It took me FOR-E-VER to get into the water. I was scared to death! Jason was getting a little annoyed with me, but I have a thing for water that I can't see anything in.  Ugh! Like I said, I finally got in.  I didn't swim around like Jason did, I did a swim team freestyle sprint to the other side. Ha ha!

After we swam around a bit, we headed to the top of the falls. It was sooo pretty! We hiked some more and found a place that you could slide down some rocks like a water park slide! It is called Turtle Back Falls. To get up on the rocks, there is a rope tied to a tree. You had to climb up the rock...I tell you what, my upper body was sure sore! Any ways, we had fun doing that a couple of times.  

We hiked and hiked some more and finally arrived where the trail ended!  There we met a lady that said that if we huked up the hill we would get to the road and have only a half of a mile to walk to our car.  That seemed like a great deal at the time, so we pounced on that. After we got to the road, we walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked...after two and half miles of walking up and down paved hills we got to our car...that lady must have been mistaken. Oh well!  There has to be some sort of unplanned adventures when it comes to us. We love them!

The making of some extreme hikers....ha!

On Monday we decided to explore the mountains that are so close to us! We drove down the Blue Ridge Parkway to the Graveyard Fields trail.  It was supposed to be about 3.5 miles and led to a waterfall. 

We started on our journey and came to a fork in the road...we went right.  We walked and walked and hiked and hiked.  We started out seeing people, then seeing no one.  After about an hour, I thought we should hear water...afterall, we were hiking to a waterfall.... and I didn't hear water at all.  We decided to turn around. It ended up that we took the wrong fork in the road. We were walking deeper into the forest.  :)

We finally made it to the waterfall after taking the right turn. It was such a beautiful hike, and we had a blast. We are DEFINITELY going to make hiking part of our fun outings. :)

Jason decided to make his own water park at the waterfall. Check this out! Funny! Funny! (Sorry it is sideways...)

Red, White, and Boom...plus a little more.

On our last night before everyone left, Cory and Ryan got an itch for fireworks. Growing up in Sugar Land, Texas, we could never set off our own personal fireworks, but in Spartanburg you can buy and set off any you want! So cool.  After spending over $100 between the two bros, we set off around the block from our home. Jason, the expert, gave us the crash course on Fire Works 101, and we had a "blast!" 

My mom was brave enough to try ONE firework!

Well, after a sad goodbye to my mom, Ryan, and Cory (who is leaving for a 2 year mission in Cordoba, Argentina in a couple of weeks), my lovely sister, Devin, was able to stay with us for a few extra days.  She was such a blessing to have around. She worked really hard, except when it was time to set up the closet.  I didn't realize how much she disliked putting clothes away. Funny, funny.  Oh well.  While she was here, we got to spend the 4th of July together. Devin did some research and found out that Spartanburg had a fireworks show and carnival type thing called Red, White, and Boom.  We went to the store and got some chicken salad sandwiches and fruit for a fun picnic. We headed to the venue and found out that we couldn't have picnics inside of the park. Bummer! So we had a picnic in the parking lot of a church. :) Fun times!

When we got inside the park,we set out our picnic blanket.  There was live music and, drum roll, please... SNOW CONES!! I love snow cones, so, of course, I got my usual coconut flavored one. Yum, yum! The evening was so entertaining.  Not only was the music fun, but the people were the best to people-watch.  Interesting folk out here in Spartanburg....Devin did find a cutie, and the rest of the evening she was bent on getting his attention. Ha!

Once the sun went down, the fireworks show began! I have to say that we picked one of the best places to sit. The fireworks were beautiful.  Towards the end of the show, the fireworks were slowing down, and Devin and I were sad, thinking that there wasn't going to be a Grand Finale...but, boy, were we wrong! The Grand Finale went on FOR-E-VER. It was great! I tried to get some of the fireworks....

The Fourth of July was a little different than what we are used to. We missed the home made icecream and cherries, but we made it fun here in Spartanburg.

On our last evening here with Devin we decided to drive into Greenville.  It was such a cute city! We had dinner at a place called Trio. We had some yummy pizza, calzones, and roasted chicken.  We will definately go back there again.  After that we decided to hit up a fun cupcake shop named Chocolate Moose.  It was a sweet ending to a wonderful visit.  We loved having Devin here with us. We love you!