Baby its cold outside

But that is quite alright with me.

We woke up this morning with a blanket of snow covering the ground.

And its still coming down!

I can't believe Christmas is only a day and a half away!! My brother and his wife are coming in today, and my sister and her family will all be over here on Christmas day. Its going to be lovely :)

I hope yall all have an amazing Christmas weekend!

much love
-s

Just a little video...

this is my school!!

A chapter closed

I'm still alive people!

Oh my goodness there's a lot to catch up on.

I hate that I fail at blogging... I hate that I didn't update anything about my last couple weeks at school... { I also hate that my blog needs an extreme-blog-makeover but its just not happening }

I never posted pictures of Split.

I never posted pictures from my day trip to Budapest for the Christmas markets.

I never posted pictures from our Christmas party...

And lastly, I never posted about graduation.

-insert slapping of forehead-

I'm going to try and make up for all that, bear with me.

So, I am home now. I made it in last Tuesday...it was supposed to be Monday, but I had a flight re-direction due to fog and ended up staying the night in good ole El Paso TX. I've spent this past week trying to get over a nasty head cold, and jet lag, so that involved a lot of sleeping.

So I'll try to throw everything in this post. Ready?

First, Croatia. I fell in love with Split, its a b.e.a.u.t.i.ful city!








There's all these fun little nooks and crannies. You walk down all these little alley ways and there are countless numbers of shops and little restaurants. At one point I kind of gave up trying to take pictures...I didn't feel like any that I was taking were doing it justice.

After getting back to school from this trip finals hit full blast...but that next weekend I took a day trip to Budapest with some lovely ladies and we visited the Christmas market!

I actually thought this one was so much better than the Vienna one!




The last week was consumed with finals, packing, and getting ready for graduation. Squeezed in there though we had some fun, the CCBCE Christmas party!


Saturday was a busy day of castle cleaning, and then graduation. Yours truly was a graduate of the Mission Training Program.



And just like that, it was over. The crazy thing about that place is that at times it felt like it was just flying by, and other times it seemed to be going so slow.

I don't even know what to say about this semester, or this whole experience in general...its all a bit surreal in a way. Graduating was bittersweet. I'm excited for the next thing, but sad to see that chapter close. Words just don't express...these two semesters were painful, exciting, scary, joyful, humbling, so many things.

I couldn't be more thankful for the Lord taking me to Hungary. I made so many amazing friends, experienced new things, saw new places... I learned so much through the classes, and drew so much closer to Jesus. He broke me, taught me about surrender, gutted me out, refined (and is still) I can rest in that He is continuing to work { Philippians 1:6 }

I don't know what else to say, but there it is. I'm excited to see the next step, whatever that may be.

much love
-s

Just some thankfulness.

Fall has slowly gone away here in Hungary...

with the cold days of winter creeping in behind it...

I’m sad to see the fall go, I love it! But I’m excited for winter and all the things it brings with it.

I got to kick off the Holiday season the weekend before last by going with a small group to Vienna Austria to do some shopping and visit the Christmas market! This is my second time going to Vienna, and I still think it’s so beautiful! The Christmas market was jam packed with people, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

It was a really fun weekend, with lots of laughs, lots of food, and lots of starbucks.. ;)

{I love that you get your drinks there in actual mugs, and they have all the different sizes! it doesn't take much to make me happy people.}

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and I'm hoping yall all have a blessed one! I’m going to be spending mine driving to Split Croatia! I'm going with 5 other people on an outreach there for the weekend.

I am missing home a lot tonight, and I'm actually wishing I was driving there to be with my family for the weekend, like most other college students. But just because I'm not there doesn’t mean I can’t be thankful! So today {even though it’s not thanksgiving yet} I'm going to list a few things I'm thankful for.

Here goes.

• I’m very much thankful for my parents.They are pretty awesome, really. I'm thankful they've been so supportive of me coming here-even though I know its hard on them. I'm really just thankful for my family in general. I have a pretty great one :) We have our moments, but what family doesn't.
  
• I’m also pretty thankful for skype {even though its temperamental!} Its allowed me to be able to communicate with my family a lot. Reading missionary biographies makes me even more thankful for these kinds of things. We have pretty amazing technology these days and it makes me 1000 of miles away from home a little easier.
  
• I’m thankful for my family that the Lord has given me here…that is one of the most awesome and unique things about this school, we’re all just one big family.
  
• I’m most of all thankful for Jesus; He is so good to me. I’m thankful His provision, and that He has a plan.
• I'm thankful for being here, this all in itself is such a unique opportunity. We get to spend our days saturated in the Word, and have this time set apart to just get a firmer foundation in Christ.
  
• Lastly {this is kind of along the same lines as technology} I'm thankful I'm getting to go home in two in a half weeks and that I'll be on a plane and it'll only be a matter of hours to get there...instead of a matter of months.
  

These definitely aren't the only things I'm thankful for, but they are some of the biggest things at the moment.

I wish yall all a Happy Thanksgiving!

Eat some pumpkin pie for me to, would ya?

much love
-s.