Well, I thought I would try to write a short blog to prove that I was not dead. I know how my blogger buddies like to read things and know that we are still alive. My laptop has been sick for a while, so as soon as the semester was over I carried it to Best Buy, at current it is still in computer hospital, so it needs your prayers. :) Therefore my writing apparatus, and of course all of my pictures are not on-line.

In short I did manage to graduate. We started 4 minutes late, and we had a crazy "Reverend Lady" instead of being a good instructional short speech, it was a long annoying, my complaints against the world. Blah, blah, blah. She quoted Barbara Streisand! I mean who quotes Barbara Streisand? Let's just say that I now know that there are 214 beams in the gym ceiling from East to West, and 176 beams from North to South. I walked across stage at 8:11, and we got out of there around 9:30. I sprinted for the diplomas, and got mine quickly. All in all a spectacular night. The only downside, my fellow was stuck in traffic in Atlanta for a really long time so it was 3:30 or so before he got here.

We did our Mallard family Christmas the next day. They all gave Gary a hard time, meaning they really like him. I got gifts for Graduation which was a surprise. The best gift of all was a super duper sewing machine. I had asked for one for Christmas, but didn't think I would get it. It will do EVERYTHING except embroider. After things settle down some, I'm going to make me some new plaid skirts among other things. It was great a good chunk of the family made it down for graduation, and every one except Chris (my oldest cousin) and Trisha (the girlfriend of another cousin) managed to make it down. It was awesome.

Gary and I finally got a little time to ourselves on Sunday. So according to him that was our first date, since we hung out after church by ourselves, and he spent more than $15 on food for us. I had been counting us as dating since Thanksgiving weekend, but whatever. He didn't want to leave and I didn't want him to leave, but alas work was beckoning. He left just in time to arrive in Florida in time to clock in, I ended up talking to him for the last hour or so since he was getting seriously sleepy. I worried a bit after all it was a 10 hour drive, he ended up not sleeping between like 8 am on Sunday my time, and 5 pm on Monday his time. That's a long time. The Lord gave him a safe journey for which I am very grateful.

Things were pretty uneventful. The weather was unusually warm here, so it felt really odd on Christmas Eve to go to Church in a short sleeve dress. Christmas Eve was nice. My mother side of the family got together at Grandmother and Granddaddy's. She cooked amazing food, though not as many goodies as usual. She never called me and I thought Matthew went over to help her, and she never called him so he thought that I went over to help her. We had a good time being loud, laughing wildly, and with the help of Aunt Melanie, we drove Mother nuts. We had fun with presents. As always Granddaddy is just as surprised as we are about what he has gotten us. This year he made up all kinds of stories about where he went to get things. In fact he got so carried away that he told me where he got my present from Aunt Melanie, Uncle Clint and Maghen. Uncle Clint dug him out by saying that he and Granddaddy went shopping together. He claimed that he went all the way to Knoxville for Nicholas's UT gift. He even claimed that for the gift that Matthew got for Maghen that he personally went to Alaska and chipped off and preserved a glacier for the marble like chips. Daddy finally looked at him and told him that maybe we should talk to the church about reconsidering his deacon status. Haha. Nicholas told him, that he believed him with the straightest look on his face, and the rest of us just laughed. It was a great night.

The only other thing of note was driving down to B'ham Friday night before Christmas, and getting to hang out with Brett. He's been busy with his real job doing the important nursing/saving lives thing. He's also working night shift so we haven't gotten to talk on the phone since this summer. Then I have been tied up with studying all semester and I haven't been down to Jasper to church so I haven't even seen the gang in a good long while. It's very sad I miss them much. I plan to go back down there 4th Sunday in January.

Christmas day was unusually. It is the one day of the year that Nicholas and Benjamin aren't up at the crack of dawn, we all have to wait upstairs for Mother and Daddy to call us down. This year they decided to not set the alarm clock and so they didn't get us up until nearly noon. It was awesome, we got our yearly book bags. Each year we get a particular gift bag full of books with our stockings, it's the best part of Christmas. I usually spend the next two or three days reading all of the books. Mother cooked her awesome Christmas breakfast. We opened presents and generally hung out. Matthew spent a good chunk of the day playing pieces from the Pride and Prejudice movie on the piano (he got the music book for Christmas). The only down point was that my fellow wasn't here.

Since then I have been working and anxiously waiting for Saturday to go down and meet his family and his Church family. I'm a bit nervous, since he seems to think that I'm all that, and even beautiful. I know that he is crazy and delusional, but his family has all these ideas that I'm sure that I won't measure up. It's a bit nerve racking.

Alright this is way too long. I will post pics when I get my computer back. I hope that everyone else is having as good of a holiday as me.