I'm back with the ABC's of me!

After an almost 3 year hiatus, I am back. I am checking some things off my 30 things before 30 bucket list and starting back up my blog is on that list. More on that later! For now here are the ABC's of me.

A – Age: 28

B – Biggest Fear: frogs and falling. 

C – Current Time: 6:23 PM 

D – Drink You Had Last: water but really want Dr. Pepper 

E – Easiest Person To Talk To: Kaitlin...hands down 

F – Favorite Song: Carolina by Eric Church

G – Grossest Memory: I used to work at a childcare at a church during the summers.  One day one of the kids got sick.  She threw up on herself and had explosive diarrhea. I had to clean her up. That was a rough day for both of us!

H – Hometown: Columbia

I – In Love With: traveling, adventure, binge watching my shows :) 

J – Jealous Of: people that get to travel all the time and have that perfectly curled hair with the curling iron, ha! I cannot get my hair to cooperate with me. 

K – Kindest Person You Know: my mom!  

L – Life Isn’t Complete Without: my friends and family, peanut butter, and working out

M – Middle Name: Elizabeth

N – Number of Siblings: 3 brothers

O – One Wish: That I could own a baby pig and a rhinoceros.  Neither will happen...the second isn't even possible.  Ha!

P – Person You Spoke To On The Phone Last: mom.  Called her on the way home from the cheerleading banquet last night.  

Q – Question You’re Always Asked: When are you getting married? Well seeing as how I am not dating anyone, getting married will not happen anytime soon.  

R – Reason To Smile: Rambo, chocolate, peanut butter

S – Song You Last Sang: Water Under The Bridge by Adele

T – Time You Woke Up: 7:45 AM.  Felt great to "sleep in".  

U – Underwear Color: pink

V – Vacation Destination: Iceland in June.  I cannot wait!!!! 

W – Worst Habit: biting my nails

X – X-Rays You’ve Had: two fingers, shoulder, hip, right arm

Y – Your Favorite Food: mashed potatoes, pizza, peanut butter

Z – Zodiac Sign: Aries

Brussels, London, Edinburgh

This vacation has been very busy and non stop.  I have enjoyed every minute thus far...even the not so good moments. Last time I wrote, I was on my way to Brussels. Well now I'm on a train to Normandy to see the beaches of D-Day. I am beyond excited about that but ill post about that later. When we arrived in Brussels, we hopped on a train for a short ride to Gent. It is a small town outside of Brussels. It is absolutely gorgeous and less touristy. We went in a beautiful cathedral and a castle. We climbed several sets of stairs. I think one set had close to 300 in it. This was just preparing us for the stairs we were going to climb in London. We went on a canal tour in Gent. We met this couple from Denmark. They were very nice and our tour guide was hilarious. 

We went under this tree during our ride. I felt like I was in The Little Mermaid during the "Kiss the Girl" scene.  At night the city of Gent lights up. Unbelievably gorgeous. We spent the night in Gent. The next morning we at a real Belgium waffle. I mean you're in Belgium so why not??  After breakfast we hopped a train back to Brussels to tour that city. Brussels was very touristy and loud. I wasn't a huge fan of Brussels. Around 5pm we got on a train and road about 2 hours to London. As soon as we arrived, we got in a cute taxi and rode to our hotel. London is pretty overwhelming when you first arrive. There is a lot to take in. Kaitlin and I are GINORMOUS fans of the royal family!!! We woke up early the morning of the Royal Wedding to watch it. We have been following Kate throughout her pregnancy. We were hoping she would have the baby while we were there so we could see the announcement on the easel but sadly that didn't happen. We walked around London for a little bit the night we arrived but decided to head to bed early since we had a busy day ahead of us. We pretty much covered all of London in about 20 hours. We walked all over the place, climbed 526 stairs in St. Paul's Cathedral, rode the metro around, walked through Westminster Abbey, and then walked around some more. That night we were soaked in sweat and our feet were throbbing. Apparently London was under a heat wave while we were there. It was only 85 degrees there but still hot. When we would tell people it would sometimes get up to 100 degrees back home they looked shocked. I liked London but I do not know if I could live in a busy city like that. 

Big Ben

Westminster Abbey

We left London Saturday afternoon and rode a 4-hour train to Edinburgh, Scotland. This by far was my favorite city. It was touristy but very welcoming and calm. The weather was in the upper 60s and felt amazing. We bought a ticket that allowed us to ride the different tour buses around town. Although most of the tour guides on the bus said the same stuff, it was still fun to hear the different guides talk. All of the buses were hop on, hop off buses. We could get off at any of the various stops to tour the city and then get back on at another stop. I think Scotland was my favorite place because my family comes from a Scottish background. One of my ancestors made one of the stain glass windows in the St.Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh. I tried to see which one it was but it was hard to read the writing on them. So I just took a picture of all of them...I'm bound to find it. :) Monday morning Kaitlin and I decided to go hike the Pentland Hills. It was very foggy and muggy that day but the 2 1/2 mile hike was awesome. The view at the top of our trail was breathtaking. 

The view from our hike. 

On our final day in Edinburgh, it poured down rain. Luckily we only had a couple of hours that morning before we had to leave for the airport. We decided to kill time in this department store. We found this section that had fascinators in it. Of course we had to try on several. 

A small collage of some of our hats!! After our fun in the store we headed to the airport. We had to catch a plane to Paris for the final stretch of our trip. As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, we are on a train to see the beaches of D-Day at Normandy. I will most likely post when I get home about our Paris adventures. 

Amsterdam

At this moment I am on a train to Brussels so I figured it would be the perfect time to write about the past few days. We left Monday at 11:15am from Charlotte to begin our journey. This meant that we left my parents house around 6am so we would miss most of the Charlotte 8am traffic. We were only stopped in traffic for about 5 minutes. When we got to the airport, the people couldn't print off my boarding pass for some unknown reason. Of course I naturally started to stress thus causing me to sweat. TMI I know but oh well ha. After talking to the special services, they were able to print the boarding pass. Airport security took 2.5 seconds. Normally I am the one they pull off to the side to do a detailed searched, never fails. However this time it happened to Kaitlin. The flight from Charlotte to Atlanta was very short. We sat in Atlanta for a couple hours before boarding our 8 1/2 hour flight to Amsterdam. This flight included 2 screaming babies that sat within a 10 foot radius of us. I get the babies do not understand what is going on with the pressure changes and stuff but still. One baby fell asleep for the duration of the trip the other baby on the other hand did not. The flight wasn't full so Kaitlin and I were able to have our own row granted it consisted of 2 seats but I'm not complaining. Day 1 in Amsterdam was nice. The weather was mid 70s and sunshine. We walked almost everywhere. We did take the metro to some places. The Anne Frank house was probably my favorite thing we saw. We couldn't take pictures while we were in the house. The people here are really friendly and very helpful. 

Us before going through airport security. 

Bored in the airport

The train station in Amsterdam. 

My gigantic pancake that was oh so delicious!! 

Side note: when I get home I will go into a little more detail. I am writing this post from my phone so my thumbs get a little tired of typing after awhile. 

Next stop Brussels!!! 

Adventure Time

Today is officially here!! Kaitlin and I are in the car headed to the Charlotte airport. My parents were kind enough to drive us up here. We left Columbia at 6am. Out flight doesn't leave until 11:15 but I wanted to avoid 8am Charlotte traffic as much as possible. It hasn't really sunk in yet that we are going to Europe for two weeks but I'm sure it will hit soon enough. Well it is 7:30am and we have hit our first patch of standstill traffic. I will try and update throughout my trip but I can't make promises. I saw this picture on Pinterest and it completely describes how I feel right now. 

Life update

I really am terrible at updating my blog. I cannot think of all the times I thought about updating but was just too tired. I decided it was probably best to do an update on my life in this post. Hopefully, I will get better at this...we shall see. 1. In my last post, I announced that I was going to South Africa this summer. Well withing the last couple of weeks, Kaitlin and I did more research to scope out our trip. We discovered that it was becoming more and more unsafe for 2 single females to go to South Africa alone instead of with a larger group. Too many mishaps were happening during the day time and quite frankly it wasn't worth the risk just to go to South Africa. We decided to change our destination to Europe. Our original trip had us stopping in Amsterdam for a 25 hour layover. We kept that part of our trip since it was already booked. We will go to Amsterdam, Brussels, London, Scotland, and end in Paris. We both feel much more at ease about this trip but both promised that we would go to South Africa one day! Prince Harry here I come! :) 2. Back in January, I resigned from my cheer coaching position at Irmo and accepted a cheer coaching position at Chapin High School. I coached for three years at Irmo and enjoyed my time there. It was a great start to my coaching career. I ended up transferring to Chapin for many reasons. One was that it was only a five minute commute from work since I taught at the middle school. For me this move was a GIANT leap out of my comfort zone. I went to Irmo Middle and Irmo High School where I cheered for five years in the program. I knew Irmo like the back of my hand. I was comfortable there, I knew a lot of the coaches and the area. When I decided to transfer, I was very nervous. I had talked to my parents about the decision. They helped me weigh the pros and cons. I have to say that so far everything is going well. I still have my moments where I am uncomfortable, mainly because I am still getting used to my surroundings and meeting other coaches. But I must say this was the best move for me. 3. I recently turned 25. Building up to turning 25, I did not want to do it. I was having a quarter-life crisis. I felt like there was so much I had yet to complete before I turned the big 2-5. I felt like every time I turned around, people I knew were getting married and/or having kids. Not that I am necessarily ready to get married or have children at this moment but I don't know I just had this feeling like something was missing. So I turned my frustration to God. I feel like recently my relationship with him has grown so much more. He is teaching me to have more patience and to enjoy life. I am learning more and more that if it is meant to be, it will happen. HE does not need my help in making things happen, HE has it ALL under control! :) Since I turned 25 at the end of March, I will say that so far things are going good. Nothing is perfect, I still have my moments but overall life is great! 4. I finished my third year of teaching. Some days I feel like I have been teaching all my life while other I feel like I just started. This past year I had amazing students. They made me cry from laughing so hard, smile, and feel loved. This year reminded me of my first year of teaching. That year is still my favorite year! I am reminded daily that teaching is my calling. I am meant to be in the classroom. 5. I am moving back to math!! I taught math my first year but when we went off block scheduling, we needed more science and social studies teachers. Being elementary certified, I can teach anything 2nd-6th. They were able to keep me at CMS but I just had to move content areas. Being a first year teacher at the time, I was happy to move content instead of not being able to come back. Just recently a 6th math position came available at my school and I was able to switch to it for the following school year. I am so excited. Math is hands down my favorite! I could do math all day long. Well maybe not but I do love it a lot! :) That is my life recently in a nutshell...I think ha ha

312 Days 19 Hours

At this current moment, there are very few words to describe how absolutely excited I am!!! I love to travel and I love to dream about traveling. WELL...in 313 days I will be flying to South Africa with my best friend. I booked my plane ticket tonight so now everything is official. I have giggled and cheered for the past 10 minutes because I am BEYOND excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Some of our adventures will include but are not limited to: Touring Cape Town, South Africa

Cage diving with Great White Sharks :)

Going on a 2-day Safari

Visit Boulder Beach aka Penguin Beach

These of course are not all of our adventures but these are some of the high points of the trip!! I will certainly be taking TONS of pictures and documenting all of my adventures. Pretty sure I will not be sleeping much tonight!! :)

I am only HALF crazy :)

This past Sunday I ran my very first half-marathon. I signed up for one back in January. I ran in the Diva Half Marathon Series called Run Like A Diva. The one I ran was in North Myrtle Beach. I would not consider myself a runner. I actually used to hate running because I would get winded easily and it was just not fun. I like to challenge myself because overcoming a challenge is so rewarding. Last year I ran my first 5K and this past March, I ran a 10K. Back in January, my boyfriend's mom was talking to me about signing up for the half marathon with her, Corey's sister, and his cousin. I took a few days to think about it because at that point the most I had ever done was 4 miles. How in the world was I going to whip out 13.1? After some thought I decided to sign up and then immediately googled training programs. For the most part I stuck to it. I would run on the days that it said run and I certainly rested on the rest days :) but there were days for cross training too. At the time I did not have access to a gym so sometimes I would do a cardio workout I found online or walk the neighborhood with my dog. It helped too that Corey would run with me on the weekends. It is good (and sometimes frustrating) to have someone running with you and pushing you. There would be times on our run that I would want to stop and walk briskly. Nope, that did not work for him. He kept pushing me (within reason) to keep going because in the end I would be mad at myself for stopping to walk when I knew I could run a little further. Well half marathon day had finally arrived and I was really nervous. By then the most I had run without stopping was 6 miles but during the training I did go a total of 11 miles (combo of running and walking). The race started at 7am. The day before had been overcast and chilly. The weatherman was calling for rain all weekend. Luckily, the rain held off and it was beautiful on race day. I already had in my head that it was okay to walk some of the half marathon but I did not want walk the majority of it. When you line up, you line up based on how fast you can run a mile. We lined up between the 11-12 minute mile. It was a slow steady pace to start out. I will say that anytime I run, the first mile and a half to two miles is always the toughest because my body is trying to find its groove. Sunday was different. Once we started all of the nerves went away and I was very relaxed. All four of us started out running together and then slowly separated based on our pace. I surprised myself and ran then entire 13.1 miles!!! The only time I would stop was at the water/Gatorade stations to get a drink. I don't know about you but I certainly cannot run while drinking because I spill the majority of it. After each water station I would continue at my pace. From mile 10.5 to 11.5 was the toughest part for me. 13.1 miles is a lot of pounding your knees and ankles get. I did have to stop and use the bathroom at mile 11.5. They had porta-potty's set up throughout the course but the lines were awful. Luckily when I went, there were no lines. If I run another half marathon again, I want to run this one. Right before mile 13 they have a boa and tiara station. Volunteers are there passing them out to you as you run by and then once you cross the finish line, a fireman gives you a rose and your medal. I finished the race in 2 hours and 35 minutes! The part I loved most about the race was throughout the entire course there are people standing along the sides cheering you on constantly!! We would run through some of the residential areas and the homeowners would stand in their yards cheering for us. I did tear up throughout the course because of the overwhelming encouragement and I most definitely started to tear up as I saw and crossed the finish line. I was so proud of myself for not only completing a half marathon but for actually running the entire race. I really did surprise myself. Here is a picture of my medal. I am so proud of it!!