Finals!

3 finals down and only 3 more to go!  So far all have gone very well and grades have been quite pleasing :) But my next three are probably the hardest, so there will be lots of studying in the next 2 days!  Writing this post is my break from studying AP World History; I'm trying to cram the highlights of like 6,000 years of history into my already overloaded brain.  Anyway, it's Honors Algebra II that I'm the most unexcited/worried/unprepared for, but it's not till Thursday, which is an eternity away...

No Break, No Snow, Yes Tanner!

The majority of the students at Zionsville High School are pretty distraught about the fact that our Christmas Break starts 3 days before Christmas...we have school through the 22nd.  In the words of my friend: "When am I supposed to get ready for Christmas?  When am I supposed to get my presents bought and ready?? Christmas Eve, that's when!"  I'll admit, it can't quite feel like the holiday season till I'm done taking final exams, so I'll savor the little bit I have.  It also cannot feel like Christmastime at all until we have snow...which we usually do by this time of year :(  So a week until Christmas, and it doesn't feel especially like this special time of year.  But they say Christmas happens in your heart, so I'm working on it.
Latest excitement in our house: Tanner came in last night!  We had to hold Grant back in the airport so he didn't go past the "Do Not Enter" sign to meet him.  It was so sweet to see the excitement we all had to have Tanner home; he has certainly been missed!  (Neil and Grant think that just because I don't express it the same way as they do that I didn't miss him.)  So we were all up till one in the morning eating and laughing hysterically.
6 days and 6 finals to make it through till my favorite day of the year!
Olivia

"O my son, do not let us be slothful because of the easiness of the way; for so was it with our fathers; for so was it prepared for them, that if they would look they might live; even so it is with us. The way is prepared, and if we will look we may live forever."
Alma 37:46

"The measure of intellegence is the ability to change."
Albert Einstein

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

To me, Christmas means picking out a real tree at the Christmas tree farm and bringing it home to smell for a month.  It means that one blanket we have with the snowmen and the candy canes, the cute wooden Santa that sits on the piano, the Christmas dishes, and the wooden nativity where Christ fits perfectly in the manger.  It means reading the familiar story whose words have more meaning with each passing year.  It means carols- sung at church, in the living room, or on the neighbors' doorstep.  It means lights on houses and the magical way the tree looks lit up at night when the house is dark and still.  It means the indescribable joy of a 2 hour delay, or better yet- a snow day.  It means Ella Fitzgerald's Christmas album and the only time of the year I listen to the radio.  It means the physical anxiety lying in bed on Christmas Eve.  It means that feeling in the air when it seems the world is a little brighter and the human race a little happier.  It means being with friends, but more than anything, with my family, together.  To me, Christmas is love.