the one to start the official christmas break.

long post ahead. prepare yourselves.

exam week. love/hate it. love being able to sleep late. hate spending my entire day in a textbook. love having an excuse to drink multiple cups of joe. hate spending my entire day in a textbook.. etc, etc, ya know? love/hate. i had four exams this semester. two on the last two days. so by this past wednesday i was more than ready to go home (especially since my roomie left on monday morning for break, jealousss!).

anyways. so i spent a couple more hours with this girl on tuesday afternoon...

studying more organic chemistry.

seriously we were in the library from 12:30pm to 12am.

oh my word. that is a LOT of benzene rings! we took breaks.. to get coffee, supper and eventually howling cow ice cream! :) we were very studious, for what seemed like fooo-evaaa..

whitley, rachel's rooms, && rachel making quizzes for one another.

but. we hit a wall around let's say... 10pm.

we dressed up like a nativity scene. :)

and

took lots of pictures on my computer.

it was the best break. whitley.. obviously was still being very studious. ^

so we finally got back into it. and once we hit the twelth hour.

we considered ourselves prepared for our organic II final.

(sorry i didn't reverse the picture).

so... wednesday night. to celebrate the end of the semester (even though we both had one more exam in the morning), this really cute boy took me out on a date. to the pit! (another "check" to the december goals list!!).

my point and shoot was messing up..

i couldn't get decent pictures of our food but for this close up of hushpuppies.

but sam got fried chicken with fried okra and mashed potatoes & i got turkey bbq with beets and creamed corn. oh my word, best bbq i have EVER put in my mouth. completely fabulous (i hope this becomes a tradition). soooo good. but anyways, so the waiter came up to take our plates and asked if we wanted some coffee or desserts. i really wanted to say yes! but we had exams to go back and study for.. so as i kindly declined, sam excitedly said.. "court, i wanna take you somewhere, but it closes at 9, so we gotta go!"

my first thought: "ahhh, sam's gonna take me to a cute little coffee shop!"

(i was pumped).

we get in the car and drive. to a little beat-down shopping center/area. all that surrounded me was a walmart, wendy's, chiptole, a western wear store, and sketch gas station.

no coffee shop to be seen, anywhere.

i was really thrown off. so sam directs me out of the car and into the western wear store hand in hand. my second thought: "ohh, maybe he wants me to pick out the overalls i asked for for christmas." wrong, again. soo anyways, back to the story. the employers kindly greeted us and reminded us the store was closing in 20-25 minutes. sam simply said "thank you sir. i'm looking for some cowgirl boots for this young lady." first off. i definitely blushed when he referred to me as young lady. second. oh my worddd! sam is getting me real cowgirl boots!! (also, on my christmas list). the sales clerk led sam & i to this huge wall of boots. sam said "pick you some out." (insanely sweet, right?)

ahhh. loved them all. the sales clerk was so great. we were small-talking when we mentioned shoe addictions (i wear converses 98% of the time).. and he said this is my next shoe addiction.

i narrowed my choices down to three. so sam told me which one he like best.. i tried it on. and i felt like a southern cinderella. the boots he picked were perfect!

(side note: i called my parents later that night to tell them about how amazing the night has been and my mom said something like "this is better than getting them on christmas".. at first i was like.. uhh, okay? but the more i thought about it, she was sooo right. it was the element of surprise, and getting the ones i wanted. it was perfect. i can't wait to unwrap my gift on christmas day. i'll still be in shock.)

now it's 9:30-10pm. sam has organic final in the morning & i have anthropology. we headed back to school. on the car ride back, i told sam my thought process throughout his surprise. he laughed at the fact that i thought we were gonna go to a coffee shop (still confused why..) but whatever. once we got back on campus, sam treated me to c-store coffee. and boy was it good. celebratory date was a success (& then some).

late night studying, for the last time for 2010. to wake up to find this:

still beaming from the date night before... i was thrilled to see winter take center stage to my morning. (the weather actually put a "two hour delay" on our exams. my suitemates, heather & emily, then walked to the dining hall to meet up with some of our lovely friends for a "good luck breakfast".

they all did fabulous on their exams, i don't doubt it. :)

i know, i know. shut up already in this post. but i'm almost done. from raleigh to home, its 2 hours. lots of comtemplation over whether we should drive home due to weather and nasty roads. long story short.. im coming home. about 2 mintues away from my house, the roads get bad (plus i don't have four wheel drive....eeek!)

i slide once. i was scared to death, that has never happened to me before. i quickly gain composure and kept driving. i swerve again, this time a little more severely. again, quick composure. prayers going up a mile a minute. i mean come on.. i'm honestly 2 minutes away from home (if that). so slide again, and this time more severe than the last. end up in opposite direction i was driving, in a deep shoulder. immediately, i called sam. he was leading the way home, so i knew he was close. all he said as i called him in a panic and jumbled up words was "im coming, you're fine."

thanks to jesus, i wasn't hurt at all. another positive thing.. my car wasn't hurt either. :) i called my dad (mom would have freaked) and he started to head my way) but one good/bad thing about living in a super small town.. everyone you see, you know and you know well. as sam (aka superman at the time) came to my side, our friend brett & his dad pulled over to help. there was a big ditch at the front of my tires (you can't see in the pictures) that was keeping us from reversing it. PLUSSSS my car doesn't have four wheeled drive, so what are ya gonna do?? improv. brett's dad tells them to hop on the back of my car to put weight back there in order to get me out of the ditch. it looked hilarious.

it didn't work. but the effort was valid. so as we waited for dad to pull up the boys played on the sheets of ice in the middle of the road.

long story short. we got it out.

and i haven't stop getting heck for it. "girls don't know how to drive". that's crap. i know how to drive, and i drive well. but sheets of ice on a rear wheeled suv is no bueno. boy or girl driver. i did the best i could. and the big man upstairs had my back (&& that's all that matters in the end). :) but now i am home. safely, curled up in chair, next to the warm fire and beautifully lit christmas tree. full from my mom's amazing home-cooked meal, and watching football with my parents. home is so good. let the official christmas break begin!