Big Week

It is finally the big week. I have been looking forward to this week for quite some time. Lauren and Kris are coming and with their visit, Daniel returns. I can't believe it is so close now. I am so excited to show them the island and just to see family.

I have been missing family a lot lately especially with everyone starting to talk about the holidays. It will be my first Christmas away from my parent's and my sisters. I am excited yet sad at the same time. Daniel and I get to start our own family traditions and share the time together yet, it will be bittersweet with him leaving so quickly after Christmas for another deployment. Thankfully, I have my parent's visit in late January to keep my spirits up. I miss them a lot. Unfortunately, my sister Sarah doesn't have a visit scheduled yet and I am missing out on seeing her go through her first year of college. It is such a big time for her and I am so proud of all she is doing. I love you all!

Okay, enough of the missing people stuff. I am starting to get teary. Thankfully, I have good friends here on the island already that can relate to my feelings. Amaya and I have decided to make a point to be there for each other during the rough times. I really appreciate her friendship. Another friend Jen and I can spend a good amount of time together since neither of us works, and we have several things in common. I met Jen during my Key Volunteer training and we have been getting to know each other since. She is already the type of friend to just call up and have come over for a few hours just to chat or doing something crafty with.

We both like cross-stitching and tomorrow we are going to go shopping for Christmas crafts. I am looking forward to it. I realized that Daniel and I have nothing festive for the holidays and I need to get cracking to make it a special time for us. Besides I love making Christmas ornaments and thinking of decorations. I have since I was young. One of my favorite things to do around Christmas was to look through the yearly Spirit of Christmas craft books my mom would get for the holidays and pick cross-stich patterns out that I wanted to finish for Christmas. Sometimes they would get done, sometimes not, but at least I got into the crafty spirit. :) I am excited about tomorrow.

Tonight was my Women's Bible Study. I am just loving this Beth Moore study called, The Patriarchs. Women, if you ever have the opportunity to do one of her studies please do it. They are really great. I just love the way Jesus and His coming is so evident even in the lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The covenant made with them was such a beautiful and amazing thing. I also find that her 5 days a week structure keeps me on the ball and looking forward to the weekly time with the ladies. I am very blessed by it.

Well, I am going to leave you with a picture of Meli. She is just as sweet as ever and doing a great job of keeping me company. She is doing her job so well that I have to close part of the house with her in it at night so I can get some sleep. She loves to nestle in my neck and sleep, of course for only 20 minutes at a time, if that. Then she shifts and wakes me up. I decided I didn't want to get in the habit of waking up with kitten every 20 minutes, no matter how cute she is, and I know Daniel wouldn't like that either. This is her second favorite place to sleep (after my neck) between the cushions of our soft love seat. She just stretches out like she owns the place. I love it!

Goodnight All!