Hey everybody!
Happy New Year! I wish everyone the best luck for 2014 and I hope y'all had a great holiday season! I certainly did! Exam week went by really fast. My hardest exam compared to the others was English III , but it was not that hard. Plus bonus points always give you a good grade. So on friday, I got out of school at 12. I just went home and spent some time with Jane Bradley making Christmas cards. In the evening I went out with Meredith and Anna and we went bowling. It was fun and a good start of the break. I won the first game and I lost the second one :p. Decent I guess. Afterwards, we went to the iceskating ring, but we ended up not skating because it was to hot. The iceskating ring turned out to look more like a river. We decided to just hang out there and watch people fall in the water :D. Afterwards we went to Sonic, a drive through, with Anna's friend. At 11:15pm I was back and went straight to bed. The next day in the morning, I worked on Claire's Christmas present because I was going to meet her in the afternoon. I decorated a little canvas with the letter C in Christmas designing paper. I also bought her a cupcake cookbook earlier that week. Claire loves to cook :). So we went to eat lunch at Corner Bakery, where we exchanged our presents. She really loved her presents and I also loved mine! She bought me a Mississippi State cowbell at the Mississippi State - Ole Miss Thanksgiving game, so she had it really early. After that we went to see Medea Christmas, a very funny Southern Christmas movie. Sunday, my host family and I went to the family Christmas dinner at Lacey's parents' house. It was really good and I got to meet my host grandfather's family. The first part of the break was mainly getting ready for Christmas; buying last-minute presents and making Christmas cards. The 23th of december is called Christmas Adam, because it's the evening before Christmas Eve. We went to see Christmas lights, a tradition. The houses that we went to look at were just covered and surrounded by Christmas decorations. It was crazy and the best part is yet to come! The lights were synchronized to a radio station and it was so cool to see the lights lit on the beat of the music. After that, we went to see the Canton lights. Canton is a town in Madison county, so we didn't have to drive that far. The Courthouse, the center of the town, was surrounded by a square and lights that were all over the place. It was really pretty. The day of Christmas Eve was very busy. We were busy all day cleaning up the house and cooking dinner for our family Christmas Eve party. Before going to the Christmas Eve church service we opened the Christmas Eve presents with Lacey's parents, which are mainly Christmas pj's to wear that night and the next morning. It's a very fun family tradition. After a long day of work, we had barely time to get ready for the service. The service was very nice and we all got to lit up a candle at the end. After the service, it was time for the Christmas Eve party! It was mainly eating delicious dips with chips, that I made ;). The kids also got to stay up later. Jane Bradley and I got to sprinkle some Reindeer food that glows in the night, so that Santa's reindeers would know where to land. :) After the party, my host parents send me up to bed with a warning not to peek, so that I would get the true American Christmas experience! The next morning an excited Jane Bradley woke me up at 7am and pulled me down the stairs to show me what Santa did. Santa Claus decorated the whole living room in paper ribbon. The whole Christmas tree was covered! The sofa's were full of presents from Santa and the stockings were filled up to the top! I got Insurgent and Allegiant, two books of the Divergent book trilogy and many other gifts. Jane Bradley got a lot of Frozen stuff. Frozen is a very cute Disney movie and Jane Bradley and I love it! Beckam got a lot of hot wheels and boys stuff ;). Next, we opened the presents we got from Lacey and Brad. I got gloves, a sports watch and a really nice and warm winter jacket! I also got to Facetime my family, because there was a package with presents for everyone from my parents. I got a book, called 'Something I've been meaning to tell you'. I didn't know about the package until Jane Bradley found it under the Christmas tree, so it was a very emotional moment! Without having breakfast and with our Christmas pj's still on, we hopped in the car to go over to Lacey's parents house to have breakfast and to open even more presents!! I know it was so overwhelming! I was so pepped up, that I wasn't even hungry for breakfast. After breakfast, that didn't last long, we took out all our stocking presents. I got cute earrings and a very nice bracelet. Next, we opened the presents from Mrs. Marguerite and Mr. John. I got a cute Cardigan, two cute shirts, a beautiful scarf and two nice hair clips. It's still not over! All this sounds either very exciting or very tiring, I hope it's the first one :). So next, we went to eat lunch at Lacey's grand parents and since I didn't have a big breakfast I ate a lot! The food was sooo good and very similar to dishes you eat on Thanksgiving. I also got to play football with my American family. After lunch and the game outside, it was again time for presents! I got my fourth book that day, called 'Redeeming love'. Everybody says it's really good, so I'm curious. The third and last(!) stop of the day was at Brad's parents house. There we had another really good meal. I ate a lot again, but there we first opened the presents and I got a really cute scarf and a gift card for every shop in the Renaissance. Christmas was a real success! Even though I missed my family especially during that time of the year, I'm still really thankful that I got to celebrate it in a different way with my American family. Other than that, I went two more times to the movies that week. I got to see Medea Christmas again! I went with Claire M, McKenzie and Claire C again and than I went to see Frozen (for the third time!) with Jane Bradley and Mrs. Marguerite. It's still such a good movie! Sunday, I hang out with Claire the whole day. After church I went to eat lunch at Broad street with her and her parents. Then I went to Claire's house to help her bake a chocolate cake, unfortunately not for us to eat. At least I got to lick out the remaining s in the bowl. :) After that, we just played some games, which Dog-opoly was one of. It's practically monopoly and we played it for like 4 hours straight(dinner included). We didn't even finish it , but it took so long because Pearce, Claire's brother didn't want to make any deals :P. A true capitalist... Next, Claire brought me home and I got picked up by Anna and Meredith to hang out at Sonic. Yes, we like Sonic :) Monday, Caroline, Mary Morgan and I had a sleepover at Mary Morgan's house. We watched about 3 movies and had S'mores! It was a fun New Year's Eve's Eve! :) New Years Eve was pretty chill. We did some fireworks with the neighbors at 8pm because the kids couldn't stay up that late. I didn't mind because I went to bed at 11 since I had to wake up at 6am to leave for the church's youth group ski trip! My New Year started off pretty good! Waking up at 6am to meet at the church so that we could get on the bus made everyone very excited! With 29 people we were ready for a bus trip up to Asheville, North Carolina! After everything got put in the bus, a prayer was said and we left at 7am! A bus trip of about 11 hours turned out to last 15 hours. Why? Well a buzzer, an Owl or a Hawk (there is some speculation about that) decided to fly up from the side of the road into the bus' windshield, which concluded in the bus having to stop at a gas station and waiting to be replaced. We already drove for about 4 hours and now we had to wait 3 hours for the another bus to come from Starkville, Mississippi. We were stranded close to Birmingham, Alabama, where I exercised on my football skills. The football game made the wait go pretty fast. It doesn't matter where we are, we always find a way to have fun ;). When the bus arrived we could continue our trip, so that we could arrive at midnight in Asheville, NC. I shared a room with Katie, Haley and Maggie. Katie and Haley are in my grade and are one of the sweetest girls I've ever met! When we got there, everyone went straight (or almost) to bed, so that we could have a good day of skiing the next day. Well, good is probably bad compared to the high mountains in the Alps. The next day, we were driving up the hills toward the ski area, named Catalochee. No mountain was in sight, just smooth hills that didn't have any snow on them. I was kind off confused, although people told me the mountains won't be as high as I'm used too. I was jus wondering 'How isn't there any snow?'. After we took a turn that was on the top of a hill, I saw slopes consisting of snow on a green and woody hill. There wasn't snow anywhere except for on the slopes. It was such a strange sight especially since it was raining. Rain doesn't stop us though! Everyone was still excited to ski! I decided to snowboard, which is better for me because of the easy slopes and my years of experience in skiing. Even though the rain was cold, it was a fun day. I got to experience redneck skiing by seeing people ski in hunting clothes, no helmets and with poles they didn't really know how use. After we finished for the day we had to wait 2 hours because the bus wasn't starting!! Yes our second bus broke down too and stranded us at the ski station. (what do busses have against us?) We passed the time by playing Uno until our third bus of the trip came to pick us up. In the evening we had pizza and a nice swim in the hotel's swimming pool and hot tub. The next day was much better! It had snowed about 3 inches, which is not a lot but still gave the hill a thin layer. The slopes had a lot more fresh snow though. The reason was snow canons that were blowing out snow all day long, so the second day was cold because of the freezing snow blowing right in your face, instead of the soaking rain. The snow canons were spread out on every single slope, so there was a lot of snow outside the slopes, and because there wasn't a tree border, I snowboarded between the trees. Scary but fun. It was a nice experience of a different way of skiing/snowboarding! Too bad it was only two days because on saturday we returned back to Mississippi, without any bus-problems. Sunday, the last day of break, was rather relaxing and recovering from the trip. In the evening, we had a little reunion with some ski trip people at Waffle house. Why not? It has only been 24 hours... But a good way to end the break! I'm so thankful for this nice time of the year, that has passed by too quickly. My host family is irreplaceable and I'm so thankful for them, also I'm so thankful for my friends here and my family and friends back in Belgium, that made my exchange year possible! xoxo Suzanna
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