Seven Smiles on Saturday (10.27.12)

1. Being home!

Nothing, nothing, nothing compares to coming home. Nothing ever will. I read something once that said "Home is where I can look ugly and enjoy it." Simply put, home is the place you can be yourself more than anywhere else. I love my home.

2. Cold weather.

I thought I hated it. Sometimes I do, and I know in two months I'll be sick of it and ready to move to Hawaii. But for now, fall is here, and it makes me excited for the holidays.

3. Lock-ins!

We got home around 10:30 yesterday morning after being gone for a week. We got to our church at 6:00 last night, and got home this morning after 10:00. I'm pretty exhausted, but I had so much fun. There are only so many years I'll be able to do these things, and I want to embrace every one of them.

In this picture we're playing a game called "Assassin". It's way too complicated to explain if you've never played, but trust me that it's a lot of fun and not as weird as the picture looks.

4. Online Christmas shopping.

Yes, I'm that person. The one who hates going into stores feeling pressured to buy stuff and spends way too much money on shipping. But I'm also probably one of the only 19-year-olds who gets emails from Gymboree, Children's Place and Carter's. Nephews are the funnest to buy for. :)

5. Ball caps!

Go random baseball team in Corpus Cristi, whoever you are! (Thanks, Steedee for the hats :))

6. Change.

I make everything in life way too monumental. This year as been full of "this is the last time I'll do this as a teenager!" I've been depressed at the thought that in January, I'll no longer be a teen. But in life, things are constantly changing. One of my favorite quotes says, “All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.” As fall is here, and my own personal life has changed this summer, I'm learning to anticipate the things ahead of me while still appreciating the things I'll have to leave behind.

7. Laughing until there's pain.

I'm pretty sure some of us girls developed abs last night from laughing so hard. :) Sometimes it feels so good just to laugh until you cry. Once in a blue moon we'll get together and without words, we all know why we're laughing, or maybe we don't, but something tickled our funny bone, and it makes me glad to have these sister-friends that I do.