Party time!

This past weekend was the weekend of parties and it was a blast!

I went to my first ever work holiday party on Friday night! I felt so grown up! Granted, there were only ten of us and it was at our office, but it was still so much fun!  After work on Friday, we dashed home to change out of our uniforms and head back to the office for the party.  When we got there, there were signs in the lobby leading to the "Winter Wonderland."

When we got upstairs, the whole office was decorated in winter wonderland theme.  It didn't look like the office at all!  It was awesome.  We played holiday games before and after dinner, did a gift exchange, and had lots of holiday cheer.  The dinner was really good. It was catered by Bucca di Beppo, so there was lots of delicious pasta, salad, bread and dessert.  The whole thing was awesome.  I ended up taking home a bottle of wine, an ornament with my name and CY JAX '12 on it, and a M&M candy cane.  Definitely a successful night!

Happy holidays! love, the senior corps house

Christmas card picture for sure

Jay Thompson: Start-Up Director and back up santa

Saturday morning, I volunteered at the middle school City Year serves in.  They were having the second half of a gift drive that morning, so I went (along with some other CMs) and helped wrap presents for the middle schoolers.  It was fun and definitely got me in the holiday spirit, which is hard considering it's been 75 degrees here all week. 

After the gift wrapping, I spent a few hours in Panera finishing up grad school essays and getting my life organized.  I'm unofficially done writing grad school essays (still waiting for a few people to edit them before I submit them) and then I'll submit the last application hopefully in the next week or so.  So excited!

Anyways, after a few hours in Panera, I headed to my next party. Mike Hogan, Anna and Mike Fick are friends (and former room mates) with a guy named Shawn who's stationed down here.  He and his fiance were having a Army/Navy game party and had invited me to come, so I definitely took them up on the offer.  Even though I didn't know anyone besides them, it was still a lot of fun.  The game was a really good game, especially since Navy ended up winning in the last few minutes.  It was also just really nice to spend time with non City Year people. I love City Year, but it consumes my life and it was nice to talk about something other than CY.  I hope that I get to see Shawn and Christina more once we get back from Christmas.   They're definitely a nice distraction from the chaos.

It was a fun weekend in Jacksonville. It's my last weekend here for a while since this weekend I'll be in BOSTON!!! and the weekend after that I'll be home!! I'm so excited! The next month is going to fly by and I am so excited for all of it!

"I'll be home for Christmas, you can count on me."