Black Friday!

   Black Friday: The day the O'Connor clan conquers. This year, we started by getting breakfast + coffee ( or for most of my family, Diet Coke) at Panera Bread. Then, we headed to the mall. This year the stores had such good sales. I ended up getting most of my Christmas present at Banana Republic- the entire store was 40% off! Our first stop this year was visiting Santa!

Terrible quality, but a group shot none the less. 

As I was at Macy's looking for Black boots, the girls decided to play dress up. The shoe department there was probably the busiest place we went all day( Besides the food court). As you can tell by the picture it was a mess. 

Trying on heals was a common activity shopping apparently. 

     After a long day of shopping, we stopped at the Alpharetta Diner for dinner. We ended up sitting in a private room at a round table which was awesome! All 12 of us sat around the table and had such a good time. Lots of good food and laughs. I wish I would have taken a picture of our table because at one point we had over 29 cups ( Lauren counted). And that was after our super friendly waiter collected a few..I feel like more often than not this break I have walked away from the table hunched over. 

My 7-Layer cake may have contributed to putting me over the edge.

   Our last stop after dinner was Kohl's. That topped off our 13 hour shopping day with no breaks! When we got home, we unloaded everything in grandmas room and ended up having a mini fashion show of our new purchases. Such a fun day and I am pretty sure my feet are still throbbing.

And finally.. a group shot of the entire gang:

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving time!

   This may be one of my favorite times of year. Lots of food, lots of family, and lots of shopping! We always go to my grandma and grandpas ( who live right down the street) and our family comes from all over: Georgia, Virginia, and Maryland! Grandma and the girls do such a good with preparing the meals and the guys do a good job at watching/playing football. ( Oh, and the dishes!)  Us girl cousins decided to sit out and watch the game.. 

Lauren (9) Taylor (14) Me, Jessica+Aubrie and Allie (4)

The Guys Post-Football Game


























Yes, that is all cheese sauce. 

    

     Just another way grandpa spoils us each year is by giving us diamonds. Hey,I said we were spoiled! After dinner, he pulls out these boxes that are wrapped so perfectly. After all are boxes are in hand, we open them as quickly as possible to see what's inside. This year.. Diamonds by the yard!

All of us with our new bling! 

     I have so much to be thankful for, and it's so easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the holidays. I am so blessed that my family has the opportunity to all gather under the same roof to celebrate the holidays. And Christmas is right around the corner! Tomorrow we have such a big day ( Black Friday) so I will be blogging about that! 

Village Time

   Dad and I decided on Wednesday that it would be a great day to put up our Christmas Village. Every year, my grandma and grandpa buy one for each family and we are up to 17 village pieces. Once the village is up, it feels like Christmas to me. I had Christmas music playing ( until dad told me it was too much) and was so pumped to be putting decorations up. I placed them, and then dad did all the wiring. That junk is complicated! 


              During the day:                                                                                  At night:

             

If you can't tell by all the pictures I took, I was very proud of it this year! 

We had so many it had to over flow to our chest. Dad and I had a good time putting them up and I just love to stare at them this time of year!

Jo Jo got hurt!

   As I was driving home from Eastman Tuesday, there was so much traffic on I-75. I was in the left lane in stop and go traffic for quite some time. At one point I ended up slamming on my breaks.. which led to the person behind me hitting me and the person behind them hitting them. I immediately pulled over and my adrenaline was pumping. I was thinking, did I just get hit? Is this was a car accident feels like? I called my dad and he said to call 911. I stepped out and talked to the girl who hit me who was coming home from Albany State for Thanksgiving break. Her car got pretty damaged but that person didn't even stop! I got back in my car and dialed 911- my first time ever! I was so nervous for some reason. The dispatcher wasn't very much help, but luckily a police just happened to pull up behind us because he was looking for another car accident. Praise the Lord that no one got hurt! I just feel sorry my baby ( Jo Jo) because she is all scratched up. My first car accident ever.. could have been way worse!

Eastman Visit

     On the way home to Alpharetta, I stopped in Eastman, Georgia to visit my good friend Meghan's hometown! I thought Statesboro was small, but Eastman has that beat- the town has around 7,500 people. One of my favorite things was they had a black friday sign.. for a yard sale. Meghan had surgery on her sinuses on Monday, so I hung out at the hospital with her and her family Monday. Her mom is so sweet and pretty much Betty Crocker. She cooked us the most yummy food all weekend. We stayed at her Nana and Papas house and they are such a hoot. It was so good to see Meghan's hometown and hang out with her family. And she is healing great from surgery, I was on nose-blood-drip-duty and I was on top of it!
    For the longest longest time, I have been wanting to go hunting. When we got there Sunday after church, we headed out with her dad for a few hours to their near by deer stand. I was wanting to kill a deer so so badly. We stayed out for a few hours and saw nothing. I was a little disappointed but it was still fun to be outside in complete silence. Well.. I had a little problem with chatting!

Climbing up the deer stand!

I  started to get a little restless.. 

Maybe all the flash was why we saw no deer? Oops. 

This is their dog Daisy. The biggest small dog I have ever seen. Daisy might eat better meals than me. Steak, chicken, Ribs, Apple Pie, you name it. 

Meg's beautiful art work!

   Meg's mom is in love with Pinterest as much as I am, so we started to get crafty. I haven't done anything crafty in quite awhile so it was so fun! We used white canvases, and mod podged them with paper!

     One of Megs and I favorite song is "How he loves us" by David Crowder Band so we both did the same thing. Mine was still a little wet. And my cousin's wife is having a baby in February named Aubrie so I made that for her room. Good times!

Bama Game

     The much anticipated Alabama vs. Southern game was this weekend. I was so excited to head to Tuscaloosa because I had never been there, and I was also making a weekend trip of the game. I went with my friends Brittany and Speer, another married couple Justin and Emily, and my friend Kate. We piled in Brittany's Tahoe and made the 6 hour trip to Birmingham for the night. We did make a pit-stop in Macon at Steak and Shake, which was so good phenomenal. On the morning of the game, we followed the team buses to the stadium from Birmingham to Bryant-Denny Stadium. Not only did we follow them, but got a police escort the entire way. Brittany works for Georgia Southern Athletics as well, but we definitely all felt more important than we are. 

 Emily was't sitting in a seat, but she felt if she put her black jacket on she could fool the police. I thought it was a good plan. 

Kate and I in front of the stadium!

A not so great picture of all of us.. Right before we tailgated at the Alumni Tailgate! (Justin, Speer, Brittany, Emily, Kate and me!)

Our team singing our Alma Mater. We ended up losing (45-21) but we scored more points and rushed for more yards than any other team they have played this season. I was proud of my Eagles! Now it's time for playoffs!

It's a Photo Shoot

   Last Friday night, my roommates ( Morgan and Courtney) and I went to go see the movie In Time, which was so good and intense! We had a little time to kill, so naturally we decided to utilize the self timer. 

We started with a normal picture like this:

And quickly got bored so decided to play a game. Right before the picture was taken, a scenario was yelled out and you had to pose with your first reaction. (Yes I realize I am 22 years old.) Here are a few of our shots:

Falling off a cliff

Ate something sour

Just saw Justin Beiber 

Rock Star

I sure do love them a whole lot!

The New Life in Christ

This is a post that I have been so excited to share! It's a little delayed, but I couldn't go without writing about it. I have shared a little of my testimony in previous posts, but in this post I wanted to share a huge step of faith I took on October 9,2011. On that Sunday, Brandon preached about taking your next step in faith. For some people it would be giving your life to Christ, or joining a small group, or serving. And for some it was being baptized. And on that day, getting baptized was my next step. Little to everyone's knowledge, Connection Church was having spontaneous baptisms that day. They had set up a huge tank out side and provided shirts,shorts,flip flops, underwear- everything! So no one had an excuse not to get baptized if they felt it was their next step. 
     The word baptism is used 22 times in the Bible. There's numerous times throughout the Bible when baptisms are used to profess faith. 
      Including Acts 2:38 when Peter says " Repent, and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus the Messiah for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."
    Paul says " Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may in a new way of life." Romans 6:3-5
   Jesus didn't save me from bad to good, but from death to life! Every baptism represents how God changed someones life and how they had a realization of who Jesus is. How cool is that?? There were 54 baptisms and over 900 people at church this Sunday to celebrate every ones next step. It was so incredibly encouraging to see other believers get baptized and support one another.  

                       
God is so so faithful, and I can't wait to respond to what step he calls me to do next.

Here is the Baptism Video someone made at church. So encouraging to see all God is doing in Statesboro :) 

Morgan: The Artist

    I really really wish I was artistic. If you can't tell from my blog, I lack in the creativity department. Luckily, I have a creative roommate. We ended up going to a place in downtown Statesboro called the Restore. It is this cute thrift store that is only open 2 days a week. We bought so much fun stuff, including a door cabinet and a window. ( For all around $6). Thanks to Morgan's creative mind, she started painting away! Even though I didn't assist whatsoever in the process, I did enjoy listening to music and having the window open on this Fall day. 

This was her position for a few hours.. She claims she is still sore.

The final product!

"Keep asking, and it will be given to you. Keep searching, and you will find. Keep knocking and the door will be opened to you." Matthew 7:7 

" Open my eyes so that I may see the wonder of your law love" Psalm 119:18

( Since Psalm's is from the Old Testament and we don't exactly live by the law, Morgan felt it was okay to change scripture ha) 

Football

    Regular season football is coming to an end, but we have had some exciting wins with our Eagles! As part of the football staff, I am so much more invested in football than ever before. I love it! Throughout this semester, part of what Kassi and I do is organize a group called Southern's Finest. Before every home game we have unofficial visits with high school football players and our group makes sure they have a great experience! 

Here we all are before our Homecoming Game against Citadel

Kassi and I

     We traveled to Wofford this past weekend to compete for the Southern Conference Championship. I was so nervous for this game, for no reason! We ended up beating them (31-10) and received our first Southern Conference Title since 2004! This is our ninth title since we joined the league in 1993. 

So proud of our Eagles!

When we returned back to Statesboro around 10pm, we had 9 police escorts and a whole bunch of fans welcoming us back. I love how supportive and loyal are fans are. 

Me, Britt and Kassi with the Conference Trophy!