Merry Christmas 2012

Real update about the end of the semester as well as Christmas later, but for now ...

I hope that everyone had a very Merry and blessed Christmas.

Celeb Wedding Fever

I am a HUGE fan of the Bachelor/Bachelorette/Bachelor Pad for any of you who don't know. On December 1st, 2012, the Bachelorette from Season 7, Ashley Hebert, got married to JP Rosenbaum and they were nice enough to share all of the festivities with the world yesterday on an ABC special The Bachelorette: Ashley and JP Get Married. Ashley is my second favorite Bachelorette ever (after Ali Fedotowsky), and I remember her season like it was YESTERDAY, even though it was 2 years ago now. I liked JP the entire way through the show and he was totally my choice for her, but I was so nervous on the finale that she was going to choose the other guy, Ben, because JP's visit with Ashley's family did NOT go well. Ashley's sister told him point blank that she didn't think he was the one for her. I honestly wanted to turn off the finale and I was so happily shocked when she ended up turning Ben down and accepting JP's marriage proposal. 

Ashley and JP after his proposal. Season 7 finale.

Let me just say after watching them on the Bachelorette and now their 2 hour wedding special, these two are honestly PERFECT for each other and they are one of THE MOST ADORABLE couples I have ever seen!!! On the special they showed EVERYTHING. First they showed their journey on the show, and then what happened once they moved in together (she was from .. Maine I think and he was from NYC, so they compromised and live in New Jersey). THEN omg it was so cute, they showed when they told their families that they set the wedding date, and then allll of their wedding planning, their Bachelor/Bachelorette parties, picking the rings, etc. I cried multiple times during this, their genuine love for each other and appreciation for each other as husband and wife reminds me of my own wedding and how much I love my own husband. I am SO SO HAPPY for them.

Choosing wedding cakes!

<3

She's such a beautiful bride to be!

The rings .. so gorgeous!

Chris Harrison officiated :)

Perfect <3

They're so in love it's precious.

ADORABLE.

There were so many wonderful moments, like for the little favors to put at each tables they gave Forget-Me-Nots seeds for everyone to take home and plant with a little poem attached to the box. Then JP gave Ashley a charm bracelet on the day of the wedding with charms all related to her or their relationship. It was honestly the SWEETEST thing ever. ALSO, they wrote their own vows .. oh my gosh I was BAWLING. I will never ever delete it from my DVR.

Also on the celeb wedding track ... Congratulations to Kelly Clarkson on her engagement to her boyfriend Brandon Blackstock!! I was so so so happy for her when she announced it on Twitter the other day! And oh my goodness her ring is INCREDIBLY gorgeous!!!

Kelly singing on VH1 Divas with her sparkly ring :)

Please Pray

Once again, a tragedy has struck our nation. Another mass shooting, this time at an elementary school, where 8 adults and 18 children (most of them kindergarteners) were killed. I honestly am still having difficulty processing this, and a tweet from Ashley Greene summed up my feelings perfectly.

"Some things are just bigger than me and impossible for me to understand. My thoughts and prayers are with the families in Connecticut."

This is so true. All that I can do right now is pray. I pray that those innocent children are in God's care in heaven right now. I pray that God give strength to their families. And lastly, I pray that we as a nation make changes to ensure that things like this do not happen again. There have been far too many shootings in the past few years, and something has to be done about it.

Prayers to everyone in Newtown, CT. May God be with you through this terrible time.

One more week ...

The semester ends a week from today. I'm happy and sad at the same time. Happy because it's one more semester completed and happy because I should have another 4.0 GPA semester, but extremely sad because I'm going to miss my class and my teacher next semester.

I have a test tomorrow (our 7th exam, and the last before the final) and then our final is next Monday. I'm going to study my butt off for the final because I want to seriously like destroy it. It's going to be hard because I work most of the week but I just made a study guide for it and my plan is to fill out the study guide, go over my PowerPoints, and do the online questions for every chapter we studied. If I do that, I should be good to go.

Registration for next semester is FINALLY this Wednesday for me. I'm PRAYING that I get the classes and schedule that I want for next semester.

Grammy Glory

Tonight the 2013 Grammy nominees were announced. I have been waiting for this night since last October, when Kelly Clarkson's album Stronger was released. It is honestly probably in my top 10 favorite albums OF ALL TIME, it is seriously incredible and definitely Kelly's best.

Kelly is such an inspiration and a role model to me as well as millions of other women across the country. She is always so at home in her own skin and doesn't focus on her image so much and if she gains a few pounds she doesn't freak out over it even when people are putting her down for it. In my opinion, she is much more attractive than all the celebs who try and look so super skinny that they look like skin and bones. Not to mention she is ridiculously talented. But, I digress...

CONGRATULATIONS MISS KELLY CLARKSON <3

Nominated for:

*Record of the Year

*Song of the Year

*Best Pop Solo Performance

*Best Pop Vocal Album

As a habit, I've kind of boycotted the Grammy's partially over the last few years because people I want to win never do, and they usually lose to no name artists which is so ridiculous. I am giving the show another chance this year, but if Kelly doesn't win AT LEAST one of her nominations I'm never watching it again. HAHA. 

I'm also excited that Carrie Underwood is nominated twice for Blown Away .. amazing album. I'd also like to see TobyMac or Matthew West win Best Christian Contemporary album, but other than all of the categories I mentioned, I really don't care about anyone else. Oh wait one more, I want Maroon 5 to win for Payphone for .. I think it's Best Pop Duo/Group.

What I'm Loving Wednesday

Decided to do a What I'm Loving Wednesday because I am loving so much right now.

I am loving that it is the holiday season! We got our Christmas tree yesterday and tomorrow are going to decorate it and our house. I am actually doing well with my shopping! I have my mom done, my sister almost done, and just have to pick up a few small things for my brothers as well as my dad and stepmom but I already know what I'm going to need to get. My brother, sister, and I are having a gift wrapping party when my brother gets home from Arizona on the 22nd! I can't wait!

I'm loving my work schedule recently. I have off Monday, then I work mornings Tuesday-Thursday, and Friday and Saturday nights. Hopefully if I get the classes I want for next semester I will only need to cut one day out of those 5. 

I love that the Packers are in first place in the division after winning last Sunday! Just 3 more games, but they are all MUST WINS. 

I love my class and teacher that I have right now. I'm going to miss her SO MUCH next semester, she is honestly one of the BEST teachers I've ever had, and I tell her that all the time. She makes her lectures interesting and learning fun. I don't even mind having to go to class. Clearly, looking at my grades on my exams so far is proof of how amazing of a teacher she is.

I am LOVING that my baby Carly Rose Sonenclar was #1 for the 2nd week in a row on the X Factor and is now in the top 6!! I have loved this insanely incredibly talented girl since her audition and I just KNOW that she is going to win the show. I think she is hands down the most talented singer I've ever seen at such a young age. I just love her to DEATH. Good luck tonight little Lea<3

Look at this adorable girl.

PINTEREST LOVES OF THE WEEK

Best quote I've seen in awhile!

Their loss, not mine. Very appropriate for the week.

I will always have a Happy Spirit :)

Best Christmas graphic I've seen. I love this

Oh my goshhh so pretty, I just want it.

Les Mis!!! AAAAHHH I can't wait!! Cannot describe my excitement. So many memories of singing it in high school choir.

Happy Wednesday everyone!

What's new in Gymnastics?

An update on all things gymnastics ... 

• Kellogg's Tour of Gymnastic Champions

I've been so busy lately that I never did a blog about the Kellogg's Tour and meeting my amazing gymnasts :) The whole time in Minnesota was really fun! In addition to going to the show, we also went to the Mall of America -- which is seriously just FABULOUS. I'm fairly certain that I could spend an entire week inside that mall. Legit. 

I got Platinum VIP tickets so we got to attend Chalk Talk before the show, which was a Q&A with some of the gymnasts. Aly and Alicia were both there and they are seriously both so hilarious, I loved their answers for everything. They asked Aly what her favorite country was that she's ever traveled to and she said London, then corrected herself after the other gymnasts started laughing. It was so cute. We had front row, right in front of beam, and I've known from attending other gymnastic meets that in gymnastics, pretty much any seat in the lower level is good. Our seats were AMAZING though. We got to see the gymnasts like walking in for their performances when they were up next and have little conversations with each other while they were waiting. It was so cute.

Aly answering questions during Chalk Talk.

Aly and Alicia! Alicia and her facial expressions, LOL.

The show itself was AWESOME. I loved all of the music they used and they did water down the routines a BIT but it was still lots of skills and also the artistic dances and stuff (especially with Nastia) were totally beautiful!!

They first did a group dance in which introductions were done for all of the cast. Each of the cast was on a different apparatus or on the floor dancing.

Nastia during introductions.

Chellsie Memmel is introduced.

After the opening number, the girls performed to Run the World (Girls) and after that the guys performed to Sexy and I Know It. I loved both the performances!

At different points during the show Jordyn, Aly, and Gabby all did modified versions of their London floor exercise routines.

Party Rockin' ;)

Becca, Jordyn, Aly, and Julie waiting to go.

Jordyn :)

Jordyn and Gabby

Okay so sorry for the absolute madness of pictures that is going to occur here, but the beam routine was hands down my favorite part of the entire show!!!! It was GORGEOUS, and I can't remember what music they performed to now, but it was perfect.

The whole show was great and I'm so glad that I decided to go. Afterwards, we attended the meet and greet and I had all the girls sign my program. We weren't allowed to take pictures with them, so Donaldo took pictures of me talking to each of them. We did get to talk to them though, so that was so fun!! McKayla was actually my favorite that I got to talk to! She was so so nice and she talked to me the longest and was asking me questions about myself. She was the first one I met and I seriously love that girl, and I wish her so much success with everything. I also got to talk to Nastia and she is just SO SWEET in person and she is so gorgeous!! Jordyn was fun, I told her that Donaldo (my husband) only wanted her autograph and no one else's and she was laughing with us about it. She also signed these gold medals that we got for getting the Platinum tickets. Then we also got to talk to Aly and with Gabby we were kind of rushed because she was the last person. But I had the most amazing time and I'm so happy that I decided to get the tickets!

• Elise Ray and Shawn Johnson autographs

At the end of the summer, a gymnastics blog and Twitter that I follow said that they were having a contest for their one year anniversary (which was in November). To enter, you answered I believe it was 5 questions and then in November they said they were going to pick a winner and the prize was an Elise Ray autograph!! Elise Ray means SO MUCH TO ME, like I think you all know that by now. She is seriously the reason that I fell in love with gymnastics 12 years ago, one of my favorite gymnasts, and she has personally emailed me about a blog I did about her. So I entered and I was just praying that I'd win and on November 17th the girls who run the blog tweeted that I was the winner! I am so so grateful to them, it came in the mail the other day and I absolutely love it!

In June, I renewed my subscription to Inside Gymnastics most especially because they said with a 3 year renewal, you would get an autographed Shawn Johnson poster. This also just arrived within the last couple of weeks and I totally love it!!! I'm looking for frames for both of these autographs and I will most likely put them in my study.

• Dancing with the Stars All-Stars

I was so psyched that Shawn was invited to join the cast of DWTS-AS. Obviously she is my favorite winner of the show, considering that I don't watch the show regularly. I only watched Season 8, which is the year she was on and she and Mark Ballas won the show. 

The difference in Shawn between Season 8 and this season to me was like night and day. It made me SO PROUD to watch her this time around, I remember in Season 8 in the beginning it was all about her trying to find her place and learn how to do everything and this time around she was truly a veteran, giving some of the most stunning as well as the most beautiful performances I've ever seen! Her partner was Derek Hough, and I honestly love him just as much as I loved her with Mark. They were so adorable and both learned so much from each other, its so incredible to see. 

Jordyn, Aly, Gabby, McKayla, and Kyla performed with Shawn and Derek during the finale and I totally was dying. I didn't even know what to do. I love that they were there to help Shawn and to see them all together!!! It was the most amazing thing. I thought that they really deserved the win, but it was so amazing how even though they were runners-up they showed so much sportsmanship at the end and I'm so proud of them and know they really did deserve to win! 

I don't know where Shawn will go from here, but she is going to keep on doing amazing things, that is for sure! 

• Elizabeth Price wins the All-Around at the Stuttgart World Cup

The Stuttgart World Cup was held on Saturday, December 1. Elizabeth Price won the Individual AA with a score of 58.098. Elizabeth was an alternate on this summer's Olympic team after having a wonderful meet during Olympic Trials.

Elizabeth scored a 15.733 on Vault, 14.933 on Uneven Bars, 13.166 on Balance Beam, and 14.266 on Floor Exercise.

I was so happy to hear that she won her first international competition. I think she will definitely be one to watch in the new quad.