Church Christmas Dinner & Pics of the fam

Me with my FAV niece & FAV 5 year old!!!

So, our church has an annual Christmas dinner, that's always usually a lot of fun. Food, Family, Entertainment. This year it was on Monday, and the week just happened to be my finals week from 1st semester nursing school. I had had a few finals the week before (1 skills, 1 lab, 1 lecture). I had 3 finals on finals week. 1 Tuesday, 1 Wednesday, 1 Thursday. The 2 I was worried about were the Tuesday & wednesday finals. See, I kinda had this goal of getting all A's except in A & P which i would accept a B (which i blogged about earlier). I knew I would have at least 2 A's and was pretty sure I would have 3 A's, but these 2 finals would pretty much determine whether I got an A or B in these 2 classes (one of which was A & P), see i was all on course towards my B in A & P, but the teacher gave us 2 extra credit assignments which helped my grade a TON and brought it up to a A. Well, the aforementioned lab final was in A & P and i did NOT do so hot. I knew to get an A in the class i would have to do REALLY good on the final (on Wednesday). My other class my biggest nursing class, i had a A in but just barely. So, I knew if i scored below a 92 (an A-) I would lose my A (-) in the class. So, all this to say I was pretty stressed out & scared. I wasn't sure if i could go to the christmas dinner or not, but I eventually just decided to go. The dinner was a lot of fun. I sat at a table with my parents, oldest sis Jess, her husband Bill, their 3 kids, and Bill's parents. It was fun, of course i always enjoy bein around my lil kiddies, which yaal know by now i'm sure. Highlights..hmm.. well we sang the song "12 Days of Christmas" each table had either an object to hold up when their verse came and had to sing that little section alone like we got "2 turtle doves" Sis Eisenhart gave us 2 plastic turtles (closest she could find) and when the part came to "2 turtle doves" our table was supposed to stand up and sing it. Well, see, the only really outgoing person at our table was my dad. Mom, Jess, Me, Bill, Bill's parents are quiet. And of course the kids wouldn't help. So everytime it got to "2 turtle doves' dad stood up alone and sang. It got to be a humorous part of the song. He tried out different voices and at one point sang "1 turtle dove" because he was the only one singing. everytime it came to this we (mostly mom, me, jess, bill) DIED laughing. Guess you'd have to know our family to truly understand. Needless to say it was FUNNY & dad has since been teased about singing a "solo" in church by people at church.

Besides that, we're not much of a family picture taking family. The last "official" "studeo" picture (or whatever) of our family was probably... 16 years ago maybe. I was probably 3 or less yrs old. Not countin the pics taken at my sister's weddings. My grandma is a hard person to buy christmas presents for if you knew her you'd know why but i don't feel like going into it here, now. So i found a picture frame that said "family" at kroger and had about 10 different size slots for pics. My grandma loves pics and has tons of them all over her house, so i bought it. So, we decided to take "family pictures" at the dinner when we all would be together. I wanted one of me and the 3 kids, but by the time we went to take that pic Brice cried for his mommy and all we got was me and the 2 older kids. The pics are below go see :) .. oh one explanation, on the family pic we had Bruce Hutchison, a CRAZY funny guy take it. So that is the explanation why we are all laughing :)

I'm not sure if you all want to hear the end result of my finals or not, but since I started I may as well finish. Well, finals week i was SUPER stressed. I studied and studied for the nursing final over the weekend, and started getting ready for A & P. I was praying a lot about it, and my parents were too. I told them the exact time of my finals so they could be praying then for me, and they did. I took the nursing final, you know how it is after a exam, though i did okay but didn't know if i did good enough. Took A & P (it was 2 sections, 1 short answer, 1 questions) i remembere everything i studied for the short answer, but wasn't sure about the other questions. We did get a 5 pt bonus question though. and the Thursday final was easy. I found out.. Thursday I think how i did on nursing i made a.....94!!!!!!!!! I was SOO happy, it kept my grade at a 92 (just what i needed). I think it was Friday night... my parents had just gone to bed (at like 12:30 am) and i was headed to bed but wanted to check and see if A & P grades were posted yet. I went and looked and sure enough they were... i got a...99!!!!!!!!!!! I was SOOOOOO excited i got up, ran down stairs (in the DARK house with NO lights on) and banged on my parents door to tell them my good news!! with the lab final (that I did NOT GOOD on, my grade ended up a 92 (just what i wanted but hadn't even hoped for). the other test I got a 98 on, my class grade was like 96, 97 (somewhere around there) but i wasn't worried about that one. So, I am NOT at ALL trying to brag on myself, please understand that. I thank God for all His help to me this semester. I know I could NOT HAVE made it w/o him. He helped me do better than i deserved, and I know he helped me a ton of finals. Next semester I hear is a LOT LOT LOT harder. I only have 3 classes (2 nursing, 1 general- A & P 2, oh joy). My goal is till all A's. I am going to try to work a lot harder & start the semester off with better study habits. If any of you prayed for me this semester THANK YOU!!! and please pray for me next semester as i continue the adventure of nursing school!

The "Hoschar" girls (used to be at least, lol) Me, Tonya, Jessica (L-R, youngest to oldest, and tallest to shortest)

My oldest sis Jess (12 yrs older than me) and her husband Bill & the 3 kiddies Sedona (5), Cam (3), Brice (1)

My middle sis (10 yrs older) Tonya & her husband Craig

The pic I wrote about above- me and the oldest 2 kids

The family pic i explained about above.

Hope you enjoyed this post. Be sure to look at all the others, and be looking for more.

Have a GREAT CHRISTMAS!