Freshman Year? Check!

Wow, let me start by saying that I cannot believe that I'm done with my first, not semester, but YEAR of college. Honestly, I'm sad that the first year is over, I want the next 3 years to crawl by. It's all going by too fast! But I will say that it's been the best 8 months of my life and I'm the happiest I have ever been. My college BFFs and I fit in SO much during our first year of college and that's something I am so grateful for. One of the best pieces of advice I got before heading to school was from my fabulous Aunt Lynn who told me to just say YES to new experiences and opportunities (within reason of course). So when people would invite me to do things such as attend events, or to join new clubs, or to even just go for a walk, I just went for it without hesitation! This is a piece of advice I have begun to live by. By following this advice it opened the doors to so many opportunities. Such as St. Augustine Fashion Week, which then led to an internship! It's incredible what can happen when you step out of your comfort zone and just say yes. 

These are only a handful of the many photos I took this past year at school. It was an incredible first year filled with so many great new memories such as St. Augustine Fashion Week, an internship, being featured in the St. Augustine Old City Life magazine, a mini trip to Palm Coast, a weekend away at Seaworld, meeting a clown, camping at Anna Maria Island, lots & lots of beach days, two trips to Charleston (one of my new fav places!), attending the Little Big Town Concert, jumping in fountains, worshiping the Lord at Sub30, lots of dancing (duh), and so much more that I couldn't even fit into this one post. 

Words cannot describe how thankful I am for Flagler and for the unforgettable people I've met throughout this past year. 

A special shoutout to the best friends I made over the past year Avery, Lane, Chloe, and Stephanie. Y'all mean the world to me!

And a shoutout to my parents for everything they have done and continually do to help and support me to chase my dreams at Flagler. I love you guys.

I for one am counting down the days until my sophomore year begins this fall! 

Here's to the many new memories to come.

xo

My First Semester of College

Wow! It seems like it's been forever since I sat down in front of my computer and wrote a blog post. I didn't go into my first semester planning on not being able to keep up with my blog. In fact, multiple people had asked me prior to Flagler if I was going to continue to blog in college. I told all of them that I totally would. Whoops! Sorry if you were one of those people. I promise I did mean to keep up with it more. But as many of you can imagine, once I got settled in at Flagler, I found myself having little free time. In fact, these past four months have been some of the busiest of my life. But also four of the very best months. To say I like college would be a huge understatement. Turns out, it's a thousand times better than High School. I always knew there was something better for me just waiting to be discovered after High School. I'm so glad I was right.   I can't even begin to express how blessed and honored I am to have the opportunity to attend Flagler. I'm so thankful for my parents and all they did to help me get to where I am today. The school is everything I hoped it would be and so much more. It was my dream for three years, and it surpassed every one of my expectations. I expected to love the school, but didn't expect that it would feel like home so soon, I didn't expect to meet such incredible life-long friends, and I didn't expect to have such an incredible first semester. I absolutely love my life at Flagler and cannot wait for the next 3 1/2 years. 

Deciding Between Colleges

Flagler College
Wow, December has really flown by! Seriously, where does the time go?  If you don't follow me on Instagram or Twitter, you may not know some very exciting recent news of mine. I GOT INTO FLAGLER COLLEGE!!! It gives me goosebumps just to say it out loud!  Even two weeks after finding out, it feels like a dream. I truly didn't think I would have a shot at getting into what used to be, my dream college.  I know this sound horrible, but I was kind of hoping that I wouldn't get in to Flagler at all, because I didn't want to have to choose between two incredible schools. But now that I've gotten into both of my dream schools I don't know which I'm going to choose.   I'm so afraid of choosing the wrong school, but I know I just have to trust in God and His plans for me.  The scary thing is I can't take my sweet time deciding on which college, Flagler is giving me until January 15th to either commit to them or to go to PBA instead. Until that day I will probably continue to freak out, have anxiety, and experience heart palpitations until I make a final decision.  Which is why I would love your prayers at this time! Pray that I'll have a clear mind while deciding on my future. Pray that God will lead me towards the school He see's fit for me to attend. Pray that I make the right decision.  I so so appreciate it! I hope everyone has a fantastic Christmas! 
Palm Beach Atlantic University 
xoxo 

PBA Open House

Guess where my Mom and I are headed right now! To the Palm Beach Atlantic University open house!! I could not be more excited (or nervous!). I get to meet a PBA student and spend the day with them! I'll get to be a pretend college student for two days! :) I get to sit on a class, eat in the dining hall, go to a Chapel service, attend an academic majors fair, meet professors, tour the campus, and stay the night in a dorm room! 

Phew! That was a lot.

It's going to be a crazy busy 2 days but I think it'll be so worth it. 

I can't wait for my Mom to see the school and fall in love with it just like I have.

I also think the whole experience will be a great test run for my first night away at college so I'll be more prepared, and I'll know what to expect next year. 

Oh, and I'll be sure to snap some pics of the beautiful campus to share with you guys!

Wish me luck!!

PBA Acceptance!!

AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! I'm so excited and honored to say that I got accepted into PBA!!!!! 

I can't believe I'm really saying that! It still hasn't sunk in, even though I found out over a week ago.

It's such a relief to know that I'm officially going to college! I could not be happier!! 

I haven't officially picked the school I'm going to yet, because I'm still waiting to hear back from a couple other colleges. But to be honest, PBA is at the very top of my list. So I would be more than ecstatic to attend school there. I seriously just want to pick PBA already, and buy all the PBA gear, and shout from the roof tops that in less than 6 months I'm going to be attending such an amazing school. 

But, I know I need to slow down and not make any quick decisions, at least not yet. ;-)

So now for the funny part; the story of how I got the acceptance call. I came home from school that day in the worst mood because everyone at school had been talking about how they got into this and that school, while I had not not heard one peep about an acceptance decision from any of the schools I had applied to. When I got home, I had put my phone in my room to charge and walked away from it for a couple of hours. After I spent those 2 hours complaining to my Mom about how I hadn't heard anything from any of the colleges and therefore it probably meant I wasn't going to get in to any of them, and how I would probably end up as hobo or something. I went and checked my phone absentmindedly, and suddenly realized I had missed several calls and texts. One of those calls had an odd area code. I started thinking of who it could be - and then I realized it was probably PBA. When I had called the admission office a week earlier, they had said that when they had an admissions decision my counselor would call me.  This was that call. I rushed to listen to the voice mail they had left and I was right - it was my counselor saying he had an admissions decision for me. All these emotions overcame me, and I started to have a panic attack.  What if I didn't get in? What if he's calling me to tell me bad news? Let's listen to the voice mail for a millionth time. Does he sound happy? Does he sound sad? What If I don't get into any colleges?  All of this plus sobbing was happening.  Thankfully, my Mom calmed me down and we did tapping together. Which is a very useful technique to calm you down if you're anxiety prone like me. After 20 minutes of freaking out, I called him back. Of course, after all that, he didn't answer.  Now I had the fun task of waiting for his call back.  For what seemed like forever, I waited, paced around me room, and tried not to think the worst. After another 20 minutes of waiting (and losing my mind) I decided I was going to call him again. He miraculously answered this time!  He told me he had an admissions decision for me and asked if I was ready to hear it. Oh god. I said yes, yes tell me already! He said, "Congratulations!! You've been accepted to PBA!!!" That's when this happened: I started to sob. Yes, while I was still on the phone with him. And I'm not over exaggerating, I ugly cried. I couldn't even talk, I was so overjoyed.  My admissions counselor thought it was so funny that I was so overwhelmingly happy.  He then went on to say a bunch of stuff, that I honestly don't remeber at all.  I was too busy crying, and jumping up and down with my Mom. :-)

Applying to Colleges

I can't believe the title of this post is about applying to colleges. It's seriously so surreal that I'm at the age where I'm looking at colleges, applying to them, and (hopefully) getting into one of them! How did I get so old? It still hasn't sunk in that I'll be spreading my wings and leaving home in a year. Ever since freshman year I've always been the one who was so ready to hurry up and get through high school so that I could start my life already.  Trust me, I'm still just as ready to leave and I will probably be running out the door and speeding my way to college this time next year. But for now, I think I honestly need the next year just to emotionally prepare for leaving my sweet parents, 2 adorable brothers, 4 legged siblings, hometown, and life long friends. Next year will be the year of change, but I have faith it'll all be good change. My top 3 favorite colleges are Flagler, UNF, and PBA! Yesterday, I applied to PBA and UNF!!! I'm so excited, anxious, nervous, but overall happy that I've gotten some of my applications in! Now it's the tedious process of waiting for their responses. I'm praying God will lead me to the one he thinks is best for me. As far as which college is my favorite - it's almost impossible to say! I love each of them for different reasons.  As my dad has been telling me for weeks, I really need to sit down and write down the pros and cons of each school. So when I do, I'll throw together a post on it in case anyone is looking into attending any of those schools! Is anyone else applying to schools like I am? What schools are your favorite?