Almost an entire month has past

and a lot has happened! I apologize for my absence; life got overwhelming QUICK there around Thanksgiving and I just now feel like I may have caught up.

First of all: Thanksgiving break was beautiful. I toured TCU and UNT; two gorgeous schools, experienced a superb weekend at Dance Revolution, got to visit my brother, and spent the holiday with aunts, uncles, and cousins eating some delicious traditional Thanksgiving food followed by fresh seafood the day after. Plus: some intense Catch Phrase with my family. Of course, missing three days of school right before Thanksgiving left me with quite a load of make-up work to do, but it was definitely worth it.

When the break was over, Madrigal season kicked into overdrive. We performed at a H City Cafe in the pouringpouringpouring rain before what was supposed to be the annual Christmas parade. However, our next event was cancelled because of... SNOW. Again! Snow two years in a row is unheard of here.

The day after the "big snow" was Dickens on the Strand down in Galveston, always one of the favorite events of the year. Our dear friend Shaniqua took the lovely Judy's camera and acted as photographer, and she did a great job, capturing these special moments:

all the seniors after breakfast and before heading out <3

the crew after our performance at "Windsor Castle"

a family of pirates including the cutest "Arrr" I have ever heard

After Dickens a bunch of friends stayed the night at the beach house for Connor's birthday, and we made friends with some barnacles.

do they remind you of Audrey II?

And that brings us to this week. We preformed some Hebrew love songs with the Orchestra on their concert Tuesday night, then sang for the Rotary Club on Wednesday during school, and had our choir Christmas concert last night. Tonight is a day off before we go downtown to the Heritage Society Candlelight Tour tomorrow evening. We have a few more events next week before our big concert, Carols of Christmas, next Friday night. Next week is finals; I'm done with the fall semester of my senior year on Wednesday at 10:30am and I couldn't be more ready. College applications have been submitted, scholarships and honors college applications are in the process, and it's so close to Christmas I can smell it.

I've decided to make most of my Christmas gifts this year for my family and friends. I'm going to attempt to be creative and try not to spend a lot of money, because I don't have a lot of money to spend, and making things is just more fun.

So happy Friday night; happy weekend; happy Christmas. <3