The Final Days!

I know, I know! I am a horrible blogger! Okay, so a quick little recap from the last time...I finished up the semester beautifully and headed home for Christmas Break. Christmas with the fam was amazing and I loved spending time with my little smunchkins! However, I was most definitely ready to get back to school after about a week at home. So, the first week of January rolled around and back to Rexburg I went to start my last semester of college. HOLY COW! This last semester has been incredibly insane! I have been so busy, but loving every minute of it! I am in my senior practicum (which is like a mini-student teaching) and am in a 4th grade classroom. I love my students! This semester has been the first time I ever questioned whether or not I could or even wanted to be a teacher. I know...my final semester and I am just now asking myself that serious question :/ Anywho...even though it has been the semester I have doubted my abilities the most, it has also been the semester I have realized without a doubt that the classroom is where I am supposed to be.
Now, in four short weeks, I will be graduating college and heading down to Utah to do my student teaching. While I am very excited for this next adventure in life, all of the things and people I am going to miss in Rexburg is starting to hit me. There are honestly some very dear people here who I don't know what I am going to do without them. While I am done sitting in classrooms, I honestly feel like college is where I was forced to grow up and really found myself. However, now that I am leaving college, I have no idea what to do next. I was hanging out with a very good friend the other day who is also graduating, and we were talking about how when you graduate high school, you know that the next step is to go to college; that's just what you do. But, when you graduate college, you don't always know what the next step is going to be or where to go. While this is completely terrifying to go into the next phase of my life totally blind, I can't help but feel excited and feel like something amazing is going to come out of it.
On top of all this graduation talk, I haven't been able to shake the memory that in 11 days, it will be exactly one year since I got that dreaded phone call telling me that one of the most amazing men in my life was gone. Some days, I feel like I am still grieving for him, and I don't think that feeling is one that is ever going to go away. However, I am forever grateful for the time I got to spend with him. Not many people know that if it weren't for this incredible man, I would not have made it through a very rough time in my life. I owe my graduation day from BYU-Idaho to my grandfather and he will be on my mind the entire day and I know he will be there in spirit.
But, here are some pictures from this semester to fill in for my absence of posts :)