Peace Out, 4th Term!

I've been home a little over 2 weeks and honestly am not sure where time has gone! Life has been busy, but a fun busy! I've been running all over doing last minute wedding stuff- dotting our Is and crossing our Ts. Thankfully, we got SO much help from family here on the home front while we were gone that although I feel like I have been doing a lot non-stop- really, there was not too much left that needed to be done :) We are SO appreciative of all the help because it has allowed this process to stay fun and relatively free of stress!

The final missing piece to the puzzle lands in the U.S in a few short hours!!! YES, Nick has OFFICIALLY completed 4th term and I could not be more proud! Now, I say this each term and after each test (and genuinely mean it each time because he amazes me) but let me tell you... 4th term, was hard. It was draining. It was exhausting. It was stressful. It was consumed by Pathology, with several other classes also demanding attention as well. It was long. And Nick handled it like a freakin' champ and now I get to brag on him a bit :) He ran on just a few hours of sleep each night and endured 12+ hour days filled with class, followed by lab, further followed by hours of studying... for 5 months straight. Yet, through it all he still managed to come home with a smile on his face more days than not. Still managed to leave his stress from studying at the door more days than not. Still would surprise me with help around the house whenever he could. And still sent me sweet messages on Skype, when the days got long and we were hardly seeing each other. Annnnnddd, on top of all that, he ROCKED Pathology, a 13 credit, hard as can be class. He's a rock star. And probably not going to be a fan of all my bragging about him... but it's deserved, and I am allowed :)

Tomorrow starts wedding week! And I am so excited to have him home to be a part of it! I love how excited he is and how much he likes to be involved :) Nothing sounds better than a week of pre-wedding last minute things in front of Christmas movies with my favorite guy, family, and closest friends!

Good riddance 4th term! I'll GLADLY take my student back now :) So proud of Nick and all of my 4th term friends and their SOs for surviving this beast of a term!

Social Work Exam- CHECK!

I most definitely have some major catching up to do. For starters, as I've mentioned, the reason for my lack of blogging and fun recently has been due to studying for my Social Work Board exam. I've heard over and over again about what a tough exam it is and the practice tests I took definitely had me studying EXTRA hard out of fear of failing. Well, all the hours put in on campus and all the hours and days spent bummin' because I had to miss out on Limes and time with kids paid off because... I PASSED!!!!! There are no words to describe my relief and excitement! It is obviously so rewarding and nice to see all my hard work pay off, but even more than that, I am just beyond happy that I don't have to split or sacrifice time with the Limes babies next term... it was such a sacrifice for me to do this term, and I often felt distanced by others when my attendance started to dwindle that it really made for a couple of rough months and so when I saw I had passed I literally got to my car and cried. All the stress, hard work, and sacrifices had paid off... not to mention, it was the hardest exam of my life, so I was down right just proud to have passed! SO yes, just a huge relief and SO looking forward to being able to soak up tons of kiddo time during our final term in Grenada starting in January :)

Social Work licensure is strange in that, in order to be fully licensed in Michigan (currently I have my temporary license, which is good for 6 years) you need to pass the ASWB board exam and work 2 years PAID full time. It's so interesting and odd to me that what they require as a requisit for "doing social work" is a paycheck. Some of the best and most valuable social work I have done in my life has been in Grenada through different things and I am NOT receiving a paycheck to do it. I don't know, maybe I am the only who thinks it is weird, but I do. It doesn't matter, because I have all the hard parts done for my licensure, and will complete my 2 years well before my 6 years is up, but still... when it comes to Social Work- it's funny to me that something like a paycheck is what they deem the greatest factor in determining whether you have experience or not.

A highlight in the final weeks before I left Grenada was in thanks to two of my lovely friends in Grenada- Jessica and Desiree who put together a Grenadian Bachelorette Party for me!! It was so much fun and so sweet of them to do! We went on a sunset boat cruise, played some games, enjoyed some drinks, and had a full boat dance party- the bonus to having an entire catamaraan to ourselves! It was perfect! I am so blessed to be surrounded by such wonderful friends in Grenada, they definitely know how to make a girl feel special! It was especially fun because I had been oddly MIA from activities in the last month and half leading up to the party due to studying my butt off, so it was really nice to see them and I definitely appreciated everyone for coming out!!!