a doozy of a week.

this is going to be short and sweet, but i just wanted to post before leaving. what? leaving? yes, i'm heading to the philippines in about 8 hours to spend 11 days soaking in the sun and celebrating christmas on the beach. i'll be flying into manilla and spending a few days with my cousin, chad, on his pregnant wife and 5-year-old daughter. i'm hoping to do a lot of day trips--there's a famous volcano thing not too far away, some famous mountain thing not too far away, and also just check out manilla. (i really don't have a set itinerary, i'm just gonna go with the flow like they do down there. i don't really know if they do down there, but it just seems like they would since it's hot all year round. there's really no logic in that but whatever.) and then i'm heading to an island called puerto galera and staying in a little bamboo hut right off the ocean that you can check out here. (that will take you to some pictures of it, but if you look further down the page you can click on something called amenities that shows what the rooms and such look like.) i'll be staying there for most of my trip, hopefully waking up every morning, walking out my front door, and laying on the beach for the entire day.

i really cannot express how excited i am to be out of the country for awhile, see a new place, spend some time with family, and lay on a beach for an entire week all by myself and completely refresh my spirit and rejuvinate my soul. it has been a horrible week that i don't even want to begin explaining, but 2 out of the 4 of us teachers got fired, leaving 2 of us to do double the work that we are capable of, and dumping a pile of stress from both our co-workers' end (who are also our friends) and also from the administrative end. i don't think i've been this stressed out for awhile, so this vacation comes at a perfect time.

i've also never had a christmas away from home before, so it will be a new experience for me. i'm quite excited actually to see what it's like and so far i have felt ok about it. i think it will be hard when my sisters get home and my whole family is together without me there. i really can't imagine my family doing christmas without me. i like to think i'm the glue that holds it together, but that's what every member of the family likes to think. :) i'm sure they'll get along fine without me and i'm sure i'll get along fine without them, but it will be different and sad as well. i will miss them. :( merry christmas family.