Not much news. Most of you already know that my journalism team won first place at our UIL meet this past weekend. They rocked. Our school's team also placed first overall which means we got to take the big trophy home. One of the things I appreciate about UIL is it still teaches the value of working hard to win, rather than perpetuating the "You're all winners" mentality. I'm sorry, but that mentality (the latter) is bunk and it breeds mediocrity. Maybe for the 4-year-old soccer team it's fine, but not for kids who will inevitably fail at some point in their lives. It's a good lesson to learn.

This week has been busy at school. We are coming up on our first deadline for the yearbook, and we sent our second issue of our paper to press on Monday. Chad's been ordering materials for his second nursing course and waiting it out until he doesn't have to go to work anymore. He still has two more shifts after today. For those of you who don't know, Chad quit his job and will be concentrating on getting through RN school and contemplating what he would like to do next in his life. I'm pretty sure most of you who read this blog already knew that though.

I'm excited about next week. We get to spend our first holiday season in three years actually getting to drive a few hours to see family instead of doing our own thing because we are too far away or shelling out the dough for plane tickets. It will be nice. We'll spend Thanksgiving at my mom's house, then we'll go to Tyler for a weekend and do Christmas, and then over my break we'll have Christmas here and then go to mom's again. It will also be nice because Chad will not be working 24-48s anymore, so we can actually enjoy our time with family instead of having to rush around everywhere.

Oh yeah, and the weekend after Thanksgiving we are going to see our friends Matt & Emily in the metroplex area and we'll be catching a Mavs game, which I know Chad and Matt are both very excited about (Emily and I are too, but we're probably just more excited to get to hang out with each other after so long).

November should be a fun month. It's already halfway over! By the way, thank you to those of you who called me, sent cards/gifts, and sent other messages to me for my birthday.