Thanks to the Giving

This week was adventurous. First of all, Jenni came to town for Thanksgiving break! For lunch Jenni, Lisa and I planned to meet at Kneaders. Jenni and I got there and waited around for Lisa who forgot! Lisa has an overnight job so she was sleeping. Jenni and I ended up grabbing our lunches to go and went to Lisa's house. Our date was cut off because Jenni had to be somewhere. We didn't feel we had enough time to chat and reconnect so we made plans to go out that evening. Jenni was staying at her in-laws an hour away so we decided to meet halfway in the booming city of Rexburg. We were there for HOURS just talking! We talked of our friendship and how friends come and go, but we have the type of friendship where we can go without seeing each other for a while and we will always be there for each other. We snuck to the bathroom to make a little music video and said our sad goodbyes. We stayed out super late (for a week night) We didn't get home till about 1am. But it was such a good night! I love our friendship.

I feel like if we were to start a band either one of these would be the cover for our album

A lady also has to keep her friends safe so here I am packing my Glock 42 and I've been getting a ton of questions from where I got this belly band holster- here it the link: https://standforthe2nd.com/slim-wrap-belly-holster

The next day at work was tiring! Since I decided to stay out and party too late. The plus side was we only had to work a half day! Yay! After work I spent the rest of the night doing homework because BYU-I does not believe in Thanksgiving break.

Thanksgiving morning the lovely Amy and I went to Zumba! Amy and I like to get down and dirty with our dance moves so it was only appropriate we busted out some booty shaking on Thanksgiving. After Zumba we had Thanksgiving dinner at my Chris' uncle's house and my parents house. Coming from Rhode Island and growing up with an Italian family we had a semi Italian Thanksgiving at my parent's. A normal Italian Thanksgiving starts you off with some Italian wedding soup, then stuffed shells, then you have your traditional Thanksgiving food. My mom made a yummy Italian wedding soup for us to keep the tradition alive. That evening Chris and I went to the movies to see Moana. It was a super cute movie and I recommend it to all, even if it is a Disney movie.

I have little legs, and Amy has leggy-legs.

Since I missed Amy so much we went Black Friday shopping too. We left around midnight and hit up the stores. Most of the sales started at 4pm and 6pm, but I feel that is still family time and you shouldn't be shopping and making those poor retail workers work on a holiday. Even though it was past the time the sales started, we still got all the deals we wanted and then some. Amy is actually a Black Friday virgin, and she didn't plan on buying anything, but left with a killing. We started to loose momentum around 3am and decided to call it a night (morning) The only thing that would have made our shopping better, is if Ginger could have joined us!

Sleeping in the mall

We filled the backseat!

I had a hard time falling asleep, and didn't end up sleeping until 5am. I woke up around 10 am and felt SO hung over. I haven't had a drink in nearly 9 years, but I will never forget what a hang over feels like. One thing I learned from my former drunken days was a cure for a hang over was caffeine and greasy food, exhibit A:

Later that day when my hangover went away, Chris and I went out for some more shopping. While we were stopped at a red light a truck rear-ended us. It was really loud and it hit pretty hard. All I could think was, "Why is this happening AGAIN" I started panicking because of my PTSD. I was doing SO good! I stopped taking my medicine! Why is this happening? I went into shock mode for a while. I looked into the rear-view mirror and noticed the driver of the other vehicle pull out a baby and then saw a little dog jump out. My heart sank. Right then I stopped panicking and jumped out of the car to check on the baby. The baby was fine, and the poor lady had four little dogs in the car who were shaking so badly because they all went flying into the dashboard. I sat, pet and comforted the dogs for a while and then carried the baby to the parking lot so Chris and the driver could move their cars into the parking lot. Her air bags deployed and her car was in rough shape. The ambulance came but everyone was ok. We were truly blessed and protected that day. I had many loving friends concerned about my mental health- and I appreciated that more than they know. I thought this accident would reverse everything that I had worked on, but amazingly I am fine. I really am fine. I have flinched a couple times in the car since then, but that is normal. This just shows that the counseling I did really did help me cope with trauma in a different way I never knew before.

Saturday Chris and I went to the range to help a brand new shooter. Our new friend from church was interested in buying himself an AR-15, so Chris and I took him to the range so he could try out ours and try a couple of other options. I suggested his first gun be a 9mm, but once he shot that AR he wanted nothing to do with anything else! Sunday we invited him and his wife over for dinner, they are a cute newly wed couple and dinner was fun getting to know them and showing them our gun collection- Our new friend is from the Caribbean and was amazed we had so many guns, because they are illegal back home.