December Rush!

I don't know about everyone else, but my run up to Christmas has just been insane. Yesterday was the first day that I had nothing on since the start of the month (and that was only because the Women in Business event I was going to was cancelled) and I was so exhausted I slept in until 2 pm! I can't remember doing that since I was in my teens!

So what's been going on for us in December?

• Helping Mama Scribs tidy and organise her house in preparation for my "exchange sisters" arrival (lucky her, she gets my Bee Of Service skills for free)
• Getting a few loose ends tied up for Bee of Service, now in hiatus til after Christmas
• Hanging out with my bestie, having pedicures and going for beach walks before baby arrived
• Throwing our annual Christmas BBQ
• Bachelorette Day Out with gorgeous friend J, doing a scavenger hunt in Auckland City then celebrating throughout the afternoon in a vineyard on Waiheke Island
• Attending a Year 8 mixer of all the contributing schools to my new high school - they had all been learning to ballroom dance and it was so adorable!
• Spending a day learning about the new school's peer support programme and finding out about some of the more interesting characters in my new form class
• Finding out my bestie had given birth to her new little boy and literally squealing - for those of you who know me IRL, you know I'm not a squealer (btw, my cluckiness has hit new heights!)
• Trying out a new hair salon and loving it - have found a new hair home!
• Spending time with my adorable friend Ange - she's a make-up artist so we caught up with all the goss while she did my makeup for...
• Watching J & V get married and have the cutest little reception up in the Waitakere Ranges - the view was amazing, we even got to see the Christmas in the Park fireworks (although they looked tiny from so far away
• Fulfilling our church service obligations - we're on the greeting roster which is fun, we just get to say hi to everyone and hand out programmes as they enter.
• BBQ for Papa Scribs' birthday - just great to spend that time with the family
• Going to the hospital twice to visit the new baby - so adorable and squidgy. Very cool to be back in the place of my birth too!
• Spending two days on a professional development course on how to raise Maori achievement in high schools - to be perfectly honest, I had thought that, given my background, it wouldn't be of that much use to me but it's really opened my eyes to some of those conversations I have with students in my classroom.
• Attending the Foo Fighters concert - it pissed down with rain and I am so grateful to my bonus brother (future bro-in-law) for packing some plastic sheets. I ripped a head hole in one and managed to stay vaguely dry LOL. The concert was well worth it though!

No wonder I needed a solid sleep! The 2 pm things sounds really bad but in my defence, I didn't get to bed until 2 a.m. after the Foos - had to drop Bonus Brother home and then have a shower to warm up before bed!

There's still plenty to look forward to in the December Rush too:

Dinner with old uni mates - SB's work do at the races - Cupcakes and Cocktails party for my dear friend Missy - more cuddles with babies - my exchange sisters arriving in NZ - midnight mass on Christmas eve (tradition for SB and I) - Christmas Day - the Boxing Day Blowout party that's tradition in my fam - Mama Scrib's Birthday & New Year's Eve (haven't the foggiest what we are doing to celebrate that yet!)