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Last day at the beach... enjoying the sun! So thankful to be here!

This morning we went to East Cooper Baptist Church in Mount Pleasant and it was a huge blessing to be there and worship the Lord with people we've never met. I love the body of Christ. Then, we headed back out to the beach (after a quick Starbucks trip) for an afternoon of sun.

It's been such a relaxing weekend- so thankful for the encouragement of Christian friends, the strengthening of friendship, the SUN, the beach and even the jellyfish that stung me. (OK, so I'm not really thankful for the jellyfish at all.)

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Saturday we spent most of the day at the beach (it was BEAUTIFUL!). Zhixin and I got up early and ran the Cooper River Bridge (and we LITERALLY ran into the Bundricks at the top!), then pulled the rest of the crew out of bed to hit the beach. We had reservations for dinner at Poogan's Porch at 8pm, so we went downtown, took a few pictures, then enjoyed a delicious dinner. FUN day in Charleston!

We walked downtown to Waterfront Park... Anna and Katherine

Cooper River Bridge... beautiful at night!

Thankful for these friends!

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Friday... off to Charleston!

Gotta love our set up on the Isle of Palms

Missing Sarah and Victoria right about NOW!

Zhixin, Anna, Stephanie, Katherine and Ran

This is our jumping picture infront of the ocean....... so much fun!

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We have fun swimming... I'm not even lying!

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ORGANIZATION.

The office is getting more and more organized as we go. That is a great feeling. Nothing like having ZERO papers in the "to file" pile!

(PS. My favorite bagel is everything, and my favorite muffin is blueberry)

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Lunch with Grammie, Lara, Uncle Clough (affectionately known as CDawg) and Sanders. Thankful for the Campbell blood.

Tonight we went swimming with the Bundricks. Little Daniel is so brave in the water. He has a fascination with jumping in unexpectedly ("one, four, ten, JUMP") and pretending snakes are coming to eat him. Gotta watch out for that little kiddo!

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Monday... always a great day!

Played volleyball tonight with some friends at Clemson, and though we were sad that we were rained out, we are thankful that the storm did not sweep us away. Lightning everywhere.

After being rained out, I went with Lara and another friend to Macs Drive In which is one of the greatest landmarks at Clemson. Lara had her VERY first cheeseburger/chocolate shake experience at the timeless dive in Clemson.

(I feel like I'm always thankful for food.... I blog about food a lot. Is this bad?)

Did I mention Mondays REALLY are great days??!

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 So happy Lara has been here! We spent the afternoon at the docks by the rowing center... relaxing, drinking Dr. Pepper :) (of course), and seeing who could make the most picture perfect jump. Lara won! :)





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We had a little shower for Katherine and Andrew... well, really for Calvin who will arrive in September! It was a ton of fun, and Rachel Patrick flew in from Denver to surprise the family!

Party favors....

Proud lady :)

Rachel and Kendall-- this little boy does not lack for love!

Nicole, Chris, Charlotte (BEAUTIFUL!), Kat and Andrew! Love this family!

I wish I could keep this diaper cake........ :)

This is why Andrew got to come! :)

Calvin got so many precious little clothes and books. This was Daniel's gift (and Carrie and Dan :))

Weeeee....

Note from Aunt Resa :)

Thanks to Southern Living at Home (now Willow Tree) for once again, cute table decor. :)

Pictures are all unedited, but my computer is currently broken (oops, Daniel....). We had SUCH a fun time! I think you can tell!!! Thankful for little Calvin, and for Katherine and all of her family!

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Lara and I made dinner straight from the garden.... we were trying to see what it was like living 100 years ago when you ate what you picked. :)

So we forgot two minor ingredients in our cornbread..... maybe some baking powder and salt?? :)

Fresh peach crisp thanks to the Layne's for supplying the peaches!

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Lara is here... did I mention this? We are having fun!

Tonight we went to the Smokin' Pig for dinner with Grammie, Katie and Sara Margaret. It was fun getting together with the girl cousins (minus the ones across the country or the ones with children :)) and spending time with Grammie.

We made a list of all of the great songs we're going to dance to at Luke and Sydney's wedding reception... Grammie's top pick is "We are Family". We all know what her true pick is deep down inside (and if you were at Lauren's wedding... you know exactly what I'm talking about).

Lara and Katie BOTH spent the night tonight which was fun. We painted our nails.......... therapy. :)

Thankful for family!

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Homeward bound, but not after visiting Kelly's office.
This has been a lifechanging week for me. Since I've been working for dad I've had many people ask me "Allison, you LOVED design... is this finance thing your passion?" I've struggled through this because it hasn't been my passion, and I want to pursue a field that I have a passion for. After these last few weeks of passing that test, sitting in a room of people my age in my situation, and listenening to professionals share their stories, I have that passion. I am realizing the need for honest, ethical people in this field, and am so excited about what God is doing. I want to be able to help people-- and this is the venue God is giving me to do so. It's just going to take alot of brain work to learn the field like I need to, but God is continually directing me and confirming in my heart that this is His plan for my life. Will I always be in Clemson? Who knows. But I know that at this point these are the doors God has opened, and I am going to keep going!

So if you were to ask me today if I have a passion for what I do, I would tell you ABSOLUTELY! I am so thankful for God's directing in my life, and I'm thankful for the path He has taken me down to get me to this point. A year ago I never would have expected my life to look like this. Incredible. I am so thankful!

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Spent today in MetLife's corporate office in Bloomfield, Connecticut. It was really interesting to hear from many different successful corporate professionals. I will say it made me thankful for the small family business I am a part of. I tell you, more and more I am learning to appreciate my dad and his love for his clients. He is one man of integrity, and I thank God for that!

Back to Met.... because we do some business with MetLife we were able to go tour the home office. We met our internal wholesaler which was neat, and then many other people. Most importantly, we were all given SNOOPIES to take home with us (and other great stuff :))... I'll tell you, at benefits fair at Clemson, people come out of the woodwork to win those Snoopies!

Fun, interesting day.



Daniel was so excited to unpack his goodies....



Immediately he starting throwing his snoopies and the little soccer balls to the ceiling!

TOO MUCH- it's overwhelming!

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Kelly Daly is an incredible lady! She has put together a great conference for us and has really sacrificed so much time for us. Today we heard from many different perspectives in the financial field. It has been a ton of fun getting to meet many of the people in my dad's study group, and just gain a greater passion for the field.

We ate dinner tonight in Connecticut at Hot Tomatoes. It was a delicious Italian restaurant-- and as always, the portions were out of control!

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Flew to Connecticut with Monroe and Carrie for a Generation 2 conference. Thankful for safe flights and a reunion with Monroe!!
We got to meet some incredible people tonight who are coming into family businesses similar to our situation. It was neat to see other people my age with goals and dreams... passionate about helping others. Thankful also to be with Monroe-- we're ready to get him back to SC! (And Katie :)!!!!)

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Saturdays are always fun... pulled a PR this morning for my 10 mile run. And then was forced to swim eventhough I didn't want to. :) Swam a mile and then biked 10.5.  Thankful for friends who are faster and  stronger than I am, eventhough they make me keep going when I want to quit! :) Ready for little Sarah to come home and train with me!!!

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Lara is visiting! I'm so happy to have my cousin in town!! Tonight we went into Greenville for dinner at Handi, an Indian restaurant. It was DELICIOUS, only negative is that Lara had a little allergic reaction to the food. We're not sure exactly what happened... :/

We were planning to go with friends to a Greenville Drive game, but we decided to take Benadryl and go back to Clemson instead. Nail painting and chick flicks fixed everything. :)

Thankful Lara is here!

BEFORE she broke out in hives... :)

DELICIOUS! And way too much food!

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175 questions CORRECT!!! Pass. :)

After 5 hours and 45 minutes, a 15 minute apple and cheese stick break :), and lots of prayer, the score is in and I passed! I'm so thankful to the Lord for getting me through this next step.

God did it- He is so faithful! He has been so good to continually give me strength and encouragement... and the fact that I passed this test by the skin of my teeth is just proof that the Lord got me through. If I had missed ONE more question, I wouldn't have passed. :) Pretty awesome-- thank you, Lord. I can't brag on myself with this one, but I definitely can brag on God!

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On my way to Augusta to stay with Uncle Clough, Aunt Lisa and Lara!

I'm so thankful for my family giving me a place to stay as I gear up to take the Series 7. Looking forward to spending time with the family and Lord-willing passing this test!!

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Tonight Aunt Karen and I went to dinner with Daniel at Five Guys, and then we went to Rita's. That little boy... thankful for the time spent catching up with Aunt Karen, and for the excitement of a 2 year old. :)

Also, I must mention that yesterday was a big learning day for little Daniel. I was in the office and heard this loud BANG at about 4:30, so I ran to the noise and see little Daniel sitting infront of my laptop, and the screen was full of little colorful lines. Now, as you may know I LOVE color and I love artistic, unique design, but this was not the type of color or design that I am particularly fond of. "Daniel, the computer is dead!! Look! Did you pick it up and drop it?!" To which he responded "Yes." So, we had a little chat about the computer and the fact that because it was dropped, it was now dead. We were going to watch Netflix together and he decided he would get the computer ready for us-- though he knows very clearly that he isn't supposed to touch my computer.

So, after a nice little time sitting there crying over the death of the computer, and talking about how we knew that we had done something very, VERY bad, we moved on.

Last night Carrie said that Daniel came in to the living room emphatically exclaiming, "It's dead!" Dan and Carrie thought, WHAT is dead? So, they followed him into his room and Daniel said, "It falled. It's dead"-- referring to his Bible story book that had fallen on the floor.

Mission accomplished. He understood. I can effectively communicate with a 2 year old. :)

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WONDERFUL DAY!

Started off with a medium smile (Sarah and I call miles smiles :)) run with the one and only Anna Whitwell, followed up with some green bean pickin' with Aunt Karen, then a little studying (ask me something... ANYTHING about municipal bonds!! Please!), then a late afternoon bike ride (97 degrees- thought I might die!... biking is my newest hobby as of this week!), then a quick hour of volleyball with some kiddo's at Clemson (Fike... every Monday at 5pm! Come play!!!!), then sushi with the one and only Rachel and Bryan Burton (I suppose they are two people, but the phrase just sounded cool inserted there), then MILKSHAKES with those same two awesome people, then I read bed time Bible stories with Daniel (precious! David and Goliath....), came home, spent 1.5 hours UPDATING this blog (never again will I miss a day... ok, maybe I will miss one, but I will NOT miss 10), and now I will sleep.

One key element I left out... encouraged today from Ps 20:7 "Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but WE WILL REMEMBER the name of the LORD our GOD!!!"  Thankful for the trust we can place in Christ. And thankful that God wants to help us put our trust in Him.

Also, I talked to Sarah Louise and Benton! :)

How does it get much better? Well, I could think of a few things, but not many. I am so thankful. Now to reunite with my pillow.

Goodnight world. Thank you, Jesus.

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Grammie's REAL Birthday!! Happy Birthday, Grammie!!!!

I was able to work in the nursery this Sunday for my mom, and we just had two cuties-- Daniel and Asha.

Daniel and Asha in the jungle :)

Takes lots of focus to pop that weasel! 

After church Dan, Carrie, Daniel, Stephen and I took Grammie out to lunch to celebrate her birthday. It was delicious-- followed up by some frozen yogurt! (of course!)

I'd like to believe the reason we are glowing in this picture is that we are angels...
I think the truth is that the picture is very, very overexposed.
Nonetheless, this was a priceless memory!
Happy Birthday, Grammie!! I love you so very much!

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Daniel and I like to take our vitamins together.... we do this and toast to Grandma Kline and good health. :) She would be proud!

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COW APPRECIATION DAY!!!!!!

Best day ever. Best restaurant in the world serves the best food in the world, and we dress up as the best animal in the world and get the best free meal in the world. It's just the best day in the whole, WIDE world! I figure if I don't get to work at COWS (Camp on Wheels-- now known as Grandview Ministries), I might as well dress up like one for a few hours!

So, to celebrate this best day of the whole wide world I went to Chick -fil-A not once, but twice... and yes, dressed up like a cow both times!

Little D before heading out to lunch...

The Bundricks helped us dress up and came to lunch with us! :)

Perfect work lunch-break outing :)

And if lunch wasn't enough, we took GRAMMIE out for dinner!!! ;) (Daniel paid!)

Daniel and me with Maegan Pitts... :) Prettiest COW ever!

"Daniel, what does the cow say?"
"EAT MORE CHICKEN"

So all in all, a GREAT day celebrating cows, and free chicken at the BEST restaurant in the world! ;)

(PS, after Chick-fil-A, Daniel took Grammie and me on a date to the Anderson airport, which is now known as "Grammie's Airport." :) We had toooo much fun!)