happy thanksgiving!

Well, we didn't do anything spectacular for Thanksgiving but the night before MSU volleyball had their last home game of the season playing Michigan in the Breslin Center. It was also senior night for the three seniors on the team. They beat UM in straight sets for the first time in a couple years which was a great win considering UM was #19 in the country! They also had a record volleyball crowd of over 6,800 which was impressive considering students were already out of town for the holiday and a lot of people were probably travelling...

It was really fun to work with the team and definitely a learning experience but I'm glad I have the last couple weeks of the semester without volleyball. There are only two weeks left: one week of school and one week for finals and then we are DONE for the fall semester. YEA!!!

I also received good news from my committee as they approved my program plan which pretty much means I am done taking classes (after I pass these two this semester)! I will still have to take comprehensive exams and then propose, complete, and defend my dissertation. Comprehensive exams entail four exams- one on each of the content areas of my degree (sport psychology, growth and motor development, research methods, and social construction of gender). These will test everything I should have learned throughout my time here (not fun). These will be happening some time in the next semester, probably around March. After that I will propose my dissertation research (late spring or early fall) and then spend all of next year on the research process as well as teaching classes.

Thanksgiving was uneventful here considering Mikel had to work on Thanksgiving day as well as at 3:30 am on Black Friday. After Mikel worked and we ate leftovers, we watched movies and had a relaxing afternoon that ended nice and early so Mikel could get some sleep before a crazy day at work.

Mikel has been SUPER busy with work since the start of the holiday season but we can't complain about lots of hours! He is now excitedly awaiting the start of ice fishing season and loving his new hobby of fly tying. Considering we got our first dusting of snow on December 1st, it may be a little while before the ice fishing thing takes off.

There's no reason to this picture except I was goofing around when Mikel got his new face mask for hunting. I don't think there's any hunting in my future...