Christmas 2013

My parents and brother Michael drove from Kissimmee, FL. to visit us in St Augustine for Christmas and my mom's birthday this year. They arrived on Christmas Eve despite a fatal truck accident that completely shut down I-95 for a few miles. We went to lunch together on the Intercoastal at Barbara Jeans. Everything there was SO delicious - especially their crab soup and crab cakes. We sat outside and it was a little cool but the sun was shining down.

On the way back we went to TPC Sawgrass for the Festival of Trees. It was not much of a festival. There was one tree in a few rooms and they all looked pretty similar and weird. Won't be doing that again.

After relaxing a little at the house we went to St Augustine to do a trolley ride for the Night of Lights. National Geoographic in 2011 and 2012 chose it as one of the top 10 light displays. We were able to get on within 30 minutes of waiting in line. It was pretty chilly outside. It was fun listening to Christmas music and yelling out to people passing by, "Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas". However the light display was a little lacking in my opinion. Maybe I am just accustomed to seeing spectacular displays, but for this to be top 10 in the world I was very disappointed, but we still had a nice time.

We walked around a bit trying to find a place to eat and finally ended up at Mojo's since there was only about a 10 minute wait.

Christmas morning Omar and I made birthday breakfast for my mom...thick bacon, scrambled eggs, cinnamon-raisin toast, grits, and orange juice. We opened presents and then worked on Christmas dinner/lunch. We had a delicious lunch of home made ham, scalloped potatoes, almond orange salad, and rolls.

We played the new game Omar got for Christmas, "Ticket to Ride: Europe" and went and saw the movie the Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug. Thursday they went home. It was a short holiday but it was nice to have them come up. It was Michael's first (hopefully, not last) time ever coming to our house even.

90 minutes in heaven by Don Piper

I really enjoyed this book. It really made me think about how our time on earth is short and we do not know how much time we really have. God has a purpose for each one of us and we do not know how our pain, our trials can help someone else. Perhaps our struggles are to bless others by allowing them to serve us. I really enjoyed the perspective of the person who was healthy and young and went blind. He was stuck on all the things he could not do and when he finally listed all the things he could still do is when he changed. He decided he wanted to spend the rest of his life doing all the things he could still do. The more he realized he could do, the less limitations he saw. "I'm not going to worry about what I can't do. I'm going to worry about what I can do well." Sometimes we have to realize what we have now. We need to celebrate and see that we are not helpless besides our mortality. We have more going for us. When we focus on our losses we forget what we have left. We need to think of what opportunities our trials brought us that we might not have otherwise experienced.

My New Job Position

Jaxon D'Ville, Robert M, Patrick S, Matthew S, Brad B, Me, Greg M, Maria P, Lauren P, Catherine K

It's official... Monday is my start day for a new position and a whole new adventure! I will be leading my own team at a brand new location that will be opening up sometime next month at the RiverCity Marketplace in North Jacksonville near the airport.

This has been a long time coming - I have been preparing for some sort of change for about 2 years now. It is interesting how everything works out in the Lord's timing. I felt ready but there was still more that I was supposed to accomplish, still others I should meet before having this opportunity. I start Monday and couldn't be happier about that.

I accomplished a lot in the 3 years and roughly 5 months that I was in my position. My first year I was the #2 Salesperson in the State for the Retail Centers, My second and third years I was #1 in the State!!! Back-to-back...that is not an easy task. I sometimes wonder how it even happened. I have won other awards with the company, such as 2012 BlueXcellence Award for Best in Class Retail Consultant and Team Member. I just feel pretty blessed.

I was talking with my mom last weekend and she was telling me how when I got the job I was freaking out because I knew absolutely nothing about health insurance or any insurance. She was really unsure herself if I was going to be able to catch onto it by the way I was talking. Honestly, if it had not been for my supportive team members who basically trained me on the job, since I was thrown right into selling right away, I would have never been as successful as I have been.

Farewell to my current team at the Jacksonville Retail Center! I will miss everyone there. I learned so much from each one of them and they helped me to understand insurance, how to sell, learn to take a break every once in a while, and so much more.

This picture of course doesn't showcase all of the people who I work with but was taken at an event that we sponsored. The team has changed dramatically since I started. The only person in this picture that has been there since the beginning with me is Greg. Besides him the only originals are Richard, Tyechia, and Cedric. Everyone else has moved on or unfortunately, passed on. In so many ways when you work with people so closely and for so many hours they become like family. I really care for each of them.

Goodbye 

 Retail Sales Consultant

Hello   

 Senior Manager Retail Center

I forgot to put what exactly my new job will be. I will be running a smaller center location. It will be about 3200 square feet, opposed to the 5000 sq ft location I worked in prior. My team will consist of 7 sales consultants and 4 service consultants. My previous location had 7 sales, 5 service and also 2 Nurses (Care). Besides selling health, life, and dental insurance. We offer other products such as hospital indemnity, critical illness, and accident coverage, not to mention we sell traveler's insurance. Our service team helps with billing, claims, inquiries regarding group and individual health coverage benefits. We may have nurses at my new location in the future but the nurses would help customers look at alternatives for drugs or different tests/procedures in order to save the customer money. They would help with located post care for procedures and even provide a health assessment to members (blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose, coaching about health, etc.). We do a lot of things to help bring customer satisfaction, understanding of health coverage, and help the customer in their pursuit of health. 

Catch up with friends in Orlando

I had the morning and early part of the afternoon before I needed to check into the Waldorf Astoria for the Sales Conference. I was able to go on a walk around the St Cloud Lakefront and catch up with my friend Erin Pratt. They have completely re-done the lakefront there and it was really nice.

I then drove to purchase some shoes from DSW since I forgot to pack some for the Sales Conference for one of my outfits. I was lucky I didn't miss anything else considering I had to pack for 2 completely different types of trips.

I went and got ready and drove to Winter Park to meet with my friend Brianna Hill. We ate at Jimmy Hula's which was super yummy. It was my first time holding her cutie Bridgette which is funny because I have seen her multiple times before that. I am so luck to have such great friends!

Southern Caribbean Cruise: Ship Time

We had a great time on this ship - Carnival Breeze - the only thing disappointing was the fact that the entertainment (singers) were really not good.

Juevos Rancheros

Ashley's birthday present from us - BINGO

Check out the ship sales - reminds me of Black Friday. One lady even fainted while waiting for the sale to begin

Relaxation

It was a really nice ship

Ah the serenity level

One of the dress up nights

Love eating

Birthday Girl

Birthday Cake celebrating Ashley's birthday

Loved our waiters - they just kept bringing us out more and more food, even if we didn't order anything. 

Southern Caribbean Cruise: Aruba

I really loved this little island. I could go back here for sure. It is only about 20 miles away from Venezuela. It is really near Curacao and so they have the same type of influence. We did another bus tour. I of course really wanted to go snorkeling as it looked incredible. But I had to go with the majority here. I found this jeep tour that I really wanted to do but they never got back to me. There is this really pretty Natural Pool that is only accessible through jeep and I would like to go there next time in Aruba. The tour had 3 stops...

1) volcano lava formations

2) aloe plant

3) lighthouse

edible fruit

These cool trees always point north and it is due to the wind

furniture made of the tree above - it is very strong

Lava formations

Aloe Plant farm

They make all sorts of things with aloe - it was a very interesting tour

our crazy bus that we took the tour in

snorkeling spots 

This car was so funny - it was painted in chalkboard paint and the people wanted everyone to write something on it

lovely art work of Omar's...I ditto his comment - Aruba was truly one happy island