Had anamazing trip back home for the Christmas holidays to visit with family and friends. Our 15 hour drive with the pooch wasa great time followed by about five Christmas celebrations in the matter of a week and a half. Time was spent up in Manchester, Cedar Rapids, Shueyville andeverywhere in between. Jenny, Caden and I put on quite a few miles and even had a great photo shoot with Jenny's cousin Katie ... pretty good engagement photos I would say in the snow:) We received some great gifts, but even better times were spent just chilling with family and the pooches.
When we droveback to Georgia, it was right back in the grind at Aflac. So much for a slow start to the new year, it has been probably the busiest time I've had thus far with the Duck. Taking on some new responsibilities has opened up some great doors for growth and learning. The team has really stepped up over the last months and continues to drive projects and create great relationships throughout the company. I'm fairly positive I had 29 meetings last week and sometimes I wonder how I get anything done ... then I realize the team's got my back:)
The volunteer front has been pretty exciting as well over the last month. We had our first quarterly board meeting for the Literacy Alliance couple weeks ago and invited in some new members to the board. We have a lot of opportunity to improve/grow this year and I can't wait to work with a great team to pull off our Trivia Bee this year, hope you can check it out 2/15 at CSU! Later that week it was off to the United Way board meeting where we're well on our way to meet our goal for the year with the big announcement coming in a few weeks. Plus, we have our Live United Youth Camp coming up February 17-19th. I am pumped as we have 14 students this year for a great lineup to teach them about poverty, homelessness and giving back to their community ... should be great good fun:)
Best volunteer gig over the last month though wasmy 5th trip down to New Orleans for some hurricane relief action with about 12 friends. It was a fantacular time as we arrived Thursday of MLK Jr. Weekend to our cozy bunkhouse outside the French Quarter. We volunteered Friday in the classroom at McDonough 42 Charter School and helped tutor some math and then on Saturday/Monday we helped to clean up and revamp a flower garden that needed quite a bit of TLC. It was a great service trip, but it wasn't just about giving back, it was about having fun too:) Instead of going too much into it, figured I would just let you check it out (www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmZc2ncXH5U).
School has been going pretty darn good too with only five classes left to go and partway started on two of those five. I had a Networks & Organizations class in Dec/Jan and now have a class in Customer Relationship Management and maybe my most exciting one thus far in Project Management. In addition to all that learning at Emory, I'm going with about 30 classmates to Washington DC in March for a course in Politics & Business ... should be fun!Welp, tryin to get back into the swing of working out so should hit the sack. O ya, did I mention my buddy Eddie and I are going to the Super Bowl this weekend ... check out the next blog for the excitement ... special shout out to my buddy Mike Hope for hookin me up with a wrist brace after a rough soccer match:)
Hope you all have a great week and keep your fingers crossed for some good deals on some tickets!!
Alwayz,
nate
