#23. Try 20 new wines

Last night, Stephen and I went to Riverbanks Wine Tasting in the Garden and it was alot of fun! There were 27 stations each with 2-5 wines to sample and a few small tables of finger foods. I am not much of a wine fan (as you can see, my average rating was a "1") but I did find a white wine that I really loved, the Clifford Bay Sauvignon Blanc. There was a table of Japanese wine and sake, and I've never had a cold sake before but I really liked the Gekkeikan Zipang Sparking Sake! There was also one table of RJ Rockers beer. The one I tried was a peach beer and I loved it, so I'm hoping Flying Saucer has this and I can count it towards my 50 new beers. I still haven't found a red wine that I really love, but the more I try, the more I'm sure I will start to appreciate them.

Melissa's Adventures to Wonderland

#94. Get a new piercing


I drove to Asheville, NC and got my rook pierced!!!!! I love it so much. It only hurt for a minute or two! My friend Chris got his tragus pierced. We didn't drive all the way to NC just to get pierced though, I would have done that in Columbia, but I have been wanting to go back to Asheville since my sorority retreat there a few years ago. We wanted to visit some of the shops in the downtown area, namely, WONDERLAND! (which is the coolest shop in town-especially if you're as obsessed with Alice in wonderland as I am)

Asheville is such a great town. The view driving into town is amazing, the people are down to earth, there are tons of local artists and musicians playing in squares, it's a very clean city, there's a lot of personality to that place. Chris actually was mistaken for a local and a group of tourists asked him for directions...and he actually gave them correct directions! haha that was pretty funny, I know he felt at home in that town! I would really love to live there for at LEAST a short while some day. It's only 2 hours away from Columbia, which I was surprised by, I definitely thought it was about 3 hours. Knowing that, I will absolutely be making a trip again sometime during the summer to do some hiking.

Relay for Life

#72. Participate in Relay for Life and walk for Edna Grace
#9. Volunteer 24 community service hours with ESA (3/24)


USC held their annual Relay for Life and it was great seeing the sisters again! Especially Molly, Britney, and JSharp ;) I walked in honor of my former band director, Edna Grace. She is an amazingly strong woman who has battled breast cancer for as long as I've known her. She went into remission while I was in high school but the doctors found more cancerous cells fall of 2008. She went through chemo again and last April I lit a luminary and dedicated my fundraising for her. I gave her the breast cancer awareness shirt "I fight like a girl" and it is now one of her favorite shirts!

She is one of the most courageous women I know and she doesn't let anything stop her or get her down. In the same year she was going through chemo, she lost her brother, after she had just lost both of her parents in 2007. This time last year was such a tough time for her. So today, I promised myself I would keep her in my thoughts and prayers as I walked around the track at Relay. And I thanked God that we still have our "Ms. Grace."