i've been slacking on pictures, so here...

so, i noticed i haven't posted many pictures of my time here at Westmont...mostly because i keep forgetting to take any :) but, here are some i've stolen from friends of the last few months just so you guys can see who people are and such.

this first one was just at a section meeting (we meet every week and share testimonies). i know it's hard to see, but from left to right the people are leah, kathryn, sarah, lillian, kelly, barrett, me and candace. this next one was from our NCTO (non-committal-take-out) in early November i think. anyway, again from left to right: shannon, me lillian, kelly, allison and brent
at the christmas festival for chior in december!

snow day! when they dumped a bunch of snow for us to play in...it was great! barrett, kathryn, lillian, me, amy, allison, clara.

clark bbq last sat! these are again som girls from my section. hanna (my ra), madi, lillian, clara, shea, amy, me, kathryn, allison, barrett.

anyway, i just wanted to share with you guys some pictures so you can perhaps better put names with faces :)

not a bad start to 2010

my 2010 started off with a trip to Park City, Utah, where much fun was had with family, much skiing was done and many laughs were had.

we flew out on Janurary 2nd to Salt Lake City and then drove to Park City. we arrived at the place we were staying and i think that evening we simply hung around the house and relaxed.

early the next morning, we were met by our family that lives in the Salt Lake area, who came up to ski with us. unfortunately my cousin Jenna had to work, but it was still fun to hang out with the other four (Uncle Jeff, Aunt Julie, Jamie and Justin). when they arrived we all got ready to go out and ski. a couple of runs in betsy had another one of her moments that she is prone to and accidentally sat in justin's seat on the ski lift, pushing him off. ridiculous, but funny. skiing that day was a blast and i was pleasantly surprised that i got back into the rhythm so quickly. the only thing i really had problems with that day were the moguls (small little hills/ bumps that you are supposed to ski between). that was the only time i fell, but i made it count. i completely ate it and then slid at least 60ft down the mt. i'm not exaggerating either. i was literally just sliding down on my back for a good minute...it was awesome :) when i finally made it to the bottom, justin was waiting for me and asked me if i was screaming the whole way down the mountain and i replied that "no, i was laughing". the rest of the day skiing went well and we were able to come back to a nice hot jacuzzi. though it wasn't as thoroughly relaxing as it could have since katie and justin kept throwing snow. at on point justin had me in a headlock and was rubbing snow into my face...lame. i did however run out of the warmth of the hot tub with him to make snow angles. it was painful but so thrilling haha.
after our thilling and painfully cold adventures we all went into Park City for dinner and then to pick up a cake since it was justin's birthday.
the next day just my immediate family went intertubing. it was fun, but the absolute best part had to be when betsy thought she would get a ride up the hill by gary pulling her. so she begins to run towards the tube and completely launches herself. gary totally saw this coming and had this devious look on his face. as she is fully airborne he yanks the rope and pulls the tube out of the way, causing her to face-plant into the packed snow. greatest thing ever and i saw it coming. that evening justin and jamie came up and had dinner with us, which was nice.
tuesday was another skiing day, which was great. it snowed and i accidentally took betsy down a black diamond. my mom and gary went to see katie at her ski lesson, so betsy and i went our separate way to do some more skiing. i told her that we should try going to the right, since we had been to the left already. a bunch of black diamond runs greeted us, but i was positive that there would be a double blue run we could take and there was...two of them actually. it just so happened that they were both closed. so, only way down was to take the black diamonds :) i quite enjoyed it...especially watching her struggle and scream all the way. i'm such a nice sister haha
again that evening the J's came up and had dinner with us and hung out for a while.
then Wednesday we drove down to Salt Lake to see Jamie's new condo she just bought and go visit Jenna at the restaurant she works at to have a quick lunch before catching our flight.
it was a good trip and it was good to be able to spend time with my family. never a dull moment :)
when i get some pics, i'll be sure to put them up.
and i'll update about the rest of my break and the start of the new semester later.

2009 is now behind us

what can be said about 2009? it was another year of life, another year of growth, a year of many changes, yet many discoveries. 2009 marked a huge milestone in my life-the graduation of high school and the starting of college. looking back, it is just so hard so believe my life has changed so much in only a year.
a recurring theme i seem to be encountering as we approach the end of this year is oh "2009 was a really bad year" or "i'm so ready to leave 2009 behind and move on to 2010". for me, i honestly don't think i'm ever ready to say goodbye to a year. i've never viewed the mark of the new year as a fresh start. to me it has always just been a record of time, a changing of numbers.
with this in mind, i looked back to see what i posted last year in the response of the new year approaching.

"happy new year, everybody! can you all believe it is 2009?! i sure can't! 2009 has always sounded so far into the future, being the year i graduate and all. crazy! 2008 was one of the best years, by far! so many things happened. traveling to so many different places was definitely a bit highlight that i am very thankful for. i feel as if i have learned so much this past year; about life, people, God and many other things. i am both nervous and excited for 2009. i know it is going to be a year filled with many exciting and new things. the best i can do is go into it knowing God is in control and with a positive attitude to take these new experiences as they come. "

looking at this now, i still believe that 2008 held some of my most prized memories and lessons in it. i traveled more than i ever had before in that year and i really established and strengthened some great relationships with people that i love and depend on.
reflecting on my year of 2009, i will say this- it has held more ups and downs in it than ever a time i can remember. the end of senior year was a great accomplishment in my book, yet filled with more emotions than i'd have ever felt before. the summer was wonderful and holds some fantastic life-long memories as well. and these last few months of college have gone by in a blur with a huge spectrum of emotions and feelings; many bad and many good.

i'm not sure what this year will hold, but i pray that i will be directed in the way that i'm meant to travel in. i can say that simply from writing on my blog in these last few moments, have inspired me with an idea. what might that be? you will simply have to wait and see.

here's to wishing you a happy, meaningful and prosperous new year. welcome 2010!

quick update on break...

still got some catching up to do...
thursday evening (of last week, not yesterday) amy and i got to spend some time together and actually ended up going over to mrs. cortes's house and hanging out with her and leah, which was great!
my Christmas was mostly non-eventful, but lovely. we got some nice family time in and it was fun to see katie opening up all her gifts...she was quite excited. in the evening we went over to my aunts house for dinner. it was just nice to spend some time with the family.
most popular gift: new game for the wii. we (mostly gary) are all obsessed with beating each other's high scores...it's pretty hilarious how into it we all get.

other than that, my break has been relaxing, although tueday through thursday i was watching katie while my parents took a short trip down to Cabo for some good ol' R and R. although it was fun to get to spend some time with my sister, i was exhausted by the end of it! we managed to keep busy though by going to my aunts house for a while one afternoon, so she could play with my cousin's son, aiden, who is just a few months younger than katie. we also visited my grandma for dinner one night; that was quite nice. august came over wednesday afternoon and kept us some company as well as went to yougurt land with us and then on a drive around some neighborhood, because it was raining and it was just so pleasant to listen to the rain on the car and look at some houses just for fun. today betsy and i took katie to see the princess and the frog movie and it was a very cute movie. katie loved being out with her big sisters and getting some jamba juice.
even though i love my sister and i love spending time with her, she is a lot of work and needless to say, i was very glad to see my parents come home :)

night time beach adventures!

last week, august had another one of our adventures. we started by making a second attempt at going to the beach at night (since the first one last year, didn't work out too well) while we were walking along, we came to the other side of the pier and found a huge mound of sand piled high along the shore. what immediately came to mind? sledding on the sand! we went to find cardboard box and then proceeded to attempt some of what you might call southern California sledding

it didn't work out as we had planned...although it looks like i'm flying down, looks can be deceiving; i was at a complete stop. although the wind does add to the effect, don't you think?next we tried getting a running start to get going, but as you can see, august stumbled off her sled, leaving it buried in the sand behind her. then i discovered that trying to go on one's stomach is just altogether a bad idea...i definitely left the sled behind me, but continued to slide

in the end, we wound up rolling down the hill...much easier, although there were those minor problems of getting sand all down your shirt and every where else as well as the dizziness factor.

all in all it was a successful night. :)

home again, home again

i am very glad to be home. i got home last thursday and it's been nothing but go go go from then.

the train ride was enjoyable since i didn't have to travel alone (barrett was on the same train). when i arrived at union station, i had to wait a bit for my family to get me. somehow they were 55 minutes late picking up justin, 30 minutes late picking up me, yet we were only 5 minutes late for our dinner reservation at a place called the Pacific dining car. it was a very nice restaurant and the food was delicious. i actually ordered a steak, which is quite unusual for me, but it was one of the best filet's i've ever had. after this quite enjoyable dinner, we went back to the house and just hung out for a while, talking until gary and justin wanted to watch a movie, which didn't turn out to be any good and put my mom and i to sleep. since the movie failed, gary went to bed and my mom, justin and i ended up talking for an hour and a half about everything from names we liked and didn't like to different world perspectives on death; quite a broad conversation.
we went to bed late and were up early so i could take justin to the airport for his flight back home to utah. friday i was able to simply relax and saturday was another relaxing day, spent by playing a much needed four hours of tennis. i haven't played in 2 months! and now that i've played again, i don't know how i went 2 months without it! first i hit for a while with scott and then gary wanted to play, so i went straight from one tennis court to another. gary and i played a couple sets and just as i was winning, my strings on my second racket decided they and had enough and snapped (i'd broken my first racket strings a while back and just hadn't gotten it re-strung).
sunday was another relaxing day and then monday i was able to see julie for a while. i haven't seen her since august! we enjoyed time to catch up and hang out.
anyway, i've got to be going, but in addition to having fun, i've also been able to spend lots of time with my little sister. my parents are taking advantage of again having a built in babysitter :) but, i don't mind; she is fun for the most part ;)
hope all is going well in your lives!

dancing in the rain

friday night was winter formal, so many of us got all dressed up and ready for a night of fun. unfortunately we had to wait an hour in the rain for the shuttle to come pick us up after we went our for dinner. sorry the pics are a little out of order here we are waiting patiently haha

meet amy! (date #1) me, barrett and amy all went in a trio :)

me and barrett (date #2 haha), quite thrilled to finally be on our way

apparently something funny happened. but, this is barrett, leif and clara

at dinner-Amy, Kathryn, me and Candace
the dance was fun...minus all the people dancing inappropriately, but we tried not to notice too much and formed our own group in the corner of Barrett, Amy, me, Clara, Kathryn and Leif. it was great! and Blaine tried to teach me how to salsa dance...i was horrible, but good thing he was good at leading, so i didn't really have to do anything. also, since it was so hot in the room, our group found it a good idea to go outside and dance in the rain for a while. :) my favorite!

but, as you can tell the rain was not so good for our hair...but who cares

twas a great night! :)

when we returned a group of us all piled on the couches in the lounge and watched a movie, which was a perfect ending to a good time.

so much to say, so little time

where has the time gone? i cannot belive it has been over two weeks since i last posted! so much has happened since then and i think i've been more busy than i've ever been in my life.
my week at home was fantastic. i got to be there for katie's 4th birthday, which was a blast. i took her to pick up her cake. i think that was the first time i'd ever driven her and taken her somewhere alone before, which was cool. gary is quite protective of who she rides in the car with haha. so, just to give you a heads up on what is new with her, she is very into people now playing with her. you know like giving the toys names and playing out a story, which is cute, but tiring. her speech as also improved so much even in the last few months. you can actually have conversations with her now. other than that, she is simply always a blessing in my life, although frustrating at times. :) i love her
i also hung out with justin over my break. we started the evening by going out to a family dinner at a sushi restaurant, then we began designing t-shirts and wen to get materials...that turned out to be an adventure from Michale's to old navy to walmart and back to Michale's. we eventually gave up working on them for the evening and opted to go see a movie (2012). in the morning i took justin back to whittier, made yet another trip to Michale's and then hung out at his house for a while cutting out stencils of letters for our shirts. i had to leave to go babysit katie, so justin ended up finishing the shirts...they actually look pretty cool (i'll have to post a picture). it was originally for jenna's birthday present, but now we all have matching ones....great haha.
another highlinght was getting to see my friends-august, amy and grace. august came over wednesday night and we finally finished out painting (another picture is in order) that we started back in july or something. then friday we all got together and hung out for a bit by going to yogurt land and the park. august then had to leave and grace, amy and i went out and got some chipotle for dinner. then grace had to also depart, so amy and i decided to go see New Moon. ridiculous, i know. i still had a blast though...it was so good to see them!
other than that, the rest of my break was pretty relaxing. i got a lot of good family time in. unfortunately i got sick on Thanksgiving and basically woke up, helped my mom make some food, made pies, went back to sleep, socialized, ate dinner and then went to bed. it was still good though.
i headed back up to Westmont on the train on sunday and this week went pretty well. thought there were many good things happening this week, some bad and some tedious, that has left me no time to post. tuesday and wednesday night i had 4 hour rehersals for our Christmas concert that is on friday, saturday and sunday. in addition to that, i've had two exams, a major drawing project due, two eight page papers due within a day of each other, a speech and a social life. it's been crazy.
on wednesay we did get to play in the snow though. a snow machine came and dumped 20 tons of snow on our campus so that we could all play in it. we had a massive snowball fight and lots of attempted sledding. it was a blast! also wednesday night was a quite fancy dinner in the d.c (dining commons). thursday past in a blur and friday night was the opening night of the concert. the church was packed, but luckily everything ran smoothly, as did the second showing that occurred tonight. the music is quite beautiful that everyone preforms.
today also was the day our our section NCTO, which stand for non-committal take out and your roommate has to ask a date for you. i think a good time was had by all, but i'll comment more on that at a later date and hopefully i can get some pictures up then as well.
have a wonderful night/day, everyone. and enjoy this Christmas season. :)