"Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind?"

Since 2010 is coming to an end, I decided to go back and look at all the pictures I had from this year. It is crazy to think that some of the events and moments in my life that feel as if they were years ago really were just in this year. So, I decided to have some fun and I made collages of all my favorite pictures/moments from each month. I started out by doing two months together but I have way too many pictures for that!

I had a lot of firsts this year! It was a great year! Thanks 2010 for being wonderful.... Welcome 2011!

January and February I first learned how to snowboard. I made it to the final four in the Mario Kart competition, won first place with Collin in the Wards Valentines Date party, went on a great and cold bike ride to Utah lake!

March: I ran my first 5k. I went to the Festival of Colors for my first time as well, where my friend Spencer kissed a llama(yep, that was a first as well!). Planned a great but stressful surprise birthday party for Shelbi!

April: Shane graduated and I helped him with his proposal to Sam. I also went to my first Military ball with Troy. Some great adventures happened with Ginelle and Shelbi at the ward closing party which ended up with me in the river. Lesson learned: some logs float and when you step on them, they sink!

May: My brother Colby married Neeha and this was the first time that my family (just siblings and parents) had been together in four years! It also was my 21st birthday! Also, it was my first time ever trying to sleep on a roof.... however at about 4 in the morning, we gave up!

June: Ran my first ever Half Marathon with my dad! And I survived to tell the tale! Immediately after that I spend two weeks in Arizona with my family and part of that I went with my mom, sister and Gigi with the little ones to Disneyland!

July: Way to much happened in July! I had to delete a lot of pictures that I wanted to be in the collage! I took a fun trip with friends for the fourth of July, we went to McCall which is where Ginelle is from. It was my first time ever getting pulled over by the lake cops and my first time for having cops get mad at me because I do not drink.... interesting. I was on my first intramural team, softball. Never had played softball before in my life but I loved it! Also, I was a part of the Worlds Largest Water Balloon fight. And a daily activity in July for us was bike rides! I also went to my first professional soccer game, The ReAL soccer game.

August: Shane married Sam in August! This was the first time that my entire family, grandkids involved this time, had been together in four years! Also, Ginelle and I cheered on Brad's first Triathlon, which of course he rocked it!

September: School starting again didn't immediately stop my outdoor adventures. I went to Zions twice this month, which was the first time I had ever really been to Zions and hiked. The first hike I did was Orderville and then the second one was The Subway. Both were amazing hikes and both required swimming in the freezing cold water. I am hoping to go to Zions again in 2011! I also had a chance to be on two more intramural teams, flag football and kickball. Neither had I really played before but I think I actually got to be decent at both!

October: I went to the ReAL soccer game again with my brother this time. Since I was activities co-chair I had a little bit of a stressful time planning the Halloween party but I think it turned out to be a huge success. Even though we had the stress of maybe not having any kind of power but that got fixed an hour before the party started! The first snowfall happened and of course we had a little snowball fight with that!

November: I got to go home for the first time for Thanksgiving. Shane, Sam and I drove home and Ryan flew from Texas. So we got to have a nice Thanksgiving at home. I went shooting for the first time in my life during that break. We spent every night in the Hot Tub and of course did some Polar Bear jumps.

December: Once again, we had another huge party but I felt it went really well again! It was was our Christmas party and even though we had a low budget, we managed to get a nice dinner and have the Math Lab only look semi like a math lab! I went to my first Professional basketball game, the Jazz game. I also had a chance to look the Salt Lake Temple lights and watch the Joseph Smith Movie in Salt Lake.

Happy Birthday to You!

Today is Ryan's 30th birthday! I just wanted to say Happy Birthday Ryan!

All of Me

Last New Year's, I made lots of New Years Resolutions and I actually did a lot of them. One of them was to be able to play Jon Schmidts All of Me by December 31, 2010. Sadly, I sat down at the Piano last January and tried playing the first couple notes, got frustrated and gave up. I never tried again after that moment.

So once again, here I am making this song my News Years Resolution. I am proud to say that this break I have spent a little bit of time with it and I no longer have those frustrated feelings. I hope to be able to have this song memorized and up to speed by December 31, 2011!

Merry Christmas to you!

I think the reason why I love Christmas so much besides the meaning behind it is because it is constant. We have many traditions in my family and every year it is the same. Christmas is something I can trust, every year it will come and we will do our traditions. It is a constant in my constantly changing life. I know that once I get married and stop going home Christmas, things will change but I also know some of my traditions will carry over.

Tradition Number One:

What use to be my sister making Cinnabons and me trying to help her, I now make the Cinnabons every year. I love this tradition and each year I am getting better at making them! This year, Neeha helped me out a little bit! Every Christmas morning I have that delicious treat to look forward to! I do miss making them with Rachelle a lot. That is one of my favorite Christmas memories is spending that time with her. Rachelle has taught me pretty much everything I know about cooking.

Tradition Two:

Every Christmas morning after we open presents, we eat breakfast as a family. I love this time to have together with my family that I do not normally see during the year. This breakfast is always chocolate milk, cinnabons and little cereal boxes!

Tradition Three:

This one started once we moved to Arizona but it is a version of the Naperville tradition. A nice dinner! I feel that everyone has this. Time for us to spend with family. It is a great time! It is always the same dinner: "Yummy Chicken dish", rice, roads rolls, jello salad, spinach salad and death by chocolate for dessert! That is Christmas dinner for me!

Tradition Four:

When we moved to Arizona we did change some of the things we did. Now, every Christmas Eve we go to dinner as a family at some restaurant and then after we walk around the Mesa Temple and look at the Christmas lights. This year we went to a "Arizona" Restaurant where the owners were super friendly and we ate some Arizona style steaks!

Tradition Five:

Every Christmas Eve we all gather around the Christmas tree while my dad reads the story from Luke 2 and Matthew 2 about Christs birth. Then we go around and each person picks a Christmas Carol to sing and we finish with some fun pictures!

Its tradition to do a pyramid

I know that I can always trust for these traditions to happen. That Christmas is Constant... Christ is constant in my life. I can always trust him to be there for me. I am so grateful to have that strong constant in my life. When I go through all my struggles, Christ is constantly there for me. I love the chance that we all have to celebrate his birth and what he did for all of us.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

"We are the Champions"

On Monday night, I sat down getting ready for a long night of studying after finishing my first final. As soon as I felt ready to start, I got a call from my friend Richard. I guess he and his roommates had tickets to the Jazz game and he had invited me to go with them. After about one second of weighing the option between studying or a Jazz game, I picked the Jazz game!

We started off at the highest row possible but at half time we went down to the fifth row where we saw that no one was sitting during the half time! It was a great and fun experience! Thanks to Richard for inviting me to come!

There were some great fans that entertained me during the game. One had a bag of all sorts of items like, rubber chickens, weird rubber circle things, huge horns and more. He sat right behind the other teams basket so every time they shot foul shots he would throw one of the items up in the air to mess them up. Every time the Warriors would miss, he would nod in approval.

Another, screamed at the Warriors about something while everyone cheered him on. His wife sunk down in her seat so low in embarrassment. He sat down really proud of himself and what he was shouting. I only wish I knew what he had said!

Of course, Jazz won!

Our original seats. Look how tiny the court looks from where we were!

Us showing that we had the wall right behind us since we were at the top!

Closer to the court! Much better!

Deck The Halls

So, we had two Christmas activities in my ward. The first being The Sweater Weather Get Together and then the second being the Temple Square lights and Joseph Smith movie. Let me tell ya, being the ward activites co chair can be really hard. I feel there is a lot of stress and a lot of planning and time that goes into every single activity. But it has been by far my favorite calling.

I am so grateful to have a great committee! We all have become super close through this calling. I love meetings every single week, we all end up joking around and laughing lots. Of course, we get a lot done as well! We even have a cheer that we do at the end of every meeting! What could be better? Thank you committee for the being the best.

Don't you wish you were in this committee?!?

Sadly the church has decided that we can not have activities committees any more, so we were all released today. It was really sad for all of us... not sure what the future holds but I am so grateful for these months I did have! They have been the best. AC, we really are keeping it cool!

Pictures from the two events:

Denny's on our way home from the temple

Marcus and I, being gangsta.

These are some of my bestest friends!

The Ward! Love this!

"On the First Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me"

Well, its another Christmas post! I just love Christmas so much and can't get enough of it every year! The only sad part is every year I get super stressed with school right in the middle of the Christmas season! I still have two huge projects due tuesday and my final paper due Wednesday for school. Along with the usual readings that I have to do weekly for most classes. To add on that, our Christmas party is this Saturday and that has added 20 more pounds of stress! But, I still love Christmas!

Even though I am super stressed, I have found a way to keep the Christmas spirit alive even during the hardest times.

Several years ago, I gave a talk in Sacrament meeting and in that talk I challenged my family to do the twelve days of kindness. Like the 12 days of Christmas but with Kind acts. Every day my family and I had to do a kind act for someone. Then at the end of the day, I would have people say what kind act they did that day. I don't remember if my entire family did it but I do remember my sister and parents really getting into it. It made Christmas that season amazing. I was able to focus on the true meaning of Christmas. I was able to put Christ back into Christmas.

Every year since then I have tried to do the the Twelve days of Kindness, some years have been better than others. Last December, I was struggling a lot, school was weighing down on me a lot and I was super sick in the beginning and I just could not find the Christmas spirit. That was when I knew that I had to really do the Twelve days of Kindness.

So, I started looking around me. Trying to find those that might have been struggling and when I did, I made sure I did something kind for them. Sometimes, I could see that their day had been made better and other times I had no idea if they were effected by my kind act. But that didn't matter, what mattered was I was able to feel the true meaning of Christmas by helping others. I felt Chirst love in my life so much more and I hope through the kind acts that were done, others can feel his love too. No matter what is going on in our lives, we are never alone. Sometimes, Heavenly Father needs us to show that love and comfort to others so they can see that they are never truely alone.

So here is my challenge to you: Start the Days of Kindness now, make it 22 days of kindness instead of 12. I promise you, Christmas will improve greatly for you!

Also, feel free to post your experiences here, I love hearing the stories! :)

"When Christmas Comes to Town"

Why I love Christmas:

-Every year my dad puts up Christmas lights and the Christmas tree. And every year with out fail he gets super frustrated and shouts "Bah Humbug". It would not be Christmas with out his shouts of frustration as the Christmas decorations are going up!

-I love Christmas music. It makes me super happy. I have this rule that you must wait until after Thanksgiving before you can play Christmas music but as soon as Thanksgiving is over, Christmas music 24/7.

-Everyone seems to be a little more giving. A lot more people start to focus on Service and helping each other out.

-Family time

-SNOW!!!

- Its a time for us all to celebrate Christ and his birth. I love that our attention is focused on Jesus Christ.

and so much more

"Pictures of me, Picture of You"

I came home for Thanksgiving and on my moms computer the screensaver is a picture slideshow. My computer has this too and whenever it is going, I am completely fascinated by the pictures that come up. On my mom's computer it is all the pictures she has taken for a long time, so a lot from my high school days. It was great seeing some of the pictures of me from high school and it made me want to post some good olden day pictures.

The four of us in High School

Yeah... we are still the same!

My first Job, Ponderosa! Alfonso, my best friend at Work!

My first play... would you want to run into me in a dark alley? I think not!

Halloween!

The three amigos! I love us then and I love us now!

I love looking at these pictures but I know that those moments I had growing up are what made me who I am today!

"I Believe there are Angels Among Us"

This week was pretty tough, a lot to do with school. It was a fight to make it through but I did it! I know it was because of the Angels in my life that I was able to get through it. Like the random girl in the library.

I had a huge paper due for my class and I planned on printing it off at the library on my way from work to class, so I had about five minutes to be at the library before I needed to leave. Of course, the computer that is open just for you to check something, wouldn't let me open up my file, it jumbled everything up. Getting nervous I would not be able to print this paper I looked around desperately for a computer to sign into. I saw one and ran to it. The girl sitting next to it said that it might work, so I thought I would give it a chance but no such luck. Word was not on that computer. Starting to feel that I would not be able to print this paper, I looked around the computer area praying that someone would leave. The girl that had told me the computer probably wouldn't work could see my fear and sadness and offered for me to use her computer. I am so grateful for that act of service! Even though the printer completely printed everything wrong, I was able to print my paper off and make it to class on time. I found a way to print a second copy, black and white, but not messed up and my teacher completely understood the mishap.

So thank you Angel in the library, you may never realize how much that little act of service touched me and calmed me down in my moments of complete stress, but it did.

The second Angel is much closer to me then a random person in the library. It is my brother Shane. Shane, I am so glad that I am blessed to live so close to you. You have been an amazing older brother to me. Thank you to Shane and Sam for having me over to dinner multiple times, I really appreciate it. They have been the best meals I have had all year!

The same paper I talked about earlier has been the thorn in my life. I couldn't figure out how to write it and I had no motivation or enough good sources to write this paper. So, this was probably one of the worst papers I have ever written. Feeling pretty bad about it, I asked Shane to edit it for me. He spent two hours fixing it and helping it become a semi okay paper. Thank you Shane I really appreciate it.

Thank you also for forcing me to play ping pong with you all through high school, I may have hated it then and it may have caused some of our biggest fights, but I have now been able to impress many with my skills.

Shane, thank you for everything you have done for me. I really am truly grateful to have you live so close to me and that you are my brother.

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