Holiday Highlights

My very dear friends from back home

Whew--it has been awhile since I've posted. A lot has happened in the interim, so I'll give some quick bullet points:

• Thanksgiving: Went to my grandma's in a little rural town in Idaho. Love to visit, but wouldn't really like living there--getting anywhere takes awhile. Phenomenal food (as always) in copious amounts (my grandmother, I think, has a mortal fear of running out of food at family functions) and it was wonderful to see my family, although we were missing 4 due to mission, bad weather, and soccer tournaments.

• Finishing the semester/finals: As much as I learned and was challenged last semester, I'm glad it's over. I came out just fine with a pretty good GPA, although things got a little rocky those last two weeks when I had two papers to write and a project due and some days was running on as little as 4 hours of sleep and a Krispy Kreme doughnut. Don't try this at home, kids. Bad idea.

 Home for the holidays:

Goofy photo shoot on Christmas last year. Oh, the memories.

• First snowball of the season: This year commenced the Fourth Annual Nate vs. Ariel First Snowball of the Season Contest, which took place in front of our house literally the minute I got home. Basically, whichever person beans the other one first with a snowball after there's snow on the ground, wins. The showdown is generally preceded by weeks of trash talk and shameless bluffing. :) 2010 Champion: ARIEL!! Woo hoo! Nate doesn't like to acknowledge it, but it was a decided victory. The record thus far reads, 2007: Nate; 2008: Ariel; 2009: Nate; 2010: ARIEL! :) It's two and two, so next year's a toss-up. Of course, Nate may be on his mission by then.
• Talking to Tara on Christmas: My older sister, Tara, is on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Vina del Mar, Chile. She entered the Missionary Training Center on October 20th and flew out to Chile on the 20th of December. That's right--just in time for Christmas. We were able to talk to her on the phone for half an hour during her layover in the L.A. airport as she was flying out, and again, obviously, on Christmas Day. She is working hard and loving it.
• Flowers from my best friend: A couple days before Christmas I got flowers in the mail from one of my best friends in the whole wide world. :) They were gorgeous, and I loved them.
• New Year's with my friends: I have a group of six girls that I went through high school with that still gets together whenever we're all at home and not scattered thither and yon at college and in Ecuador and stuff. We had a great time bringing in 2011 together, and we took some great pictures to record some great memories.

A new semester

Well, here I am in a new semester in a new year. As of now it looks like this semester will be a little less rigorous/stressful than the last one (I am taking classes like Grammar of English, for goodness sake), which will be a good thing for me; however, I would like to keep up the sense of intellectual curiosity that I cultivated last semester, seeking to make connections with other people and shaping the course of my own education and life.

2011, here I come!