So, after the big snowstorm that hit Prescott, things have pretty much gotten into a groove around here.  School every day, church, hanging out with friends, and volleyball are all a basic part of my life.  So far, so good!  Classes are going really well, and I’m excited to start volleyball again.  First, though, I just have to say that I have gotten two hundred percent better at skating than I was before last week!

This is where I was about ninety eight percent of the time.  Hey, it was my first time okay?  Here Teri is being a sweetheart and helping me up… for the twelfth time. 

Here are a lot of the girls who came.  Not that I actually spent a lot of time with them… I was mostly clinging to the wall for dear life!

Our suitemates!  (These are the girls who not only made me feel better when I fell, they were kind enough to hold my hand sometimes!)

Just so you know, I actually made it to the middle of the rink without falling more than three times.  So there, skates.  Domination!

School is really fun too.  My classes are getting more and more interesting as the semester moves along, especially Psychology.  It is so fascinating to me how our brain works and how we perceive certain things.  I thought that I was unique, but apparently a lot of humans have the same reactions and thought processes.  Go figure… my whole life was a lie!  Haha just kidding.  But it really is interesting.

On top of school and ice skating, volleyball spring season started today.  All my teammates and I are going to be in really good shape for next season!  Bring it!  🙂

So that’s my life in a nutshell as of this moment.  But who knows… there is always a change around the corner!

“All life is an experiment.  The more experiments you make the better.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Snow day number TWO!!  Despite having the heavy rains and wind the day before, the snow was still covering the ground when I woke up on Friday.  SNOW DAY AGAIN!  HOORAY FOR PRECIPITATION!! 

Snow at ERAU.

Actually, there is snow everywhere right now!  At home in Pinetop, AZ, there is (from what I’ve heard) about four FEET of snow, and they had school cancelled the whole week.  Apparently the brand new junior high got flooded due to so much snow.  I don’t know what my little sister is going to do for school!  It’s like a ghost town there… not even the businesses are open right now.  From Facebook, I got pictures from my friend at home and my friend in Flagstaff, AZ.

My friend Jessica Baker’s backyard in Pinetop!

Needless to say, I think they got WAY more snow than we did!

Here’s my friend Robin Myrick’s car in Flagstaff…

Can you see it?? Haha!

So that is Friday, January 22, 2010 in terms of snow!  Everyone, STAY WARM!

“…but the fire is so delightful!  And since we’ve no place to go, LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW, LET IT SNOW!”

Well, we got our first snowfall on Thursday, and it turned out to be a SNOW DAY!  The whole state is COVERED in snow, and we’re all in a state of emergency due to flooding, tornado warnings, and severe road conditions!  And I came here thinking that this would be a mostly dry climate (and apparently, so did all my friends from all different states!).  Pssh.

The snow day started off for Hall 1 at one thirty in the morning.  Someone had set off the fire alarm, and so our whole hall got to see the first snow.  For half an hour.  It was freeeeezing.  Anyway, people were having snowball fights in pajamas and taking pictures while security had to call the fire truck because, from what I could tell, they couldn’t find the right key.  So that was the morning of the snow day.

This picture was taken at one thirty in the morning.

When I woke up, the snow had multiplied by three!  I called the Weather Emergency Hotline for ERAU, and…. OFFICIAL FIRST SNOW DAY!! 

Before…

AFTER!!!

A couple of my friends and I ate at Chartwell’s then decided to build a snowman in the parking lot.  His name is…er, WAS,… Frosty!  And his dog’s name was Fido.  I know…. so original huh?

Fido wasn’t born yet in this picture.  He came later. 🙂

It rained heavily for the rest of the day, and it washed away ALL of the snow!  So that night, a few of my other friends and I decided to be brave (or stupid) and go bowling!  However, the bowling alleys were smarter than we were, and they were closed for the night.  So we went to the Harkins in Prescott Valley to see Avatar in 3D!  I definitely recommend it, by the way.  We drove safely home, though, even though it was raining like crazy.

We thought we were pretty safe in saying that we’d have school the next day, because all the snow was gone.  But the next day…….

“Oh the weather outside is frightful…”  Haha!

Wow… second semester is here already!  It’s weird having breaks in between classes this semester, because last semester I had four classes a day twice a week.  Now I have a three hour break until my Business Statistics class!  Perfect time to squeeze in a blog. 🙂

My winter break was fabulous!  (And unfortunately, I can’t seem to get my Polar Express pictures off of my email right, so I can’t post those.)  Christmas Eve was spent with my Grandma Jo (my dad’s mom) in Mesa, AZ.  It was so much fun to see all of my cousins and aunts and uncles, and of course, my grandma!  Her apartment was decorated to the “T” and it was just the thing to keep the Christmas spirit flowing.  We opened presents we gave to each other, ate popcorn from the huge cylinder tins (Christmas tradition…my cousin Kreston and I were the only ones eating the cheese ones!), and ate tons of food!  It was awesome!  Later that night, my family and I drove back to Coolidge to spend the night and Christmas with my MOM’s parents.  We listened to Sirius Radio, and the Bing Crosby Christmas Eve show was on the radio!  It was wholesomely funny, and we loved it.

Christmas Day was so much fun.  My siblings and I forgot our stockings, so we used Wal-Mart sacks to stuff (hehe) and we got candy, clothes, and … MOVIES!  I brought all of them to ERAU with me, actually!  But poor Landon had his wisdom teeth taken out a few days before, and he had FOUR dry sockets.  The only time he smiled on Christmas was when my Grandma gave him a huge blanket she’d made for him.  And then he fell asleep on it for the rest of the day!

He felt better after he found out that Dad got a Wii Fit for Christmas!  Here we are doin’ our thing at our house a few days after Christmas.

The Christmas party at my Grandpa Gene’s house was so much fun too!  On the 26, my family (minus Landon and my mom, who stayed with him) went back to Snowflake to hang out with them.  Lots of cousins, food, and sledding took place, and it was just too fun!  I love everybody!

And here’s Landon trying to juggle.  It doesn’t have anything to do with anything, but I thought it was a cool picture!

The rest of the break was just a blur of family and friends, dances, game nights, and movie nights.  It was kind of sad to come back to Prescott after such a long time of being with my family, but with all the classes I’m taking this semester, I doubt I’ll have any time to worry too much about it!  Eighteen credits, bring it on!

“I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind.  Some come from ahead and some come from behind.  But I’ve bought a big bat.  I’m all ready you see.  Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!”

-Dr. Seuss

Wow… three days until Christmas!!  Time sure flies when you’re surrounded by family and and old friends!  After finals, I left JUST before the storm hit Prescott (thank goodness I didn’t get stuck in that!) because my last final was on Monday the seventh.  I couldn’t go home however… there was too much snow on the road in my hometown of Pinetop, AZ.  So I went to Coolidge to hang with my grandpa for a few days while the storm died down.  I am VERY grateful that I went there instead of home; my family at home didn’t have power for the three days I was in Coolidge!  The storm eventually died down to the point that I could take my Saturn wagon home without the fear of sliding off the road, and so I am home!  Yay! 

I have had a blast since I’ve been home.  My friend and I were able to go on the actual Polar Express Train in Williams, AZ, which really isn’t that far from Prescott.  It was SO much fun!  We went on a train ride, got cookies and hot chocolate, saw Santa (I know!), and both got bells that to my great relief we could hear!  Haha!  If that didn’t put me in the Christmas spirit, I don’t know what would!  Williams is a very cute town as well.  The train that we rode on was built in the 1930’s, and the train station was lit up with lights EVERYWHERE.  I’d never been to a train station before so the experience was great!  There were lights all over the town, reflecting even more in the snow.  It was just like Christmas in the storybooks!

 I don’t have the pictures yet, but I wanted to say how awesome it was, and I’ll post pictures in my next blog. 🙂

I went to my church Christmas party with my family too, which was so fun because I got to see some of my friends from high school.  We talked and caught up with each other and we all had a blast.  There was lots of food and desserts and the original Christmas nativity play put on by the youth of our church.  It was strange not being actually IN it this year… THAT definitely made me feel old!  It was a wonderful evening that put everyone in the Christmas spirit.

My dad, Landon, Lexie, Levi and I all went to see The Christmas Carol, in 3D, and it was a really good movie.  The 3D effects were amazing, and the story itself is SO accurate to the original book by Charles Dickens that it is just amazing.  I definitely was in the Christmas spirit already, but this movie helped remind me of the true meaning of Christmas that I had somewhat forgotten.  Levi didn’t like it because it was scary, but I thought it was a good movie!!

It has been fun hanging out with my siblings again.  I didn’t realize how much I missed them until I came home.  We have done so much stuff together.  My favorite is going to The Princess and the Frog movie… three times!  I LOVE that movie!  It’s Disney at its old-school best, and since I’m a diehard Disney fan anyway, I just can’t get my hands off it!

New favorite movie.  End of story.

So in a nutshell, my break is going great, and I hope all of your breaks are going great as well!  So Merry Christmas everyone!

It has been a busy couple of weeks!  I had to register for classes, get appointments with my academic advisors, and try to figure out what classes I should take.  Thank goodness for volleyball; because I’m an athlete, I got to register for classes before everyone else, even the seniors!  Yeah!  Because of the twelve credits I took this past semester, I’m taking eighteen credits just to catch up!  Next semester is going to be quite fun.

Last weekend, I surprised my little brother by coming home on his ninth birthday!  He’s getting so big!  Levi was so excited to have me be his “birthday present”.  The weekend was really fun, and I got to be a part of the traditional pick-your-own-present-at-Wal*Mart process.  He chose a crayon maker, which melts different crayons together and molds them into new crayons.  So as a result, Levi and I colored all weekend with cool, multi-colored crayons, and therefore had many discussions on whether crayon was pronounced “cray-on” or “crown”.  The sad part is, I’m the one who says “crown”.  It’s how I learned it!  Don’t judge!  Ha.  Just kidding.  You can judge if you want to.  I know it’s pathetic.

On Tuesday night, I started a new tradition.  My suitemate and I went over to Steven’s dorm (yes, Steven Leon, he’s a blogger too!) and watched a new TV series called “V”.  It’s about aliens, and I thought that it would be kinda cheesy, but I’m in love!  Then again, I’ve been in a stage where I’m fascinated by aliens, so I might be a little biased.  Nah.  I’m in love.

My suitemates and I also went to the midnight premiere of New Moon, (yes, I’m one of THOSE people), and had a great time!  We watched Twilight on my laptop while we waited for the movie to start, which was a pretty good idea if I do say so myself!  Everyone else was jealous. 🙂

This past weekend, Anna and I were able to go to Paradise Valley and watch our old high school football team play in the semifinals against Florence, who is my mom’s alma mater high school.  It was kind of funny to think about that!  We went to our friend’s apartment, who lives five minutes away from the school, and saw a few of our other friends from high school who live in the valley now.  It’s interesting looking at the situation from different viewpoints: when I was in high school, I promised I’d never come to anything that had to do with my high school again, but now that I’m out, I go to everything I can!!  I wonder if all my friends who are still in high school think I’m crazy, too.

Well, this weekend is Thanksgiving break, so I get to go home for Turkey Day!  Yay!!  And my nineteenth birthday is on Saturday as well, so it’s just gonna be a great weekend!  Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Yeah… my family does NOT look like this at Thanksgiving.  Just FYI.  But it’s all I could find!  Ha!

“I think I’ve discovered the secret of life – you just hang around until you get used to it.”

-Charles M. Schulz

On Friday, November 6, the 1A-3A State Championships for volleyball were held IN PRESCOTT!  My former high school team, Blue Ridge, is 3A and so I got to see my team!!  Anna, Shaw, and I (Shaw just wanted to come and be introduced!) met the team at Texas Roadhouse on Thursday night.  There were LOTS of hugs, I-miss-you’s, and stories that night.  It was great to see all of my girls!  All the while we were talking, a guy was there who was making balloon animals.  Of course, as much as we all want to be mature and grow up, it never actually happens, and so he ended up making probably twenty balloons just for the Blue Ridge team (and Shaw!).  The poor guy’s fingers must have felt like the rubber balloons he was endlessly twisting.  The shapes varied from a monkey to a Ninja Turtle to a frog to Spiderman!  They were very well done, let me tell you!

Flashbacks hit me hard the next day, which was game day at Prescott High School.  As a senior playing volleyball last year, I remember walking into the very same gym for the state tournament.  The enormity of the gym, the dark wooden beams overhead that looked like a pattern on the ceiling, the stands filled with parents and loved ones who’d come to wish me luck.  That was even the exact day that I met my current coach, Coach Meyer.  I remember looking up into the stands every few minutes, watching her take notes, and when Anna and I finally met her, Anna told her that volleyball “wasn’t her thing”!!  Well, she immediately took that back when she realized that this was the volleyball coach we were talking to, and proceeded to tell her that volleyball was her passion!!  Haha!

Anna and I signing our letters of intent.

This is a picture of my team last year, my senior year in high school.

The rest is history.  Like a deja vu, I imagined all this in the first two minutes I was in the gym.  Anna, Shaw, Laura and I (Blue Ridge was playing Laura’s alma mater, Fountain Hills) cheered our lungs out and had a great time.

After the game, which unfortunately gave Laura bragging rights on Anna and I, I was able to stay and talk with some of my best friends from high school.  We exchanged stories, jokes, the latest “who’s-with-who” news, and quoted movies.  I was so happy that I was able to meet up with them!  I LOVE MY GIRLS! 🙂

“People never know how special someone is until they leave, but maybe sometimes its important to leave, so they are given that chance to see how special that someone really is!”
–  Ali Nitka

After my volleyball team’s last game in Tucson last Friday, I went with my mom, brother, and grandparents to my grandparents’ house in Coolidge, which is about an hour away from Tucson.  Saturday morning, I made a spur of the moment decision to go home with my mom and brother for Halloween!  I surprised the heck out of my little brother and sister!  Levi was the Joker; he’s been in a Batman phase for about a year now, so it didn’t surprise me to see him in his adorable orange vest and green hair.  What DID surprise me was my sister!  She had stayed up all night the night before, watching a YouTube how-to-do-Michael-Jackson’s-Thriller-dance!  She had it NAILED!  And, for the sake of Halloween, decided to paint her face too!

My dad and Levi are both “Joker”s.

Lexie dancing to “Thriller”.

Oh my gosh!  She’s almost as tall as me now!!

Levi had a “specially made by Mom” pocket in his vest to carry his “weapon”… silly string.

This is me going after Levi when he sprayed too much silly string in my hair.  You can’t see his face, but he was scared!

And this is me, Landon, Lexie and Levi!  Halloween… gotta love it!

Last night was the night for exploring downtown Prescott.  My suitemates and I were restless, and so we decided to take a visit to Whiskey Row to window shop.  We milled around the cute shops and the courthouse, and then we decided to explore the hotel that I had seen on TV as a “haunted hotel”.  (You know, Halloween specials and all that!)  Miranda, Lauren, (my suitemates), Christian (our neightbor), and I went into the lobby of the famous Hassayampa Inn just to check it out.  As a member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, it has been a hot spot ever since before the1920’s.  Clark Gable, Tom Mix, The Beach Boys and more famous people even stayed there!!  The part that interested me, though, was the part about a ghost named Faith.  As a young bride whose husband left her in the hotel room and never came back, Faith hung herself.  She’s been “seen” in various parts of the hotel, or so the story goes.  Me, I’m not a big believer in the paranormal, but then again I’d never been in a haunted hotel before.  Oh, well I have, but the Hollywood Tower of Terror in California Adventures doesn’t count!

After our not-so-close encounter, we came home and decided to watch a movie… Anastasia!  It was definitely a lot of fun.  What made it better is the fact that Lauren’s birthday was today, and so we decided to decorate her room with streamers and balloons and such.  Teri even put nineteen candles on a chocolate muffin for her!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!  WE KNOW YOU LOVE GETTING WOKEN UP AT SEVEN IN THE MORNING!!

Jammy time!

You go girl.

And so, life continues…

“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count.  It’s the life in your years.”

-Abraham Lincoln

My last blog was about our trip to Denver.  Well, I was so busy talking about Gina and Cassie’s baby, (hahaha, see last blog…), I forgot to mention one of the best parts of the whole trip!  Cassie’s family lives in Boulder, Colorado, and so on the first night, our whole team was invited to have dinner at Cassie’s family’s house!  It was so much fun going.  The suburbs where they live are beautiful, and the house is beautiful, on the outside and the inside.  We ate delicious lasagna, had salad and sushi, and ate pie.  Cassie’s older sister, Carly (sorry if I spelled that wrong) taught us a game kind of like pictionary that we played for probably forty five minutes.  Overall, it was amazing.  Thank you, Lacey family!

Our team’s next adventure was the next weekend in Houston, Texas.  Our games were being played at University of St. Thomas.  They were having all kinds of activities on campus that weekend, including family weekend (where they were serving free sno cones…yippee!!) and Dig Pink, (which we also hosted a couple days ago… I’m getting to that part!)  We lost, but it was a pretty good weekend overall.

The coolest elevator EVER!  Our hotel was bomb and even served snacks.  Muaahaahaa.

The Galleria is the biggest mall ever… the candy store was HUGE!  And there was even an ice skating rink on the bottom floor!  Exhibit A:

Our most recent competition was on Tuesday, when Embry-Riddle hosted the Dig Pink match to help raise awareness about cancer.  Teamed up with the Side Out Foundation, an organization that supports breast cancer research, Embry-Riddle and Yavapai College played a match to help.  There was a silent auction, cake, a chance to write a loved one’s name on a T-shirt and hang it up on the Activity Center’s wall, whether they are a survivor, still battling or in loving memory.  The stands were filled with pink T-shirts and ribbons, and people who came to support the cause.  It was truly amazing to see that much support all in one place. 

Our picture that was on the advertisement for the game….us short kids are in the back somewhere… trying to be serious, which was a difficult task indeed!

My Grandma Marilyn, my Aunt Carolyn, my Aunt Chickie and my friend and role model Sylvia Porter were all named on the program as fighters who battled the opponent named cancer.  Some have won the battle, some have not, and this page was dedicated to those who battled and who still are battling.

Even the teams competing wore pink T-shirts with sayings on them to show support.  It was a great experience to be a part of.  And on top of all that good stuff, it was a great game to watch!  We played hard, they played hard, and it was a great match.  We ended up going into five games, with ERAU winning the first two 25-23 and YC winning the next three.  Despite the outcome, I was proud of our performance.  We were a team.  And considering the cause, it was just a great night to compete and show our love for those who are having another kind of competition.

Tomorrow we leave for Tucson to play our last game against Pima Community College, and after Tuesday, seeing so many who have been effected by cancer, I feel so lucky to have the opportunity to play, to do what I love for just one more day.  What a beautiful thought.

“Life is full of beauty.  Notice it.  Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces.  Smell the rain, and feel the wind.  Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.”

-Ashley Smith

So my team and I just got back from our games in Denver today.  And guess what… WE WON!  BOTH GAMES!  Boo ya.  We played at Johnson & Wales University, which is a private Christian/Culinary school (who woulda thunk, right?), and we played both Johnson & Wales and Southwestern College, which is in Phoenix.  We had already played Southwestern and lost twice, so it was a big accomplishment for us to win.  We played as a team and the as hard as we could, and everyone felt that it was a game that was definitely up there in our top played games.

Here’s us when we first arrived in Denver, CO.

After our games, our team went to eat at Dave & Buster’s!  It was AMAZING.  It was my first time going there, and it reminded me of a Chucke Cheeses for big kids.  I had the teriyaki steak with mashed potatoes, which was probably the best meal I’ve eaten in weeks!  (Sorry Chartwells.)  After dinner we all took our game cards we got with our food and played games, got tickets, shot down zombies, played basketball, and took pictures.  Gina and Cassie set a trend and “made a baby”.  The photo booth takes both peoples’ pictures and “genetically” puts them together so that you could see what your baby looked like.  Here’s one of their three children (hehehehe).

It looks just like them, eh?

Even after a great weekend in Colorado, I’m happy to be back at ERAU!  Except for the whole coming-home-to-a-clogged-toilet part…maybe hotels aren’t so bad after all… 🙂