BYU Language Fair

This year I took my students to compete in the BYU Language Fair. What's that, you may be asking yourself. A headache, that's what. Haha, no it turned out to be a really good experience both for me and especially for my students. They weren't very excited about it to begin with but after going they said they really enjoyed it.

The Language Fair is a chance for students learning another language to compete against each other in skits, speeches, show & tell, funny stories, and trivia questions. We competed against 13 other high schools, even including 5A (we are only 2A). And check this out..... We took 3rd place! I was SO proud! I was literally shocked. We had spent tons of time in class preparing for the fair, but my students weren't doing what they were supposed to be doing and not showing up when they were supposed to to practice the skit. In fact I changed the lines of both skits the day before our competition, April 15, because it was way too long. They actually pulled off the skits very well and most of them had actually memorized their lines! They sure hadn't the day before! I just didn't expect them to be prepared. But in fact they were. I learned not to underestimate anyone in their capabilities. In fact, I got some compliments from the scoregivers saying how good my students did and they were the best speeched they had heard all day!

My Spanish 2 level even won the Language Bowl!! Champs! There is a language bowl for each lever (2, 3, 4, and native speakers) and they took first! It is a round of trivia questions that are asked, played against another school in bracket format. Again, I was estatic.

I ended up taking 84 Spanish students, on my own not to mention. It actually turned out quite well despite the tipped ration. Oh, and this was our first year to participate as well. Congratulations to my students!!

CALIFORNIA

Road trip! A bunch of friends and I all went to California last week for Spring Break. It was such a BLAST! I've never been on a trip with a huge group of friends and I was super excited. I was not disappointed. We spent a good 6 days together and totally rocked it.

We drove down Monday, then spent the next 2 and 1/2 days at Disneyland & California Adventure. There were 7 of us total and then one day we met up with another 3 friends in Disneyland. The park was open until midnight and we took full advantage. Unfortunately I couldn't avoid getting wet, in fact I got the worst wherever I sat, but Splash Mtn. and Grizzly River Run are well worth it! I even convinced most of them to go on the kiddie rides with me! They are my favorite! Peter Pan, Casey Jr. Circus Train, and even Autopia. I LOVE Autopia....no one else does. Haha! That didn't stop me! We even rode the teacups! Well, some of us.....the brave ones.

Thursday afternoon we went to Newport Beach to enjoy some fun in the sun. Abbey and I threw the football back and forth for a bit. I even got up to my shoulders wet and boy was it freezing! Well worth it.

We then went to the Angles vs. Twins baseball game that night. We had good seats too (at my request), 5th row behing 3rd base. Man, I LOVE baseball games! The atmosphere is awesome. You get the baseball, the crowd, the liveliness, and the crazy people around you. There was a Twins dude right in front of us drinking it up and egging on the crowd with boos and popcorn throwing. Entertaining to say the least. My favorite parts of baseball - soaking up the sun, eating sunflower seeds, and best of all...7th inning stretch!

We drove to San Diego that night and were originally going to go to the zoo, but we were all bombed from walking around Disneyland. So we decidced to take it easy.....sleep inn, pound a big breakfast at Denny's, stop at the temple, and spend the rest of the day at the beach. We were at La Jolla and ended up playing beach volleyball for 2-3 hours with UCSD college students. We wasted 'em! Haha! It was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, the clouds came in and we didn't get to stay for as long as I wanted.

Let me just say, I LOVE San Diego. Last time I was there, about 8 years ago, I remember it being flat and deserty. But it's totally not. It was gorgeous! Lots of hills and very green. I'm in love. And that may not be the only reason why :) See Facebook for more pictures!

Shout Out to my Bro. In Law!

Erik Loño. Probably my biggest fan! I think he's my only faithful reader and always asks when I'm going to post next. You can thank him.....he keeps me posting. He is an AMAZING artist and web designer. He's done a number of websites, but has also designed shirts, soccer shoes, etc. Take a gander at his website, where you can connect to all his work. A very talented dude! He also designed both my volleyball and basketball team shirts. Everyone loved them. The boys basketball team was super jealous :) Thanks Erik!

First Time Skiing EVER!

Oh my goodness! I've never had so much fun! A few friends and I all went skiing up at Alta 2 weeks ago Saturday. They have a free lift open from 3-5 pm. It was craziness! We rented our skiis before going up and the dude just had to scare us by asking if we knew what happened up there the day before. Apparently "BigFoot" had taken somebody out. Haha, he knew I didn't believe him so we were giving each other a hard time. It was legit, they just didn't know what took the dude out.

Anyway, I've always been SO scared of going skiing. For those of you who know me well know that I LOVE to do new and daring things. That's pretty much all I did in high school was dares. Ok not really. That's exaggerating, but I like doing new and exciting things. BUT for some reason I've always been super scared to go skiing. You are just flying down this super steep hill.......craziness! I thought wrong though! I loved it! I thought I picked it up pretty good too, although I struggled controlling my speed a bit at first.

So right after I got my skiis on and got to the tow rope, I started getting light headed and felt like I was going to pass out. I had to sit for a few minutes until I felt normal again. I guess it was the altitude. Laaaame. Haha! I went down the bunny hill 3 times and then it was off to the big ski run! Oh my gosh, the lift just kept going and going and going! But it was nothing to fear! I did pretty good for my first time skiing. But it was snowing pretty hard the whole time and we dind't have goggles so I pretty much couldn't see the whole time. Snowflakes were hitting me in the eye left and right and every other direction imaginable so my eyes were just watering the whole time not to mention my nose! Haha! Hey, I had no idea what idea was needed for skiing.....I'd never been before! That's excuse anyway :) One of the other girls and I ate it pretty hard one time going down a harder run.....right under the ski lift jam packed with people. Everyone just started laughing at us. Bahahaha! It was pretty funny. My beanie flew off and I looked like phantom hair. I've never been so wet before. BUT, like I said, I loved it!

Then the following Tuesday (week and a half ago) my brother, dad, and I all went night skiing up at Brighton. Now that was fun!! I got 8 solid runs in and even went down a couple blue hills! I'm moving up in the world! I did much better this time around and finally figured out how to turn better and even how to slow down. Yes, I finally figured it out even though I was pretty much snowplowing it the whole time :) Snowplow = sorer than imaginable muscles!

So apparently people starting out skiing have this great fear of falling down when they get off the ski lift at the end. I was not aware of this and had no problems at all. That is, until my brother got in my way.......down I went! Embarrassing, but hey, it wasn't my fault right?

My cross country skiing (all of the 2 whole times) was definitely a factor in me being able to pick it up so fast and maintain my balance. I'm glad I had that background. I plan on going downhill skiing again in the next few weeks before the season's up. Slopes, here I come!

The New Do

I changed up my hair color yet again. Before Christmas I dyed it pretty dark, almost black in fact. And I have NO idea why. Please don't let me do that again. Thank you! It faded to a nice shade of dark brown, which I really liked.

But it was growing out and time for some upkeep. I wanted to go a little lighter for the Spring and my hair dresser talked me into some highlights, but they were supposed to be barely noticeable, which it didn't turn out as such.

I do like that it's lighter and everyone tells me they like it, but you know......sometimes you just tell people you like their new do so they know that you noticed that they changed it, if that makes sense. Thus, I'm wondering how many of those compliments are deep down true to the heart :) Well, anyway, there's the new me! And um, sorry for the close-ups. Haha! Which do YOU like better? I need honest opinions here people!