Act of Service for the Day!

Today my roommate Jasmine and I were outside shoveling out my car. We are chugging along and low and behold, this kind man comes up to us and asks if he can help. He shoveled both sides of my car out and helped clean it off. It was done so much faster because of him and the fact that he knew what he was doing. I couldn't help but smile after this. All I could think about was, there are good people in the world still. I don't know this man, but he lives near me in my complex, but I am very grateful for the service he provided me today.

Baby Maley

I would like to welcome into the world, my new neice

Maley Susan Allred.

She was born on Friday night, Jan 15 and was 6 lbs 9 ounces and 19 inches long. I'm so excited to have another neice!

Happy New Year!

First off I want to say

Merry Christmas

and

Happy New Year!

I had a wonderful time with my family and friends over the holidays and I'm so glad that I was able to share the special time of the year with them. But now I'm back at school and have realized that this is the "New" time. Everything is starting over fresh. There is a new year, a new semester, a new job, new classes, new people to meet, etc. It is an excellent time to make and set goals and start doing things better in my life. Today, my Relief Society lesson was on being proactive and making goals in our lives. Being proactive means that you think about the choice you are making before you make it. It is not just reacting to the things that are happening, but being conscience of your choices and trying to make good ones. And part of this is making goals and striving to accomplish them. These goals should not only be in the most apparent parts of our lives, but in every part. She said that we should all make goals in these catergories:

• spiritual

• physical

• emotional

• relationships

• mental/educational

These are all areas in life that often need to be worked on to become better in my life. So I've decided to make goals for this semester ad actually follow through with them. I am going to make them in this week before school starts.

And on that note, I want to say on with a new year and a new semester!

Done!

I finished my third semester of college! Sometimes I don't feel old enought to have done that, but low and behold, I have accomplished it! It's been crazy, but a lot of fun! Here are some things that I have been doing the past semester (Not including my school work and hours of practicing and rehearsals):

Sedona

I went to Sedona with a friend of mine on what we thought was the last warm Saturday before winter. I rode his ATV and he rode his dirtbike down a dirt road that went from 5 minutes out of Flagstaff to Sedona. The road went along a canyon that had the famous red rocks of Sedona. It was so pretty and fun!

Snow Days!

This past week was finals and with that came a blizzard! It was snowing all day Monday. It was literally snowing from the time a woke up that morning until I went to bed that night. That resulted in campus being closed half-way through that day and the next, which meant..... FINALS WERE CANCELLED!!!!! I had 3 of my 6 finals on those two day and then one of my teachers was snowed in and couldn't come on Wednesday. So I only took 2 of my 6 finals. It was the most amazing finals week of my life! Because of the constant snow fall and blizzard (yes there was a blizzard) we accumulated quite a bit of snow.

Here's my car Monday night, and this is after cleaning it off once already that day!

This was Monday night when my good friend Troy took some of us on a drive. He stopped suddenly in a parking lot, opened the door and jumped in the snow. He literally disappeared in the snow. So after that we all took turns jumping in the snow. This is me in action! jumping in the snow!

Homecoming Parade Float!

The LDSSA decided to actually be a part of the school year and make a float for the homecomeing parade. The theme for this year was blast from the past, so we made a giant lumberjack from the 70's and gave him an ax in one hand and a "number one" finger in the other. It was awesome!

Giant Holiday Card Contest!

The Front!

Another thing that the LDSSA participated in was a giant holiday card contest. There is a Christmas Tree with people of different nationalities holding hands around it. We also recorded ourselves singing Silent Night in different languages so have play "from the card". Unfortunately, the music part ended up not working, but we had an awesome pop-up giant holiday card! Oh and we won first place in the contest!

Locket Meadow!

We went hiking at Locket Meadow with some friends from my ward. It was the time of year when the leaves were changing colors, but haven't fallen off yet. It was so pretty! And it was good to go hiking! I love being able to spend time in nature, especially when it's in the trees and vegetation that doens't exist back at home.

Winter Formal!

Every winter, the Institute Women's Asssociation pus on a formal guy-ask-girl dance for the institute. I actually asked someone and went this year! (I'm still proud of myself for that). The theme was Come Sail Away, so the stake center was decorated to look like a cruise ship. It was cool! I asked a friend of mine named Jeph Hunt and had a blast!

My group (aka my roommies and their dates) all dressed up. It's always good for us girls to have an excuse to get all dressed up!

Me Jeph after dinner!

The date consisted of dinner, pictures, the dance, and then a movie to top it off! We had dinner in our apartment. We cooked these pizza roll type things. They are like cinnomon rolls, but with pizza toppings to go in them, and sauces to go ontop of them. They were really good! And we also made oreo truffles. AMAZING!!! And then the girls all changed into our dresses (because we didn't want to eat in them) and took pictures! Then we went to dance and had a blast dancing the night away!! Jeph's a goofy, but pretty good dancer. After we came back from the dance tired from dancing, we went to Jeph's apartment and watched UP!!!! I had never seen it before and loved it! It's so cute! And after that, it was the end and I had to go to bed because I woke up early the next day to help at Bishop's Store House. But the whole thing tons of fun and I'm so glad that I went! Oh and another thing about the whole thing was that it was raining off and on all day that day. It ruined my hair (well the fact that I had to wear it up and not down) and the ground was all wet, but like I said, it was still fun regardless!

Halloween!!!

Ok I know I already talked about Halloween, but here's somepictures of Katie and me, the farmer and her cow. I think the best part about being a cow was the fact that there was three other cows there! I thought that it was a pretty original costume, but I was wrong!

Cinder Hills!

I was also able to go to the Cinder Hills with my life-long friends Marc and Devon Johnson. They came up to Flagstaff for a weekend to get away from the valley and the heat and while there they invited us to go to the cinder hills with them. It was really fun! We climbed through the potato people and climbed up and flew down the hills of cinder! It was crazy because you literally sank into the cinder and you were jumping down. A really weird, but awesome sensation!

So that's some of the highlights of my life the past while. Now I'm back home for a few weeks before going back up and starting my new job at the ID card office on campus and a new semester!

My Life the Past Few Months

Sorry I'm so bad at posting, but here's a little about what I have been up to the past few months...

I've been pretty busy with school this semester so far. I'm taking 9 classes so it fills up quite a bit of time

The beginning of October, I had the privilege to go to Utah with my parents and attend general conference there. It was a wonderful experience that I will always remember. The spirit was so strong there. I'm so grateful to have prophets and apostles on the earth today and to be able to receive council and guidance from them in our day.

Another wonderful adventure that I was able to go on was climbing up a radio tower. My friend Ammon planned this adventure to go to a radio tower. We drove there a little ways away and then walked up a road to it. It was so tall, but we climbed up the ladder. I only made it about a third of the way up because I'm kind of chicken, but it was a great view of the trees from where I was at. It was a lot of fun!

Halloween was also very fun! There was a dance at the institute that we all dressed up for and partied at. I dressed up as a cow, and my roommate Katie Wilson was a farmer. My costume rocked! (Not gonna lie, I felt pretty stupid wearing it) But guess what?! There were 3 other cows there! Who dresses up as a cow? But the dance was a lot of fun!

Thats my life right now in a nutshell. Not anything too exciting. Sorry I don't have any pictures right now, but I will put some up soon!