We have a new assistant coach this year, Jill.  I can’t remember how to spell her last name or else I would write it…

We also have three new freshman.  Mahina Fa’amoe (?), Precious Tulilu, and Morgan Veiria.  And even though Precious isn’t technically on our team anymore due to school issues, I still consider her a part of our team!!  Precious and Mahina are both from West Valley, Utah (and oddly enough they also went to the same high school together), and Morgan is from Las Vegas.

Speaking of Las Vegas, we had to make a stop there on our flight to Texas for the Coca-Cola Classic Tournament hosted in Plainsview.  We flew from Phoenix to Vegas, then from there to Lubbock, TX.  I have to say, the  artistically painted bull statues outside of every business in town definitely made my day… every day!

Here’s one we had to ride on outside of a Chicken Express (obviously).

McDonald’s had a big AND a little one!!  Cute.

We thought a little straw chewin’ was appropriate.  Laura and Sarah thought that using the local accent was appropriate too, (and so cool to use), so they used it.  Everywhere we went.  So.  Awesome.

If you can, imagine this conversation at Sonic with Laura and Sarah using heavy southern accents.

Laura- “Uh yeah, can I have an orange creamsicle, in my mouth.  One GRAPE DRANK, and one caramel sundae.  Oh wait!  Do y’all have caramel Tuesdays?!  What about caramel Fridays?!”

Laughter from inside the Sonic building.  Everyone is listening to this crazy girl ramble.

Sarah- “Are y’all from around here?”

Classic.

Oh yeah.  And we played volleyball too.  Here’s our fabulous team lookin’ spiffy in our game (courtesy of Julie Lacey, of course!)

Now we’re just training once a day due to the start of school!  YAY SCHOOL!!  (You know you go to Riddle when… yeah.)

My classes I’m taking for my GSIS major are:  History of Terrorism, Mandarin Chinese 101, Intelligence Writing, Plant Biology, and World History.  I love all of my classes!  I know that they’ll be tough though, so I’m ready!  I LOVE MY MAJOR!  This is exactly why I came to Riddle.  Thanks to all of my professors and classes, I know what my career path will be and how I’m going to get there.  And I’m excited for the future, because I know I’ll be where I want to be.

“Dreams are like stars… you may never touch them, but if you follow them they will lead you to your destiny.”

-Anonymous

This is our living room.  HAHA!  Just kidding.  This is the office where we signed our papers.  I learned that my dad isn’t that bad of a photographer. 

After our signing, my dad and I met up with the rest of my family in Jerome, about an hour and fifteen minutes away from Prescott.  The drive is GORGEOUS!  When we got there, we explored a little of the historic town.

My momma.

The next day, the camp started.  The girls had a lot of fun while working hard and making friends.  I made friends, too!  I met really awesome people who were coaches and really awesome girls who were loads of fun!  We even had a talent show in the dorms that night.  Granted, we only had one dance, but still!

One session was a beach session.  Here’s my lil sis Lexie getting ready to kick some butt in the sand!

Right after we got home from the Take Flight camp, we packed up and left for… LAKE POWELL!!  WOOOOO! 

It was amazing.  I got to see all my family and it was a great family vacation for everybody.  And I didn’t even get that sunburned this year.  A-HA.

My summer was every bit as long and relaxing as I could have hoped.  And now that I’ve had my fabulous summer vacation, I’m ready for preseason.  Next Friday, I leave for Prescott, and then volleyball starts! 

“Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability.”

-Sam Keen

This past week, Lexie’s team played in the District tournament for softball.  It was a blast helping my dad coach and to get to hang out with all my girls again.  They played great, but unfortunately lost in the finals to Taylor, a town about forty five minutes away.  The tournament was in Winslow though, and even though I’d been there a million times for all sorts of sports games and such, I got to explore the culture and history a little more this time.  My family and I explored the famous La Posada Hotel.  It was built in the 1930′s, and it’s gorgeous!  There’s an art gallery in one of the main sections, a restaurant, a gift shop full of brightly colored things from all over the world, AND a hotel part where famous people (Jimmy Stewart, for one) stayed in.  I loved it.  It was so rich in culture, and just dripping with history.

That’s the restaurant, called The Turqoise Room.  Below is the fabulous gift shop.  Amazing, right?

So that was my adventure in Winslow.  Who knew that Arizona’s oldest towns could be so cool?  I’ll have to snoop around Prescott a little more to see if I can find somewhere cool like the La Posada!

Speaking of Prescott, I’m going down there with my little sis this weekend to go to the Embry-Riddle Take Flight Volleyball Camp.  Lexie will be participating, and I’ll be helping to coach the girls who come.   And after that, LAKE POWELL!! WOOOO HOOOO!  Wish us luck!!

“If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.”

-Pearl Buck

Here are all of my girls on my sister’s softball team.  Gosh how I love those goofballs!

This is Anna, Jerem and I at Jerem’s graduation.  We all played Co-Ed volleyball together when Anna and I were juniors, and he and our other friend Shelby were sophomores.  Luckily we all still stay in touch!  Shelby just got married, as a matter of fact!  She’s Mrs. Murphy now.  It’s so crazy how everyone grows up so fast.

And here is what I’ve been doing all day today.

I have been sleeping pretty much all day as a result of my ward’s twenty four hour scripture reading, causing me to miss my sleep!  We read the whole Book of Mormon in twenty four hours, and it was so much fun to see all of my church girls and to have the opportunity to be invited to help read to them.

Levi and I also decided that we are going to watch all of the movie classics that we love…

…so we’d better get started!!

This is what Landon, Levi and my dad are doing right this SECOND.

If you can’t tell, all three of them are glued to the Celtics/Lakers Finals game.

So this is basically my summer so far!  I hope that everyone out there is having as great of a summer as I am!

“To see the Summer Sky is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie- True Poems flee.”

-Emily Dickenson

Tip #1:  If you are living in the dorms, make sure that you or one of your future suitemates brings a vacuum, broom, dustpan, etc.  You WILL need them sooner or later (it’s your choice if it’s sooner, or later.  My advice?  Sooner.)  Listen to your mom about this stuff.  She’s right.  (And don’t think that if you’re a girl, your room won’t get dirty.  Girls’ dorms were typically just as bad or worse than the boys’ dorms.)  If you decide to ignore these essentials, bring Plan B: a gas mask and rubber gloves.  You’ll need them.  Trust me.

Tip #2:  DO YOUR HOMEWORK.  End of story.

Tip #3:  Chartwell’s is delicious the first week.  Don’t be fooled.  As soon as all the parents leave, you’ll be going to Fry’s to get Ramen and Easy Mac because you’ll get sick of the same thing every day.

Tip #4:  Go do something fun every once in a while.  Hike the Dell’s, go check out downtown Prescott, see a movie, go out to eat with your suitemates; do something fun to help you get adjusted better.  The more you get to know the town and your suitemates, the more comfortable you’ll be.

Tip #5:  If you’re going to burn your food, PLEASE, for the sake of everyone living in your hall, DO NOT WAIT UNTIL TWO THIRTY IN THE MORNING TO TRY TO MAKE IT!!  If you don’t know how to make Ramen or Mac and Cheese, practice now.  The rest of us, er, your hall, would really appreciate not waking up and having to go out in the snow in the wee hours of the morning due to a fire alarm set off by stupidity.

Tip #6:  Get to know the people around you.  Your neighbors down the hall, the kids in your Psychology class, your professors, everyone you possibly can.  The more people you know, the better off you’ll be in the end.  (Especially when you need help in your Psych class… you’ll always have someone to call!)

Tip #7:  Cheap toilet paper is no where as good as expensive toilet paper, but they’re much better than paper towels.  However, if you’re going to use paper towels, DO NOT FLUSH.  Bad things happen.  True story.  Don’t ask.

Tip #8:  Make sure to have a planner.  Even if you don’t write anything down, it’s fun to doodle on it when you’re bored in class!  In high school, I never ever used a planner, because my teachers always told me when the assignments were due.  Professors at ERAU expect you to be an adult and be prepared, so you’re on your own.  Having a planner makes it easy to stay on top of things and turn in assignments when they’re due.

Tip #9:  Flexi dollars disappear at the end of the semester, and don’t carry over to the next one.  Use it all!  And if you haven’t used it all and there’s a week left, splurge.  It’s finals week: you deserve it.  I didn’t know they didn’t carry over until it was finals week, so I got loads of ice cream, chips, and sandwiches just in time for my finals.  It worked!

Tip #10:  And last, but not least: this first year goes by so fast.  Some of it you’ll be miserable, some of it you’ll want to never end, but none of it will last forever.  So enjoy it while you got it!  You’ll be glad you did.

Here’s a glimpse of what it looked like!

Anna, Kelsey, and I in our killer uniforms (in which we won the costume contest!!).

You can’t tell, but we wrote “Neon Phenomenon” on the front with our “numbers” on the back.  Since all the rest of my team are engineers and meteorologists, they thought it’d be cool to make our numbers math signs.  Anna was pi, Kelsey was infinity, Sylvia was i (imaginary), Shaw was some binary number, Mahlet was a whole freaking equation that equalled seven, and I was mu.  Hahaha.  Only at Riddle….

D kept score on a fancy lit up board.

And of course, people just came to watch and dance.  Teri and Gianna came, and it was nice of them to cheer for our team!

That was a great way to start off finals week.  The day after that, Friday, I spent twelve hours in the library to get ready for Saturday.  It was an insanely long day, obviously!  But I think I did well on my finals, both on Saturday and yesterday, so I’m ready to get my last two out of the way today so I can pack up my room and clean out our dorm!  Summer’s almost here, baby!

“Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.”

-William James

Here are about twenty zombies waiting outside a math classroom for one human.  I’m the one on the cement to the left who is standing on the sidewalk, arms crossed, waiting to pounce on her prey.  Hehe.  Unfortunately, after an hour of waiting for this kid (since we weren’t allowed to tag him inside), he escaped as our backs were turned.  So, super-ninja-human guy, kudos to you.  Touche.

That was one of the best times that I’ve had at Riddle, and it is probably going to be a semesterly thing.  So any of you prospective students out there reading this, make sure you come prepared!

This past weekend, after the humans won the game, I went to the comedian and then dinner with my friends Teri, Will, Chris, Andrew, Gianna, Tony, and John.  We went to Bill’s Pizza on Whiskey Row, and had a blast.  We then decided to go see a movie afterwards, so we decided to go see “The Losers”.  I thought that it was a pretty good movie.  That was a good night!  The next day, my institute was having a BBQ and kickoff for summer at Watson Park.  We had water balloons, capture the flag, ultimate frisbee, and more games!  It was a BLAST!   The weather was beautiful, so afterwards, my friends Katie and Tyler and I all went and hiked some of the rocks there at Watson Lake.  The view was amazing, and we weren’t the only ones who decided a nice little hike would be fun.  The rocks were teeming with students who wanted to just get out.

Here are the Dells at Watson Lake.  Beautiful, right?  And we went at sundown.  Perfect timing.  <3

Many movies with best friends and many fun activities later (dang, I’ve done a lot since Saturday!), I’m sitting in my room trying to put off studying for my finals, which at this point, I really can’t avoid anymore.  So until next time, adieu!

“Friendship isn’t a big thing- it’s a million little things.”

-Author Unknown

Here’s me setting Andrew, who was on my team and also goes to Riddle.

The team on the left is our Prescott team; the one on the right is a team from Flagstaff.

I had so much fun with everyone in my ward and getting to hang out with Becky just made it that much better!! <3

Yesterday, a week from when I went to Flagstaff, I worked Student Preview Day with all the other students who work in Admissions.  I had a fun time working it, seeing all the prospective students coming through with their parents and siblings just like I did exactly one year ago!  And the circle of life continues…

The whole campus was teeming with high school seniors and their families, coming to see ERAU.  The weather was GORGEOUS, there were balloons everywhere, and there were even helicopters in front of the Activity Center and on the softball field! (Or baseball field, whichever you prefer.  I prefer softball personally.  )

I was lucky, and Steven Leon and I got to give away free T-shirts to all the students who came through the Lower Hangar to see all the clubs in the Club Fair.  There were so many clubs, including the sororities/fraternities, the Underwater Robotics Club, the Sweatervest Club, the Music Club, and so much more.  The choir was singing, the band was playing, and there was just a great community atmosphere.  We had a BLAST doing it.  I’ll admit, things got a little crazy, and that’s what makes it fun!  Here’s a pic of our CRAZINESS.

We took a picture with Ernie the Eagle so we could blog about it.  VOILA.

And that is basically what has happened in the past two weeks!  Fun stuff, let me tell ya!

“What you see is what you get.”
- Flip Wilson

Full House is an absolute favorite at my house.  Whenever I talk to my nine year old brother on the phone, he asks, “Have you seen the Full House where…” and explains pretty much the whole episode if I haven’t seen the one he’s talking about.  Actually, last year at my Homecoming when I was being nominated for Queen, they asked questions about me.  While all the other nominees said that their favorite shows were from MTV and such, I straight up said that my favorite show was Full House.  It probably got me some snickers, but I didn’t care!  (or maybe that’s what helped me win, who knows?)  So I was jazzed last night when I got to see “Uncle Joey” in person!!  He was soooo funny too.  I laughed so hard that I felt like a six pack was coming on!  Impersonations, jokes, harmonica playing… it was all there!  And now my life is complete.

And here he is!  The man!

After the show, a couple of my friends and I went to dinner at “B-Dubs” (or, for non-local folk, Buffalo Wild Wings).  It was soo good!  I had honey BBQ boneless wings while we watched MLB baseball on the huge screen next to us.  It was a blast just chillin’ and eating and all that good stuff.  So, overall, yesterday was not only beautiful and warm outside, it was filled with laughter, fun, and good food!  What could be better than that?

“Cut it out!”

-Joey Gladstone (Dave Coulier)

This is the Windmill House, located in Chino Valley, AZ.  This resort hosts weddings, anniversaries, parties of every type, and this year, AFROTC’s Dining Out! 

They have a cool little bridge that leads to a little dock overlooking the lake and a little gazebo next to the dock.  It is SO pretty!  The inside is gorgeous as well!  The tables were all covered with a navy blue tablecloth, except for one; this table had a white tablecloth, reserved for POWs and MIAs.  On it was a single rose, glasses sitting upside down, and different hats, to honor those people who are fighting for our country and who are not able to reap the benefits.  On one side of the room was the Head Table, where the, well, head people sat!  (I’m really sorry I’m not using the right lingo here: I’m only guessing at the terms from what I heard that night!) 

In the middle of the room, separating one side from the other, sat the table with the GROG.  I have no idea how it came to be, but in the midst of this formal dinner sat a trash can filled with all sorts of nasty stuff that different flights brought for unlucky victims to drink (the GROG).  Apparently, every flight brings some sort of (edible) thing that starts with the same letter their flight does.  (For example, Foxtrot (?) would bring french vanilla to add to the GROGgy concoction).  After the meal was finished, there was a sort of competition.  To make someone drink the GROG, a person would go up and say a poem inviting that person to drink it.  The victim has one minute to come up with a rebuttal poem, and if it’s not good enough, well, then they get to drink it!  That was extremely entertaining!  (I tasted some of the GROG though, and it was actually pretty good because everybody brought fruit punch to put in it!  So, it was basically fruit punch.  How terrible.)

Anyway, that was my experience at Dining Out, which I found to be very fascinating!  I felt honored to take part in such a cool tradition held by ERAU.