When I was a child, time seemed to go by so SLOWLY!!! It felt like forever in between my birthdays, Christmases, and summer vacations. The age old question of a child, "are we there yet" definitely applied to me. Now I cannot believe how quickly time is going! Seriously, wasn't it just Christmas of 2010? Now Christmas of 2011 is over, and it's about time to bring in the new year of 2012! How did I get soo old?! I was born in 1986 (this makes me 25 for all who are wondering...), how did we get out of the 80's, 90's, and the first decade of the 2000's??? Well...here are some highlights from this year:
January - I bought my last textbooks for college!!!
April - My little brother, David, left to serve a mission for the LDS church in Manaus, Brazil; took my last college finals!!!...but still, I have not graduated...
May - my mom and I got to go back to visit my mission :) we went to visit the Enriquez family, the first family that I taught and they got baptized - they are doing so amazingly well!! The son didn't get baptized while I was in that area, but he got baptized a short while later, and his father was able to baptize him; now they are preparing to be sealed together as an eternal family :)
June - my little sister - the youngest in my family - graduated from high school! It was a cool, but weird experience to watch my little baby sister walk across the stage in a cap and gown. For graduation, all she wanted was for us to go on a family vacation to Florida! Sweet! We got to go back and visit the neighborhood where we used to live, eat at our favorite restaurant, and go to Disney World and Harry Potter world!
July - I turned 25, and the final Harry Potter movie came out :) I love Harry Potter! I love magic! I've always thought it would be the coolest thing ever to be able to be able to fly and do magic; reading Harry Potter allowed my imagination to explore those thoughts and make them a reality in my head. The movies were good, too, but definitely not as good as the books.
August - I began my student teaching at Ecker Hills middle school in Park City, Utah; I was afraid to go to the middle school at first, but it turned out to be the best thing ever! I love middle school!!!
October - I finished at the middle school and switched over to Copper Hills high school in West Jordan, Utah; the high school was a totally difficult and more challenging experience, but I learned a lot.
December - I finished my student teaching, turned in my Teacher Work Sample, and graduated from BYU! I was pretty sure that I would never see the day that I was done with college, and could say that I am a college graduate, but it has come! It's definitelly exciting, but it's also really scary...now I have to get a "big girl job" as my friend, Emily C. would say; I know that I can do it, but that still means that I have to convince somebody else that I can do it, and that they should hire me; hopefully I can do that part :)
2012 will, undoubtedly, bring many challenges, many lessons, and many blessings. On my mission, I loved looking at my new planner at the beginning of a transfer and imagining the people and the experiences that would fill it; that's kind of how I feel about the coming of the new year - I don't know what's coming, but I'm excited to find out!
Happy New Year!!
