Monday, December 29, 2008

College!

The time has come for me to decide where I want to go to college. Well, BYU is still my first choice but I also have other options. I haven't gotten rejections or acceptances from BYU yet but I am anxiously awaiting them. However, I would like to let you know about the acceptances that I have received. I have received an acceptance letter from Northern Arizona University (NAU). I was accepted into their Elementary Education Program which is what I want to go into. They also rewarded me with a $22000 scholarship for academic intesity in High School. I was very excited about this. This amount of money will definitely help influence where I choose to attend. NAU is located in Flagstaff, Arizona so it is not always hot. it actually snows in the winter. I think it would be a very nice place to go. I also got accepted to University of Portland (UP). They haven't offered me a scholarship yet but, after January 1st, I am able to apply for scholarships to that school. Before I make my decision I am going to research my different options and the quality of their education program. I will keep you posted on my decision.

My Christmas Traditions

This Christmas my family stayed home. We often go to Utah for the holidays but this time we went for Thanksgiving instead of Christmas. So we just had a nice Christmas with just my mom, my dad, me, Zach, Josh and Jackson.

Every Christmas Eve I plan a special program that we have before we go to bed that night. This time our friends Mary and Sasha Guzman came over and they ate our Christmas Eve dinner with us and then participated in the program. We sang Christmas songs, read the Christmas story in the Bible and played a game called "Christmas Cranium". Josh and I created this game together while we were stuck inside. We got 14 inches of snow (more snow than Washington has seen since 1861) so we stayed inside a lot of the time. Josh and I colored and created a game board and I created the cards. A lot of them weren't hard but it was still really fun and now mom says that it is going to be a new tradition from now on. Then, after the program we ate dessert and just hung out and talked with each other. Every Christmas Eve night my brothers and I sleep by the Christmas tree. We can do this because our Christmas tree is in the living room and our stockings are on the other side of the bottom floor in the family room.

On Christmas morning we woke up at 6:30 am. Mom decided to try out a new tradition and I don't think she really like it. She told us to get up at 6:30 in the morning and make her and my dad breakfast in bed. Then, we would take the breakfast up to them and they would eat while we opened our stockings. However, I don't think she liked it very much because who's hungry at 7:00 in the morning? So, after we opened our stockings we went downstairs and opened our presents. We always take turns opening presents and we only open one at a time (the order is: Jackson, Josh, Zach, Me, mom, and dad). This year I got a few cool presents. I got a Nintendo DS and games for it. I also got the Twilight Soundtrack and a $15 Itunes Gift card. WE also got a lot of board games and a couple Wii games including Are you smarter than a 5th grade (Thank you Aunt Linda!) It was a really good Christmas. Then, after we open all of our presents we are just lazy ALL day. We sit around and play with the presents we got and mom sets some munchies out on the counter that we eat throughout the day. I always look forward to our family traditions every year.