Christmas Eve!!!

This year has gone by soooo fast. School feels like it is zooming by. But once we got off school for that extra week before Christmas Break, the days have been going by really slow. I guess it was because we were all stuck at home. Even now, we can't go anywhere with out sliding all over the roads. So sometimes I will go with my dad to the post office, just so i can get out of the house for a little while. But yesterday, Hope and I went to our friends house that is just down the road and we talked for what felt like 5 hours. That was a good way to pass the time :)

Just the other day we went out in the snow shovel our sidewalks and driveway. Just shoveling snow would be fine, but there was an ice layer in the middle that made it heavier. My arms and shoulders are still sore from it.

(Me holding a chunk of ice)

We cleared the snow off of the the top and bottom of the ice layer to show the arch it made. You can see how much we cleared of from just one side of the car. That is a lot of snow!!!

Climbing this mound of shoveled snow was very difficult for me! I kept falling through, and it took a while till I made it to the top. So here we are posing after our victory.....

(jumping for joy!)

And now it is christmas eve!!! I can't believe that Christmas is tomorrow. We have tried many times to get our parents to agree to have a Mexican Christmas, or even celebrate it on monday, but they didn't want too. So Iguess we will just have get them up extra early for presents!

Work, Work Work!!!

Lately have been working quite a bit. I haven't worked everyday, but enough that I am making some money. But I work for this elderly lady in my ward. She has me come over and clean her floors for her, because she has a bad back.

This 409 spray has been what I have had to use the entire time I have been at her house cleaning. She has me get down on my hands and knees, spraying this chemical on her floors, and then using paper towels to wipe it up. I am no complaining though, because it pays better than babysitting!!! lol


Recently, I have thought about looking for an actual job. My school has all of these trips that they take kids on in the summer time. I really would like to save up to go to Costa Rica, or even Europe! If I want to go on one of these trips, I figured I would have to save about 400 a month, for about a year, to have enough money. We will have to see how that works out, once I find a job. But until then, I will continue to clean for this lady!


What was your first job, and how old were you when you had it?

My Best Friend!

I almost always straighten my hair in the morning, and i won't let my hair down unless it is straight! My hair has this funky wave to it when I let it air dry, but it is blow dried it is a poofy mess. So my flat iron is my best friend!
Recently, my old cheap flat iron's ceramic coating started to chip away. I just ignored it, until the ceramic coating was almost gone. I noticed that it made my hair frizzy, and it wasn't as smooth and shiny as it had originally been. So my parents went out and splurged on a more expensive iron. I LOVE this Sedu iron! It is amazing! I am now able to straighten my hair faster, and it leaves my hair shiny! And the best part is that my hair stays straight for so much longer! Does anyone else have that problem? My hair would be straight for a couple of hours in the morning, and then POOF!!! it starts to curl. lol I guess it is just the moist air up here.

Oregon Primate Research Center

Wednesdays are our activity nights at the church, and we decided that for the activity, we would go to the OHSU Primate Research center.

I had no idea that we even had a Primate center so close to us, so it was quite an experience. I told my mom that I would probably never see that many monkeys at the same time in my entire life! We saw the Rhesus Monkeys first (see picture below). There were about 150 of them in a huge outdoor area. It was fun to watch them all play, and the babies were really cute. The tour guide told us that they live to be only about 8 or 9 in the wild, but here they are living to be double that age. The guide told us that in Seattle there is a male monkey that is 45 years old. She also said that these monkeys were bred specifically for the research. They didn't take any from the wild. Overall they have about 3,000 monkeys.
Next we went and saw some more monkeys. They were another kind of Rhesus, but I can't remember the full name. They were climbing all over the cages, and they had even more babies in their cages. She said that by 2 days old the babies are able to jump and climb around without falling. They were very curious, and the all found their "Buddies" (as the tour guide would say), and sat next to each other while we watched. Below is a picture of the cages where the monkeys above stayed. They lined both sides of the path, and it smelled like a zoo. It is really amazing some of the things they are studying with the monkeys. They are studying fertility treatments, AIDS ( because the type of AIDS the monkeys get is very similar to the kind humans get), Behavior, and lots lots LOTS more. We also got to go inside a Lab where someone was working on fertility treatments. When women have cancer, and they have to go through all of the treatments, they sometimes go infertile. So she was working on helping women who have had cancer but still want children. So we got to see some monkey eggs under a microscope. It was very cool.

School (Again)

I have now been to school for a total of 2 days, and i have now seen all of my classes. Friday I went to all of my Honors Classes. First I had Honors English. I think that this class will be a lot of fun, and the teacher seems really nice. She told us that she was in High School when she was 12! She said that when she started school, they put her right into 2nd grade because her parents and the school figured she could do the work. So she graduated really young, and got her degree when she was 19! I don't know about you, but I thought that was pretty cool!

My next class was Honors Biology. I have a sub until they can find a teacher for us. The sub kept babbling on about evolution, and he didn't stop talking for the entire block (which is about 88 minutes long). Then I had PE. I am one of only about 8 girls, and there are a total of 58 students in all. So I think this class will be a challenge only because there are only two girls who will probably even participate ( My friend and I). And last but not least, I had my Honors American Studies class. The teacher got right to the point with all of us, and he even assigned a Research assignment already! Its on the Spanish- American War 1898. So I need to get started on it because it is due next class.

Back to School

School has finally started! Summer went by way to quickly, but I will be happy to be back so I get my brain working again! :0) I did have summer homework though, but it took till the end of summer to finish it. But at least its done.

Anyways, Seminary, hmmmmm.......I have to get up at 5:00 to be able to be ready by 6:15. Man it kills me! The first few weeks are okay, but then I realize that I have to do it for months, and months, and months! Ahhhhhh! So anyways, when I went to seminary today, we had assigned seating. I was stuck by this guy that is okay and I get along with pretty well. Anyways I walked in and was playing around saying I didn't want to sit by this person and blah, blah, blah. Well I walked out of the room to talk to some friends before seminary started, and when I walked back in this guy from my ward had moved his name tag over so he could sit next to me ( I have a sneaky suspicion that he likes me, but I don't like him, because he does things like this allllll of the time, and it bugs me ). So I was kind of shocked and was hoping the teacher would say something because I didn't want to be rude. Finally she noticed and sent him back to his seat. Whewww! Besides that I am the secritary for seminary and have to take attendance and am in charge of assigning devotionals.

School was very good. I am soooo happy I am not a freshman anymore!!! Even though some people still think I am. My school is on a block schedule, and so we have 8 classes all together but we only have four one day and four the next. So today I had Culinary II, Clay Arts 1, Algebra2, and Spanish 2. Culinary will be fun, as always, and I have some friends in that class so that is a plus. Clay Arts will be interesting because the teacher is crazy and hippyish. But other than that I have 1 friend in that class (who is best friends with Hope), and i am looking forward to making art! Algebra will be okay, but I am never thrilled for math. We had to go and get these graphing calculators, which are HUGE! Well not HUGE but they are pretty big. Spanish 2 will be interesting also, because I have a new teacher to the school. She seems nice enough, but I want the teacher that I had last year (but she doesn't teach spanish 2 :( ) Schools good, and I know my way around, but the school seems much more crowded than last year. Navigating the lunch room is horrendous and same with the halls. When i come to the intersections in the halls, there are no gaps to squeeze through to get to the other side, so you have to make one. I feel bad about shoving people, but that is the only way through! Tomorrow I have different classes and they are my Honors Core classes and PE, so hopfully that will be okay.

Portland

On the Saturday of my friend, Saisha's party, we went to Portland for the "Saturday Market". We ended up riding the Max from Hillsboro there which is always fun with a big group :). When we got there, we went to the fire station because Saisha's grandpa worked there and we were able to get out of the heat for a couple of minutes before going to the market which was just across the street. Here some of us are in the bucket of the fire truck.
The market was just like any other with lots of neat things that people make, but because of the heat, it wasn't very fun. We went back to the Air Conditioned fire station frequently :)