Winter Break

Sorry, but here's me catching up on winter break. It was a blast! I was able to go home for about a week and spend time with my family. Sometimes it's really hard being so far away from them, but it makes it even better when I do see them. I'm so grateful to have them in my life and to have their support with all of my choices in life. We did a lot of fun things like ice skating (with Maggie too!), Devin and Rachael's choir concert, make gingerbread houses, play with Cohen, go out to dinner at my favorite place, El Nopal, go see my all time favorite movie right now-Tangled, and hang out at the cabin. It was perfect. I love the little traditions that we do every year that bring out the spirit of Christmas. We spend a lot of good time together, of course, but one of my favorite traditions is acting out the nativity. The Fullers really get into it. haha. Sadie, our loyal dog, was baby Jesus and cooperated quite well. Mom and Dad were of course Mary and Joseph with Devin has a shepherd, Sterling as a sheep, Grandma as the angel, Rachael and I as wise "women", and Papa as the narrator. Another fun tradition that I love is writing funny names on the T0/From tags on presents. The Fullers have a creative side too. The funny name always (usually) has to do with whatever is in the present. Sometimes it can be quite the stretch, but fun nonetheless. For example, Jazelle from Enchanted, got me scrap booking stuff because she likes to write notes. Sully from Monsters Inc got us a Pixar mini movies DVD that he was in. All in all it was a wonderful Christmas and I enjoyed every minute of it.

The second part of my break was a lot different from the first. I went to San Diego for Christmas training with the BYU swim team. It's always quite the adventure for some reason to fly alone. My flight was delayed an hour and a half and I got to San Diego at 1am in time for me to wake up at 6 for my first practice of the week. Oh, but there was a time change so really it felt like 3am when I got there. It was great... But surprisingly enough it was a pleasant week. It was a little bit colder than expected, but definitely not as bad as Utah or Missouri, who both had their fair share of snow and winter temperatures. For those who don't know what "Christmas Training" entails, here's a brief summary. We have two practices everyday. One in the morning and one in the afternoon, with weights/running on Tuesday/Thursday. It wasn't super early in the morning, only 8 to 10 so we were able to get some sun and escaped the pastiness of living in Utah for a little while. Our second practice was from 5 to 7, which was pretty much dark the whole time. A unique experience if you ever get the chance to swim at night. Sometimes we could even see stars through the steam coming off the pool. The worst part besides the ridiculously sore muscles was getting out of the warm pool into the freezing cold air with just a swimsuit on. There were plenty of fast moving feet towards and bags and sprints to the locker room. We did get some fun stuff in during the day, when we weren't recovering from practice. On that Wednesday we got to swim in the rain, which is a really funny feeling. I can't even describe it. A few of us were able to go to the San Diego temple which was about 5 minutes from our hotel, which was a really neat experience. That building is GORGEOUS! On New Years we were able to have practice a little early so we could go out and have a fun night. We went to BJ's which is a pizza/pasta/sandwich place that is famous for their pazookies--a giant cookie with ice cream on top. It was sooo good! My mouth is salivating just thinking about it. We had four different sections of different cookie flavors: oreo, white chocolate macadamian nut, peanut butter, and chocolate chunk. Ahhh, it was heaven!! I couldn't leave the oreo part though. It was just too good. I'm sure the other sections didn't even compare. The swimming part of the week went pretty well on my part and I'm glad I survived and my ankle didn't give out. The way home was even fun too, despite the 11 hour drive back to Provo. My favorite part was when Daniel got out his guitar and we all sang songs together. I know, cute right? We all took turns driving the 12 passenger van, including me and made it all in one piece despite some snow on the roads. It was quite the adventurous break, overall, and I loved it!