Viva Mexico!

I am officially going to Mexico this spring! I got accepted into the study abroad yesterday! This means that I get to spend the first 3-4 weeks of spring term taking sociology and political science classes in Provo, then head down to Mexico for 3 weeks to apply what we learn about international development. We start in a medium sized city (Cuauhtémoc) and live with families and work with schools, orphanages, rehab centers for migrant workers, etc. Then we go to a smaller town and build schools, houses, and do whatever they need us to do. We spend the last week camping in the mountains and helping the incredibly rural and indigenous people with really basic things like digging irrigation trenches. The get time over the whole trip to explore and talk to people and do research for future projects about poverty.

I am so excited, but I definitely need to start refreshing my Spanish!

Home for Thanksgiving

What a relaxing week I had! It was so much fun to be home, even if I was the only sister to make it back to Washington. (I guess that shows who the favorite daughter is, the only one the parents bought a plane ticket for.) It was a wonderful week of sleeping, playing piano, trying my hand at golf and getting thoroughly embarrassed, biking, shopping, getting pampered with the cousins, and relaxing. Thanksgiving was great, and I even got to try my hand at making the stuffing all by myself, but under Mom's watchful eye. I've expanded my repertoire past cranberries to include dinner rolls, stuffing, and even cooking the hairy yams. It was fun to be back in the rain with family!

I came back and my roommates and I started decorating our apartment for Christmas right away. I just love this holiday season!
Now, its time to crack down because finals start 2 weeks from today!