ANOTHER ASHLEY CHAPMAN????

One more thing! There is another Ashley Chapman in the Mesa area and people keep thinking i'm her. First Nate's friends at the derby, then a random group at the tutoring center, and today, a girl I met at a bridal shower. I'd really like to meet her. The girl, Rebecca, at the shower today told me I even kinda look like her...or she looks like me. Either way, it's weird. She better be as cool as me ;)

Institute Christmas Formal

1. This week has been crazy busy with school, yet i'm still grateful for it. I'm also grateful for a scholarship that pays for it. When i was complaining about how discouraged i was with school a couple weeks ago, Laurie reminded me, "at least you don't have to pay for it too!" True that.

2. I'm grateful for my job as a tutor. I get to work with students (some hilarious to work with, others creepy, some smart, and some... you get the point) It's been nice being reminded of all the classes i've already taken. I feel like i'm actually retaining my education now! lol I'm also grateful that i'm allowed to do my own homework when times are slow :)

3. I love the Christmas season! The smell, the decorations, but most of all, the spirit that it brings to my life. It reminds me that being charitable is fastest way to become Christlike. :)

4. DANCING! What else needs to be said. I love it! I went to ASU Institute's Christmas Formal last night with one of my good friends and had a blast. It was so enjoyable going with someone who actually knew how to swing and ballroom dance too! ...Not to mention getting to head up a couple EFY line dances. Absolutely A-Mazing! I hadn't been dancing probably since EFY but I caught the bug again!

PS- yes my hair is big...didn't realize it. haha but it calmed down as the night went on. :)

5. ONE more week of school! 'nough said!

6. TwIlIgHt! I had a girls night last weekend and saw it...without reading the book. I know...shame on me. but i really liked it! It took me a little while to like Edward but by the end...i was hooked!

Gratitude

Hi friends! I have a few extra minutes between classes today so i thought i'd post on something i've been thinking about lately. As this Thanksgiving season is here, many of the conference talks i've been reading seem to somehow mention gratitude. By expressing gratitude we recognize that everything we have, everything we have accomplished, and everything we are comes from our Heavenly Father through our Savior Jesus Christ. Gratitude and thanksgiving must be expressed always in order to keep a Christ-centered life. My goal is to post once a week until at least the end of the year about things that happened in that past week that i was greatful for. When I think of all my blessings, i can't help but be optimistic.

1. I'm grateful that there's only about two weeks of school left. I can conquer this!

2. I'm grateful that i've been apart of a wonderful single's ward with an amazing Bishop who listens to the spirit. What an example he and his wife have been to me. We're splitting on Sunday (and i'm guessing i'll be in the new ward with new bishop) but i'm excited! I'm grateful for a STRONG young adult program in the church.

3. I'm grateful for the many growing opportunities that are brought about through the gospel. I love my calling as gospel doctrine teacher...it's helped me realize what i'm good at.

4. I'm grateful for a strong family with whom i get to be with for eternity.

5. I'm grateful for crazy weird blind dates...they make for good stories and make me appreciate the good ones ;)

...i'm only half grateful it's time for class. lol jk Everyone have a fabulous week!

Boo!

Boo! I scared you...you can't believe i'm finally writing, can you? lol Seeing as the last time I posted was after the first week of classes this semester, I think it's been way too long! We're going on week 12! Time really flies by like a jet plane and i'm hanging on for dear life this semester. lol My classes are extremely easy to fall behind in...speaking from experience. It seems nearly impossible to get caught up but i'm trying my hardest. Lets just pray everything works out. Aside from the stress load, the content of my classes are quite interesting. The financial crisis has created a real life "lab" to demonstrate the issues and principles we're learning in my finance classes while my accounting class continues to be...well...accounting. You just gotta love it. ha! Then you throw a little legality and English into the mix and you've mixed up a heck of a semester. Anyways aside from school, i'm still tutoring at ASU and loving it. Where else do you get refreshed on previous classes, get to work with students, and get to do your homework when it's slow?? Great setup...except for the fact that i feel like i LIVE at school. Oh well, it's that time of life so i must enjoy it.

I got to dress up twice for Halloween this year- 2 different events on different weekends. This is all I came up with. (Sorry Katie...both were extremely last min. lol) No blackmailing!




Oh- Ps- I tried sushi for my first time. I believe it's an aquired taste. Not bad but not something i'd crave. lol

Week 1 of School

I started the first semester of my junior year on Tuesday! Woohoo! It was quite an interesting week though. Sunday morning I woke up with a cold and then Monday was no exception. Luckily I only had one class at 6 pm on Monday because my head felt like a balloon with so much pressure. By Thursday I felt better! :) As for school, I think i'm going to like my schedule. I'm enjoying most of my classes which is awesome since this is my first semester in my finance program. There is at least one class that's going to give me a run for my money but what's new! lol

Time to kick off another semester! Go Devils!

Weddings galore!

It seems as if my life has been overrun with wedding receptions and showers lately. When I was younger I thought it was exciting to get mail- now it's predictable...either bills, wedding announcements, or shower invitations. Oh and if weddings aren't crazy enough, i've now crossed over to the age of recieving baby shower invites. Now that's weird! Don't get me wrong, weddings are definitely very exciting...but going to two receptions a week gets a little monotonous.

However, there was one exciting wedding in th bunch this summer- that of my best friend, Dawnee! Almost two weeks ago Miss Dawnee Ray became Mrs. Dawnee Godfrey! Yay! We are all so excited for her! She looked so gorgeous and so happy! Here are few fun pictures from her reception.

Congratulations Dawnee! We love you!

Oh yes! The yummy luncheon!

Cabin Trip!

I was so excited that we were able to make it up to the cabin this year! We had a blast going kayaking, quad riding, white water rafting, to the playmill, playing bacci ball, riding up to sawtell to enjoy fireworks the size of your pinky finger (lol), eating great dinners together, enjoying the beautiful weather and each others company, playing with the little girls, and swinging like a monkey on the rope swing. :)

This is the emabarrasing happy birthday number at the playmill! You gotta love awkward moments...especially when you turn around and make the actors feel awkward in return! lol
Let 's just say the guy couldn't keep a straight face. haha

You just have to love battle wounds...especially from the freezing Madison River rocks. I'm glad we're all here to tell our side of the story from this crazy kayaking trip.

One of the lookouts over Henry's lake that we stopped at on our quad trip.

Ary insisted on the umbrella since it was raining! What a funny girl!

Here we are- me, dad, and blake- looking fabulous after white water rafting down the Galletin River.

This was right before our first kayake float down the lower (calmer) part of the Madison river.

Me and Ry with our farmer pose! Ores are better than farming forks. :)

In west Yellowstone right before the Playmill. All the girls unintentionally wore black and white...except Ry. lol it's okay- we still love you girl! Pink is totally the new black ;)

The boys feeling satisfied after some yummy homemade ice cream at Mooseberrys!

What an awesome vacation! I had a blast!

EFY 2008!

Hello All! This summer has been so busy! I'm so sorry for not being diligent at posting often on my adventures.

My summer adventures started off with 2 sessions as an EFY counselor in Flagstaff, AZ. Holy Cow! What an amazing experience this was. I can definitely agree with statement, "EFY counselors are the most over worked and under paid employees out there." The days started around 5:30am and ended around 12 if you're lucky...but usually it was later- especially if you had girls that didn't want to go to bed. However, everything was totally worth it!

So many adventures happened these two weeks it would taken hours to write them all but here were a few highlights.

1. I felt like i learned more than the participants! (i know what you're thinking..."that's not how it's supposed to be!" lol)
2. My girls were all so great...and i even knew some of them from home.
3. My brother was up there my second week for his first time! And Collin's sister was up there the other week!
4. I got to play tug-of-war with 2 of my girls' towel under the door. They put it there to block the light so they didn't have to go to sleep so i attempted to pull it out through the crack between the door and the floor! ...i failed in this attempt to pull it out because they had the other end on the other side of the door! I had to knock and tell the to "come get your towel before i steal it". DISCLAIMER: I'm not mean...we actually became better friends after this.
5. One of the participants there was a kid i used to babysit...weird!
6. I had a set of twins each week! Both completely opposite. The first week we named the set "EFY angels" because they were so sweet. And the second week the twins didn't want to be there...sad day!
7. My testimony was strengthened
8. I could be insane at the dances and the kids thought i was super cool! :)
9. Pizza night was always good to hear about all the girls little weak long crushes on the boys in their company! Great topic seeing i always had 14-15 year old! lol
10. I met some awesome new friends!

So so many great memories. Here are just a few pictures!

I love my girls!

The end of the semester calls for a girls reunion...LUNCH! I became great friends with these girls right after I graduated but most people think i've known them for years. All of them went to Mesquite High School together and have known each other for much longer but they are now like family to me. When people tell you that the friends you make in college are the life long friends -I completely agree! These girls are amazing!

Here they are...

Alissa, Brooke, Katie, Katie, Mindi, Caraline, Me, and Dawnee!

Dawnee! ...she's ENGAGED! So she stayed in Utah over the summer. This is the only time I got to see her while she was down and I was so excited!

"Girls just wanna have FUN!" :)

Hello Summer!

School ended almost a month ago! The semester ended great which was very exciting. However, it consumed my life for a while so i'm excited to be back doing things that I like to do more than homework.



I decided to make a quilt. Originally I was thinking about making a hard core quilt that Brittnee would probably have to coach me through but then I changed my mind. Instead I made a quilt with big squares using most of my high school shirts. It's not perfect but it turned out pretty cute. The edges are fabric with sheet music. It's the size of a twin sheet...here it is. (sorry about the bad photography...it was hard to get it all in one shot)

As for the rest of my summer...i'm going to be an EFY Counselor for two weeks at NAU, going to the great place of IDAHO! And then it's back to work and a summer school class.

GREAT NEWS! I got hired on at ASU next semester to be an accounting tutor! I'm pretty excited becasue I can work there on the mornings that I don't have school three days a week and if no students come in I can work on my own homework and still get paid for it!! :) Not a bad deal!

Hope everyone is doing well! Love you all!

JAZZ has officially been conquered by yours truely!

Alright- i couldn't let this exciting/ relieving day go by without a quick post to share my happiness. So i've been taking this Jazz in America class online this semester...specifically MUS 347, for an upper division general credit. I'm not going to lie, i took it thinking it would be a piece of cake- a non-stressor class if you will. Well, it turned out to be just the opposite. All the lectures are audio which mean hours and hours of listening to this boring guy talk while you sit at the computer and take pages and pages of notes on facts and different sounds clips of jazz artists that he inserts. So the tests come along- which are online as well obviously and you're thinking "no problem, i've got my notes on a word document (searchable) and i've got my sound clips accessible. Needless to say, those confident assumptions were wrong as well. THE TESTS WERE REDICULOUS! More than half the test was listening to sound clips and identifying which time period they were from, who and/ or what they were playing/ or who is most likely not to be, etc. Oh and the tests are timed- 50 min for 50 questions. Needless to say, my test scores had an extremely terrible downward sloping trend and i had scored worse on two of the three tests than i have in my college/ high school career. I was a little scared! BUT great news of the day! I pulled a B in the class! With some extra credit, massive studying, and another person (aka another brain) to help...we all survived! Moral of the story: work hard until the very end...don't give up...just never take that kind of class EVER AGAIN!

Smiles all around! Finals are almost over :)

April Conference!

Hello all! My qwest for improved blogging continues! I love reading all ya'lls so I figure I have a duty too. Life is going well! About one month left of school and things are really getting down to the wire. This semester is really giving me a run for my money. I'm definitely having to work for my grades...some are turing out, some i hope will turn out, and some don't have a very bright future (but i'm still giving them encouragment :)).

This past weekend we took a journey up to Utah! We left early Friday morning and came home late late Sunday night...alot of driving in not alot of days is not recomended but definitely worth it! Nothing compares to the great times of singing in the car or trying to figure out where the heck you are in this foreign land. Saturday we were able to watch both sessions with one of my best friends that moved to BYU, Dawnee. It was so good to see her and all the other girlies whom I love!

We had tickets to the Sunday morning session of conference this year! What an amazing place that is! I have gained an amazing appreciation for conference through being able to go and see it in person. It really gives you a new perspective on things. The apostles are inspired men called of God.

Caraline, Dawnee, and Mariah!

Naomi Deighton- my friend from England who's going to BYU. She loves it here in America!

Who Does this?

THIS IS REALLY EXCITING! Last Friday I went to my first phoenix suns game. As we sat in our Row 11 seats about 45 minutes before the game started, I was approached by a guy asking me if I wanted to help him out by participating in a game. I asked what it was before agreeing and he said, "At the 2nd time out of the 2nd quarter you will be playing wheel a fortune in front of the entire crowd. The clue is 'an award' and you need to say these letters." Being a little nervous I still agreed. At the 1st time out of the 2nd quarter the same guy came and pulled me from my seat and had me sit in an isle seat so I would be ready when the next time out was called. It was hilarious because all the people around me asked what happened and why I had to move...I think they though I was being disruptive or something. Anyways the time came and it was me, the main emcee, and the gorilla on the jumbo-tron! I guessed the word right and confetti came falling down, I won $500 to Discount Tire, and a large bag of Suns apparel! Woohoo! I loved it! What are the chance?? I want to go back :)

Pirate?

So it's been a while (ok a VERY long while) since i've posted. But life is good no worries...it's just super busy! School is insane...I feel like i'm sacrifices sleeping time to keep up. I got a new calling in the middle of last semester. I am currently the RS secretary which, despite your thoughts, can be a bit time consuming as well. I've also been dating Collin for the last couple of months which is going well...so of course, I must make time for him. oh and you can't forget about work :) So as you can probably relate there's too much to do and not enough hours in the day. However, I read a time management article and it said "don't manage your time, manage yourself." So that's my goal. haha

As for being a Pirate- I hope my pictures are able to upload. My ward had this "Who dun it?" murder/kidnapping mystery activity and I was one of the actresses in it. I was Uma Scar, the galley wench...but we weren't supposed to say that in the church so my title was modified to "galley girl." haha I speculated this activity but it turned out to be pretty fun.