Dominican Republic here I come!!

What a day. Oh man! I got all packed, said good bye to a few friends, and lastly finished my beastly project 10 minutes before we left. I had to make an online portfolio by writing my own html and css. It was pretty challenging, but I learned quite a bit. If you want to see what I did check out http://anna.jbteaching.com/index.html .

I am amazed at how fast this term went. It was sad parting ways with my Roomie Emma. We've had some good times together this term and I've learned a lot from her. We're also waiting for her to get her mission call. Man am I excited to hear where my lil world traveler is going to go! It was also sad saying bye to my cousin mine, Andrea. She's leaving me in the fall for San Francisco Art Institute. I'm excited for her as she's going to have a lot of opportunities there, but it's going to feel weird not having her with me at the Y. She's been a great best friend up at school the past three years.

So right now I'm sitting in the airport with my 7 best friends for the next 6 weeks. I'm a little nervous about the teaching aspect of this trip but I'm excited for what I'm going to learn while I'm there. If anything this is going to be more of a learning experience for me than it is for them!

Happy happy, just not quite enough time..

I drove Thelma down this weekend to home sweet home. This was my first time making the drive from Provo to AZ all by myself, but I surprisingly enjoyed myself! I had a great time thinking to myself and jamming out to some good tunes :)

This is one of my favorite views on the drive home, just south of Page. You drive through a mountain enclosed road and then, bam. a beautiful view that screams Arizona!

Home was great! I got to play with my nieces and nephews, pick some fresh nectarines and apples in the summer evening, sleep in my own bed, do some shopping with my mom, and spend a little time with my parents, my sisters, and my dear friend Chelsy. Being home for a day was just enough to tease me! It sure did get me excited for August, when I actually get to spend some real quality time home!

My nieces and I! They are quite the goof balls!

4 days. That’s it!! 4 days til I fly with 7 other TEE students to the Dominican Republic to teach tech classes! It’s coming too quick! While I was home, my sister Grace kept on teasing me about how much I’m going to melt there! We looked up the weather and it said it was in the 80’s with 80% humidity…. Then she was like, “well at least you have AC where you’re living right??” Actually no, we don’t. Grace just started laughing away! Oh how she loved giving me a hard time! Then my other sister Wendy was saying how she had a friend who went on a mission there whose nose got soo burnt that it was red and all crusty! Ahh!! I think they just like to tease me more than anything… That’s what they’re good at ;)

Our lil TEE fam will be living and teaching together just outside of Santo Domingo

Ultimate Bed!!

When Lindsay, mine and Emma’s close friend from Jerusalem, comes down to sleep over, we like to make what we call ULTIMATE BEed!! This is something that started in Jerusalem when we would take our mattresses outside on the back patios of our rooms and put them together to enjoy sleeping outside. Good times!
After making it a couple times, we decided to leave our beds like this permanently. Anyways, when Linds comes down, I get the joy of waking up to this:

It sure makes me smile :)

Roadtrips are fun to do doo do dooooo do

What a week! I’ve been in 3 states this week and have had quite the adventures! So Tuesday evening, Marci and I took off in Thelma (my car) for Lake Powell. Lake Powell is a place very dear to my family. We’ve been going since before I can remember and make a point to go every year at least once. It’s been harder as the Gordon fam has grown up, but we finally worked out a week where each of us could go!

Here's the whole Fam Bam

It got a little chaotic at times with so many people on one boat; I guess this happens with big families, but we still had a good time together! The water was still a little chilly, so we stuck to kayaking and hiking. Sadly, a huge storm blew in this weekend Aaand one of the engines decided to quit working so most of my fam is still out on the Lake til it all blows over! I just pray that the weather lightens up so they can get the houseboat back to the marina! We’ll see what happens here in a day or two..

Idaho. After driving back to Provo on Saturday, I got right back in the car and drove up to Burley, Idaho with Andrea, Mandy, and Landon. Our close friend, Morgan’s, mission farewell was going down. We had a wonderful time at the Stoker home and had a great last hurrah with Morgan. We all ended up staying up til 4 am joking and laughing like we did freshman year and lastly having our last “floor time” talking about our life wants and goals. I love how close we are and how much we truly care about each other. I’ve never had this close of a friend leave before and it’s really quite foreign for me. Morgan has been a best friend to me since freshman year of college, so I’ve come very used to having her around to talk to, be with, and count on. From the selfish side, I’m sad to not have her here with me at school, but I know the Lord needs her and that she will touch many lives just has she has mine. Good luck my babe and I WILL be writing you just as I promised!

Morgan, Mandy, Andrea, and I: Roomies 08'-09'
We're going to miss you Momo!

Back in Provo

I’ve found I am terrible at blogging! Just wanted to say that real quick!

I got home from Jerusalem on the 23rd of April, was home for a few short days and drove up her to good, ol’ Provo for classes this spring. Things have been changing so fast and the pace hasn’t seemed to be slowing down, so I feel like I haven’t really had time to soak in all the change happening around me! It was sad to leave beautiful Jerusalem, but life is still happy :)

Life this summer:
• I’m living with a good friend from Jerusalem in a cute little, blue house
• I’m taking 3 classes and working writing lesson plans
• I am going to Lake Powell next week with the Fam Bam, can’t wait!
• I’m going to the Dominican Republic in June to teach tech classes

It’s a busy summer, but let the adventures keep on coming!

Little Nothings of the J.C.

A few things that have been going on here in Jeru:
1. We've been on lock down the past couple days
2. I miss walking in the Old City-- I've been in the center for toooo long
3. I have 1 final down and 4 more to go
4. We are obsessed with Psych here. We watch at least one episode a day..
5. Sunday was Purim, Jewish Halloween, and we went Jewish folk dancing, crazy but so fun!
6. Passing notes in Hebrew is the new fun thing to do in class
7. We go to Galilee in two weeks!!

Also, my roomie, Elissa, and I are in love with the song Dance Anthem of the 80's by Regina. The other night she learned how to play it on the Ukulele and it made me so happy :)

Party in the... Jerusalem!!

So it’s been awhile… And I’ve found the longer you go without blogging, the harder it gets to actually get yourself to post something!

So much has happened and I’ve been loving it all!

First off, we went to Egypt for a week. It was amazing!!

A few highlights:

Dance parties on the bus
Long conversations with friends
Seeing the Pyramids
Seeing desert land that seems to never stop
Riding a camel
Seeing Karnack and Luxor Temple
Felucca boat rides on the Nile
Scary Egyptians hitting on you, “Lovely eyes”
Watching the sunset on the Nile
Dancing in the club of the hotel
Hiking Mount Sinai
Looking up at the sky speckled with stars
Watching the sunrise on top of Sinai
Singing hymns that make me feel closer to God
Hearing the testimonies of my new, close friends




The list goes on. It was a great week and most definitely brought all of us closer to each other.

Since Egypt we’ve had quite a bit of fun and I’ve learned that studying seems almost impossible here!! It’s just too hard when you eat, sleep, study, go to class, go to church, and party with the same people! We all have way too much fun!! It’s always a party in the pita!!

The Mustache Militia. Gag me.

The men of the J.C. decided to make a pact to grow out ‘staches for a minimum of ten days. And don’t worry, they even signed contracts! There’s one thing I learned from those horrible ten days. Mustaches just aren’t attractive… except for Aaron’s. The Mustache Militia closing party was one of the best days of my life! We heard raps, poetry, blog entries, and songs about everyone’s feelings about the ‘staches, a lil out of control! The ladies of the 309 (Elissa, Stella, Becca, and I) wrote a lovely song called Meager Mustache Men expressing our anti-stache views. Someone had to! Elissa and I sang it that night and it was a pretty big hit, not gonna lie! Most of the guys have shaved them now, thank goodness!

Valenstines Day (as our security guys say)
So fun!! I think this is probably my most favorite Valentine’s Day ever! During the day a group of us went to the Chagall windows, soo pretty!!
We also went to Church of the Visitation and the St. John Ba Harim church. All of this was in Northern Jerusalem. I liked it a lot on the Northern side. It had a different feel than East and West Jeru. It was much more chill and not as busy. While walking around, we found this amazing Gelato place. It was soo cute! We ended up getting two rounds of gelato that we split between Bentley, Emmy, Ron, and I. Soo good and so worth it!!
That night we had open mic night. We had a real good time, as always. We heard sappy poetry, love songs, movies, uke sing along, etc. It was great! My Valentine, Greg sang me a cute lil song, I loved it! My other personal fav was when my roomie sang My Heart Will Go On (from Titanic) to Tall Blonde. She has a killer voice and Tall Blonde’s reactions were priceless! It basically left all of us rolling around on the ground laughing our heads off!! Then of course we couldn’t end the night with anything but a dance party! The party began to trickle down around 11 but about six of us stayed and ended up dancing for another hour acting like five year olds. I love that we’ve all gotten to the point that we have no reserves with anyone here!

Last night for FHE we went to the Jackson’s AND we made cookies!! So tasty!! I miss baking and miss home made cookies! We had a good time talking with each other and getting to know them. I feel like there is a lot I can come to learn from them these next few months.

School. Oh, oh yeah!
We have three weeks til Galilee! Yay! But this means these next couple weeks are going to be craycray!!