Excuses, Excuses.

I won't make any right now, because I think it wise to save my creativity for a later date. Besides, I recently had to read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and it was full of pitiful, pathetic, pansies for characters- making constant excuses for bad choices is all that Dr. Frankenstein and his monster did. Let's just say that I have been audibly growling in English lately.

October and November were full of school and water polo. Thanksgiving was a party in Utah with family and friends all around, but we failed to take any pictures- whoops! December was...not that long ago. We kept up family traditions and even made sure Luke got into some of the pictures- matching shirt and all!

Not really, but we were pretty sneaky, don't ya' think? We did get to Skype with him, however, and hear all about Wales (his latest area) and missionary work. Mom's parents (my grandparents) came, and between the eight of us, we had a jolly holiday season. In fact, we even fit in a round of disk golf (Dad's new favorite family activity/sport since we found a course ten minutes away).

As far as January has gone, Levi is doing his utmost to avoid swimming- except, instead of breaking a leg, he broke his wrist. To be honest, Levi has been very sad that I am having an opportunity to catch up to him before he does the mile swim and can't wait to get back in the water. Luckily, it was just a "green break," so he only had to wear a cast for 3 weeks. The bad news is that he managed to tweak a muscle in his shoulder just a few days before he got his wrist back, so he is still stuck on dry land while I get faster by the day.

Eliza likes her new major and might actually stick with it this time!

Mom is working on this crazy intense quilt and obviously enjoys having a project to work on, even if it is tedious to cut and sew and iron and trim and rip and re-sew and re-iron and re-trim.

Marta is waiting on her mission call, which was supposed to come today, but didn't. All I can say is that if she is called state-side, then she will most likely be in Minnesota.

I don't like writing essays- especially research papers. Luckily, everybody else in my family is really good at putting ideas into normal, cohesive, comprehensible sentences while I thoroughly beat around the bush to get my idea across. I just did it again. Anyway, they are lifesavers (especially Marta and Mom) for the math-oriented senior who is just trying to make it through January.

That's really all I have to say right now. Life is good.

- Tess