and a happy new year

every year i make new years resolutions. 

every year i keep them for 2 weeks. if that.

i am DETERMINED to keep mine this year. so here they are. 

1. keep my job

it's so nice to have my own monies. i can buy everything at target! 

just kidding. because books are lots and lots of monies. 

2. not compare myself to others

i feel like this is the hardest thing for me. it's not that i look at other girls and think "oh i wish my thighs were as skinny as hers!!" or "OHMYGOSH her hair is beautiful and i have gnarly hair. i hate myself"

it's more like "oh awkward...they got a FULL RIDE to NOT UVU and i only got HALF TUITION at a freaking almost community college." i think that this past year that has been my biggest insecurity. i go to dumb kid college. and it's not because i didn't get in anywhere else, it's because it's what was right for me for the time being. at the end of the day, a degree is a degree. unless it's from like stanford or duke. because those are worth gold. 

3. hit the gym at least 5 times a week

so far so good. freshman 15 is no where near me. it's more like freshman 5..i miss running and feeling my ponytail swish back and forth.

4. save monies. 

salt lake isn't gonna be possible unless i save monies for it

5. have a good attitude about life

i'm constantly surrounded by AMAZING people every day. why should i waste even a minute being upset? unless it's finals week or period week. then i'm allowed to be grumpy. 

6. be nicer to my sissy

we fight a lot. and we don't play tons. i don't want her to be like "yeah..my sister was a brat.." because she is usually the sweetest thing alive. it's just too sweet for me sometimes and i get annoyed. she's great. and i need to remind myself more often that she is 

7. let those around me know they're appreciated

i like to think that i'm pretty self sufficient. but really, if i was stranded on an island by myself, i would last all of 3 hours. i have such amazing friends and family who love me even if they don't agree with me all the time. they need to know how much i love them more. 

8. "No. I am not serving a mission."

for the past 18 years of my life, i was raised thinking sister missionaries were the weird ones who never got dates and ended up on a mission because they weren't getting married anytime soon. i have my plan already in motion and i don't feel like serving is right for me. honestly, i've thought about it. "Sister Sanchez" or "Hermana Sanchez" maybe even "Sœur Sanchez" but i've only thought about it because ALL of the girls i was closest to last year are submitting in papers and getting calls. but, i feel confident in not going, and i would love if everyone just got off my back about it. 

tis the season

i hate amazon. 

i ordered like all of my chirstmas presents online this year..and then i got an email from amazon being all like "sorry..we're really backed up and your stuff might not arrive in time for christmas" so i was like "oh...awkward...um..." then i got another one and they were like "hey...it's going to be at your house between the 5th and 7th. here's a gift card for 30 bucks to amazon."

so to all my dear friends, lets celebrate delayed christmas this year yes? 

yes.

but since there wasn't much gift giving at our abode, it was a lot more family centered this year. it was a nice change:) 

a few times a year we like to entertain our mother and dress up for dinner.
chirstmas being one of them.
we clean up pretty good if i do say so myself.

tay got me the sickest sun glasses. ever. now i NEED summer.
lets hope he likes his delayed present just as much as i loved his.
fingers crossed. 

taylor came to play too:) he's sorta like family almost. only  he's white :) but we all like him. he's peachy.

after diner and presents, we played dominoes for like an hour. we played like 324 games. i won two. i'm pretty sure taylor won more games than i did. we had been playing for a solid hour before he showed up. 

today, chirstmas day, we had leftovers for breakfast:) that's always the best way to start of the day, then we got ready and went and watched the hobbit. it was okay. i was confused half the time and the other half the back of my chair was getting kicked by the girl behind me. basically, i'm super excited for the Host... 

it sounds like it's gonna have a KILLER soundtrack...soo..that's my excuse:) 

who wants to come with me?:)

3/30 things: parents

i LOOOOOOVE my parents. 

it wasn't always this way though. i remember when i was 14 i was willing to do anything just to piss my parents off. and looking back, i'm not quite sure why. 

but as i've gotten older, i see a method to all the madness. 

my mom is amazing. she is sort of more like my friend than a mom. i joke around with her and do weird things, like dance in my underwear, when it's just us. she always looks at me and just gives me this look that says "oh God..where did i go wrong?" when we fight, all hell breaks loose. i guess it's one of those things that come with being mexican. we yell. i love my momma so much though. 

my pops is one cool cat. i've always been a little scared of him. mostly when he's mad. oh boy...when he's mad, his looks alone make me cry. but being daddy's little girl has it's perks. he's not always willing to hear me out but when we agree, it's quite grand. my dad is the kind of person who doesn't show affection all that much. so it's hard to know when he's happy. usually, during my sparring matches i've heard he's one of my loudest cheerleaders. but i'm a little busy...so i never notice really. but despite everything, he's always been willing to support me in everything that we both agree on. 

these two are incredible. there are so many attributes that i want to take from their parenting skills when i raise my own kiddos. i couldn't ask for better parents. 

week 1

ladies and gents 

i, ali sanchez, have officially finished my first week of college:) 

well, tomorrow. but still, same diff. 

honestly, it's so great

except for all the stairs i have to climb every single day to get anywhere

i swear, if i don't have an amazing butt by the end of the semester, 

i'm quitting 

but the homework has already started piling on..

but really. i just sit there and smile and hope that i'm not the only one suffering from a baby heart attack when a 6 page essay is the norm. and my heart totally stopped when MLA format wasn't what they wanted. oops. 

high school might've failed me. 

on the first day of class, my biology teacher took like half the time and talked about how grateful we should be for having the privilege of attending a university. 

and my first thought was sort of along the lines of "privilege?? i'm paying for this. i'm paying A LOT of monies for this..." 

then he said " there are 7 billion people in the world. do you guys have any idea of the percentage of people that are given the chance to get a higher education?" 

i don't remember the exact number..but it was itty bitty.. 

and then it hit me. 

i am so incredibly grateful for all my parents do for me. they're paying for whatever i need and books and my computer and gas and everything. without them, i'd be screwed. 

i'm so blessed to have been born into a family that values education so much that sacrificing whatever to make sure me and my sister have the very best my parents can afford isn't a big deal.

i mean it is, it's huge, but my parent's make it seem like it's nothing at all.

i just love them so much. 

and not just them, everyone. kels, britt, tay, all of the people who help me just get through the day. 

i couldn't do it without them. 

:)  

quick little catch up..:)

so obviously, i didn't meet my summer goal of blogging every day. 

oops. 

BUT as of now, i will TRY to blog consistently

so last time i wrote, was BEFORE girls camp.. that was quite a while ago. and honestly, i didn't expect much out of it. i really didn't wanna go back. it was the first year that i felt more "meh." then "YAY CAMP!!!"  although, it was my little sister's first year, and my last so i figured, it'd be one heck of a way to end my girls camp career 

it ended up being one of the most amazing years ever. and i even went running at camp:) 

right after camp, i went to park city with my best friends. Ellie and Karli Thornley. 

it was a partay. 

we did a lot of walking, a lot of driving and iron chef-ing all in one weekend because...

that monday, i left to cross country camp!!!:) 

and it looked a little like this...

THEN 

i came home, and hit up california:)
first was tkd camp.. where we trained non stop. then my fam bam met me down there and we played southern california for a while..:) 

THEN! we had time trials for cross country. 

ANNND 

i made top ten:) 

spandexxxxxx;) :) :) YES!

they look more like this only red and white:) 

as opposed to these diaper insta ride up wedge ones... that we had last year

thennnn last night, i ran a midnight 5k with my besties: )

but for the mean time, those are all the pictures i have

to be continued:)