Playtime!

With the unusually warm weather lingering around the Southwestern part of the United States (meaning - Las Vegas), one can't help but think that it constantly feels like Spring Break! I'll admit, it has been awfully difficult to focus on my schoolwork when there are so many other things I want to do. First of all, there was birthday after birthday that needed to be celebrated, and what better place to celebrate than in my house?

We got to dress up,

eat food,

watch people jump out of cakes,

play twister,

and basically go a little crazy.

Then of course, came the crazy festivities of Halloween. What more can I say?

I am officially dubbing November as "The month in which Melissa photographs the best." You'll soon see why. This month has been a blast!

I went hiking up at Calico Tanks inside Red Rock park with several friends from my ward (it was actually the first time I'd seen the tank completely dry),

celebrated my one year mark of being home from my mission with my good friend Emily,

threw a bachelorette party for Dot,

played outside of the institute building while avoiding my homework list,

and most recently won a dance competition against other single's wards in the valley by mixing hip-hop and Polynesian dancing into a form I like to call "Hip-nesian."

Yeah, life is good.

There's only one of me!

This is interesting...

We've all heard of those common names that are owned by nearly half of the population (example: Jane Smith, etc), so I ask: How original is your name? Using this neat online website you can find out! And I am pleased to say: I am the one and only Melissa Hellewell. It's a good day!

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 1 or fewer people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Update On My Crazy Life!!

So, I'm not the best at keeping up with my blog. This is obvious. So, in an attempt to catch everyone up on the past month or so, I decided to do a condensed "Reader's Digest" version of my life. Ready?? Okay!

Kicking off our school year was an area-wide dance hosted by my singles ward. The theme was "dress your favorite decade" and featured music from the 50's through the 90's. How convenient that most of our ward members chose the 80's!!

The semester picked up extremely quick and I found myself swamped with a ton of homework, but was also busy moving for the second time since school let out in the Spring. But this time I was moving into MY apartment! I had always just rented a room from someone, but this time I decided it was time to sign my own lease and take responsibility for finding people to live with me. The hunt had been long and hard, but I had found 2 roommates, and decided on a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom condo about 2 miles from UNLV. Too bad they BOTH bailed out the day before I signed the lease.

I went through with it anyway, and have been happily living in my new apartment since the beginning of September. I have since found other girls who need a place to live, so Jen will be moving in as soon as she gets a few hours away from lesson planning (she's a teacher), and just today, Airline, a newly baptized member of my ward said that she wants the other room and will move in in 1-2 weeks!

Because school had been (and still is) driving me crazy, I decided to take an hour or two every week to do something just for me - so I joined a Polynesian dance group! It is super fun! They hold practice twice a week, but because of my schedule I can only go on Thursdays. I'm learning quickly, which makes me happy to see that the "natural talent" many people have said I possess hasn't dissappeared. We're starting to learn a lot of new numbers to hopefully begin performing and competing in local events. Sorry... no pictures yet!!

Fastforwarding now... I was blessed to catch a ride up to Utah this past weekend with one of my home teachers (Ryan) and his father on their way to conference. We left with plenty of time to get there, so we took a small detour and stopped to tour Cove Fort on the way.

We went on a little guided tour, and then headed further North. We dropped Ryan's dad off at a friend's house near Mapleton where he was staying, and then Ryan and I left for Provo to meet up with our respective friends. Still arriving too early, we thought it would be a fun idea to go up to the MTC and volunteer to be taught in the Teaching Appointment center (formerly known at the TRC).

We went in and got our nametags, walked to the center and then discovered we didn't have enough time to stay for the entire rotation, so we left. Bummer. Although it wasn't totally pointless... thousands of memories came flooding back just from the smells of the place - the laundry room smell, cafeteria food... it was fun.

I got to attend my mission reunion on Friday night, stayed with my former mission companion Ashley, and drove up to SLC Saturday morning while listening to the first session of conference on the radio. I was so excited to hear that my sister's mission of Cordoba, Argentina is getting a temple! Ryan was also excited for the temple being built in the country he served in - Italy. He screamed out loud multiple times.

Saturday afternoon allowed me my first opportunity to see a session of General Conference live. We sat in the highest level of the conference center, but were in the front row of our section. It was so cute to see all those primary kids try not to wiggle inbetween performances! They actually didn't do too bad...

I stayed with my little sister that night, and even got to go see the Musical "Seussical" that she was performing in out in Magna. I was extremely tired from the lack of sleep I had gotten over the past 2-3 days, but actually really enjoyed the show - I didn't fall asleep once!!

Sunday morning I met up with a group of friends from Las Vegas, and was able to attend another session of Conference in the Conference Center. We once again sat in the highest level, but this time we were dead center! Very cool! We had lunch at my sister's, caught the next session in the JS Memorial building, then walked around temple square a bit before piling back in the car to drive back to Las Vegas.

It was a fun trip!!

I was tagged!

Heather Davenport (previously known as a Despain) tagged me on her blog page, so I willingly submit my answers to the following questions. Enjoy!

Where were you 10 years ago?

Ten years ago I had just started my Sophmore year of High School - It was the year I didn't have many extra-curricular activities; I had dropped Choir and was no longer in Westernairs, and my parents didn't let me try out for the musical or color guard because my grades hadn't been too good... I did however get to do the Fall play (Spoon River Anthology), and I designed the choir T-shirt.

Five things on today's to-do list?

Like Heather said, today is over. But as for tomorrow...
1. Attend Jorge's Baptism
2. Homework/Reading
3. Pack my room
4. Move in to my new apartment!
5. Bust a move at the YSA Decades Dance (dressed as Cher in the 80's - of course!).

A Snack I enjoy:

Real fruit popsicles are my current kick.

Things I would do if I were a millionaire:

I'd probably drop out of school, pay off my loan, travel anywhere I wanted to go (New Zealand, all of Central and South America, Europe, the rest of the 50 States I haven't been to yet...), buy a sweet house somewhere in California and hang with the stars!

Places I have lived:

Littleton, Colorado
St. Louis, Missouri
Mink Creek, Idaho (If you count a summer nanny job)
Vail, Colorado
Las Vegas, Nevada
Detroit, Michigan (another summer nanny job)
Corona, California (summer nanny job #3)
Provo, Utah (If the MTC counts...)
Colonia Suiza, Uruguay
Salto, Uruguay
Rivera, Uruguay

Now I tag...
Stephanie Pollock, Diego and Mariela Hellewell, Krystin Christopherson, Jessica Alleman, Chelsea Beauchamp and Shelli Armstrong.

The First Time...

This past month has been pretty rough on me. So, in order to try and get through my trials successfully I tried to involve myself in a few extra church activities that centered around our Stake Conference; such things as joining the Stake choir... which resulted in locking my keys in my car at the church.

Anyway, being ever-persistant as always, I kept trying to do the right thing, and talked myself into going to the fireside last Sunday night. I left my house a half an hour before the fireside started - plenty of time to get there, right?

About 3 blocks away from home I noticed a police car behind me at a stop sign. No big deal, I had my blinker on, I came to a complete stop, and wasn't speeding either. I turned on to the next street and the cops followed. And yes, their lights came on. Thinking they were heading off on a call I pulled over. They followed. Why? I had a brake light out. They then took my licence and registration and walked back to the cop car, so I sit and wait. And wait and wait and wait! At one point I noticed them writing on a piece of paper. Great. Then cop #1 shows cop #2 the paper, cop #2 points at something, and cop#1 proceeds to tear off the first paper and start over. So, I wait some more. Finally, after waiting 35 minutes (they kept me pulled over for 45 minutes total) they gave me this:

A traffic citation requiring me to go to court! Seems a little excessive for a burnt out brake light, right?? Not to mention I was a half an hour late for the fireside.