A N I M O !

"Animo" is one of my favorite words in Spanish. It's a cognate, so you can probably guess what it means, animated, excited, etc. As an exclamatory phrase though, it doesn't directly translate, it's kind of like, 'get excited!' So that combined with "adelante", or onward/forward I thought worked well with the alliteration for the title of my blog.

When I was in the MTC in Spain, our Saturday teacher was awesome. He also happened to be Canarian and his family was in the first branch I served in, they were great. Anyway, he would always have us bring it in, for a little huddle and do the "grito de animo", or 'yell/shout of excitement'. As missionaries, we loved it and I've loved that word ever since then.

So here are a few things that have me "animo"-ed recently:

the rodeo I went to tonight

professional tennis match next weekend

learning to make salsa

1 more month of summer

Debut

Yes, I've decided to start a blog!

Crazy, I think. No promises that I'll update regularly but I'll try not to go M.I.A. too. A couple of reasons why, I feel like I should and have for a long time now. I was recently at home with my family and my sister was trying to get us to join Twitter. I told her I would probably be starting a blog, to which she replied, "Do both!!" Ha ha, probably not. One at a time.

I do read blogs regularly, so most of you that are reading this that have blogs, I've probably read them. I love to read blogs to see what my friends are up to, though I don't comment often, sorry. I also think writing on my blog will be a good way for me to become more of a reflective and grateful person which is something that I need to do better.

*There may be a few posts in Spanish too, I hope to keep in touch with my international Spanish-speaking friends a little better! Mis amigos hispabohablantes! Espero escribir en espanol de vez en cuando tambien, asi que hay que volver a visitar el blog para ver lo que he escrito!! ;)