As we’re diving into the second semester of school, Air Academy High School students have been sharing stories from over winter break. Over break, our Kadets made memories that will last forever. What better way to kick of 2014 than to share a few students’ most memorable stories from over the holidays? Some students got into the holiday spirit by finally relaxing after a semester of hard work paid off, like Air Academy HS senior Colby Goldberg, whose best Christmas present was getting accepted into the college of her dreams. “Baylor has always been my dream school; the minute I walked on the campus I fell in love and knew that it was where I wanted to go to school, but after I took the ACT I didn’t really have any chance of getting in,” said Colby. But Colby didn’t give up there. She worked extremely hard to get a solid ACT score that would get her into Baylor while also making it more affordable. “With a lot of hard work I raised my ACT score and submitted my application to the school. After a few weeks a letter came from Baylor, a big letter that held my admissions decision. When I opened the letter I just started balling my eyes out because not only had I been accepted, I had been given an extremely generous scholarship.” Colby is now readily preparing to be a part of the Baylor class of 2018.

Another Air Academy student, senior Brendan Boyle, also had an eventful holiday season. Over the holidays, Brendan traveled to Arizona with his girlfriend, junior Kahaili Timmsen, and Kahaili’s sister. “Her sister brought a horse head mask with her and one night when we were bored, we spent hours and hours into the night baking and decorating horse-shaped sugar cookies. The next morning, we drove to a local mall dressed in fancy clothes and handed out horse-shaped sugar cookies while one of us was wearing a horse head. To make it even better, the two of us who weren’t wearing the horse head talked in British accents the whole time. Several people came up to us asking to take pictures with us, asking if they could add us on Instagram and trying to make conversation!”

Junior Jordan Van Arsdale embraced the holidays by diving into the snow, head first! She spent the time away from school snowboarding for the first time in her life at Breckenridge. She hit the slopes with her boyfriend and his family after a four hour car ride up. “It took me an hour and a half to get halfway down the mountain because I kept falling over and over again!” said Jordan. “But I finally got the hang of it. My boyfriend just took off down the mountain! It feels like the only time I saw him was in the car rides.” Jordan had a great time learning a new skill. “It was a great workout. Falling that many times and getting back up wears you out a lot, but once I got the balance and speed thing down, it was super fun and I got a great adrenaline rush. I would definitely do it again; it was totally worth the money!”