Christmas!!!!

So this year Christmas was a lot different, but a good experience to say the least. Unfortunately i didn't get to go home and see the family, but i did get to spend Christmas with my Hawaiian family. The Ah'Puck family was very welcoming and i was able to spend Christmas eve, Christmas and the day after with them. They are such loving and giving people that i will always remember. I had the opportunity to feel the true Christmas spirit from their family and am so thankful for it. They have truly blessed my life. I am so thankful for my savior and that he could be born and carry out his purpose here on this earth so that i can repent and return to live with him someday. May God bless each and everyone one of you this holiday season and remember the true meaning of Christmas, Christ's birth!

MELE KALIKIMAKA

(Merry Christmas in Hawaiian)

Final Days of Fall

Well there has a lot been going on lately so i will try and sum it up.

First i wanna go out of chronological order a bit and give my congratulations to my 3 favorite graduates this semester!!!!! I am so proud of them. Here is the last picture of all the roomies taken before graduation and one with me and the graduates after graduation.

So since many of our friends have been leaving us we have been having some epic activities!! when there was a torrential downpour complete with lightning and thunder (a rarity for us) we went and played a game called lap tag in an open field by our house in ankle deep water. For those of you who dont know lap tag is just a title and an excuse to wrestle, but boy it sure is fun!! some other things that we have done include a compound (what we call our houses, both the guys and girls together) beach football game, some fun laying out in the sun, a last girls night out together to one of our favorite restaurants Haleiwa Eats which is a house favorite for Tai food, watching sunsets, family dinners, and of course trying to take as many pictures to capture moments together. here are some pictures to show what we have been up to.

Finals

Once finals are over and life calms down a little bit i will get back on here and post all about lifes happenings. but not to leave this so dull, here is a fun picture that i have taken lately...

Lani Kai = Bliss :)

Catch Up!

I have been slacking this past couple of weeks, and there is a lot to talk about, so here is what has been going on lately.So lets start with Halloween :) yeah it has been that long

so i was Taylor Swift and had a lot of fun getting dressed up for nothing. I got dressed up just to get dressed up it was great!

Next: For enrichment night (even though its not technically called that anymore) our bishops wife taught a bread making activity. Although i already knew how to make bread i learned more things to do with it here is a picture of all that me and Shiri made:

They are so delicious!!!!!!!!!!

We, me and Shiri, have decided to make a MEAL and to elaborately cook every week so for our first week we made homemade everything! homemade bread bowls filled with homemade corn chowder... oh SO good!

Bread bowl with chowder followed by a cream cheese cinnamon braid with a almond glaze and the bottom is a variety of goods: cinnamon rolls, chicken rolls, orange rolls, and a taco ring and all of it was delicious :)

Now that all of that is caught up here is this past weekend: first before all the greatness in relation to the temple some of me and my roomates went to the midnight showing of the harry potter movie that just came out and LOVED it. after watching the latest movie i have decided that i need to reread them and so now it is a goal of mine to reread the whole series before the last movie comes out.

now onto temple greatness: I have had so many spiritual experiences this past while with the re-dedication of the temple. 1st i had the opportunity to go through the open house and to learn so much more about the temple. 2nd each ward was assigned a date to clean the temple do i volunteered and went and helped. before we started cleaning we were taken through the temple and again i had more spiritual and learning experiences. I LOVE THE TEMPLE!!! For the re-dedication all the temple districts stakes youth prepared a cultural celebration that they have been working on for the past 2-3 months. Over 2,000 were involved and danced in the celebration. Only parents, the prophet and his entourage had tickets. BUT... through connections i was asked to help with it and was able to attend the actual event instead of watch a broadcast of it. my job was to play and change the color of the lights on the big light board. it was so much fun. So it was a great spiritual experience to listen to the prophet speak to the kids and to hear their experiences from the show. After the show, right before the prophet left, using my backstage pass i walked up and got within a couple feet of the prophet. it was so cool and i could feel the spirit so strongly as the youth conveyed their hard work and dedication that was put into the whole event!

This is how close i got to pres Monson. and if you look closely you can see my hand come up in the right hand corner trying to get a high five :) hahah

also here is a panoramic picture of everyone at the cultural celebration, It was PACKED!!! although it isnt the greatest picture the bright white blob is all the youth, and they go up into the stands a well, it was such a neat thing to see the temple being raised. (it was made out of cloth) it was such a stellar weekend

I promise to update my blog more frequently from now on!

Chao

More like a Birth-weekend than a Birthday

Well to say the least it has been an eventful past couple of days. My 20th birthday was this past weekend, so my excuse from Friday to Monday was "Its my birthday weekend, i can do what i want." And so i did just that. Friday evening i went up north shore with some friends to get my free acai bowl (they have a card where if you buy 10 you get one free and i had a full card) and to watch the sun set and one of our friends body board. It was a nice relaxing time to get me to forget the stresses of school, work, and life and prepared me to just enjoy my birthday weekend. After that we came home and ate at surf-n-tacos. Delicious! and then after everyone got home later that night we had an EPIC game of Capture the Flag under the moonlight across the street at the beach. The reason it was epic was because we are a competitive bunch and got into the game. Our game lasted for about 2-3 hours and resulted in neither team capturing a flag and some tested relationships. We got so into the game that we had to separate ourselves to cool off and not continue arguing with each other. Hahah it was epic.

The next morning, running on little sleep from our game of capture the flag a couple of us went rock climbing up at Kaena Point. The view from up there is amazing and the rock climbing is great!

This is our group right before we started our hike up to the base of the rock climbing.



Me trying to beast my way up the rock



The View from the bottom of where you rock climb. It is beautiful and the air strip in the photo is where i went skydiving last year!!!



After on our way home we stopped at Kava Roots and i got another Acai Bowl! yep that means i ate 2 acai bowls within 24 hours of eachother and i loved every last bite of them. After we went to the girls soccer game to watch them defeat Noter Dame De Namur. After that we went and watch the saddest but cutes comedy i have ever seen, Life as We Know It. It was so cute and i loved it and highly suggest it to anyone remotely interested in the movie, totally worth it.

Finally my actual birthday arrived and it was great. I slept in until noon, talked to the family, went to church and then came home for some festive activities. for the day we had both a crepe party and our compound (my house and the guys house right next door, we refer to ourselves as the compound) had the first annual pumpkin carving contest. We had about 25 or so people show us and we all carved pumpkins ino our back yard. Our pumpkins were then judged by Matti's Mom, Grandma, and the little neighbor boy Carden. It was loads of fun and i look forward to doing it again next year. After they were judged and the winners picked (i got and Honorable Mention) everyone sang me happy birthday and we all hung out and had our crepes. They were delicious!

This is my pumpkin. it may not be scary or conventional but it has meaning. Our house is called the bus stop house so my pumpkin was dedicated to our house!



Here is almost everyone's pumpkins



Most everyone who was there and some of the pumpkins. The three judges are deliberating in the middle.



Later that same night we had another out door movie and watched the new Robin Hood that just came out. It was a great weekend but my birthday-ness wasnt over. On Monday we cooked my birthday cake and i got to blow out 20 candles. (I did it in one big breath so my wish would come true!)

Well thats about all that happened this weekend haha just a few things, but it was a great birthday weekend and thanks to all those who helped make it as great as it was!

Haunted Lagoon

Well this is the first blog about something other than a Saturday :) thats only because Saturday was really busy and only consisted of me working all morning, taking a test, playing soccer with some friends including Natasha Kai, former US Olympic soccer player, watching the BYUH womens soccer game, trying to win McDonald's Monopoly by looking in the trash for game pieces and then watching the Social Network. hahah it was a busy Saturday to say the least but no pictures and not too many exciting details so i will jump to Monday night when a bunch of us went to the haunted lagoon.
For those who don't know and cant guess from the name, the haunted lagoon is a 20 min haunted boat ride through the Polynesian Cultural Center with the story about the Laie Lady. Really creepy. Anyways a couple of my roommates, some of the soccer girls and some of our guy friends went last night because of a great one night student deal. So it was way fun and scary at the same time. To adequately put how scared i got my throat hurt afterwards from screaming and i fell off of my seat onto the row behind me like 3 times. so to say the least it accomplished its purpose of scaring me and was totally worth the time and money to ride it. If anyone is ever out here for Halloween and they are doing the haunted lagoon i highly recommend it!

Here are a couple of pictures of us before the ride and right after we got on the canoe.





Im sure there are more post to come as this is going to be a unplanned epic weekend!!!

Another Saturday Adventure

I am sorry that all i write about is Saturdays but that is the highlight of my week and what i feel is post worthy.
This Saturday we went to Sunset beach and enjoyed a great day in the sun and got a little toasty. By the way i got weird white spots on my back that were kinda rash like so if you have any ideas or suggestions feel free to include that in your comments. After this we went for a little window shopping in Haleiwa. Then for dinner i got to try out a new little Mexican place right down the road called surf and tacos. I split a green sweet pork burrito with Alexis and it was delightful for a burrito in Hawaii.



While there, the kahuku girls Volleyball team was having a fundraiser/party with karaoke and a different form of DDR. So we joined in on the fun and did some dancing. Here is the video of some of us dancing. It is me, Becca, Becca's roommate and her guy friend. We had a blast!!


Afterwards we started a great new tradition, movies outside under the stars with the couches!!! yeah we have the guys move our old couches outside and watch movies on our T.V. which we also take outside and enjoy the sounds of the ocean as a background to our movies. It has been so much fun and will continue to be great bonding moments for our "family" :)

I also have to note in here that i went and worked out this morning! i am so proud of myself but now i just need to keep it up and start to eat healthier. So it was a step in the right way and now i am soooooo sore but cant wait to work out again on Wednesday!

Ta Ta for now

My life be like...

This weeks adventures included an amazing day at electric beach. After everyone watched conference and i finished work we rode down to electric beach which is right next to Ko'olina resorts. We then just laid out and enjoyed the rest of our day doing what we pleased at the beach. What makes electric beach so exciting? It for sure isn't the beach because it is a tiny little beach on a the high crime rate side of the island, but it does have great snorkeling. There is a power plant, hence the name electric beach, that shoots out warm water into the sea which the fish like and so they congregate there. So there are a lot of diverse fishies and good snorkeling. After our fill at the beach we went to Walmart and stocked up our diminishing supplies for our house and then headed off to one of the greatest restaurants on the island, Haleiwa Eats. It was delightful Thai food.

That was my Saturday and has thus far been followed by a normal week. However i have been figuring out things about myself like:

1. Im a girl!!! yes everyone i am a girl haha :) When you take soccer out of my life i am more girly! last semester i used to count how many times i would wear jeans or even a normal bra instead of sports bras. Now this semester i am counting when i have gone to school in something other than jeans. And to top it all off i even wore a skirt to school without having to wear one for a presentation! So far the count is one day out of 3 weeks that i have worn sweat pants!!

2. Life is so much easier when you are prepared. This semester i have been really trying to tap into my nerdy side and stay caught up if not ahead in my classes. This goal has been a very hard thing as i am taking 18 credits and working but surprisingly i think i have been doing a decent job. I am not perfect but i have been so much better than previous semesters. However, we will see how the rest of the semester turns out.

This weeks pictures: sorry none of me

My food, and us just chillin talking at the table.

Some of the girls... LOVE THEM!!!
Our guy friends that accompanied us, all fresh returned missionaries, the one in the middle has been home for almost a month max haha we are breaking them back into life :)
The guys before their attempt to catch us food, lets just say its a good thing we still have grocery stores and restaurants :)

All Day Saturday

Saturday was a sunny day of adventure at Waimea Bay with my roomies Ash Becca and Cami. We had an awesome car ride up there and then sprawled out and caught some delightful rays. After long hours on the beach we decided to walk to glorious Kava Roots and get delicious acai bowls! While finishing our acai bowls we were confronted by a guy telling us to come look at his shop. I was a little skeptical at first but safety in numbers right... so we went and looked at his way cool shop and it turn out to be alright and an interesting guy. It was a shaman shop and had all these different things reinforcing the statement that one mans junk is another mans treasure. after this new and exciting experience we walked back to the beach and was joined by our guy friends.

We then decided to jump the famous rock. All of us girls did our sissy jumps while three of the boys, Cameron, Carter, and Alex all showed off their skills by doing cool tricks by all pulling off double back flips. Alex and Carter decided to up their technical skills and go for triple back flips. All i can say is that i was super impressed even though they didn't completely rotate through them cleanly. But KUDOS for them!!!! After this we met a biker gang consisting of most of the girls soccer team and ate at Kuhuku grill. YUMMY burgers

We then came home and i had my first experience on a motorcycle! it was awesome. I got to ride on the back of my neighbor Alex's bike. We had a blast while i got to hold on tight to his sexy body :) Its was an amazing ride. After this my roommates and i all got ready for a rocking birthday dance party for a friend of ours. It was way fun getting our grove on haha.

That about sums up my super Saturday and im sorry no pictures this week because my camera was dead and all the other pictures are on Becca's camera. Until next time...

Welcome into my head

I have decided to officially start a blog to join the millions of others who are doing it, including my family :) I will try and keep this updated with whatever is going on in my life, exciting or otherwise.

As of right now that means writing about school since we have just started back up. This semester is going to be very HECTIC to say the least. I am carry 18 credits and have a job working in the school cafeteria, which means that my social and beach life will be severely cut back :( but i will find time to weave some normalcy into my life.