:(

So I have kinda been going through Hawaii withdrawals!! I haven't started working yet, so that gives me a lot of time to sit around and reminise(sp?) about how wonderful my life in Hawaii was, and it's rather depressing! To add to my list of depressing things to think about, theres the fact that I'm not going to see my brand new niece and nephew til next year, I'm on the waiting list for BYU Jerusalem, because by rotten luck my name didn't get picked in the random draw even though I was totally qualified, and gas has gone up ridiculously high, of course now that I have to buy a car and have to drive an hour everyday for my job...greeeeat. Oh and did I mention I'm freezing ALL the time? Oh and also that of course the country I pick to go teach English in has turned absolutely crazy and totally unsafe and my Dad won't let me for get it?And mail takes 15 days to get here from the States! 15 days! It took 4 to get to Hawaii! And I thought that was long, and it costs like 30$ to send a large envelope from Canada, that myabe costed 5$ to send to the States! Ahh! But at least I live in a free country right? And I have an amazing family! And if I don't get into BYUJ, I'm going to go work in Australia!! That is, if I can find someone to come with me!! Any takers? I'm not kidding, if you're interested or know anyone who is, let me know!! I've been home two weeks and I'm already ready to get out of this town!

Tribute to Hawaii

Soooo it's official, I am the worstest blogger ever!!! I was having too much fun here to sit around blogging! But now my Hawaiian adventure is over and it's rather sad, sitting here in my empty room, surrounded by all my suitcases, and who knows when I'll return? JK I may be coming back here in fall to do elementary education! But who knows... anyways I just wanted to highlight some of my very favorite things I did here, all of course with my Hawaiian besties, Jenny, Saydi and Rachel whom I love so much and I'm going to miss them tons!! But Lacombe, Washington & Utah aren't that far away right?? But this has honestly been one of the most amazing experiences of my life, and I know that there was no where else in the world I was supposed to be these past two semesters then at BYUH! It was such a blessing to be able to come here, and I've grown so much! It has truly become a home to me, and I feel like when I get on my plane on Sunday, I will be leaving a little piece of me in Hawaii. There truly is no place like home, except Hawaii!!

Food:
- Nico's- has the best ahi-ahi I have EVER had, with amazing cilantro ginger dip, it doesn't taste fishy at all, and it's on the pier, so everything tastes deliciously fresh! Just make sure not to be like me and accidently order it raw:p
-Polynesian Ono Bread- you get a huge, fresh loaf of bread for only 5$! Sooo delicous, us four girls sat down and ripped off chunks and dipped it in butter and we ate it all in one sitting, and I'm embarassed to say, along with a coconut bun and a huge tuna melt, which was SO good! And the staff is super friendly!
Kahuku Grill - mmm definitley a favorite! Amazing fries (well they are actually potato wedges, but they call them fries & they come with this special fry sauce, and mmm its just undescribable!!), huge cheese burgers and teri burgers, the teriyaki chicken plate is so yummy, the salad w/ the dressing is amazing, and the macadamia coconut shrimp is SO good, and I don't even really like shrimp! Then there is also the coconut, banana, chocolate chip bread w/ ice cream to get for dessert!
Ted's Bakery- Best early in the morning! Most amazing carrot cake I have ever had, delicious omlets and breakfast sandwiches, yummy glazers, such good smoothies, and just any pastrie from there is going to be divine!
Sharks Cove Grill- So sometimes this place tasted so good, and other times not so much! But I do love their chicken skewers with rice and salad!
Hukilau Cafe- Omh, best place to go for breakfast and so cheap! The pancakes are HUGE, I tried the banana and coconut and loved them both, and the french toast is divine!
Roadside Fruitstand-   Just past Turtle Bay. Super cheap, such yummy mango, fried bananas and sugar cane, and just all the fruit there is fresh and delicious! Also sometimes they have a little grill, and the chicken and pork skewers from there are delicious and only 1$ each!
Dole Plantation- I had to mention dole whip, I just love it! Also the cinnamon macadamia nuts from there are super yummy too!
Macadamia Nut Farm-  Lots of delicious samples of different kinds of macadamia nuts, my favorites were the sweet kinds, and I definitley would have boughten a bag if they weren't 10$ each!
Kaneohe Acai Bowls ( I can't remember the name of the actual place!) My favorite acai bowls on the island so far!! You can kinda make them to order, and they are cool, refreshing and taste so healthy!
Seasiders -  The on-campus snack place! My favorite is the sandwiches, on thick, homemade herb bread with the cranberry mayo, turkey, lettuce and tomatoes!!
Angels- This is personally my favorite place to get shaved ice from! A scoop of ice cream, shaved ice with 3 flavors, drizzled with condensed milk and a dollop of whipped cream is so good!

Hikes
- PCC Hike- It was kinda hard to find, but sooo worth it! Only like an hour each way, and you hike up a stream to a waterfall, sometimes hopping from rock to rock and some times walking (or bushwacking!!) on the path beside the creek! Leads to an adorable small waterwall, that fun to climb up and jump off of!
Manoa Cliffs Trail- I love this hike so much, I honestly felt like I was hiking in a fairytale! It was all jungly, with huge drop offs and vines, and canopies and massive trees and stunning views, I loved this hike so much! Theres no waterfall to cool off in at the end, but a refreshing acai bowl does the trick!
Laie Falls- Takes longer than you think, but super fun, and lots of different terrain to see!! And theres a waterfall that would be really hard to get up to jump off of, but is super fun just to swim in!!
Monowillie (sp?)- This is a beautiful hike!! Theres never a super spectacular view, but just what you're hiking in is beautiful, and there is a super fun waterfall to jump off of!!
Stairway to Heaven- This illegal (oops!) hike is unlike any other!! It's hiking up 5000+ stairs at 2:30am to catch the sunrise, and going as fast as you can so the guard won't see you and run after you and make you come back down! But the most stunning view ever!! It's something that just can't be captured on film, but will forever be burned in my mind!
Keana Point- So this is more of a nature walk, but it was amazing, and extremely hot. You walk for a while (you could drive it of you had a jeep) and then you get to a point where you are right beside the ocean and there are seals and whales and all different kinds of birds ( its a reserve for them) and it is just beautiful!!

Activites:
- Snorkeling- Shark's cove is my favorite place to snorkel, but the waves get to big in the winter, so you can only go in the deep part from may-october, but the shallower part still has tons of fish! I also love Hanuama Bay!
Kayaking- We went at Laniki beach, and it was 55$/ 4 hrs for a 2 person kayak and it was soooo fun! We went on a more windy day, and it was still amazing.
Lighthouse Walk- I love this walk up to this cute little lighthouse, it's past Hanuama Bay and it has a gorgeous view at the top!
Polynesian Cultural Centre-  soooo touristy but I love this place! Going to the village shows during the day, and the nightshow are my two favorite things there!
Pearl Harbour- It's a must. This is just the saddest, most interesting place, I really loved going here!

Beaches
Waimea- Always pretty crowded, but it's huge so it's okay! The waves here can get pretty massive and I dont particularly enjoy being thrashed by them, but I loved jumping off the giant rock here, and on a nice day, it is simply beautiful!
Laniki- Definitley my favorite beach!! Beautiful white, soft, sand, teal water, and usually not overly crowded, and usually the water is pretty flat!!
Waikiki- As crowded as this beach is, I actually kind of enjoy it! Some parts are kind of gross, but some areas are beautiful, and it's so close to lot's of other things! And the waves usually aren't too huge here!
Sunset Beach- Omh I love this beach, haha as titled, it is the most amazing place to watch sunsets! And during the day it's a pretty fun place to be, and so, so, so beautiful!!

Shopping
Swap Meet- I love the swap meet! A great place to get cheap souveneirs! 8 t-shirts fo 20$, you can buy fruit, I got a Hawaii license plate framer and hawaii stickers for my car and laptop, keychains, jewellery, you name it they will probably have it!
International Market Place- Right it Honolulu, not as cheap as the swap meet, but has some cuter Hawaii shirts, and is a little better quality!
Pearl Ridge Shopping Center- My favorite mall here! Has TONS of my favorite stores and restuarants and is right beside a ROSS!
Ala Moana Mall- The outdoor mall in Honolulu, most of the stores here are above my price range, but they do have a forever 21, gap, old navy, ect!! This mall also has a Bubba Gump Shrimp restuarant which I loved!
I am so sad to have to be leaving this beautiful island, but my time here is over, and I keep telling myself I'll make it back here soon! Perhaps next years spring break?:)

So yesterday started as a wonderful day. I learned a new dance in my hula class, then Saydi and I went running of the beach, and went boogie boarding after to cool off. Which is funny because we both commented on how rough the ocean was! Then we went to Kahuku grill and got delicious burgers & yummy baked potato fries, and frozen yogurt, and then headed into Kaneohe to buy fabric for our sewing class. Then we came home, ate dinner, cleaned our rooms for white glove and went to Foodland. Then baked chocolate chip cookies and ate it w/ vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce in the piano lounge while watching a really cute chic flic! However, we couldnt hear the tsunami alarm that went off every once in a while, because of our movie, and no one bothered to look in the piano lounge, to warn 4 innocent girls that an 8.9 tsunami was heading our way. So when we finally finished the movie, we went back to our rooms, to see everyone moving everything from waist high or lower, up on top of their dressers. Then we were told abou the tsunami. Yup, a few tears were definitley shed! How would you feel if someone told you that the tsunami that had just ripped through Japan, washing cars off highways, turning over huge ships, and killing at least 24 people was headed your way, and then that they had just evacuated Waikiki and all the hotels there, and that the highways were bumper to bumper, and news was telling people to get out of their cars, and start walking to higher ground? And so after spending an extrememly stressful hour moving everything into our previusly empty suitcases, up on top of our dressers, and packing a change of clothes, passport, water, scriptures, a flashlight and some snacks, we were faced with the decision of where to go.  A bunch of people were going up to the hill behind the temple, because that is the highest place in Laie. But then the school sent out an email telling everyone to simply go to the upper floor of their hale and sleep there for a night. But then we heard that the tsunami was supposed to hit Halaiewa dead centre, which is just a little ways away from us, and that the tsunami was not supposed to be tall, but wide and powerful and wrap around the whole island, possibly with enough force to knock down foundations...so, after a quick group prayer we decided to camp upstairs for the night. Honestly, this was one of the scariest experiences of my life. You always hear about the natural disasters around the world, and you think "oh those poor people" , but you never think its going to happen to you. Especially when you're from Edmonton and the worst things that happen are blizzards!! And especially since we frequently say " it's kinda scary that we're on a teeny island in the middle of the ocean, thats the farthest away in the world from any other land mass, what if something happened?" So yes, we parked ourselves and made little beds in a narrow upstairs highway, and actually had quite a fun time considering the circumstances, and stayed up til 3am when the tsunami was supposed to hit. We had live news feeds going on our laptops, we were ready to see the worst. However, at 3:30am, when it "hit", the waves just broke on a wall at Waikiki and thankfully never got past there! Then we woke up at about 7:30am, so a good 4 hrs of sleep, but no email has been sent out by the school, so none of us know if classes are cancelled or whats going on, because apparently there is still a warning and we are still supposed to be on high ground, even though we just heard the PCC is going to be open for the day. And thankfully all the Japanese people we have talked to know their families are safe, but we've just heard theres at least 300 dead. So we are now currently trying to decided what to do this weekend! We were going to got to Costco tonight but we've just heard it's closed and then tomorrow we were going to go snorkelling at Hanuama Bay and kayaking at Laniki but it looks like we'll have to reschedule! Oh and I just got an email from the school, campus is open, which I think is a littl bit ridiculous because no one I have talked to had gotten more than 4 hours of sleep! lame!

Fun in HI!!

So I love living here, there are new adventures every week! Heres a list of the things I've done recently:
- bought boogie boards!!
- went boogie boarding
- learned the secret of the rainbow cake
- tastes the deliciousness of banana macadamia nut ginger cake with cream cheese frosting
- went on a gorgeous hike to the most western point of the island & saw seals and whales
- swam in the most beautiful clear ocean and got burnt on the most beautiful beach
- went to the Wet n' Wild waterpark at 50% off admission rate!
- Laie temple to do baptisms
- delicious brownies with mint icing
- Went on a super long and beautful hike through a jungle overlooking Honolulu with the coolest trees and vines! I honestly felt like I was hiking in a fairytale! Haha except when we got lost for a good two hours and thought we were going to have to sleep there overnight
- Ate delicious Acai bowls with lots of yummy fruit:)
- went to a Faculty of the Arts concert, which was amazing!
- Discovered a cute little frozen yogurt van and got smores frozen yougurt- marshmellows, chocolate chips and crushed graham wafers:)
- went out for dinner and ate delicious ribs & mashed potatoes (okay I know tons of these are food, but we get seriously deprived at the cafeteria!)
- sang kareoke at this korean place
- ate delicious mexican food
- watched horrible movies with horrible plots with my favorite girls
- had a super fun photoshoot and got eaten alive by misquitoes!!
- bought the cutest Steve Madden boots from Macy's at 65% off!! We all talked each other into it! I just dont know how I'm going to get them home, I may have to wear them on the plane!
- finished my application for ILP to go to Mexico!
- ordered some on  sale makeup and swimwear online!
- ate at Teds Bakery! best breakfast sandwich, donuts and carrot cake ever!
- layed on the beach and watched surfers
- went to an awesome marriage conference that our stake put on
- ate a delicious sandwich w/ cranberry mayo from seasiders one night, and yummy stir fry the next in place of the yucky caf. dinner!
- watched a beautiful sunset
- ate delicious coconut shrimp
- had a pet cat for a little bit!
- passed my hula test!

At the marriage conference! the gym was decorated like a reception, and they had a big dinner and wedding cake and a fashion show of temple ready dresses

Rachel's amazing rainbow cake! Too bad I'm sworn to secrecy!!

Saydi made banana macadamia nut ginger cake! I'm ashamed to say the four of us finished off 3/4 of it in one night!

the little cat that sneaked under my bed! there are tons of cats and chickens on campus!

our first stop for the photoshoot at this like collapsed building. There were so many misquitoes though we had to leave pretty quick! I got at least 12 on each of my legs and were probably only there for 10 minutes!

So then we found this place! Right by Shark's cove and no misquitoes:)

I love these girls!!

Roomies!!!

Wet n' Wild Waterpark! You had to be over 21 to go in the hot tub but we snuck in anyways. It was only luke warm though:(

Hike on the western tip of the island!

Sunset Beach

New boots!

I can't believe I am only here for another month!! Time really does go fast when you're having fun:):):)

So my family was here last week and I went and slept at the condo where they were staying, and I hung out with them all week, which meant missing all my meals at the cafeteria and eating GOOD food (coconut shrimp, teriyaki plates, delicious salads, chicken skewers, huge yummy burgers, the most delicious fish ever, garlic shrimp, scrambled eggs that weren't out of a bag, fresh strawberries, mango, raspberries, muffins, good juice, yum, yum, yum!!)Then after they left, I tried living on the food they left me for as long as possible, but unfortunately, popcorn, crackers, cheese and beef jerkey don't fill you up for long!! So it was back to the caf. food this week, which would be good if you liked eating huge chunks of fat in your stew, nasty lettuce, rice for every single meal, no fruit ever besides pineapple and bananas, nasty eggs, ect!! But me and Jen did buy mangoes, bananas, brown sugar & lemon juice at foodland, apparently its a delicious combination for breakfast!! And I guess I shouldn't be complaining, since i do live in Hawaii, but for all you who have homecooked food everyday, be grateful!!

Hi!!
So I decided it was finally time for a new post!!! So today i tried my luck at surfing for the first time. We went to castles, and there was TONS of people there!!! So even with a fabulous teacher, I never did stand up because I was a little preoccupied with not getting run over by someone elses board!! But I got the gist of it and I think it will be super fun if I can actually learn to get up!! And it was a miracle, yesterday the meals at the cafeteria were actually decent!! Lunch was pizza and cheesecake and dinner was teriyaki chicken with rice and cookies! (well the rice wasnt very exciting, its served with EVERY meal!!!) and on thursday, Elder Bednar came and gave a devotional!! It was really good and I was sitting in the second row so I was about 10 feet away from him!! And I have joined the Tongan, Thai and Latino club and I am currently trying to plan out my life for september!! Heres some of my possibilities: BYU Jerusalem (if i could get in!!), ILP in either Mexico, China, Ukraine or Russia, Dental Assisting in Edmonton, changing my major to elementary education and coming back here, or if anyone wants to go backpacking to Europe, or travel to Australia and New Zealand, let me know, I'm totally up for that!! I havent been very good at taking pictures lately, but I am going to try to be better!!

ahhh its been so long! okay so everything has been kinda crazy busy here, but i love every moment of it!!! okay so lets see, every tuesday and thursday are my "beach days" cause i dont have a class til 3:40!!  Every tuesday there is a devotional at 11 and everything on campus shuts down for it, and i love attending them, they are awesome! Although there is like nothing to do in Laie, theres tons today on campus! like today after me and tiff hit the beach, we went and watched the mens soccer game. And last night i went to something called "open mike" which is on every week, and just whoever wants to can come with their guitar or whatever and perform for a little audience! and then the night before I went to a formal, classical, opera concert that I had to attend for my theory class, and I loved it! And last friday it was my roomie, Jenny's bithday so 9 of us girls went into honolulu and went shopping and out to eat and it was super fun! Then last saturday we just hung out at the beach all day, got shaved ice and frozen yogurt with fruit, and pizza and sandwiches with cranberry mayo from seasiders!! haha as you can tell, there is lots of yummy food to eat here!! and sorry still no pictures!!! jenny always takes them , so i have none on my camera but i am going to change that very soon! i am going to the haunted lagoon on friday at the pcc, so i will ty to take some pictures there, and then some beach pictures on saturday!!! oohh and i just ordered two new bathing suits from shade and i have one from lime ricki on the way, and i am soo excited, i loved swim suits!!! but yah thats the recent update on my life!!!