* inner tube polo *

Here at BYUH we do things a little differently... Instead of having intramurals with your own created team, they do a few days of one sport and it is ward vs. ward. Crystal, Bri, Preston, and I decided to join in the water polo intramurals. My roommate Bri played polo in high school but as for the rest of us, it was the first time! But it turned out that we ended up being on a pretty good team! We played 3 games in a row and then made it to the championship. Things got pretty heated in this game but we unfortunately lost :( It was still way fun though. As you can see from the pictures, we had a good time haha. The next day we were all pretty sore. It was awesome :)                     

Me and Crystal

Preston

Roadtrip on an island???... Possible!

Yesterday I literally worked all day long!! 11.5 hours to be precise. Both the men and women's soccer teams traveled to the Big Island and back in one day. So in the morning I had to make two trips to the airport taking both teams, and then at night I had to go pick them up from the airport! I was working for 5.5 hours in the morning and 6 in the evening. It was a crazy day driving from one end of the island to the other end 4 times haha. I think I have it memorized by now. But its a good thing the scenery wasn't boring. Half of the drive is right between the shore and the huge green mountains! So pretty :)
In the middle of the day, I had a few hours break so Kellie and I carved pumpkins for Halloween. It was really fun but lets not pretend that we are master carvers. Our pumpkins struggled a little bit. Kellie carved a pirate but wasn't satisfied how it looked so she carved a dinosaur on the back haha. And I carved Squidward from Spongebob. Creative or what? You don't have to tell me twice :)

Squidward (left) and Pirate (right)

On my evening drive when I was driving the guys team back to campus, we all stopped for dinner at this new place called Surfin' Tacos. Its basically CAFE RIO - Hawaiian style!!! Best meal I have had in a long time, plus it was paid for by the school, and I was also getting paid while eating it on the job :) That right there completed the whole day! I had a long day and was tired by the end but it actually turned out to be a pretty good day. This just goes to prove that road trips are possible on an island..... if you drive to the other side and back 4 times :)

House of the Lord!

As you all probably know, the Laie Hawaii Temple is open to the public for the open house. Each night they need volunteers to come clean inside and out of the temple to keep everything perfect due to the thousands of people that go through everyday. My ward was assigned a night to clean it and people were asked to volunteer and to come at 9:30pm - 11:30pm. I was one of 30 people that volunteered to go. When we got there, we got a personal tour through the temple and got to see the remodeled inside, learn about all the symbolism, and hear some stories that aren't normally told to the public. It was a very cool experience, especially since there were only about 30 of us in the entire temple. I felt the spirit so strong and it was an awesome experience to be a part of. After the tour, we were all assigned areas to clean and I was assigned to wipe down the light posts and railings outside the entrance of the temple. The temple is so pretty and its cool how it is the highest point in Laie so we could look out and see everything. Since Laie is a small city with hardly any city lights, I can always see the temple just glowing in the night sky on the hill from wherever I am. I love being so close to the temple. I can't wait to go do baptisms in it around Thanksgiving!

school, beach, and much much more

Well school has been in session for about a month now and it is going great. This semester has probably been my easiest semester so far class wise, not to mention I have no class Tuesdays and Thursdays! So I have a lot of free time on my hands. This can be good and bad in many ways but I am figuring out how to keep myself busy :) One thing that has kept me somewhat busy is a program that I volunteered for through one of my classes. It is a program at the local elementary school working with fifth graders in their fitness room. There are a few students, including me, from BYUH that are helpers with this program. Each fifth grade class is split into two groups and they come in for 15 minutes at a time. We assign one child to each station such as treadmill, aerobic resistance bands, push ups, wall sit, stationary bike, triceps, Bosu balance ball, etc. They are at each station for 1 minute and we are there to just assist them and make sure they are doing the stations correctly. One time I was monitoring the Bosu balance ball, which is just a rubber ball cut in half but on the top is a hard plastic surface where you stand and balance on the rubber round part. One boy was on it and he was having no problem balancing. I was pretty impressed so I said, "Wow you have really good balance!" And he just replied, "Yeah, I am a surfer. I go surfing with my dad." It was pretty cute, but you would only hear that kind of thing in Hawaii. It is pretty fun to see and work with these cute kids twice a week. They work really hard and are usually pretty sweaty by the time the 15 minutes is over!

I also recently got a job as a driver for the athletic teams. Haha. I drive the athletic teams to and from the airport when needed. It is a pretty easy and chill job so its pretty fun. The Laie Temple open house starts on October 22 and goes through November 13. We are going to get tickets to attend that and then have the privilege of being here over Thanksgiving when the temple is rededicated! We are so excited about that. There are also volunteering positions that I will be involved in for the temple such as night cleaning inside the temple, cleaning and taking care of the grounds, and possibly being an usher for the open house. It is going to be fun to be a part of this event.

To have fun around here, me and my roommates have done a few different things including crabbing and going to the Haunted Lagoon at the PCC. Kellie came up with the idea of catching crabs at the beach because she had previously done it in Texas. So we went to Foodland, got some raw chicken legs, tied string to the chicken legs and hucked them out into the ocean just like fishing haha. It was pretty fantastic! We went out at sunset so of course there were couples on the beach trying to have a romantic evening but don't mind us... we are just crabbing! Haha we got some pretty strange looks but we didn't care. Unfortunately we didn't catch any crabs that night, but we will be back! Last week, my roommates and I went to the Haunted Lagoon. It is similar to a Haunted forest but on canoes. There were about 20 people in each canoe and the canoe pusher pushed us down a lazy river with creepy music, zombies, and various characters/scenes happening on the banks of the river. There were also zombies in the water that would creep up to the canoe and jump in and scare everyone. It was loads of fun and also pretty dang scary!! Here are a few pictures from the past month:

The entrance to Bikini Beach

Bikini Beach! Although we were not wearing bikinis... unfortunately ;)

Tying the string to the chicken leg for our crabbing bait

here we are trying to catch our crabs haha

Me, Kellie, and Bri

So... Kellie accidentally let go of her string in the water. A few minutes later I thought I caught something but come to find out, I had just caught Kellie's chicken leg string... haha we laughed pretty hard

One of many geckos living in our house! This was a pretty one

And we caught him!

All these birds always follow the lawn mowers on campus to eat the insects that are stirred up from the freshly cut grass. It is so funny to watch. I think they are going to get run over because they are always in the way!

Skydiving!!!

Yesterday was definitely a full but very awesome day. In the morning, I caught the bus with Kellie and my roommate from last year, Micaela, to go Skydiving!!! We took the bus to a town called Haleiwa to a McDonalds where the Skydive Hawaii van picked us up, which was very convenient since we don't have a car here and the bus doesn't go by the Skydiving location. Micaela and I were going to Skydive but Kellie didn't have the money so she ended up being the picture taker. When we got there we had to watch a ten minute video on skydiving and basically sign our life away on seven pages saying that we were ok with taking the risk that the plane may malfunction and that the parachute might not work and that we were willingly risking our lives doing this :) Pretty scary... especially when we realized that we were doing this on 9/11 haha. But about five minutes after that, our tandem partner guide strapped us up and we were on our way to the runway to catch the plane! I wasn't nervous at all but just completely excited!! We loaded the plane and there were two benches we sat on. I was sitting right in front of my instructor and we were hooked together. The view from the airplane was amazing flying over the Hawaii coast and looking through the clear water. Then they opened the door and it was time to go! The first tandem group jumped and that's when I got a little nervous thinking "Holy crap they just jumped out of an airplane... no big deal!" I was like the 4th person to go. We actually jumped out backwards and did two back-flips out of the airplane. It was nuts! But as soon as we straightened out we were free-falling for about 20 seconds before the parachute came out and then we glided to the bottom. It was sooo crazy but so incredible. The adrenaline rush mixed with the view of the mountains and ocean right below me was the coolest thing ever. My instructor gave me the reigns and I was able to steer the parachute for a little bit. We came to our landing and I safely landed on my feet. It was the coolest thing I have ever done!
After that we shopped around in Haleiwa and then ate lunch at a Thai food place called Haleiwa Eats. After that we rode the bus home and went to the beach. Pretty much the best day I've had yet here in Hawaii!!

This was the sweet rainbow van that picked us up from McDonalds!

Micaela and I

Signing my life away!! EEEP!

Getting ready to go!

Micaela and her instructor

Micaela, me, and Kellie

Walking out to the plane

Getting on the plane! No turning back now :)

Micaela on her way down

Me!!

We landed safely! So awesome :)

Hahaha look at our messed up hair

We were so excited we did it! We even got a certificate to prove it :)

back to school!!

Well I am officially back in Hawaii for my junior year of school! My bestie Kellie Morgan came along with me and we are rooming together. We are very excited for the new adventures this year :) Our house is only a couple blocks from campus, a couple blocks from Foodland, the grocery store, and a couple blocks from the beach! So it is pretty much the most perfect location. Our house was pretty sketchy, dirty, and ghetto when we first arrived. I definitely had to readjust back to the Hawaii living conditions. Not to mention that there are six girls living in our house with two bedrooms and one bathroom. But as Kellie and I started unpacking, our room started to look more "homey". We also made a run to walmart to get some things for the house like rugs, towels, lamp, and decorations to spice things up. And when I say "make a run", I mean a 6 hour run... including the time waiting for the bus, the actual bus ride, shopping, and heading back. It ended up being a pretty long day!! We are getting used to the house and are starting to actually enjoy it. Today we went to campus to get our ID cards, talk to our counselors, and try to find jobs. Slowly but surely, things are coming together and by Wednesday of next week, we will definitely be ready to start up classes!!

This was our room when we first saw it. The picture definitely makes it look better than it was...

Our beautiful bathroom

And our lovely shower

The kitchen with some cupboards lacking doors

The living room. The couches are actually super comfy :) which is a plus

This is actually our Landlords house. To get to ours, you go through the gate on the right and to the back house

The street we live on

Me and kellie on campus!

Utah Trip

A couple weeks ago I flew to Utah to hit a couple of weddings! I went to my cousin Lindsay Johnson's wedding and my friend Maddie Geddes's wedding. I was so busy the whole weekend with all the wedding activities, hanging out with friends, playing soccer and going to a foam party. In these first couple pictures, we are at a foam party celebrating... Pioneer Day. Makes sense right? Isn't that what everyone does on Pioneer Day? Firemen were there spraying foam from the hoses and there were tons of people there just playing, sliding, throwing and getting drenched in it. It was pretty awesome :) The only downside to it was that you couldn't breathe when the foam got on your face and it also stunk really bad haha. In the other pictures, we are at Maddie's wedding reception where I was chosen to be one of five bridesmaids. It was really fun to be apart of everything and to see so many people that I hadn't seen in a long time. Blast from the past! All in all, it was a great trip to Utah!

Chanise, Me, Lindsay, Zack, and Paige at the foam party! Crazy fun!

Lindsay and I. Haha we are nerds. Lindsay kept tackling me in the foam.
And then she kept plowing over little kids cause she couldn't see... sad day!

Hilary, Lindsay, and I lighting sparklers for Maddie and Justin's exit from the reception.

Love this picture :)

Best friends!

HEH is what we are spelling with our hands. Inside joke haha. Ps. look at Lindsay's arms!

So... the sink broke during the reception and we were lucky enough to be
chosen to wash the dishes in the bath tub

Lindsay, Hilary, Maddie, and I. So much fun :)