Waikiki

Friday night a big group of us drove down to Waikiki to stay in a hotel. We ate at Cheesecake Factory and then walked around the strip and ended up playing games at a grassy knoll of a different hotel. I think we ended up craming 15 people into one room that night.
Then Saturday morning we got up and rented scooters to drive around for the day. We had them for a total of 6 hours and just drove around to some different beaches, Hanauma Bay, and to Diamondhead Crater.

That night I had my first experience eating sushi... not too bad... When we got back to Laie, everyone was just so worn out by the long day in the sun that all efforts to hang out failed and everyone ended up going to home to sleep.

Waimea Bay

Today's adventure started with a stop at Waimea Bay.

It wasn't a long stop, just maybe an hour long because everyone started to get hungry for lunch. A couple of us jumped off the rock and others just laid out.

Then Erik, McKay, Levi and I went over to Haleiwa to eat at Cholo's restaurant. Its probably the only Mexican food place close by.
The trip home ended with McKay entertaining us with some hilarious freestyle rap. That kid is truly amazing. Later on that night we had a little game night and then took a freezing cold dip in the ocean. All in all it was a pretty fun day.

I can breathe clearly now

They other day I got my nose hairs waxed! I have never even heard of doing that before but one of my friends here, Beana, offered to do it and I accepted. It truly is amazing. You don't have any little creepers sticking out or buggers that hang out accidentally on the end. She heated up Brazilian hard wax and put it on a stick and then up my nose. You lay down and wait till the wax hardens and then yank it out... I let Erik pull mine out.

Chinaman's Hat

Today we went on a hike called Chinaman's Hat.

To get to this island you first have to swim out to it and then hike your way up to the top, and in some points you're basically rock climbing. I was smart and bought some water shoes right before and was able to walk most of the way on top of the corral in waist to chest deep ocean. On the way back I had to do a little more swimming because the tide had come up. The whole voyage took us about 2 and a half hours to complete. There was quite a bit of resting on the island though, so that we could enjoy the view from the top of Chinaman's Hat.

Say NO to Humidity

This is my hair...

This is my hair on humidity...

Any questions?

No wireless

I haven't had wireless internet access since I've been here so I haven't had a chance to post anything yet. I've talked to a girl in the next apartment over so that she can hook me up tomorrow and then I can post pictures and adventure stories from Hawaii. I've miss you all!

I Passed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I did it! I passed statistics. I needed to get a 65 on the final exam to get a 'C' in the class so I went one step ahead of that to earn a 66. Now this may not seem like something to praise over but there was something about that class that didn't click in my head, not to mention the boring teacher with a monotone voice. I felt like everyone around me was understanding and as much as they tried to help me, I just couldn't comprehend.My heart was literally pounding every time I checked my grades this weekend to see how I did.I'm relieved that I never have to take that class ever again.

3 finals down, 1 more to go. Wish me luck and pray for me on this one because I'm in almost the same situation. For some reason I kind of checked out in the middle of this semester and I'm definitely paying for it now with 2 of my classes totally relying on finals. If all goes well with my last test I'll have earned two A's and two C's. Not my best work but its not the end of the world.

Ps... I leave for Hawaii on Thursday!!!

I'm going crazy!

The semester is winding down and finals are now at hand. I normally go to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays but this week was a little different. Tuesday was the last day of classes and I have two finals on Friday. Today (thursday) I woke up 2 different times in a complete panic thinking that I was going to miss my first final. Normally on school days I am out of the house by about 7am to get to my 7:40 class. This morning I woke up at about 7:30 and knew that it was Thursday and panicked thinking I was going to be late to take the final and thought that I wouldn't be allowed to take it at all. I then got ahold of myself and remembered what was going on and went back to sleep.

Then when I got home from work this evening I ate dinner and decided that I needed a little bit of down time before studying. So I went downstairs to watch one tv show and ended up falling asleep on the couch. I woke up at 7:45pm and looked at my phone thinking it was morning. I panicked yet again and made a mad dash to my room jumping over whatever objects were in the way. I got to my room in a frenzy not knowing what to do first to get ready when it hit me again that I was making a mistake.

I'M GOING CRAZY!!!

WHY?

Why do I attract crazies and only crazies? Do I have a large sign on my forehead that says "Hey weirdos! I'm single" Take for examle tonight at my mom's law firm party at Freestone Park. We ate dinner and then went over to the little train ride to take Mabel and Oliver on it. Grampa sat next to Oliver, Nana sat next to Mabel, Mike and Steph sat next to each other, and I sat next to Joe. I could tell right off that Joe was a little special (literally) so I thought I would be nice a hold a conversation with him... first mistake... especially after the first words out of his mouth were "I'm single, my name is Joe". After introducing ourselves and about 2 minutes of small talk Joe told me he had a crush on me, followed by many compliments, and an offer to buy me a new phone. Then he asked for my phone number; I knew that I didn't want to give him my cell number so I made my second mistake of the night of giving him our house number. A thought went through my head to give him the rejection hotline but that would just be too wrong. I left to do "homework" as soon as the train ride ended, and not even an hour after we got home Joe was calling. I made my dad lie to Joe and tell him that I wasn't home. I guess I'm lucky that I lead a fairly busy life and that as soon as school is over and I would normally have more free time, I leave for Hawaii... only 2 and a half weeks by the way.

Do crazies live in Hawaii too?

Nose and March of Dimes

Friday when I got into work I was playing peek-a-boo with a little one year old girl. She had a bucket on her head and would just barely lift it up so I could see her eyes and then put it back down. After about the third time she must have been done playing cause she took the bucket off and slammed it right into my nose leaving me this pretty mark just in time for the weekend.
Then on Saturday morning a few of my co-workers and I went over to Peoria Sports Complex for the March of Dimes. It is a 4 mile walk that raises awareness and benefits premature babies. My work has been raising money for the past couple of months. I like to dress up like I'm running a marathon and have now gotten some others to do the same.
We try to make it as fun and interesting as possible since it is just walking. We played leap frog, ran around the bases of the baseball field, and just had a fun time.
At the end of the walk I swiped a loaf of bread from some booth and Laura and I had a contest to see how many pieces we could fit in our mouths. I choked after 4 but Laura went on to be victorious with 6 whole pieces of wheat bread. Truly amazing.We do LOVE bread!!!

There's no turning back now!

I just officially paid for my ticket to Hawaii. I leave May 10 ( 2 days after my last final) and return on June 22. Wish me luck cause I'm still scared to not know anyone 600 miles from home. (Not completely true, I will have my friend Erik there... just no girls) But I think its something I have to do to keep some sanity and get away from school and work for a few weeks. Mahalo!

Acoustic Show #2

The show was awesome and we almost had no troubles this time. Just because a few of the 3 Fountains residents didn't know about my party they started freaking out and calling each other and coming up to the clubhouse and asking random people what was going on. So I had my mom talk to a few people and get everything straitened out and it was fine the rest of the night. I even had a few people come up to me at church today saying that I did a nice job cleaning up and that they were happy that there was no problems.

My friends Joshua and McKay, from Utah, were doing a little mini weekend tour this past weekend so that's why we had the show at my clubhouse. They played in St. George on Thurs, Las Vegas on Fri, and then Mesa on Saturday. Joshua James who is on the right hand side, has just recently sent some of his material into itunes and they love his music so his album is now on sale there. He is actually on the "Staff Favorites" list on the main page so you should definitely check him out, he will blow your mind.

McKay is on the left side and he is also an amazing performer.

A few other people played at the show as well and they all rocked the house.

All in all, I'd say it was a success!

Its the Worlds Biggest Tea Party

A couple of weeks ago I won some tickets on the radio to go see My Little Pony Live on stage. I could honestly only think of one little girl that would be completely excited to go. Who is 4 years old, loves the color pink, Ponies, and tea parties? MABEL of coarse. I couldn't tell her about it until two days before the show cause I new she would just be asking about it everyday up until that point and it killed me every time I saw her cause I knew how much she would love it and I just wanted to spill the beans, but I held my ground. I had 4 tickets so I invited Brittany and her niece to join us.

Kmle Country even gave us our own special private tea party before the show complete with cookies, lemonade, coloring pages, necklaces, and a tiara.

I figured that I got the tickets for free so I went ahead and bought her a little flag so that she could wave it when the ponies came out

We all had lots of fun watching the show and doing the "I'm a little teapot" dance

The seats were awesome, Thanks Kmle Country!!!

He sprung a leak!

So every day at work at the end of the day this little 2 year old boy Marcus has to come see me and let me love on him like 10 minutes before he goes home with his mom. Today he was sitting on my lap and we were playing with some magnets when I feel this warm sensation on my pants... yes, Marcus was peeing on me. I picked him up and tried to run him to the bathroom holding him with my arms extended out in front of me. By the time we got to the potty he had finished. All he left was a trail of pee from my chair to the bathroom door and a large wet spot on my crotch and down the inside of my leg... so basically it looked like I wet myself. One parent came in, looked down, and without saying a word, just cracked up laughing. When other parents came in the first thing their kid would say was "Marcus peed on Ms. Cathy" then they would look at me and laugh. Its probably a good thing that I love Marcus so much or I don't think I could have been in such good spirits about it. Everyone got a good chuckle at my expense, but I'm the one that go to go home early... Who's laughing now?

Probably still everyone else cause I'm sure I'll still get made fun of for the rest of the week.

Only crazy people fall in love with me

Two weeks ago at my institute class this kid reaches over and hands me a dollar bill and on it written is...
"I would like to take you out this weekend, what do you say? Sorry but I didn't have any else to write on. My name is Spencer."
I have never seen or talked to the kid in my life and he's asking me out on a date in the middle of class. So I waited till class was over and told him I was really busy but I'd see him next week at institute... purposefully not giving him my number or saying that we should do it another time because frankly he creeped me out... fast forward to this week... Spencer comes in late and sits diagonally behind me and starts poking me with his phone and on it written is a text. So we start writing back an forth on his phone and our conversation goes something like this...

Spencer: "So how was your weekend that you couldn't go out with me?"

Me: "It was good"

Spencer: "So I guess you're probably not interested in going out with me. Right?"

Me: "No offense, but not really" Unless you have more money that is. JK"

Spencer: "Oh, so you're money hungry huh? Can I ask why your not interested?"

Me: "You're not my type"

Spencer: "That's okay, I don't like dating snobs anyways"

Me: "Well I guess its settled then, we just won't date each other, I'm sorry you were offended"

end of conversation. I've never been so blunt with a guy but I was sick of being disrupted when I was trying to learn about the D&C.

Was I wrong to say all those things? Was I too mean?

I got a shiner

This is my new black eye that I got on Wednesday at my softball game. It was the first pitch of the game when I swung and the ball hit the ground and came strait back up and hit me in the face. It's not too bad and hopefully it won't get worse cause sometimes it takes my body a couple of days for a bruise to really show up.

What to do...

So I've been planning on going to Hawaii this summer for a couple months now with some of my friends. Brookie sent her deposit in for our house a while ago and I sent mine in about a month ago. Briley has been back and forth about whether she still wants to go or not and the more she waits the more I think she'll talk herself out of it. My theory is that I have no commitments here in Mesa once the summer starts so why not take advantage of this time and get away for a while. It'll just be for the months of May and June and I'll be back for the rest of the summer to work and maybe for a summer school class. Well, Brookie just told me tonight that she's not going anymore and that she had already called the landlord to get her money back.

What should I do? It freaks me out to be without a support system. I have an easier time being myself when I have friends around who I know and trust. I'm not very good at talking to new people... On the other hand, it could force me to step out of my comfort zone which is probably good for me. And hey, its freaking Hawaii. Really I just need to get out of Mesa for a while. Away from school, away from work, and just relax in a stress free place. When am I ever going to have a chance to do this ever again?

it makes my heart hurt

One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone is folding a paper and slides their fingers across to crease it. I don't know why, but this sound makes me cringe every time. I have now noticed that the sound of chalk on a chalk board sounds very similar to this. My math teacher insists on writing every single bit of information on the board, even if its a huge long word problem. Every once in a while during class I get that crappy feeling in my heart when she makes that wretched sound. As if math wasn't bad enough. AHHHH!!!!!

Do you have any weird sounds that give you the heebee geebees?

Girls Weekend!

This weekend 9 of us girls went to my friend Alecia's cabin for a weekend of just the girls. Two of the nine left their husbands, and one left her fiance behind for this road trip. It didn't actually snow when we were there but it was so thick that it went past my ankles. The weekend was complete with a dance party, prank calling, and lots of girl talk. Me and Katie even made a snowman Sunday morning with a popsicle nose.

Is this a joke?

Me and Brittany found warmth together in this jacket.









It snowed so much in Mesa!!! My friends and I found this park about 5 miles from my house that was just covered in snow and we weren't the only only ones; at least a hundred other people did the same thing. There were life size snowmen, snowball fights, and people sledding and snowboarding down the little hills. It was truly amazing but none of us were prepared. All I had was a long sleeve shirt, no jacket... Briley was wearing flip flops!!!

Como?

Is there any place on the internet where I can rent a baby? Sometimes on Sunday at church I just want to hold a baby through out the meetings to keep me a little more interested. I thought about ebay or craigslist, but I don't want to buy one, just rent for a couple hours each sunday afternoon. Boy or girl, doesn't matter to me... maybe between the ages of 3 and 8 months old.

It's go time

I'm going back to school yet again. I always get nervous the first day of school no matter how comfortable I am with the school and the surroundings. I'm still not used to ASU, it's just so huge. Last semester I only took 2 classes because of some problems I had with not being able to register till the morning school started... 40 minutes before my first class... This semester I'm back to full time. 4 classes and 12 credits. I'm taking math which I haven't taken in over 2 years... for some reason my trig class that I took at MCC didn't count as a math class at ASU, so now I'm in college algebra. And I'm also taking 3 sociology classes. Sociology is my plan for a major... not sure what I'd do with that degree but its interesting to me. I really do like ASU and I'm very happy that I stayed in AZ... plus, it's the number one party school in the nation!!! whooooo!!!!!!!!!

The miracle of Accutain

A few months ago I started taking Accutain with recomendations from my doctor. I can't even believe how much it has helped me. I was seeing results within the first month. Picture 1 shows all deep nasty zits and picture 2 is all just scarring that hopfully I can get rid of another way.

Jordan and Cathy's Night of Fun

Friday night I was hanging out with some of my friends and by 12:30 they all wanted to go home. So as I was dropping everyone off my friend Jordan said to me "You can take me to my house but I'm not going in". I told him that I wasn't tired either so we ended up just driving around and talking. We stopped on Brown Rd. to try and rescue a run-away dog but failed cause it was surprisingly fast for being such a little guy. We then found our way over to Mill Ave. at about 2am, just as all the bars were closing and got to see all the crazy drunk ASU kids staggering out to the streets. Then we went over to Tempe Town Lake and walked around in the park till we got kicked out by a park ranger for being there after hours. By then it was about 3:30 and we still weren't tired so we went over to Riverview Park and hopped the fence into the driving range because of one of Jordan's brilliant ideas. We filled my backpack up with golfballs until we couldn't shove another one in there and then went over to his house to get some clubs. Jordan and I then headed out to Saguaro Lake and got there at about 4:30am to hit the golfballs into the lake. We did that for about an hour until all the balls were gone and then sat in my car and talked until the sun came up. At about 8am we headed for Mesa and I took Jordan home and got back to my house at 8:30am. It was one of the funnest and most random nights I've ever had. I'm so happy that Jordan is off his mission now cause he's just one of my best friends and he always has such crazy ideas.


When I got home I slept for about an hour and then got woken up so I could go hang out with my mom and sister. Then at like 4:30 I fell asleep again and woke up at 8:45pm thinking that it was 8:45 on Sunday morning so I went back to sleep again. My friend Briley called me at 9 and confused the heck out of me cause she asked if I wanted to go to a party with her. ( I still thought it was Sunday morning).

So that's how I spent my last 48 hours. I now have some good memories and extremely sore shoulders.

21 is a big number

My birthday was last thursday and I'm now legal in all 50 states to do pretty much whatever I want. That's why I spent my 21st birthday in Utah with a bunch of LDS friends

Everybody LOVES free stuff

I've never really been fond of Halloween. Don't get me wrong I like all the fun parties and I don't mind dressing up, its just finding something original to dress up as that gets me. Every year I go through the same thing where I wait till last minute to think of something and then its not very well put together. There was parties going all weekend since Halloween was on a Tuesday this year. Friday I borrowed a big afro wig from a co-worker for an idea that I had that fell through so I ended up putting a sweatband on it and wore short shorts with tube socks and went as a girl Richard Simmons. Saturday night I didn't even dress up when we went out.

Then on Monday night I was watching Oprah and she had a guy on that would stand out on the streets with a sign that said "FREE HUGS" and people were actually hugging him. He now has the number one video on youtube.com (its really funny, you should watch it) So me and my friend Briley decided to do that for Tuesday's YSA Halloween Party. We made posterboard signs and hung them around our necks offering "free hugs"

It ended up being one of the funnest nights of my life. I wish I would have tried to count how many we got cause it was amazing. This was my favorite Halloween costume I've ever done. Lots and lots of hugs, 5 kisses (on the head or cheek), and one full handed butt grab that took me very off guard.

Even when all the parties were over and I was going into my house I got stopped by one of my neighbors that saw my sign. He and his roommates are college students that live just across the alley way. I've never actually met him before but he said that his car radio was stolen that night and he needed a hug. How could I resist?

Tsunami Squad

When my friend Tony got home off his mission in March he said that we should make a co-ed softball team and I thought it was a good idea. I called up a bunch of my friends and got all the necessary forms to fill out. We're a pretty decent team but in the last few games we always fall short of winning by one or two runs. It's pretty frustrating. I look forward to every Tuesday night when we have games cause it gives me a chance to see some friends that I don't usually get to see on a regular basis. Some are married, others live farther away, and we all get carried away with our busy lives. I'm fortunate to have such good friends that I can enjoy one of my favorite activities with. Our team name is the Tsunami Squad and we have green shirts with the picture on it. How the name came about is another long story... My favorite part about the name is listening to how many people CAN'T say tsunami.

I decided that every season if we change the team name it should have a word that people can't pronounce like rendezvous, or bjork. Any cool suggestions?




ps
My grandad won the car naming contest with Bonzai. Very close runners up were car-y-car, sent in by Mabel, and Gary Weiner for Jill who said I should name my car after the salesman.

Here she is

This past Tuesday, October 3rd I bought my first car. It's a 2003 Toyota Camry, a ten year upgrade from the last one. I am in love with this car. It actually has working cold air and seat belts... something I wasn't used to with the other car. It drives so smooth that I have to keep my eye on the speedometer cause sometimes I don't realize that I'm speeding... Oops. I never imagined myself driving a tan car. I thought they were reserved for old people, but I bought it from a private dealer for a decent price and the color is starting to grow on me. Its definitely a girl car and I think she needs a name... any suggestions?

Rest in peace old friend

Last Monday my car officially took its last breath and died forever. I was out shopping and had finished spending money so I got in my car and tried to turn it on. It was hard to get it started so I thought "oh great, I need a new battery". So as I was driving down McKellips I called my parents just in case the car died on the way home. As I was talking to them, I looked in my rear view mirror and saw a huge cloud of smoke coming from the exhaust. I pulled over and told them to come pick me up. As I was sitting there a boy came over to see if I needed any help and then yelled a few profanities when I showed him what happened when I turned the car on. My parents took me home and we got a tow truck in the morning and sent it to Gunnels. They said that I had blown the head gasket and that it would cost more to fix it than what the car is worth.

So this has been my ride to work for the past week. The weather has been fairly nice lately so its not so bad. Plus my job is only half a mile from my house.



And thank you times infinity to Mom, Dad, and Grandma for each letting me take their car to school. I love you all.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Why to get to KinderCare of coarse.

Yesterday when I got to work, everyone was talking about how there was a chicken in on our playground in the backyard, and sure enough, there was. A little black chicken had squeezed through the rod iron fence and was pecking away at our grass. It was in a part of the playground that we never use and is fenced off, so when the kids went outside they were all lined up against the fence watching it peck at the grass.

One of my co-workers, Kim, said that if I could catch it, she would take it home and keep it... That sounded like a challenge to me. So me and another lady I work with, Connie, went out on our mission with boxes in hand. By this time, our little chicken friend had moved out front and was hiding under the busses. After a few failed attempts to catch it from under the bus, I look over at Connie chasing it back over to the playground. It squeezed through the fence again so I ran and hopped over while Connie ran around through the building. Meanwhile all the kids are still lined up against the fence, on the playground side, screaming and yelling while I'm chasing the chicken with a box. Finally, after running around for a few minutes, I trapped it in a corner and caught it with my box.

It had to have been the funnest, craziest morning of work. Kim took the chicken home and now it roaming around in her backyard... Chickens are fast... but I'm much faster

Loud music and no old people

Jessica from Diamante

Chip Webb and his brother

Whit Gardner from XYZebra

McKay Stephens

Something in Portugese


Last Saturday, Sept. 16. I had an acoustic show in our clubhouse. It was so amazingly fun. These are the 5 people/groups that performed. The second to last one is my friend McKay from Utah, he came down with some other people to visit and wanted to play a show for us Mesa folks. So I asked around and found the others who would be willing to play acoustic and for free. There was a pretty good turn out, probably around 50 people, if not more. I also got some good feedback from friends saying that they think I should make it a monthly event... I'm not sure about that but for sure I'd do it again.

She's done it again!

I don't know how it works but Leisel just seems to know exactly what I need every time I visit her. I don't mind having to sit in her salon for 3 to 4 hours every couple of months cause I'm always happy with the end result. Truly a miracle maker.

I hate cars

So for the past few months I've been casually looking around for a new car. My price range was about 5-7,000 but I wasn't in any rush to buy. I've only been looking on the internet and occasionally if there was something on the side of the road but nothing was catching my eye. I want to have this new car for a while so I want to get something that I actually like. On Friday I found out that I got a pretty decent raise so its been making me think more seriously about purchasing a car. I sat down with my dad on Saturday and he said that he thinks that if I up my price range a little bit, I'll be able to get a much better car and still be able to pay it off in a reasonable time frame. So today (Labor Day) he and I went around to a few lots to see what my options were. I decided that 12,000 was my max... pretty much doubling what I intentional considered spending. I still found nothing!!! Everything we looked at was in the 15-20,000 dollar range and there is no way I can even think about spending that much. I guess all that I accomplished to day was I found out that I HATE CARS!!!