Sea Life Park & Stairway to Heaven

On Monday Erik, Heather, Matt, and I all went to Sea Life Park. Its kind of a very very small, not as interesting version of Sea World. They had an exhibit for sea turtles, penguins, sea lions, and a 10 minute dolphin show.
It may have been more worth it if we wanted to pay the hundred bucks to swim with the dolphins but that didn't seem worth it to me... heck I've done that in the ocean with just fins and a snorkel.



Then that evening we met up with a few more people to do a hike called Stairway to Heaven... Not even lying its literally just stairs all the way up the side of a mountain. The group made it about 45 minutes or so and stopped at a platform.

(this is a tricky picture because that's not really the top, it just keeps going)

Me and a three others kept on truckin another 30 minutes to see how high we could get. We made it pretty far up, high enough to be engulfed in a cloud, but ended up turning around because it started getting dark and we knew we had a long hike down. I think if we would have had another 30 minutes of daylight we probably could have made it to the top but I am completely satisfied with where we ended. I think going down was way harder because of the darkness and the shaky, jello-y legs. I am going to be completely sore from the waist down for the next few days. I can already tell

(The fogginess of this pic is because of the cloud)

Waimea Falls and Swap Meet

Friday we went on a hike called Waimea Falls. It cost $5 to get in and the whole thing was paved and was only about a mile and a half there and back. The hike ends at a waterfall that we swam out to and played around a bit.

Then on Saturday we headed out to the swap meet to get some needed souvenirs and then down to Honolulu to do more shopping and get some lunch. I had to buy some new tennis shoes at Nordstrom Rack because I haven't seen mine in about 4 weeks. I have no idea where they ended up.

Its Dark at Night

Jumping off rocks is definitely scarier at night. This picture was taken a couple of weeks ago but we all just went and jumped off that same rock at Waimea in the dark. Do you ever have those times where a scream comes out of your mouth when you weren't planning on it? Its just an uncontrollable urge that happens sometimes when scary things happen. Well I experienced that midway down the jump. Wasn't planning on screaming, but it sure belted out without any warning.



I've also become reacquainted with the love of tennis. I hadn't played since 9th grade but I've played quite a bit here in Hawaii. So if anyone wants to challenge me to a match in 5 months when the weather cools off in AZ, I'm game to play.

She's Gonna Blow!

Lately I've been drinking lots of fluids to keep me hydrated since I know that I'll be out in the sun quite a bit. And with consuming more beverages comes one vital consequence... the need to excrete these liquids. Now my body doesn't like to give me a warning when the need to tinkle comes about, its more like "You better go now or you'll wet yourself". I'm not always in a place where a restroom is readily available and most places around my area don't offer public bathrooms anyways. Sometimes the ocean works cause no one knows whats happening but what about today, when I was by myself and not wearing a bathing suit? I was walking back to my house from this little surf shop but still a good 15 minutes from home. I had to walk across the street to a public beach and find a bush that was mostly hidden from any humans and passing cars and piddle there. I guess I was blessed to have some good friends who showed me that this act can be done at any place and any time and not think twice about it ... (ie. Brittany, Briley, and Deb)

The Way It Should Be

I'm not usually a big movie goer but since I've been in Hawaii I've seen three movies in the theater.

Shrek the 3rd,





Surf's Up.

and Ocean's 13,

All of them good movies but I extremely recommend Ocean's 13, Its a lot like the first one of the series.

Now I'm not just here waisting my money... a student ticket only costs $3.
I watched all three movies for the same price as one regular ticket on the mainland.
In my opinion, movies are way over priced... Hawaii just knows what they're doing.

Good Riddance

My new cheap sandals hurt my feet... so I burned them

Dole Makes the Best Pineapples

Today we were planning on going on a hike but the rain did not stop all day long. In the morning it was coming down really hard but then through out the day it was usually just a light mist of rain but very constant. So instead we ended up going to the Dole Pineapple Plantation. There's not much to do here but see how pineapples grow and shop for things that say "Dole" on them. We always make it fun though with photo opps. Then before the sun went down we went over to Pounders Beach so a few people could do some body surfing and buggy boarding.
This picture is a kid I met here named Cory, I found out that he served in the same mission as my friend Jonny Barnes... its definitely a small world isn't it.

Rope Swings are Funtasgreat!

Today we drove about 40 minutes to a rope swing. The hike down takes less than 5 minutes and it was totally fun. I was the first girl to try it because everyone else was too nervous so I had to lead the way. Everyone ended up doing it and thankfully no one got hurt. I even got to spend a little time with my friend Rob who I met in Hawaii 2 years ago. He moved down to Honolulu and got a girlfriend there so this is only the second time I've seen him since I've been over here, the first was when he picked me up from the airport. I wanted to get a picture with him but my camera battery died right at the end of the trip. I know I'll see him again so its not a big deal.

The Last Sunset of May

Does it get much better than this?

You weren't supposed to see this yet...

Blast! I was waiting to post this until I got some more pictures from other girls but thanks to nosey Abbie its already starting to spread. So in case you haven't seen it yet, here is an unfinished version...

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

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?