MMmmm...

So I don't have an extravagant post to write or pictures to post, but I just wanted to say, that I am just grateful to be home. I've been enjoying it way too much. Even though Great Lakes Airlines in Farmington sucks and couldn't get my sister home (don't worry, I sent them a mean letter, and I still don't feel bad about it...) and my heroic dad traveled all night to pick her up and bring her home on Christmas day, it's been great. (I'm sure there will be an explanatory post about the whole awful ordeal on my sister's blog soon). It's just really nice to be home with the fam and to not have to worry about school and especially homework.

I hope all of you had a Merry Christmas!

Back in black

Great news: "Black Cat" is back!After my parents came back from their trip to Hawaii, Black Cat never came home, and so they thought after a week or so that he must be gone for good. We were all pretty sad about it, especially because he's the best cat you'll ever meet. Anyway, you wouldn't believe, my mom was on her way driving to a friend of the family's house, (on the other town mind you, yet Page is small, but still) and she saw a black cat running on the side walk in front of her. She didn't think it was him, but she decided to get out of her car and call for him anyways. Sure enough, it was him!! Now he's back home safe, and still the same great, friendly, lazy cat. It's too bad he can't speak English and tell us what he's been doing for the last 2 weeks.

Sharing the "Aloha Spirit"

Finally, I am here to report the fun times with the parents and Kathy in Hawaii! They had a blast. They flew in on Thanksgiving day, and stayed for a week. When they first came to my apt, they were completely blown away by how close I was to the ocean. It was cute to hear my mom on the phone as I was giving them directions to my place, saying things like, "oh, and we just passed a car with surf boards on top!" and "Wow! it's so GREEN here!" it was great.

Here's a few pictures of things that we/they did:


Enjoyed the beautiful Laie temple


(the tour guides...)

Showing off their buys at the swap meet...oh boy. If these 3 aren't the ultimate tourists, I don't know who is!


My dad and Kathy went on an awesome (small) plane ride tour all over the island. We got a really great deal thanks to connections through the "landlord" that Wolfgang's family stayed with when they were in town. We were so grateful for their kindness. Here are just a few of the pictures my dad took on that flight



View of campus



View of Hanauma Bay, a great place to snorkel that they took advantage of


Pearl Harbor

OF COURSE, the Polynesian Cultural Center



Aw, aren't they cute?
Shrimp at Giovanni's shrimp truck


Oh, and let's not forget, the beach.
It was fun to watch a little bit of the surfing competition going on, the O'Neil World Cup of SurfingI was so happy that I was finally able to share what I have been enjoying for the last year. It was a miracle that everything seemed to work out so perfectly, and I'm excited for the next time they come, because they didn't do everything that was on "the list." You would think that a week for vacation would be sufficient, but not for Hawaii. I guess that just means they'll have to come for 2 weeks next time. :)

Don't be jealous

Who has the cutest (3rd) cousin ever?


Oh, yep, that's me.

Yay Christmas!

I added some Christmas songs to my blog. enjoy!

P.S.

I promise to report about the fun times we had when my parents and Kathy came to Hawaii, I just haven't yet because they had all the good pictures on their camera. I better do it quick though, because my mom noticed I hadn't reported and was slightly offended.

Hawaiian havoc

It alllll started when a huge weather storm hit Oahu on Thursday, Dec 11th the day I was suppose to fly home. There were flash floods all over the island, which was devastating to many cities. Laie just so happened to be one of the unlucky towns to be affected pretty bad. The whole night before it rained non-stop, and all that morning. I stayed inside all morning to avoid the rain, but after the arrival of my roommate's boyfriend, he let us know that traffic coming in and out of Laie was blocked because of flooding over the roads, and no one could drive to or from campus, because at that point it was waiste deep. Later on in the late morning Wolfgang and I walked around to check it out and this is a little of what we saw:

one of the fields on campus- apparently they didn't care that is was contaminated water...


thank goodness my parents brought my waterproof jacket! I knew I would need it

More about the flood in the community:
http://newsroom.byuh.edu/?q=node/2041

So because of all the flooding, on my way to catch my flight we only got about 20 minutes out of town before we were stopped in traffic for 1 1/2 hours. Needless to say, I missed my flight. We continued on to the airport anyway and changed my flight for the next day, which was luckily at no extra cost.

So the next day, I got on the plane, but I didn't get to the airport until kinda late so when I checked in the lady at the counter said that my luggage might be put on another plane. I didn't think too much of it because I was in a hurry to catch the plane. So finally I got on the plane and we were in the air, and I thought I was finally done stressing about my flight and that everything was now fine.

I was wrong.

About 30 minutes into the flight, the pilot come on the intercom and tells us that one of the two navigation computer things went out, and that we had to go back to Honolulu to fix the problem and refuel. So we turned around and went back to Oahu. When we got back we had to wait about another 30 min. on the plane for them to fix the problem. Luckily I discovered several of my friends from school on the same plane, so talking to them made the time go by faster. Finally we were off again, and I made it to Pheonix, AZ at 2:30am, instead of midnight like we were scheduled for.

I got to the baggage claim, and waited...and waited...and waited. no luggage. I remembered that they said it might of had to go on a different plane, so I talked to the lady that deals with lost baggage, did the paper work, and she said that it will probably be coming on the next day's flight. So I was told to come the next night at midnight, or between 5:30-8:30am the next morning. Luckily my friend Khrista and her boyfriend were kind enough to take me to the airport at 12:30, but of course, the plane was delayed an hour, so we left. Then this morning, my parents and I went to the airport and made it a few minutes before 8:30, but not a soul from Hawaiian Airlines was there. NO ONE. I tried so many ways to get help, and even a kind lady from a different airline checked in the back for me, and there was no luggage. I made every phone call I could make, but all I got were voicemails. So, I left them a message saying I was here when I was told to come, but no one to assist me, and now I'm on my way home which is 5 hours away. Pretty much when I call them tomorrow, I'm going to demand that they Fedex my luggage, and they're paying for it.

Needless to say, this flight home has been officially labeled as the flight from hell. Everything that could go wrong (besides crashing and dying), DID go wrong. Luckily my seat buddie wasn't a creepo. Luckily I have a few shirts that I have left behind at home that I can wear, and I bought some underwear today, which by the way, are cute yet disappointing, they aren't that great. Good thing they were cheap.

So, that's my story. Even though the last few days have been a headache, I am happy to be home and school-free, and I'll be even better when my luggage arrives, and it better be dang quick too. Now I'm just surviving the cold and sitting in front of the fire. I was suprised to see that several things have really changed in Page since I was home last, and it was only 4 months ago.

Ok, now that this post is a novel, I'm done venting. Maybe it's time to list things I am grateful for so that I don't go to bed with a bitter heart against Hawaiian Airlines.
1. The few shirts that are here that I left behind that I can wear for the next few days
2. The complimentary head phones that Hawaiian Airlines provided after the delays, and because of that I was able to kill some time by watching the movie provided
3. My kind parents for coming to pick me up in Phoenix
4. The great Christmas choir concert that the stake put on tonight, and that I was able to talk with some dear friends
5. This nice fire I'm sitting by
6. The internet so that I can trouble you with my woes of the last few days, and to still communicate with my boyfriend who is officially in Austria and whose phone doesn't work there.
7. Those of you who stuck it out and are officially tired of reading this post

Ok, goodnight.

sad news of the day

Ok, of course no one wants to hear sad news, but it must be heard.

Just as I thought doing not the greatest on a biology final was bad, this bad news tops it. I was chatting with an old classmate from Idaho on facebook, and I asked him how my horse was doing, from the biology/horsebackriding class that we took together (one of the best classes, if not THE best class of my life), and he said that they sold her at the beginning of the semester because her leg kept getting hurt!!! I was assured though that American no longer sends them to the slaughter. That's the saddest news I've heard all day, and probably all week, or in a while. Laugh at me if you want, but I LOVED that horse. Even if she was stubborn and liked to kick other horses, stepped on both my feet within 5 minutes of each other, I have a scar on my thumb because of her, and she almost caused me to fall off, I still love her dearly. In fact, I was just thinking of her the other day and how I miss her, and whenever I go back to Idaho, I was going to go visit her.
So anyway, that's the sad news. I'll miss her.

Tribute to Grace....

Aloha Oe, Grace :)

30 miles later...

Well, it's about time that I report and share pictures from my biology class 4 day backpacking trip;
It was great! There are so many details that I could explain, but then this post would turn into a novel, which I don't want to do. I'll try and just give a brief summary, and share the pics (which is all you care about anyway, right?).


The trip was at the beginning of Nov., and it was located on Maui at Haleakala Crater (Haleakala National Park). Our first day consisted of leaving campus at 3:30am to catch our flight, then once we arrived, we backpacked for 10 miles. Needless to say, it was a super long and rough day.

General area of where we hiked to for the first day

In fact, throughout the whole 4 days, all of us were pretty dang sore, and walking around the cabins at night and in the morning like old women. Although we were sore and stiff, we still had a really great time and it was an awesome experience. It was incredible to me that one place could have two completely different habitats.

This area shown in the picture above, was thought to be as close as you could get as to how the moon is really like, that it was used as the testing sight previous to when the US went to the moon! Even though it was so desolate, it was absolutely beautiful.

(this was my "National Geographic" picture...)

Even though by the end of the trip I was dirty, sweaty, exhausted, sore, had blisters on my feet, and bruised toenails, I felt very accomplished and really enjoyed being away from civilization (although we did stay in cabins along the way). I'm so grateful that I had this wonderful opportunity to learn more about geology and biology, and also added appreciation for the beautiful earth that God has blessed us with.

(Nene-Hawaiian goose, Hawaiian state bird. They were so cute! they make these cute little moans, almost like a moo from a cow.)

(the end! we made it! We are pointing at the four places we started, stayed over night, and ended at)

Here are some short little videos to kind of give you an idea of what it looked like