Another great ward temple night in the Laie, HI temple. It's a shame that it'll be closing at the end of December and will be closed for about 18 months, for major renovations. I plan on taking a trip to the Big Island (island of Hawaii) next spring though to go to the temple there. Luckily I'll get to go to our temple at least 2 more times before it closes.

It's been a while...

I know, it's been a while since I've blogged. I kind of go in phases, so I guess you'll just have to deal with my inconsistency. A few little updates:


Despite the fact that many people have asked if I am Asian, I am not- this origami proves that. You may not be able to tell, but the quality of this origami isn't that great, but pretty good, right? Today after relief society, they asked us to practice for a few minutes on making these, because a ton of them are going to be made with cute little metallic gold origami papers and put into our "stake Christmas tree" that will be in the temple visitor center. Good thing Leona from Hong Kong (one of my visiting teachees) helped me step-by-step. There is no way I could do it again on my own.

This past Tuesday was Wolfgang's birthday- the big 22! He's still a kid though.


That's a picture of him posing with the presents I got him. That night we celebrated with our good friend Ted (pies from Ted's Bakery, Mmm MM!) and many other friends. I felt bad at first for not making him a birthday cake, but he preferred Ted's instead, chocolate haupia pie to be exact. We were sad that there were no chocolate macadamia pies left, but the haupia was still good.

Oh and I just realized, I never put up pictures from my birthday either, it too was a success.

I also met Wolfgang's family about a week ago, they were here visiting for a week. I wish I had pictures, they all look a like! It was interesting to have German be the dominate language, and Wolfgang having to be the translator. Who ever thought I would date someone from Austria anyway? His older brother is actually still in town for another 5 weeks or so. It's too bad that the weather has been cloudy and very rainy lately. It's weird to think that on the mainland that it is already snowing! here, winter just= lots rain and big intimidating waves. But I at least hope most of the days while my family is here at Thanksgiving that it will be nice weather! (Start praying now.)

genius!

So someone introduced me the other day to an awesome website: www.pandora.com
On the website you are able to create your own "radio stations, " and how it works is that you type in an artist (up to 100 of them, apparently) of your interest, and from there the website picks and plays different songs from various artists like the one you picked. For each song played, you give it a thumbs up or down, and therefore they can better pick what you want to hear. AWESOME! whoever made this website is a genius.
Long live good music.

This is what a REAL lab looks like

Ever since I changed to my bio major, I have been blessed with amazing biology labs that don't stay in the boring lab classroom, but actually go out in the field. This semester I'm taking "Pacific Natural History," and this was our first lab last Saturday:



Long live awesome bio labs.

I guess I can make time for cake...

Here's some pics from our RS enrichment activity a little over a week ago(old post, now a few weeks old); we had a cake competition, and of course in the church, "everyone is a winner," so I think our sweet castle got most creative, or something like that. I can't remember the exact name, but ours was a chocolate cake, with a cherry middle layer(first picture)...Mmm mm good. The others were really yummy and creative too:

For a quick little update, here are a few of the things that I have been enjoying since I've been back in Hawaii. #1: My apt.



I love love love my apartment. It's nice and clean (which can kind of be foreign here in Laie) and and the most perfect location, I couldn't ask for anything better. The ocean is...well, almost my backyard. In fact from my front door, it takes approximately a whole...20 seconds to get to the beach, it's wonderful. Having the breathtaking scenery right in my "backyard" keeps me sane after a long day of school and homework.



I think one of the best parts about it, is that every night, I fall asleep to crashing waves. People pay money for things like that. I definitely consider myself lucky and blessed.

#2: FINALLY buying fresh fruit from one of the roadside fruit stands.




I was somewhat skeptical at first to get fruit at the stand, just because I thought it was going to be super expensive, but it actually ended up being a few cents cheaper than Foodland. (whoop dee doo!) I'm actually just a little bitter about Foodland because it is kinda expensive, but they can get away with it because it's the only place nearby to go.

The fruits that my roommate and I got include dragon fruit, mango, star fruit, guava, and a few veggies. After trying all the fruits, my favorite by far was the star fruit. It's delicious AND fun to eat because of it's shape.

#3: My sweet new bike

It's a cute little somewhat psuedo cruiser! I got it from Wal-Mart fall apart, which is shameful, but I'm poor, so what can you do? It doesn't have any gears, and it's the old school brakes where you have to petal backwards to stop; it's a lot of fun! I love how fast I can get to and from campus now.

So, that's the scoop on life in Hawaii. I'm now currently in the process of finding a cake pan so I can make my birthday cake for tomorrow :) I'll give an update of what we end up doing to celebrate.

"...but I don't want THAT present..."

There's nothing like giving yourself a little special somethin-somethin for your birthday, like...

ANOTHER student loan!!

This shows how much I love myself. Happy Birthday to me...