oddly enough

Even though most of the time I find my neighbor's kids to be irritating, (ok, call me heartless) tonight when I heard a screeching clarinet coming from their house, it was somehow music to my ears. Despite the ear splitting squawking, it brought back good times and great memories of the time when music ruled my life. Sometimes I miss those days.

I hope I get up in time...

Tomorrow morning at 3:30am, I will be leaving Laie to head to Maui! For my biology class, we will be backpacking on Maui at Haleakala National Park for 4 days. I'm really excited, I've never truly backpacked before! We have to pack our food and the whole bit, although we will be slightly spoiled with the luxury of staying in some small cabins, but I think it still counts because there are no showers or anything. In some ways, I have no idea what to expect, so it'll be a fun adventure. I'm so blessed to be going to a university that provides opportunities such as this! I'll be sure to give an update when I get back.

Have a great weekend!

"...It's tradition!!"

Every year as I grew up, my mom had a fun Halloween tradition of making Halloween sloppy Joes. I decided that I wanted to keep the tradition, so ever since my first semester at college, I have still made the sloppy Joes, and here's the proof.

order of artists of the faces: (starting at the top left) Wolfgang, Janelle, Carrie

(bottom) Gilbert, Me, Emma

Emma and Gilbert-and no, that really isn't Wolfgang, but his older brother who is visiting :)

Janelle and I hard at work


And apparently this is Wolfgang's Halloween face, or maybe it's because you were yet ANOTHER person that thought Gilbert was him, or maybe his twin.


Long live traditions!

Last minute is better than nothing at all

So after watching "To Live" for history (about communism, I actually liked it), Wolfgang and I whipped up some quick costumes and headed over to my ward party. This is what happens when you are limited on supplies and time- this is just about as creative as we could get:
In case you can't tell what it is or what it says, they are white trash bags that say (mine) "White Trash" and (Wolfgang's) "Hot White Trash." Clearly, we are the best lookin' white trash you have ever seen.

Once we got to the party, there were not a ton of people there, and hardly at all dressed up, but we still managed to eat candy and have a little bit of fun.

The other night we also went to the "Haunted Lagoon" put on by the PCC, and it was really well done. In fact, we are probably going again tomorrow. I think it's great how all the Halloween festivities go on for at least a week prior to the actual holiday. I can't wait to do the family tradition of Halloween sloppy joes on Friday!

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.