Family

It has been so much fun seeing our families for the Holidays. 

We have been splitting time between both families since they are only about 45 minutes apart from each other.

We got to celebrate my sister Noelle's 19th birthday on December 18th!

We also have been spending time with the infamous Claude, who surprised us at the airport by hula dancing to music being played from his ipod dock!

For those of you who don't know Claude, ---Seth met him on his mission in Wisconsin. Claude is the most entertaining person you will ever meet. That's pretty much all that describes Claude.
He falls asleep at any given moment... this time in the doorway of our room...

And he yells things in Japanese while swinging on the rope swing out in the front yard.

We also get to play with 3 week old puppies here in San Diego!! This one is my favorite. She is so sweet.


And we got to see all the wiener dogs! Harley is the newest addition to the family. He sure does love pillows.



And Blitz was following Seth around all day!

I absolutely love dressing up in warm clothes. Something that never happens in Hawaii.
Anyway, we went to Disneyland when it was raining, windy, and about 37 degrees outside. We're all smiling in these pictures, but I remember being quite miserable.

...Except for when I saw a life size Lego Darth Vader! Yes!

Claude had a good time riding Splash Mountain in that weather. It was hilarious. And he just loved hanging out with his buddy Seth!



We also got to be there for nephew Liam's baby blessing. He is the most adorable baby boy. Pictures to come!


Happy Holidays!

Home Sweet Home

Oh California! How I've missed you!

It feels SOOOOO good to be back in the homeland. There is just something so right about being here.

People always think being in Hawaii is so wonderful, but I think they forget how AMAZING and DIVERSE this place is! You have gorgeous beaches, amazing views, GREAT food (which I have been craving for a whole year) and you can go anywhere, whenever you want! I love the idea that I can hop into my car and drive up to Las Vegas, while hitting up In N Out, Krispy Kreme, and the outlet malls on the way! (Which I totally plan on doing.)

Today Seth and I went around all bundled up in our winter gear, and played in the rain. We were like the only people around that were happy to be cold.

Tomorrow, I need to go to the Cheese Shop and get the best turkey sandwich ever. And then head over to ANTHROPOLOGIE! Jealous?

Southern California is amazing. I totally belong here.

I have so many places to go, and so much food to eat!

Flood photos

Photos, as promised. 
We tried to make it downtown to the doctor's office one more time, but the roads are closed both ways to town. Total bummer. No meds for me.
I have my most important final tomorrow at 7am, and I am just praying that it won't be like today. I really don't feel like swimming to school that early in the morning.


All of these roads were blocked off. Kids were floating around on their boogie boards.


I took this shot for Aarean. As you can see from the next pic, no one cares about this sign. Hope they all don't wake up tomorrow with a third arm!



The street to the temple.

School front fields.


Moana St.


I got to forge this today to get to school.


Aren't you glad you're not in Hawaii?

The rains came down and the floods came up...

Literally.

Last night there was a huge storm and Hawaii (esp. North Shore) is flooded. Badly. Its supposed to rain like this for the next 5 days or so. I woke up this morning to go to my doctor's appt. down in Honolulu. I left at a little before 7, when it was fairly dark, and started to drive down the road in the pouring rain. I hit a HUGE puddle, going like 30 mph (it was raining too hard to see it) and the the car spun out a little. I was too scared to drive, so I came right back home! Now I'm bummed because I leave for California on Saturday WITHOUT my meds and with a hurt arm. Anyway, all of Laie and Hau'ula of what I've seen is flooded. Both roads leading to town have been blocked because of bad flooding. Luckily our house is on a slant to drain out into the ocean, but other houses I've seen haven't been so lucky. A lot of our friends are bailing out their houses.

TVA: Flooded

BYUH: Flooded

PCC: Flooded

Streets: Flooded

Fields: Flooded

Testing Center: OPEN???

Yup. Open.  In this chaotic weather, the testing center is open. Seth had to drop me off on the main street and I had to make my way to the testing center for my art final today. I have to do it again for my genetics final tomorrow. I wore my bathing suit and boardshorts, and saran-wrapped my phone and class notes, and swam to school today. I should have just floated down the street in my inner-tube. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow.

Pictures to come later when I swim back home.

Graduation postponed

I officially pushed my graduation date BACK until December 2009.

I had been debating this for a while actually. That is when I was supposed to graduate, but I pushed up my classes a semester to graduate early in June.

BUT when I was looking at my schedule for next semester, I had 23 credits---ALL BIOLOGY. So I came to my senses and decided that was waaaaayyyy too much.

Seth and I talked about it, and we decided that graduating in December was best. He will be applying for school next year instead of this year, and gain some work experience.

I felt so bad and guilty about making him wait a whole year to go to grad school, but he assured me that he wanted to get some work experience before he applied for school, and that he felt it was important for me to graduate with the best GPA I could (which I definitely wouldn't be able to do with 23 credits--geez). It was a hard decision to make, and I'm so glad I have such a wonderful husband who wants what's best for me.

So we're here for another year, folks!
Why must college drag on forever?