one of the FUNNIEST things i have EVER witnessed!

i thought this story should warrant it's own post.

so, we are on our way to Kanapali beach to take a surfing lesson and had just all piled in the mini van a little later than we anticipated. we are driving down the road, out of the hotel property with Justin and I in the back, Betsy and Katie in front of us and then my parents in the front. as we come to the end of the road and I buckle my seat belt, I see something out of the corner of my right eye move. I look down at the patch of seat right next to my leg and this gigantic brown spider is sitting there! My first reaction was stunned silence and then a shocked"oh, my god!" escaped me (nothing too drastic). Betsy and Justin both go "what", turn, see what I'm looking at and both go into utter hysterics. here is the recap:

me: "oh my god!"

Bets and Jus: "what?"

upon setting eyes on it...

Justin: "OH HOLY ****!!"

Betsy: hysterical screams of bloody murder

Both of them: "stop the car! get out! we have to get out!"

all while they were screaming, my parents are freaking out because they have no idea what is going on. Justin grabs my arm, trying desperately to pull me away from the spider, sees that I'm still seat-belted in, gives up and shoves Betsy (who is still screaming) out of the way so he can exit the car. honestly, their reactions scared me more than the actual spider. i couldn't stand up i was laughing so hard. we went to the bellman for help to get it out because it had run up into the side of the car (probably to escape all the noise). he wasn't able to get it out, but he did see it and told us it was a wolf spider so we looked it up and sure enough, this is what it looked like. yes, rather terrifying, but still their responses were ridiculous.

i will NEVER let them live that down. i wish so badly that i had a video of that. so great.

lets go surfin' now...

Friday morning we all got up early to go surfing! Betsy and I had done it before, but that didn't stop Gary and Justin from making comments about how bad we were going to be and how they were going to have to help us. Once we got out on the water, we showed them. Gary had the most trouble with it and barely even got up twice, while Betsy and I got up every time, which was a lot. Justin was somewhere in between; he held his own, but not quite up to par :)

Kate played on the beach with my mom, who watched and took pictures.

There goes Justy.

And we actually managed to get one picture of Gary; it was a miracle

This is me

And Betsy

Lunch right on the ocean...how can you beat that?

The beautiful view from our balcony. The landscape out there is also where we decided to have a little adventure. Justin and I heard that there were some trails down there, so we wanted to go exploring. We talked Betsy into going, saying that we would play frisbee for a bit, but it became way to windy. So, then we just started walking around and came to a fence. We thought that we had somehow wandered off the hotel's property and so we climbed the fence, hoping to find some beach access. We wandered down to the edge of the cliffs, hoping to find a trail and instead ended up wandering right into someones backyard, where a bunch of people were having a bbq. Awkward! The guy was really nice though and goes "Oh, you can't get to the beach from here if that is what you are trying to do." After explaining to us that we were on private property, he said he had no idea how we got in here and then offered to walk us to the gate so that we wouldn't "have to jump the fence". We three exchanged looks and tried to stifle our laughter. Once we got off of the gated community's property, I wandered off towards where it looked like the cliffs offered a trail down to the rocks and tide pools below. Justin and Betsy followed me through the bushes, with Betsy complaining all the way. I found a place where it wasn't too steep and began the climb down. Justin then suggests we walk out to the end of the rocks and then swim over to the beach. I was ready, but Betsy had, had it and so Justin and I left her with all our stuff and said we would meet her at the pool. We wandered down through the tide pools and finally came to the end of the rocks, where there was a bay with no beach. We decided to swim across rather than walk along it and jumped off into the water. The swim was a lot farther than it looked and after getting about half way we decided that we would have to get back on the rocks at the other end rather than swim out around the peninsula to avoid from being swept into them by the tide. Easier said than done. We only had flip flops, which obviously are not great water shoes and when the waves are coming in, it is really hard to get your footing on slippery rocks without stepping on any sea creatures. We both did a lot of falling and a lot of catching of one another, but we finally made it to the other side and then jumped back in the water and swam to shore. What an experience!

When we arrived back at the pool, we told Betsy she would have hated it (which was true) and when she asked why, I go "oh, because we saw a shark."

"Oh my gosh! Really?"

Justin: "Oh, yeah it was just swimin' out there in the bay"

Betsy: "I would have just stopped swimming, screamed and died. What did you guys do?"

Me: "Well, what could we do except swim faster? We were in the middle."

Oh, she is so gullible sometimes :)

Maui: Days 1 and 2

so, i'm back from the island of Maui! what a great trip it was! we did so many things; i'll do my best to relay them on here.
we arrived on tuesday afternoon and ended up just driving to the hotel from the airport and staying in that night, unpacking, exploring the resort, relaxing and such.
bright and early the next morning (6:30am to be precise) Gary, Betsy, Justin and I headed out to the front of the hotel to be picked up by the biking company. up the volcano of Halakala they drove us, so that we could bike back down it.it was so beautiful at the topwe were above the clouds, looking down on the islandjustin and i went off on one of the trails to explore the view from higher up. man, was it windy! almost got blown off the mountian there ;)getting ready to bike downa veiw from where we ate dinner that night. so lovely!the next day my mom got to go on the event, while Gary stayed with Katie. we went hiking through Maui's rainforst!here you can see me showing off our stylish water bootswe also got to jump off cliffs! welcome to the jungle

later when we were back at the resort, we went to play in the pool for a while

Katie is such a little fish!

Justin and I had just come back from snorkling down by the beach

justin graduated!

These last few days my family was in from Utah to celebrate Justin's graduation from college!
I went to pick Jamie up around 11am at the airport on Thursday (the rest of the family was driving, so they were getting in later that night) and then we headed home to say "hi" to everyone and pick up Katie before going to lunch with Betsy and Gary's parents. Later that evening uncle Jeff, aunt Julie and Jenna arrived along with Justin, who they picked up in Whittier. We had a quick dinner and then turned in early because his graduation was bright and early the next morning.
6:30am came and so did Jamie, knocking on my door, asking to take a shower. I permitted her to, rolled over and went back to sleep. we were out of the house by 7:30am and there early for his 9:00am graduation, which was outside in the blistering morning sun.
I have to say, as excited as I am for him to have completed this huge milestone, I'm sad as well. It's been so much fun having him out here for the last four years. And it's been great having a cousin that is also like best friend and a brother all in one. Not that, that will change, we just wont get to hang out as often. It's definitely not going to be the same coming home on weekends from school and not seeing Justin raiding our kitchen, or going out to a random movie at 11:00 or wanting to paint out of the blue. Man, I'm going to miss him. But, the upside is i'm going to be seeing quite a lot of him this summer and we will never loose touch...kind of impossible when you are family.
anyway, that's my tribute to Justin.
till i return from Hawaii then...

pop!

Wednesday Amy, August, Grace and I were finally able to get together and hang out. after a lovely dinner at the factory of cheesecake, we tried desperately to think of something fun to do that wouldn't cost too much. we came up with the great idea of balloon painting! a quick trip to the hardware store for some wood and to K-mart for some paint and balloons got us ready to go. what a fun evening it was. i don't think i've ever ingested that much paint (accidentally of course...it would come out of the balloon when you were trying to blow it up) balloon wars! danielle vs. august...who will win? :)

aw, i love them so much!

yes, we are slightly psychotic ...do you have a problem with that haha

the finished product!

what a fun evening! i hope summer will bring me lots of time to spend with them :)

finishing up the thriftstore journey

so, to finish up the installment of my journey with Amy and Barrett, we drove out to Redlands and got to Barrett's house around 8:30. we hadn't stopped for dinner and thus, were starving. we unloaded our things and piled into a three seater truck. oh, and did i mention it was a stick-shift? did i also mention that Barrett just had learned to drive one two weeks prior. it was interesting. since the gear shift is in the center, i (the one in the small middle seat) had no other place to put my legs, but on top of Amy. we only stalled twice and despite Amy and my unhelpful remarks, Barrett got us there and back safely and full of laughs.
that evening we spent a lovely long while skyping with Shanan. Amy got online and skyped him, as Barrett and I hid, waiting to jump out at him and surprise him that we were all together. so, as Amy was talking to him, I leaned over the screen, yelled and then watched him jump back from the computer, surprised. he was so confused and started asking us questions about how long I'd been at Amy's and when we couldn't lie any longer, Barrett took her turn and jumped out at him. poor Shanan...always getting scared :)
in the morning (by morning i mean 11:30), Barrett's mom took us out to breakfast and then we were off to the remaining thrift stores on our list. Amy and I didn't end up leaving until around 8:30pm, but eventually made it to Van Nuys so I could drop her off and then back on the 405 so I could get home. fun trip with them and it was so good to get to see them before the summer really got going.

and the adventures continue...

Summer has still been going great, although it's been starting to get busier by the day.
Last Wednesday afternoon, I drove up to LA Union Station to pick up Barrett, who was coming in on the train from Redlands and Amy, who was being dropped off there by her sister. Yes, I am aware that it had only been a little less than two weeks since I'd last seen them, but it was great to see them, nonetheless. It really is funny how the people you meet at college become your family away from your family. Wednesday night was spent showing both of them some of Long Beach and going down to 2nd St. for an event put on by the restaurants called Stroll and Savor, during which Grace joined us. After much strolling and savoring, we took a quick trip down to the beach, where Barrett and I again engaged in a wrestling match...not the best of ideas, when so close to ocean water.
Thursday began our thrift-store adventures, starting with Buffalo exchange and eventually ending on Friday afternoon in Beaumont with Redlands thrift.
here is a list of what items i got and their price:
Buffalo Exchange:
-pair of black jeans: $11
-skirt: $6
Savers:
-jean shorts: $5
-small couch: $20 (split 3 ways. I'll explain this one)
Hobo's Vintage (my personal favorite)
-1950's/60's polyester jacket: $6
-1 tie from the 1950's and 1 from the 1960's: $2
-1960's vintage dress (my favorite purchase): $12
Redlands Thrift:
-awesome red fuzzy nightgown (we all got nightgowns haha): $.99
-long-sleeve sweater/shirt: $.99
Shopping at thrift stores may just be one of my new favorite things (well, as much as i can favor shopping...i'm not much of a shopper). So, we had planned to leave Buffalo Exchange/Long Beach around 1pm, which ended up being 3pm. We hadn't had lunch yet as we began our drive out to Beaumont (small town next to Redlands where Barrett lives) and as we were passing Whittier I told them that Whittier was really the last city I semi-knew how to get around until we got out to Redlands, where Barrett could guide us. As I got off the exit to Whittier Blvd. Amy made a comment that she didn't like Whittier, yet the only thing she new about the city was what a group of people from a church there had displayed when they had come to stay at her church. Apparently they came off arrogant to her and right as she expressed this, Barrett jumped on the bandwagon with her perceptions of the city and that became the running joke for the trip. Every sign, car, person or building we passed came with a plethora of comments from Barrett and Amy. Since I was a mere 10 minutes away from Whittier college, I gave Justin a call to see if he wanted to come join us for lunch. He did and I was told to pick him up at the athletic center. Barrett and Amy immediately go "Oh, look at us, we're Whittier and we have an athletic center."
"It's a college campus. Why wouldn't they have an athletic center?"
"Oh, we're such an important city...we have a college."
After a lovely lunch, Barrett and Amy began suffering from the effects of the bigheaded people of Whittier as displayed when I dropped Justin off at his house and the two of them stayed seated in the back seat, making me chauffeur them around to find the thrift store Justin had told us about. Ridiculous.
We eventually made it to Savers, searched the store, found items worthy of buying and Amy and I proceeded to wait for Barrett to be done. We wandered into the home section, browsing for anything to add to our room next year. We stumbled upon this small couch with no arms, but that could comfortably seat three people on it's two cushions. Amy and I looked at each other and expressed that we thought it might be perfect for our dorm room, but only halfheartedly since we have so little space with three people. We decided to sit on it anyway, just to see if it were even worth it. Hands down one of the most comfortable couches I've ever sat on. It's a bit old and a little decrepit looking, but who cares! For that comfort and only $20 it's perfect! We ran to find Barrett and after pushing her down onto it's padding, she was sold as well on it. Quite exciting!
Well, I fear this post is dragging on and thus will save the rest of the retelling of my journey for a later date. I'm going to try and be better about keeping up my blog...I realize I've said that before, but this time I really am...we'll see :)
Over and out.