ooooooooh. ahhhhhhhhh.

saw this bike in hawaii. LOVE IT.

i'm ready to go.... for it!

So here it is. I am finally posting my week as an EFY counselor. I have gotten many reminders that i need to post about it, but i've been so caught up with getting back into the swing of things i have not had time to! But i can't even began to explain how much i loved efy as a counselor... one word. AMAZING. Seriously it was the most incredible experience i have ever had. It was just fun being on the other side and seeing kids come to efy mad and not really there and then BAM they leave not wanting to leave and such a happier person. I know that so many lives changed that week and it was fun to be there to witness it happen. I could write a very long detailed blog about each day but i will just give the highlights from the week:

me and all my girls!

Tuesday: dance day!
every morning we have a participant devotional which i assign two girls to teach to the group, after that we meet as a company (another group of girls, and a group of boys) and do scripture study. Then we meet with everyone for the Morningside taught by our amazing session directors. Next were some sweet classes. Later that night was the dance! Ha ha i think i had more fun at that dance then the kids. During the dance they had a "dance off" for the kids. But first they decided to do the counselor dance off... um ya. All counselors had to participate and if you got tapped on the shoulder you got to move onto the next round. Well i just decided i didn't care and i was going to have fun with it, and i did. I made it the next round and had to go out and show what i can do, alone. I don't even remember what i did but after my girls were like... teach me how to do that! Ha it was funny. And after that was the nightly counselor devotionals taught by me, scripture study/journal time, and a prayer meeting. It was such a crazy long first day but so much fun!

doing the conselor dances!

cute little door tags i made for my girls

Wednesday: game day!
There were more good classes and after dinner we had time to meet with our company and prepare our banner and cheer for the games and cheer off! Our group is called no temptations so they came up with a fun cheer to the tune of a bunch of different songs. It was cute. We played some of the funnest games and then after was time for the cheer off and ice cream! It started raining but everyone was having too much fun to let the rain bring us down.

kahili, lindsey, and kenna

mel, keapo, and bronte

Thursday: testimony day!
We split off into young men and young women for a lesson. Our lesson was taught by natalie norton and it was about the living christ. It was so good! We then had a lesson taught by her husband richie, again way good! After was lunch and then the variety show. The variety show, otherwise known as a talent show, was amazing. I knew it would be because there is so much talent in hawaii. There were some amazing voices, dances, funny songs, this crazy dance with hoops(video to come), one of my girls drew a picture on a chalkboard with both of her hands, and of course they did the haka!!! After was the musical program, everyone sounded amazing and it really brought the spirit in. We then had dinner and then was the fireside where we sung the medley. Those of you know know this medley will know its so pretty and you can always feel the spirit so strong. I of course cried. I always do. Then it was time for testimony meeting. I always loved testimony meetings at efy because the spirit is so strong, well not this time. We had some obnoxious boys in ours that kept giving high fives and making little remarks. My girls were very frustrated that they said they had i hard time feeling the spirit. I felt horrible so i cut my devotional short that night and had a devotional with my own group. It was a lot better than earlier and i got time to tell them my testimony and how much my girls have strengthened me that week.

kelsey, me, syb

have you ever seen a bigger apple?
Everyone tried to make me eat the whole thing, i couldn't do it, it made me so full
so i passed it around the table.

Friday: banquet day!
the session director taught a great lesson about dating and after we had a for strength of youth activity. We paired up as counselors and taught some fun lessons on the subjects in the for strength of youth pamphlet. Me and tyson taught sabbath day observance. It went really well! After that was a taking it home lesson teaching the youth how to apply what they have learned here at efy into their daily lives. After was the service activity where we made beanies for those in need in cold countries. Next was the banquet and pictures slash address exchange. And then... another dance! This dance was not nearly as fun as the first one but still lots of fun. Since it was the last day me and a bunch of counselors had a big pizza party with our girls!

kenna, mel, melanie, and me at the banquet.

Saturday: little goodbyes :(
i hate saying goodbyes. This morning was so hard. I grew to become best friends with my girls and its sad knowing that you might not see eachother anymore. We had the best week ever and we will never forget it!

saying goodbye to kahili :(

me, kahili, haley, lindsey, and jake.

After everyone checked out we had a meeting with the counselors and we went around telling some experiences that happened in our groups this week. It was so fun hearing what an impact everyone had on the youth. Then we blasted the efy cd! It was sad saying goodbye to them too. But most of us weren't leaving yet so we went to the beach! And then we all drove up to honolulu and ate at the cheesecake factory for dinner yum! All of the counselors are so much fun. We were all so comfortable with eachother so we were joking around and had a blast!! Sherrie who worked behind the scenes at EFY but did soooo much told us that she has been to so many efy's and not once has she seen counselors bond like we did. We will all be best buds for life. And a lot will be in provo this fall for school so im so excited to get to see everyone again!! I had such an amazing time in hawaii and i will never forget what an impact it made on my life!!! Shaka with a flare! EFY for life!! haha

counselors in yellow.
Session directors, coordinators, and BC's in blue.

counselors at the beach. Yep we did the EFY cheer.

the gang at cheesecake! Yep we did the EFY cheer here too.

vintage carnival wedding

My friend maddie's older sister got married on saturday and the theme of her reception was vintage carnival. It was amazing! They had a ferris wheel, a photo booth to take your picture for their guest book, so many cupcakes, popcorn, cotton candy, lollipops & tons of candy, a sweet band, a dance floor, old cars, and lots more. I have never seen a reception like this before. I just had to go to take pictures! It was even more pretty in person!

This is where you would leave the presents for the bride and groom. how cute!

had to take some pictures of amy!

me and my lil sis Amy

how cute are their ballons???

ferris wheel!

these were lime-ade cupcakes! i wish i would have tried one!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KARLI!!!

My cute cousin karli is growing up. Today she turned the big 1-8! crazy!

We have been best buds since birth and will be forever! She is probably thee funniest person i know. I want to me more like karli! I could ramble on but i just wanted to give her a shout out! Hope you had the bestest birthday ever! LOVE YOU!!!

karli makes me laugh. real hard.

karli loves weird people, so do i. that is neat.

crazy busy

So yesterday, Monday, was such a crazy day! I woke up around 6:30 and go ready and went to breakfast. We had a big meeting after and got us pumped for the week. We split up into groups and either had to go help set up for registration or learn the efy line dances to preform in front of the youth at orientation. I chose to dance. Duh! We learned the dances and somehow i ended up dead front and center in the formation... so after practicing a bunch we had lunch. ha ha. Then it was registration. It was intense. As soon as everyone got all checked in i got to meet my group. I have 11 girls. Kahili, Britney, Mel, Kenna, Haley, Katelyn, Keapo, Bronte, Lindsey, Melanie, and Liz. 3 are staying at home and the other 8 girls are staying in the dorms with me. I have the best group. They are just so sweet and nice to all of the girls in our group. A bunch are from utah, a couple from kauai and oahu, and one from cali. I got paired with angela, steve, and KC. Our company name is called no temptations! Ha its pretty sweet. We all met together and played some get to know you games. After that was orientation, yep i had to get up on stage and dance for them all. Ha it was intense but so much fun! My girls told me they were impressed by my moves. Ha it was funny. After orientation we went to dinner at the pavilion on campus. Dinner was not the best, but hey they had brown rice! Ha ha. After dinner was an awesome FHE lesson taught by bro and sis shumway. We played some FHE games and had some treats. Then it was time for the counselor devotional. I was nervous. I had left my scriptures where we played games so i was a little off on my lesson, but it still went good. We had to meet over at the pavilion for a closing prayer with everyone and send off the girls who are staying at home. We started walking back to the dorms and out of no where it started pouring!! We had all been so hot the entire day that it felt nice. I had to help some of my girls that couldn't get into their room and had to find them a new room so by the time i was showered and everything it was so late and i didn't feel like finding a computer to write my blog so im sorry for the delay. Today was one crazy day but i had a blast! Im looking forward to getting to know my girls a lot better and helping them grow spiritually! I hope im setting a good example for them and i hope they will look up to me lots! Well free time is about up so sorry i didn't give too many details. Just a sum of my day so you know what im up to. Love you all thanks for reading!

Thoughts:
*sar this is your shout out... CALL ME!
*the water here tastes like hose water. me no likey.
*the alarms in hale 3 really do go off if you go out the doors.
*so sweaty.
*wish there was air conditioner in the dorms

*my girls are trying to set me up with the boy counselors. its so funny!
*miss everyone.
*ROBYN HAPPY BIRTHDAY YESTERDAY!!!!!!!! wish i was there sugar, sorry you were sick! :(

*hooray for having free time!!

the ants came marching ten by ten

Sunday:
My alarm did not go off this morning. But i woke up to a bunch of asians yelling something. ha ha. I woke up in just with enough time to get ready. I met the girl in my group and she went to church with us. Her name is lindsey and she is from alpine. She is a little cutie. Way shy though. Church was really good and there were such good testimonies! I love how everyone gets up and says aloooooooooha. And then everyone repeats and says aloha back. The samoans, tongans, phillppians, and other countries would say other things though, like talofa and malo e lelei. It was sweet though. Everyone is just so smiley and so nice. After church i really needed to take kali's car back to her. I drove up to the point on my way and just watched the waves crash for a bit. Kali dropped me back off at the dorms and i still had another 3 hours before we were meeting for dinner. I did some studying and planning but somehow fell asleep for an hour. I woke up and there were ants everywhere. Where did they come from??? They were all over the curtains, which are above my bead so they were all over my bed, all over my walls! Just these tiny little things running all over!! I felt something on my lip and found out i just smashed one on my lip. yum! I went to the bathroom and noticed they were all over me too! Gosh they are annoying! I started spraying hairspray on them. ha that worked. Finally it was time to break my fast and eat dinner! It was delish. We then headed over to the lounge to meet new counselors and play a game. After we had a fireside taught by bro and sis shumway, our session directors. They are so sweet and fun! It was a good fireside about marriage. After we got to meet which counselors we would be working with. We have things which are called companies. Its usually two girl groups and one boy group in a company. My group is special and we get two boy counselors. My group is pretty sweet and its going to be fun! Our company is called "no temptations" we like it! We set some goals and planned who was teaching scripture study which day. I have thursday. ha ha. We got the efy cd and dvd and got our counselor t-shirts. Anyone who have been to efy knows that the counselors wear these huge bright colored polos. Not very attractive. Not exicted. But these ones are diff. They are hawaiian print. Ha i thought it was a cool idea, just not a cool print. But it will be sweet! After tonight i just got so dang excited!! Ahhh its going to be such a crazy week but i cannot wait to meet all of my girls tomorrow. Im over the 14 to 15 year olds so i am so excited about that. I just hope that i can be a good example to them and hope i can help them gain a stronger testimony. I will update you lots so don't you worry. Well its a big day tomorrow and i still have lots to do! Wish me luck and i'll let you know how it goes!! :) night night love you all and mahalo for reading!

Thoughts:
*one week left here. so sad
*kali is a queen.
*so excited to be very energetic and peppy tomorrow.
*friends i miss you
*fam i miss you even more
*robyn, i bet your little tummy will be so much bigger when i get home! So excited!!
*i hope everyone gets their postcards
*lots of people from utah that is going to efy. sweeeet!
*can't wait to dance for the youth tomorrow! ha oh the dances we have to do....
*robyn turns 23 tomorrow. eat at cafe rio for me please. make them sing to you please.
*i miss cafe rio.
*these are lame thoughts im sorry.
*lots of cute boys here :) he he

its backkkkk

Saturday:
So sweet news! I found computers i can use on campus! Yessss!
I hope you guys are excited as i am! Well I need to catch you up....So we woke up and took the movies we rented back to food land and ohana video. I had to stop at the post office to mail some postcards :) Oh and we rented another movie, vantage point. None of us had seen it. We went back to the dorms and watched it on kelseys laptop. Her and syb fell asleep but i watched the whole thing. It was pretty good! We had to pack up our things and be out by 12:30. So we met over in the lounge to meet other counselors and get our new rooms. We actually just sat around waiting because they were behind on a lot of things. Training started at 2 and it got us all pumped for efy. The couple in charge of efy over here, the nortons, are amazing! Natalie is just the cutest most energetic person i have ever met. Her and her hubby have 3 little boys raleigh, cardon, and lincoln. Cutest little boys you have ever met!! We had so much fun playing with them all day. We played some dorky but yet fun get to know you games and then headed over to the caf for dinner. The dinner was surprisingly good! They have brown rice which i was so stoked about. And a salad bar! Double bonus! After a fantabulous meal we went back for more training! Fun stuff. Then after we finally got our room assignments and had to move in and unpack all of our things. They told me after training that one of the girls in my group had checked in early and that she was eating in the caf and then would head back to her room so i just needed to make sure she got there safely. Well i went to check on her and her lights were off and she didn't answer the door. It was only 9ish so i thought maybe she was still out somewhere. I ran over to the caf and began to search all over campus, but no luck. I called sherrie, the session coordinator and told her the situation. They called some people she had been with but no one was answering their phones. Then they gave me her cell phone number to call, it went straight to voicemail, i noticed she had a utah area code. I was panicking! They told me she was 14 and came alone so i was nervous she was just lost all by herself somewhere!! I went over to talk to sherrie and natalie and they gave me a key to her room to check and see if she was in there sleeping or something, which i didn't think was possible because i was banging on her door for minutes. Syb can back me up. Ha ha well i opened her door and there she was dead asleep. Oh i felt so relieved. A bunch of the efy counselors that live here were throwing a party just down the street so we went to check that out. Ha ha it was pretty fun. They had watermelon and i was stoked. After a few slices and getting my groove on we decided to peace out. It was a sweet hawaiian party though. We went back and went straight to bed. Thats pretty much it. Glad i have the internet back! Hopefully efy doesn't ware me out too much everyday so i can come write my blog each night. Sorry no pictures for this week :( i'll post a bunch when i get home though. night night. loves!!

happy birthday america!

This morning i woke up to it raining. sad. Since it was 6 i said im going back to sleep until it clears up. So i woke up again around 7:30 and it cleared up a little bit. Syb and kels slept at the dorms and said there were going to head to the beach, kali said i could take her car after she got back from taking deja to waimea bay. I picked up the girls from hukilau beach and we headed into Haleiwa for some lunch. We went in a bunch of stores and then got syb a matusmoto shave ice! She loved it!! We really wanted to go to pipeline beach to get some sun, but when we got there the waves were HUGE!! They were crashing so hard it just looked deadly. We watched them in silence for about 10 minutes and decided to go snorkeling instead. We headed over to sharks cove, rented some snorkeling gear and were ready to snorkel. It was lots of fun, but you think you would see more fish cuz you are in hawaii. There was some but i was hoping to see a turtle or something! After getting slammed into the rocks a couple times we decided to head out. ha ha. We took back our gear and ran into kelseys friends. They had Acai bowls that looked way good and said we had to get one. These thing were huge! 10 times bigger than spoon me's! Syb and kelsey got one so i just had a couple bites of theirs. We were thinking about going to the beach on our way back home but everything was soooo crowded and it was already 4 o clock! I dropped the girls off at the dorm and went back to get ready and pack up all of my stuff. I was sad to leave kalis. It was just so nice there. It felt like home. Ha. But anywho i went to the dorms to drop off my stuff and pick up the girls so we could head to turtle bay. I was banging on their door, i woke them up. They had been sleeping! I was all ready to go and they still needed to shower! So i went and unpacked some things. Tried to get on the internet but there is none. zero. zip. nadda. nothing! Sad day. I was wondering how will i write my blog now??? So here i am at Mcdonalds using their internet just so i can write this! I hope it gets read. ha ha. Well they were finally ready and we headed to turtle bay. We got there and were browsing around all of the little booths wishing we were hungry because the food looked so dang good!! We got to the last booth and all of the sudden it started pouring!! We hurry and ran under one of the tents and were surrounded by these little japanese tourist boys. they were so funny!! It finally died down and we were nervous they weren't going to do fireworks. I mean whats the fourth of july without fireworks?? But they did do them! They were good! And the finally was amazing. I just love fireworks. It was funny cuz some guy in the middle of the fireworks yelled happy birthday america! Ha everyone laughed. After that we went to foodland to get some aloe and some waters and rented ps i love you! We met these boys on the byu waterpolo team and they invited us to their party tomorrow night. Ha ha that will be interesting to go to. They were cute though. We just went back to the dorms and watched the movie and went to bed. It was a weird 4th of july. It was fun, but its weird not being with any family. It sounds like you guys had such an fun fourth of july! Missssssssss you! Looooooooooove you! peace.

Thoughts.
*Dear hurley, you were such a happy dog. You will be missed so much! I am sad i didn't get to say goodbye to you! Davies fam i am sorry for your loss. I love you guys lots!!!
*Austin. you are so funny. I miss your little comments so much.
*The bathrooms at the dorms smell like B.O. gross.
*The toilet paper at the dorms is in sheets like napkins.... odd.
*Stoked for efy to start. Heard they are incredibly low on boys counselors.
*Walked around the whole campus at 730 in the morning. i have never seen a campus so deserted before.
*I really want to go inside the volcom house.
*Kelsey bought a year membership for the video store here. love it.
*i like my family and i love my friends - words by ellie howells on fast sunday.
*can't find my battery charger for my camera so im using my camera sparingly. sorry.

***Pictures from sybs camera:

syb and kels being silly

ummmm ya.

picture with the japanese tourists.

guy with bird. yes a real bird.

i wish you could see her dreds. they were almost to her ankles! nasty.

i'll upload pictures from the 4th later. sorry about the delay. much love.

padle padle padle

Me and kels woke up this morning took the bus, and met her friends at hukilau cafe for breakfast. I know what you are thinking, i just ate there yesterday i know, but they are closed friday through monday and so i wouldn't have the chance to eat there again so i had to take advantage! It was packed in there but it was worth the wait. Sterling called me and asked if i wanted to go with him to kalis work and i could take the car from there. I did and we were planning on going over to chinamans hat but sterl offered to take us SURFING! I mean you can't pass up that opportunity right? We went to castles beach (not the place we went last year with the baby waves) they were pretty decent sized waves. It was a blast! We all had so much fun. Syb called and made it to the dorms! Yea! We picked her up, got a snack, and headed over to chinamans hat to meet up with kelesys friends again. Their roommate told had just swam over to the island and told us thats what we should do. When we got their it looked so far away and not so safe. It started to rain so we bagged the idea and decided to go to waimea bay and jump of the rock instead! We jumped off and then played in the waves for a long time. The waves were so big and so much fun. I have so much sand in my hair and swimsuit, and every crevasse for that matter, but it was worth it. We stopped by sharks cove grill for some dinner and then watched the gorgeous sunset and sunset beach. While watching the sunset kelsey noticed these japanese ladies were taking pictures of us... soon they came up and said something about a taking a picture so i was like oh ya i'll take your picture. No they wanted a picture with us! Ha ha they were awesome! Big smiles and peace signs. Gotta love little asian tourists. Then this guy starts talking to us about utah and if we are going to "party" on the fourth. We were... uh no. Ha ha. He claims he is born and raised in hawaii but didn't look like it. He was just odd in every way. Anywho after that we went and rented blue crush and got some groceries. We decided we all needed to shower and then would all meet up to watch the movie. Well im so tired and didn't feel like driving over to laie again today so im going to bed. Its been a long eventful day. Stoked for the 4th tomorrow though. Kinda wish i was in utah for it though. Have fun my utah buds!! Miss and love you lots!!!

Thoughts:
*amy im sorry you didn't like oakcrest. i miss you babes!
*i miss my little austy bear too! Can't wait for a big austy bear hug when i get home!
*i get burnt only where i put sunscreen...
*almost drowned surfing today. scary.
*ali you are in my thoughts.'
*so are you trista!!
*fact. byu hawaii dorms are nicer than provo byu dorms.
*hey hiccups go away!
*i love waking up to lots of comments. its fun. thanks for reading my blog everyone!
*Its a small world...
*hey mark you should call me. again. ok thanks.
*fireworks tomorrow. yea!!!
*having a car instead of taking the bus is wonderous!
*my arms are going to be so sore tomorrow.
*i wish i could stay at kalis and never check into the dorms
*the ocean has messed up my hair. where is my part???

me angela kayla kelsey alisha

some random surfer girl
freakin stud. sterling.
the gals surfing
this is chinamans hat. it looks like a china man's hat.waimea bay

like father like son. go speedos!

pretty rainbow!

oh how i love sunsets

asian taking a picture of her friend taking a picture of me...

firework palm trees.

So this morning i woke up, got ready for my day at the beach and was all ready to go catch the bus when kali said hey im going to a couple schools today do you want to go to the beaches near by? I said surrrrre!! She dropped me off at the hukilau beach and so i decided to walk down the street to the hukilau cafe for some scrum-didly-umptious french toast! I got it to go and ate it on the beach! When i was done eating kali called and was ready to go to the next school. She was going to sunset beach elementary school which is right across from PIPELINE! My favorite beach ever!! YEA! I was stoked. I layed out and took tons of pictures! It was such a gorgeous day, so hot! I decided to cool off by getting in the ocean and rode some waves (oooooh very sucky-- ha ha karli!!) I swam along the shore for a good workout and then i took more pics and decided to go shower off. Oh i love showering off. The showers are so cold and refreshing! Right after i was done showering kali pulled up, perfect timing! It was nice not having to take the bus! Thanks kali! My friend kelsey got in and so i ate a late lunch, got cleaned up. and went and picked her up from the dorms. We headed over to haleiwa and went in a couple shops where i bought the cutest bracelet! (picture soon to come) It has glass that almost looks like beach glass on this bracelet, the lady ringing me up told me the lady who made the jewelry went down and collected glass from hurricane katrina to use for these bracelets! How cool. After some shops we went and got a shave ice from matsumoto. yummmmm. i got lime and pina coloda with ice cream in the bottom. It hit the spot, and filled us up too. Kels has some friends from high school here so we decided to meet up with them. They were fun girls, we just chilled on their front porch and talked about maybe going on missions.... kali called me to see if i could pick up her foster girl from work at 9 so we headed over to get her. I decided i didn't want kels so be sleeping all alone at the dorms so we grabbed some of her things and she is spending the night with us at kalis! Sorry i sped through the day but im so so so tired and ready for bed! Goooood night!!

Thoughts:
*I might go kayak to chinamans hat tomorrow. stoked.
*happy birthday to my little married friend McCall, and my little work friend Stacey!!
*syb gets here tomorrow :)
*no more going and doing things all by my self, hooray for friends!
*mark, thanks for the call dear. it made my day!
*i suck at writing things in the sand.
*love listening to the rain at night, i will sleep good tonight.
*caution sand is very hot, it may burn your feet
*hey ali i still need your address!
*its late i cant think.

hukilau cafe!

i thought this said kars! ha thought you would appreciate it kars!

eating my breakfast yum-o

pipeline waves are the best!

sandy toes

these guys were so funny, they would just sit there and let the waves crash into them!

not sure if he is jumping or what...

this is kelsey!