Day fifteen in Hawaii!!! :) :) :)

Last night I actually set the alarm on my mom's phone for 7:30am so I got up on time to start the day and good thing too because Saki came over around 9:30am to see if I wanted to go shopping with her at the mall. It is hard for her to do Christmas shopping with Aika because she gets into everything and doesn't want to be held or be in the stroller. I was following her around in one store to make sure she didn't get into anything but gave up on that and just held her whether she liked it or not throughout the other stores. Saki was looking for a shirt for Brody for Christmas and some little things for Aika and whatever else she saw and I just had to get a few things for my mom before we left. We left the house at 10am and didn't get home until 3pm. We ended up going to Waikiki to a Quicksilver store so she could look more but they didn't have what they said they had at the other store. Since we were in Waikiki, we went to an ABC store and out to eat in the Ala Moana mall. It is the biggest open air mall in United States and has the second largest Sears. The parking was horrific! We drove around for like forever trying to find a place to park. We ate at Island Burgers. It was okay. I ordered a Hawaiian burger. It was pretty good but I didn't really enjoy how much teriyaki sauce they put on it. I ate half and put the other half in a to go box for my mom to eat later. All the way home Saki talked to me about how she can make us stay longer to watch Aika while she works. She has been loving us watching her and doesn't want to see us go. :( Hearing her talk the way she did, despite how much i want to come home, made me want to stay longer. She is very desperate for a babysitter! Anyway, I had a really good day with her! :) :) On the way home, Saki stopped by a place and bought some Malasadas, Hawaiian donuts, for us to eat. They were really good!! :) :)

So after shopping with her, I went out back behind the house and took some pictures of the greenery just so I could post some pictures on this blog because I've been getting complaints about how I'm not posting enough pictures. So, Ayala, here are some for you. They aren't like amazing, but they are pictures. :)

My mother is putting her sitting stillness to a use...this is a picture her finishing a paper chain that she started yesterday.

Sorry it has taken me so long to post pictures of Marhsall's house. Today I was sort of in a picture taking mood so I took a ton.

This is a picture of the front of his house as you drive up...

Here is the side of his house and a beautiful view!...

This is the back...

Marshall and his dogs after I finished cutting his hair.

Ayala, here's for u...

Marshall picked bananas off a tree in his yard today. A couple were ripe and were really good!!

Christmas in Hawaii...

Marshall decorated the tree more today. Here is the almost end result...

Well, that's all the pictures for today. I hope I posted enough! :) Tomorrow night I fly home so don't know when I'll get on to blog. I might just do some little blog and a couple last minute pictures and then blog again about the flight home after I'm all rested up. When I get home I will not have as much time as I've had here to blog and be on the computer so I probably won't blog everyday.

Day fourteen in Hawaii!!! Happy Birthday Rushi!!! :) :) I love and miss u tons!! :)

My day started out with sleeping in until 10:45am! It felt really good. When I did get up, my day was pretty much like yesterday except I didn't have Aika at all. :( After our really, really late breakfast, or early lunch, my mom did some reading then went back to bed after taking some pain killers. She woke me up at 1:50am because she was in a lot of pain even when she didn't move. Yesterday was her slow down on pain meds day and she paid for it last night. Today she was smarter and has been taking them every six hours like she is supposed to. :) I ended up doing something that required energy today; I ran on a treadmill that Marshall's roommate has in her room!! I only did it for thirty minutes but when I got done sweat was pouring off me in the bucket fulls! I had just gotten dressed for the day and had to get re-dressed and rinse off because my clothes were soaking wet. Again I didn't think when I packed to come here and didn't bring any clothes to workout in. :( So a little later on today, after my mom got a shower and the cleaning was done, I went to Safeway, a grocery store, with Marshall to buy some food for three more nights of dinner, tonight, Thursday night, and Friday night. My dad called today wondering when we are coming home. I looked up flights for Friday night and found one. I think we might be taking it but I'm not too sure about it yet. I emailed my dad about it and I'm still waiting for a response.

While I was making dinner, Marshall went out back to cut down a 'Christmas' Guava tree for his house. He went into town last night to buy one but all the ones that were shipped over have been sold out and they are waiting for more to come in. He brought it in and set it up and put some lights on it. My mom is making a paper chain to decorate it and Marshall's roommate is going to buy some ornaments tomorrow. I'll get more pictures of it after it is all decorated.

I have to get off now.

Hopefully tomorrow I have something more interesting to say.

Day eleven in Hawaii!!!

We left the house around 8:00 this morning to go to a brunch at Saki's work. The food was really good! From there, which was around 9am, Mic and I went to an ABC store to buy some little gifts for friends and such. ABC stores are on every half block in Waikiki for tourists. They carry everything from Hawaii clothes, trinkets, food, shoes, hats, everything...a tourists dream! :) So Mic and I shopped for a while, well actually, I helped  him pick out some things while I waited for my dad to bring my purse from the car. Like a non-thinking person I had left it there. :( I didn't really need to do any shopping, I just had to return a shirt that I had bought that was the wrong size. When we were half way done finding everything Mic needed, Saki and Marshall came in with Aika and wanted me to watch her while they moved Aika's car seat from Saki's car to Marshall's. She ended up falling asleep on my shoulder and I had to find out different ways to do things one handed, like paying the cashier and holding up shirts to see if I liked them. :) From there, we dropped dad off at the hospital so he could get mom ready to come back to Marshall's house. Marsh dropped Mic and I off at the house then went back a little later to pick up mom and dad. While they were gone we cleaned up the house and watched Aika. Mom did good coming from the car, up the steps, in the house and into bed. She needed someone to lean on though. We don't know how much longer we will be staying here, hopefully no longer than a week.

I miss everybody sooo much!!! :( It is getting harder being away from everybody for so long. Don't get me wrong, vacations are fun and very much needed sometimes, but if they are too long, you lose sight of why you went on vacation. With me, the hardest thing is that there are just too many temptations out here and nobody to help you stay on track. We don't have devotions every morning, don't read the Bible everyday, don't have Tuesday night, Thursday night, Sunday morning gathering...the list goes on. Yesterday has been the worst for me so far. I was a total wreck and none of my sisters were here for me to cry on their shoulders. :( Today though has been almost one hundred percent better!! :) First off it's better because my mom is back! :) Second because I got an email from Abba and talked to Alaina yesterday, and third because I got to talk to Austin and Ayala on the phone for a while today. They really encouraged me and just listened while I poured out everything I was going through and then gave me some neat stuff! I ended up crying on the phone and felt really good afterwards. :) I think what I need is just to get into a schedule and to call my friends more often! :)

My dad and Micaiah are leaving for the airport around nine tonight. Their flight leaves at 11:50pm Hawaiian time. They will be getting into the Memphis airport around 1:30pm Memphis time. They are still on standby so pray they get on the plane. :) :)

Day seven in Hawaii!!! :) :) :)

We didn't have a plan made up for today last night, so it took us forever and a day to get out the door and find out where we wanted to go this morning. :( When we finally made our plans, it was 9:30am...late! We all piled in Marshall's little two door Scion car and drove towards the North shore. We were going to go to Haleiwa which is a little town where we could do more shopping then find a nice place to swim, but we got stuck in traffic! Apparently there was an accident at the end of a bridge on a mountain road and they weren't letting anybody through, and it was going to be like four hours before they did too. That was crazy so we turned around and stopped at different famous surfing spots along the North shore and watched the big waves. It was incredible!!

There was a competition going on at a place on the North shore called pipeline...

We found a nice little place to stop and get out and swim...mostly just lay on the beach though. :) The bummer thing about the beach was I lost my sunglasses there! :( I hooked them on my camera bag and they fell off when I bent down to take a picture. I didn't notice until we got back in the car and the waves had already hit up against the shore many times and swept them out to sea. :( :(

The flowers here are beyond amazing!!!! :)

The moon here right now is weird. I never see it at night, only during the day...

After a long day of cruising, we went over to Brody and Saki's for a dinner of tacos and pumpkin cheesecake! :) We had loads of fun there telling stories of when Brody and Marshall were kids. We were all dying of laughter!! :) After the fun and games, we took some pictures...these are for you Ari and Rushi. :)

The pumpkin cheesecake

Their Christmas tree. :) I told them that if I lived in Hawaii I would decorate a palm tree for Christmas...they're a whole ton cheaper!! :)

Aika... :) :)

After we left Brody's Marshall took me into Waikiki to Wal-Mart so I could finish up my shopping. It was loads of fun...if you know Marshall! :) From there we stopped by his work to check his schedule then went home.

Micaiah is doing better. His arm where he got bitten is still very sore!! We ended up finding some plantain leaves on the side of the road today so my mom made a poultice out of them and put it on his arm.