Awkward & Awesome [airport and vaycay style]

Over Christmas break, I was in Hawaii & Denver. I would have to say it was one of the best Christmases ever. :)

The first 2.5 weeks were in Hawaii visiting my family, and the last week was spent in Denver (half doing a mission trip + ski trip with my church in ND, and the other half visiting old friends.) I would like to talk more about these mini trips (especially the mission trip), but I don't know if I'll be able to find the time.

Moving on.

So throughout my trip I documented some of the awkward & awesome that happened, plus there are pictures at the end. ENJOY!

--Awkward Stuff--

+The guy sitting next to me on a plane thanked me for not being a liner backer... "Ummm, You're welcome..?" I said.

+I got so many bug bites in Hawaii. Even bug bites on my bruise. D: 

+Putting on damp clothes because it's so humid. Hawaii isn't all amazing, but for the most part, the pros outweigh the cons. :)

+Awkward Aeropostale changing rooms where the door is see through, but after going in and shutting the door, they become tinted. Yikes. They took a little faith to use. 

+Crying at security (because I was sad to leave HI), and then an Australian lady asked if I was ok. Her accent was so thick and couldn't understand what she was asking so she had to repeat herself. twice. "Are you akai?"

+*While in Seattle* "If you're wearing a number 3 Russell Wilson jersey, you can now board the plane." Wow, someone's showing favoritism... Haha (I also had to look him up to find out who he was... Please don't kill me Seahawk fans.)

+"Wake up at 5:40am (on a Sunday morning)... Welcome to the life of a catholic." -one of my sweet friends

+I'm about to go on a kayaking trip, like, lifejacket is on and I'm in the water... And then my alarm goes off. Sad day... I couldn't even go kayaking in my dream D: 

--Awesome Stuff--

+If doing yoga in the airport wasn't considered weird.

+Going to the beach (and being hot) on Christmas DAY! 

+Obama golfing at our church on Dec 26th.

+Girl at a coffee shop complementing on my polished nails..."I wish we could paint our nails here." ...I feel your pain, lady. I can't paint mine while working either.

+Climbing up the side of a waterfall (3x) with Mark and two of my brothers.

+Praying with and serving homeless people of intercity Denver.

+New year resolutions are in full swing. aka, Gym=packed.

+The movie Frozen and everything about it. I cannot wait to see it as a live musical!

A few pictures from Hawaii.

A few pictures from Denver.

First day of skiing was beautiful!

Second day was a blizzard.

Both days were great. :)

The last few days in CO were spent with these amazing people!!

Now I'm back in school, back to the books, back to the studying and back to routine! 

Next week will be the third week of classes, but the FIRST week with 5 days in a row of classes. Our first week had a three days of school, and this past week had 4. I guess we're slowly easing our way into the semester, and I'm okay with that. :)

hanauma bay + a random 'off the beaten path' coastline

octopus. 

eel

octopus again. actually, there are two in this picture. can you see the second one? 

(he's down in the right corner) 

this day was a long time ago, as you can see, nate is in some of these pictures. (he's back in seattle now.) but i figure, better late than never. 

mt. olympus

 ya know, just cruising down the highway on the back of a truck bed.

it's legal here, believe it or not.

starting out- rebekah and i. :)

 after a bit of hiking we came to this. while the sign says:

"CAUTION: end of maintained trail!"

"notice. end of trail."

"do not go beyond this sign- please turn back."

all we read was:

JUST keep climbing and

mt. olympus. 

always read between the lines, or in our case, the graffiti. 

because from what i could tell, the trail was very well maintained with fresh shoe prints and passing people.

we parked behind that ridge in the left-ish/middle of the pic. i think. 

 diamond head from a different angle. 

 the point of diamond head on the left and downtown honolulu in the middle. 

 random peacock x-ing. hello, peacock.

 there's a trail, i promise!

stephan's a little dot. i think this was the second to the last summit.

zoom in.

 these ropes were a lifesaver. literally. 

clouds traveling over the ko'olau mountains. such a cool thing to experience!

the other side of the island: kaneohe (ah!)

we were quickly engulf in the clouds. kaneohe is behind us, can't you tell? 

 and back down again. the weather was wonderful: overcast but not rainy.

(it did sprinkle a tiny bit, but it was over shortly.)

 a bad picture of koko head. i still need to do that hike. :)

delicious strawberry guava

 i had more than my fill of these little guys. 

 it's safe to say that this hike was successful. 

to start off, i have no idea why the name mt. olympus. it's not hawaiian, and we didn't spot any olympians like michael phelps or gabby douglas; it's not the olympic mountains in washington (although, that would've been cool) or mt. olympus in greece. 

*sigh* i will always be in bewilderment. 


this hike had a lot of similarities to the royal summit we did last month. both were along a mountain ridge, up and down summits and all, but this one was A LOT more steep than the royal summit. 

the internet said it would take 4- 4.5 hours roundtrip (from the parking lot to mt. olympus), so we gauged our whereabouts on the time. accurate, right? haha no. we came to a pretty good looking summit overlooking honolulu on one side and kaneohe on the other. amazingly beautiful sights up there! no signs, but we're guessing it was mt. olympus because we made it there in exactly 2.25 hours. yes... the trail keeps going, but we turned around.

getting back down seemed to take forever, but we were able to make it back 10 minutes shy of four hours- jell-o legs and all! woohoo. 


hike stats:
-it's just under 6 miles (according to my phone)
-elevation starts at 1,050 ft & gets up to 2,332 ft
-i drank 3 liters of water, and sweat 3 liters of water (i kid, mostly)