let's set this world on fire

This has been a great semester. I have had so much fun hanging out with everyone and just enjoying hawaii for one last semester (as of now)... I am off to uganda in may and then plan on moving to mesa in the fall. We will see what actually happens though... I really can't seem to stay away from hawaii..... 

As always the picture uploading method is so frustrating... so they are out of order...again.

 such a fun group- we went to hard rock cafe to celebrate aaron and matt's birthdays

 i love sunset beach.

 my friends were nice enough to pose for me...we took about a million silhouette pictures. i love jump pictures.

 remember the time we found a box buried in the sand?! we were walking to leave and felt it under the sand- aaron joked that it might be a treasure box and we were all surprised when it actually a box! after much debate on what it could be ( a cremated body, time capsule, dead drop-we have been watching a lot of alias, a stool for the beach, something that a surfer buried, etc) we decided to open it....

 turns out disappointingly enough it had some crumpled up toilet paper/paper towels and smelled so bad! there was nothing on/in the towels so we have no clue why it smelled so bad- but it was BAD! hahah well played. we decided to close it up and let someone else find it. 

 breeeeezyyyy

 more hard rock cafe

 we have still been very domestic- these were for aaron and matt's bday we made chocolate raspberry ganache  filling and a rich chocolate frosting and a raspberry drizzle.... yum.

 bree's family came for graduation and they stayed in the oakley house on pipe. it was so awesome!! we got to spend the night and hung out there a ton. 

 this is quite possibly my favorite picture of bree and i ever... she is telling me a story that made her graduation day the best ever and i was so excited for her!

 turtle! lanikea, north shore

the koa avengers!

can't seem to stay away...

seth decided to go to byuh after his mission and i wanted to go with him. i decided to drop him off and make a vacation out of it. i was only supposed to stay for a week, but when i went to say hi to the people in my department sis bunker offered me a job. they were short on face to face eil teachers and i had already been teaching the online classes for a year. they asked me if i would stay and told me i needed to decide quick because classes started the next day. i decided to stay. i didn't have any professional clothes or any clothes at all really- i had come over with my duffel bag which had a swimsuit, cut off shorts, and a few t shirts. it was crazy but i was given 3 classes and had 1 day to build them. i had devin go to my house in utah and pack up all of my stuff and send it to me in boxes - ha good thing i don't have anything too embarrassing. 

last semester was really really fun i had really great classes and they were excited about learning english. i decided to stay again for another semester and have been teaching 3 different classes. i really enjoyed teaching listening and speaking- my class was hilarious and they love me- always a plus. i also taught a church language class which was kind of cool. downside of this semester all my classes were at 7:30 am! i didn't think it would be possible for me to get up that early everyday, but i made it!

sorry all the pictures are in random order...i still can't figure this thing out!

We tried to take family pictures when we were home for Christmas break but we didn't get very far before it started raining. Jon with his fiancee Rachel and Chloe and Austin. 

Bree and I have decided to become domestic and make really good meals off pinterest

family picture day take 2- Heather and her new husband Marcus with Little Marcus, Dante, Dominic, Hannah, and Hailey

i love living in hawaii

kahuku farm lands fruit stand. 

gunstock- the place the "koa advengers" started their journey for bree's senior research project. we were supposed to be measuring koa trees but the day turned into quite the adventure- first whit's truck got stuck in the mud on the way up to the site so we had to get out and push and got completely covered in mud- then when we were collecting data it started pouring- when we were leaving there was a man on a horse wearing a pancho and he accused us of being boar hunters and was kinda ticked at first and then realized it was just 4 white girls- then the puddle had gotten worse from the rain and the guy tried to "help" of get out but actually made it worse and we were again COVERED in mud. after that adventure which we though would be the highlight of our day we had to go to the other site which is behind cackle fresh. little did i know that it's like a 3rd world country back there. tons of shanty like house made of tin- out houses- pit bulls- really kinda creepy quiet... we could not find the place we were supposed to go, so we finally turn around and are sitting at this fork in the road trying to get a hold of bree's professor so he can tell us where to go when a minivan pulls up with a little old lady driving. we naturally thought it would be a great idea to ask her if she knew...bad idea. as soon as she pulled up she was yelling and cursing at us. it kind of took us all by surprise and we were pretty shocked. she was yelling about how "people like her hate people like us- white people stole her land and we should be ashamed of our ancestors and you are all capitalistic colonists and you need to stop eating my land!" she was going CRAZY on us. we were like uhhhh we are lost? she told us we had no right to be on her land and she was calling the police and we were going to be arrested! we were like ummm ok.... so as she is yelling at us 3 police cars pull up in this like middle of the jungle shanty town and come to the car and she is yelling at us and them and they told her they could only give us a warning- she was not happy with that- she listened while we gave the police our info- and wrote every word down! later she even called whit. it was real weird though because after the police were joking with us and told us our punishment was 10 hail marys each - she like did a complete 180 and was super apologetic and wanted to help us- later bree's teacher told us she is actually clinically bipolar and she is infamous in laie...haha it was a great day

during break als got married!!!

on my 24th bday we hiked makapuu light house- it is one of the prettiest spots on the island

random order.... brothers at als wedding

roommates for mine and oz's bday hike

there is a reservoir on the island that people use as a slip and slide...it may or may not be illegal but it is so much fun! 

oh sethy

seth seems to have missed the top model face cue

kewelas- bree, erin, whit, kel

we kind of went through a paint war obsession- they are just so much fun! each team has a different color and you just go crazy on each other!

boys think they are so cool

lanikai - there was a million flowers and leis all over the beach and in the water- i feel like maybe there was a funeral or something out there- it made for some great pictures though- this is the picture that got picked for the national geographic!

the second time i went to europe and didn't get taken...

so one day in provo i decided i needed to get out of the country and put my resume up on a few esl websites and got an email from a school in perugia, italy and they wanted me to come for 2 weeks to teach at a summer camp...i would be leaving in 3 weeks. done. i bought my ticket and decided to stay for a month and travel around northern italy and greece...all by myself... i was stoked on it - until i was on the airplane and realized that i was going by myself to couchsurf (stay with random people) all by myself! i was terrified... but when i got to my first couchsurfing place it actually was really cool. i wouldn't want to travel any other way. you get to see all the local spots and all the cool things to do and still be safe traveling at night.

alexey is the russian boy i shared a room with the first night

fiat 500 dream car

Kate was my roommate for babylou (the english company) we got along right away.. this picture is of her feeling ridiculous about that old man in a bright pink suit. Getting to Perugia was quite the adventure... it was ridiculous. there was lots of trains and having no idea which stop to get off and which train to get on when i transferred... there was lots of stalking and praying and hoping that i would make it to the right place...when i got there...no one was there to pick me up! i had all of these thoughts about how this company was a fake company and now i was stranded in italy alone and had no idea what i was supposed to do... my phone wasn't working and i couldn't figure out the pay phones and was so confused. luckily i had the address to the company and asked a police man who asked a taxi driver and it was this huge ordeal and we finally realized it was across the street! i went over and waited there for an hr or so before someone finally came for me and took me to the hostel. i also found out at that point that we actually weren't teaching in perugia.. we were like an hr outside of the city in cita di castillo. basically the middle of nowhere with no hope for escape. i really liked the girls that i worked with and the camp was ridiculous fun and stressful and so much italian and politics and smelly kids but it was an awesome experience! babylou was real sketchy though and we almost didn't get paid-found out we were actually working illegally with no work visas (they told us we didn't need them)... after much yelling and crying we finally got our money and took off!

i loved these kids so much!

eddie's mom was from england and his dad was american but they live in italy so he speaks italian perfectly and has a british accent in english- he was such a brat but i loved him so much. this summed up our relationship....`

filipo cardinali i absolutely loved this boy. he was my best friend. we were inseparable! one of my favorite kids of all time! i actually cried when he left camp!

we went white water rafting in tuscany. jean and i were so excited for our wet suits...

filipo and luigi- the kids had the coolest names ever!

our whole camp was based on making a play about the trojan war... allison made this huge trojan horse out of cardboard. it was such a headache but awesome!!

verona! lago do garda.

the del pazzo family was nice enough to let me stay with them... they were so cool and so nice and took me all around verona. it was great. i love verona!

i was obsessed with the windows!

kyle was on his mish in verona and found me a place to stay and then we met up one day and went to lunch on an awkward not date with the missionaries! notice awkward spacing.... we didn't realize that was happening until it was too late!

this is what i look like while i'm backpacking....

venice

the most awesome violinists i have ever heard! i stopped and listened to them for a good half hour...

loved venice

my friend from byuh viktor is from greece and he put me in contact with his best friend from high school dimitris. he was super cool and super funny and took me around and introduced me to people. i LOVED greece. out of all the places i have traveled to so far that has been my favorite. it is just so beautiful and chill and the best of everything.

so i went to santorini and was wandering around looking for the donkeys i had heard about that you could ride up the caldera steps and saw this table of old men. they looked straight out of national geographic. i really wanted to take a picture of them... they saw me looking at them and motioned me over... i thought i probably shouldn't go and see strange men but then the desire to take the picture won out and i went anyways... turns out they were the donkey guys! i asked if i could take a picture and they thought i meant with them... so one of the others took it... this old man was kissing my cheek for a good minute before the guy would take the picture. i wish he had got him kissing me... he did capture his grabby hands...haha.

i got to ride a donkey!! it was such a terrifying slash exhilarating slash amazing experience. the view was awesome. the donkeys had a mind of their own though and would switch from chilling going at a normal pace to sprint running to abrupt stops. the stairs are so steep and covered in donkey poo and you think you are going to fall off the edge of the cliff every 5 seconds... but it was the highlight of the trip.

one of the friends i made in the hostel in santorini. even though i was traveling alone i never really went anywhere alone. i always made friends couchsurfing or in the hostels. it was so much fun.

i was so fascinated by the LITERALLY sun drying tomatoes! the coolest thing ever!

more friends in santorini. we went on this all day tour together to this volcano and mud bathes and a boat ride. it was real cool.

oia is so pretty. this is where the famous sunset happens. i can't describe how much i loved santorini

ginevra was the nerdiest..funniest girl. all the kids loved dancing- easiest teaching thing ever. this dance is so funny...we would watch it when we needed a good pick me up....