Spending the Holidays in Paradise

Hey Everybody,

I'm keeping myself busy over the holidays in order to not miss home so much. We had class on the 22nd but convinced our professor to let us have Christmas eve off. I decided to take the week off from work so I could get a break too. I hung out in my room Christmas eve and Christmas day and I got to talk to some people on the webcam which was awesome. I had a Christmas movie marathon which was quite fun. I ate spagetti and meatballs for my Christmas dinner which was definitely strange for me. Here's a picture of my little Christmas tree with presents and cards.

The day after Christmas I had planned to go see a movie in Kaneohe at the mall. When I got to the mall I decided to go check out the deals at my favorite store here, The Seasonal Store & More, they were having a 50% off the entire store sale. So I went in and found some really good deals including some New Year's decorations. I went to see Marley & Me and it's a tear jerker for sure but it's also really funny. When I got back from the movie I decided to take a shower and when I got out the lights flickered a little bit and I just thought to myself that the lights were going to go out. And guess what a 1/2 an hour later the power was off. I texted my friend, Alex, who lives in California and she told me that the power was off around the whole island. I guess what happened it that lightening hit the 4 generators that power the electricity for the whole island and that's why the power went out. I watched movies on my computer until the battery was low and then I read my book. The first time I woke up on Saturday morning the power still wasn't back on but by the time I woke up the second time it was back on. I just lounged around all day on Saturday since some places didn't get their power back on until later that afternoon. I also took down all of my Christmas decorations and put up my New Year's decorations. On Sunday morning I went to Walmart to get some things. Then I worked on homework for my class. I had class today, Wednesday, and Friday of this week. I'm planning to go to the beach tomorrow if the weather cooperates.

I hope you all had an amazing Christmas and an even better New Year. I was missing you all like crazy. Sending you warm wishes and aloha kisses. Jessica :)

Snorkeling at Hanauma Bay Again

Hey Everybody,

On December 7th we decided to go snorkeling at Hanauma Bay again. We wanted to do something relaxing before we had to deal with finals week. After brunch we made our way to the bus stop and made the journey to Hanauma Bay. The most exciting moment of the day was when Tami heard someone say that there was a turtle over by one part of the reef that wasn't far from us so we decided to go over and check it out. Sure enough there was a turtle feeding on the algae on the coral. I got 2 pictures of the turtle. I also took some pretty cool pictures of some other fish.

The turtle is in the middle on the bottom of this picture. It was so cool to see one in the water. We can't wait to go snorkel with them at Lanikea Beach in the spring after the waves die down.

There were a lot of fish out when we were there. Definitely more than the last time we were there.

In this picture there is a slug. Its in the niddle to the left side. It's yellowish with white stripes across it's body.

Again you can see that there were a lot of fish around the keyhole which is where we snorkel since if we have to stop there is always sand to step on. And we're not quite comfortable snorkeling over the reef for long periods of time.

This is me with my snorkel gear on doing the shaka a.k.a. hang loose sign.

Here's a picture of the funky, cool coral that's all over the keyhole.

These fish were playing tag in the water.

I saw this fish the last time we were here but I had already taken all my pictures so I didn't get a picture but I saw another one when we went to look at the turtle. It's bright pink, blue, and green. Its totally my kind of fish.

This fish was huge and swimming right next to us so I had to get a picture.

The fish in the front was cool but weird looking at the same time so I had to get a picture. I hope you enjoyed the pictures. Sending you warm wishes and aloha kisses. Jessica :)

Honolulu City Lights Celebration

Hey Everybody,

On December 6th we went to the mall in Kaneohe to do some shopping and after that we went downtown to watch the Honolulu City Lights Celebration. They had a tree lighting ceremony and a light parade. We sat right across from the big tree that is a couple blocks away from the downtown campus. We enjoyed candy canes and singing "Mele Kalikimaka" while the parade was going on. I definitely have to say that everybody gets really into that parade. Here are some pictures from the parade. Enjoy:)

This is the Shaka Santa and Mele statues that they have next to the giant tree below.

This is the Snow Family that is on the other side of the tree and below is the train with the Menehumes that is in front of the giant Christmas tree.

We were so excited for the tree lighting ceremony to begin and for the parade. We sat right across from the tree to have the prime spot. This is Addison, Alex, Tami, and Darcy. Jon was there too but he didn't get there until after the parade started. The Christmas tree was so cool and the lights on the building changed colors.

These pictures were all from the parade. These were the floats that I thought were the coolest. Everything that was in the parade had lights all over them. Even the marching bands decked out their instruments with lights, garland, bows, and wrapping paper. Below is a video right after they lit up the tree while singing "Mele Kalikimaka."

I hope you enjoyed this because we had a great time at this. We were all so glad that Tami and Alex happened to walk over to the library and found out the information about the parade and tree lighting ceremony. Sending you warm wishes and aloha kisses. Jessica :)

Making Cookies and Decorating Gingerbread Houses

Hey Everybody,

I had quite an eventful night last night. We made microwave sugar cookies and decorated them. One of my friends found a recipe online for microwave cookies because she wanted to decorate cookies. We made them in the student center before the gingerbread house decorating contest. Here are some pictures from making cookies.Here's Jon and Tami making the cookies. And that's my cookie below.

Here's Addison cooking the cookies. Below is Alex and I enjoying our cookies.

Tami finally got to decorate her cookie, it made her so happy.

This is everyone grabbing their gingerbread house kits to go decorate. It was a race since we only had an hour to decorate and bring them back to the student center.Here we are brainstorming for ideas on how to decorate the house.We had great teamwork to make our hosue the cutest.Here's our completed house. It's so cute. Below is a picture of the back. We had little people that we put under the mistletoe. We got third place for our house.

This is Lokelani's volcano. They tried to break the house apart to make a pirate ship but it didn't work so they smashed it up to make a volcano.This is Ilima's house. It's a monster. They won first place.This is Lehua's house.This is Melia's surf shack which got second place.

This is Mokihana's bunny house.

Here's all six houses together. We had such a fun time doing this. I'm excited for the rest of the super hall events that they're going to have next semester. Our hall won the penny wars that we had the week before Thanksgiving. So the donation to the charity was made in our halls name.

Sending you warm wishes and aloha kisses. Jessica :)

My 1st Thanksgiving Away From Home

Hey Everyone,

We decided to go to Kailua Beach which isn't far from campus. We left after brunch and stayed at the beach for a few hours. We went in the water and layed out in the sun. Then we headed back to campus for Thanksgiving dinner. We had turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, yams, corn on the cob, and cornbread. It was pretty good. They happened to have the tv on TBS and they were playing Thanksgiving episodes of Friends which was great. Then we went down to the student center and watched some more episodes of Friends. After that we watched Home Alone because Alex and Tami had only seen the second one when he's in New York. Here's pictures from my Thanksgiving.

So instead of wrapping my door like a present I decided to make a fireplace out of construction paper. I've been working on the different elements for the past couple weeks and I cut out all the parts on Thanksgiving night and put them on the door the morning after. So here are the pictures of my door.

Sending you all warm wishes and aloha kisses. Jessica :)

Waimea Bay & the Swap Meet

Hey Everybody,
This weekend was quite fun. First I found out in my History class that we had a flash flood warning for the entire weekend. It rained all Friday and most of Saturday. We woke up to flooded fields as seen in the picture below. But we were determined to make it to the beach since the internet told us that it was not raining on the North Shore. We got drenched walked to the bus stop but that was alright because we had over an hour long bus ride to the North Shore.

Jon fell asleep on the bus so we had to take a picture of him.

We couldn't go to the North Shore without stopping at Matsumoto's. The good thing about the rain was that there were not a lot of people there. Alex was cold from the rain and the shave ice only made it worse. Alex is in the picture above.

We finally made it to the beach. Of course I had to get in the picture. We had to cross this little bridge from the bus stop to the entrance and I slipped and almost fell after telling everyone else to walk carefully because the bridge was wet and slippery.

We had to check out the sign about Humpback Whales. They are frequently spotted at this beach during the winter months. We're going to go back to hopefully see some in January or February.

The 2 above pics are of the beach which looks so calm but has a dangerous shore break. Keep scrolling down and you'll see what I'm talking about.

See what I mean. The waves didn't break until the shore

Jon, Tami, and Alex decided to explore the "cave" for shells while I...

Did some yoga. It was so relaxing on the beach. Not only did I do yoga but I was also a ballerina. Don't try to look for the pic of me as a ballerina because I didn't put it on here.

This is such a cool picture not only because of the wave behind us but I love Alex's face.

We were waiting around for some more big waves to take pictures in front of.

This was the best Alex and I could get before we started walking down the rest of the beach.

Here's Jon and I waiting for the big waves that never came while we were getting our picture taken.

Here's Tami and Alex waiting for the waves as Jon and I were.

We stopped at Giovanni's again to have shrimp for dinner. It was so delicious.

On Sunday we got up super early to catch the bus around 7:30 am to go to the Swap Meet at Aloha Stadium which takes place every Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday. The Swap Meet is a giant flea market that goes all the way around the stadium. We got a little lost but that's alright. We got these awesome calzones from a vendor for breakfast. Then we got fruit for dessert. Tami and I got pineapple and Alex got mango. We all had Li Hing powder on our fruit. Li Hing powder is a red powder that they sprinkle on fruits. I think it makes the fruit taste sweeter but I'm not really sure what kind of a taste it is supposed to have. We tried it for the first time at the Dole Plantation during their pineapple cutting demonstration.

Here we are getting ready to find our way out. We left at 12 and when we got back on campus we decided to take a nap before dinner because we were exhausted. I definitely want to go back there because you can find really good deals.

Sending you warm wishes and aloha kisses. Jessica :)