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 :)