Let's Pretend It's Summer...

Well, we all know that Mother Nature seems to have forgotten about summer this year... But hey, it's supposed to get to like... 70 this week!! MAYBE... Anyways... I took such a long time to write about Hawaii - it's time I get caught up with the rest of the summer. :)

Hhh... Summertime. :) This has seriously been the best summer of my life. First Hawaii... then THIS?! What did I do to deserve this amazing life? haha Seriously? So blessed.

First, I may have mentioned this earlier, but once upon a time, before Hawaii - I got a calling. :) When the bishop asked me to come in I got kind of excited thinking I'd be in primary again. But, then I was like "wait... there are no kids in primary!" But, I was still excited. I went in to the room and Brother Eveland said "well, we know we don't have you for long, but we would like to call you to be the second counselor in the Young Woman's Presidency." Whaaaat?! Yeah, NOT expecting that in the slightest. I was stunned. I just sat there kind of laughing like "are you serious?" He was serious. I enthusiastically accepted and then just sat there for a few minutes in awe. I am SO excited. I STILL can hardly contain it and it's been over a month! haha Coolest thing ever. THIS is why I love Sequim. I actually get opportunities here. I'm needed here. I'm wanted here. It's a really, really great feeling. :)
So, that's been AMAZING. I adore Young Women's. I'm the second counselor, so I work with the Beehives. I started the summer with Amy McFarland, Angel Love, and Katelyn Wake. :) They are so adorable. Angel is just living with the McFarlands for the summer cuz her parents moved to Oregon in the middle of the year and didn't want to take her out of school. Her dad used to be a member, but none of them are anymore. They're wonderful tho, I love Angel. We had some good times. :) Our first week, we went over to Sister Linde's and she taught us how to make British Traufles? Troffle? Trouffle? I don't know, but it sounded like Truffle. haha It was fun. :) We've had some other epic times as well: We threw a thank you party for the out going YW leaders, Personal Progress camp party at Port Williams, Badminton battles, Service food drives (doing service, asking for cans in return) and we're planning an epic camping trip pretty soon. :) Angel's last week with us was a few weeks ago, she moved to Oregon, but we had a little party with making a cake from memory (NASTY), then eating repentance cake. haha I got the idea from the May New Era. It was sad to see her go, but I was glad I got to get to know her a little better. :) It's been SO much fun. I work with Sister Marshall (YW President) and Sister Lord (YW 1st Counselor). They are AMAZING. I absolutely LOVE working with them. We have so much fun, and our presidency meetings are the best. :) haha I've also gotten to teach a lot, which I love. :) I teach every week to the beehives our manual lessons. They're fun, but I've also gotten to take fast sunday lessons which are with the whole group. :) I love those ones. My first one, I taught about continually progressing - Keep Moving Forward from Meet the Robinsons. :) Love that movie. But, I was really happy with how that lesson turned out. I just taught another about the infinite worth of a soul and how our worth is absolute and never changes. I felt so strongly about this topic. I hope the girls could understand what I was trying to tell them.
Anyways, Young Women's has been AMAZING. I still can't believe I've been given this opportunity. The Lord is really looking out for me, and I am so grateful for this chance. I love the Young Women. I love serving there, and ... hhh... words can't even express how much I am STILL in awe over all this, how excited I STILL am. haha Every week, I just get so excited. :)

OK - So, as if being given the opportunity of a lifetime wasn't enough... here is my awesome summer part two. :) So, I spent a good couple weeks after Hawaii just job searching. I applied to like... 14 different places? haha now THAT my friends, is job searching. BUT, long story short - the Walgreens could only offer me like 8 hours a week, with a possibility of more hours. I was looking for more, so I kept searching and landed the best job in the WORLD at Banbury Corner in PA. It's the cutest little daycare and I'm just completely in love with it! I get like 38 hours a week and, I am just thrilled. Since then I have received offers at two other places in Sequim (a rehabilitation center, and a lavender farm) to work as well, but none even come close to measuring up to Banbury. :) Four job offers this summer is NOT BAD :) teehee! Anyways, I LOVE my job. I get to work a lot in the baby room. Which is my favorite. We have babies ranging from like 4 months to 15 months. They are usually out by one year, but Brandon Larsen (our 15 month old) is still not walking and we don't feel good about moving him up to the toddler room yet. I love Brandon. He's so cute and he crawls over to me the second I get in the door. Then he holds on to my hands as we practice walking around the room. :) Blake McDaniels is another adorable baby. He's almost a year old, but not walking yet either, so we'll move him over when he walks. He's way close, and SO CUTE. He reminds me of Frodo on LOTR. He LOOKS like Frodo on LOTR. haha! Adorable curly brown hair and piercing blue eyes. Love that kid. We also have Wyatt, Keilana, Charisma, Emma, Madison, Rozelle, Ansel, and Julianna. We will be meeting a few more this coming week, so I'm excited. :)
I also love working in the older kids rooms, which I get to do after the babyroom no longer needs me. (we have a 4 baby to 1 teacher ratio) haha! The toddlers are adorable. One is named Rocco and for some reason, he loves me. The first time I met him, he was screaming in Charlene's arms. She half jokingly was like "want to go to Andrea?" And he came straight to me and stopped crying. I rocked him to sleep and we were buddies. :) Now, every time he sees me he runs straight over to me. A few days ago I walked him to the toddler playground and let him walk in by himself while I got the other kids. He waited for me by the fence and when they closed the gate, he reached out to me and was crying. :( I wasn't allowed in the toddler area cuz I was supposed to be watching the preschoolers, so I couldn't go. :( But it was so sad! I can't figure out why he loves me so much, but he is SO cute, and I love it! :) Abby is another cutie face - she could win the heart of even the hardest soul.
I don't work with the toddlers much tho, usually if I'm not with the babies, I'm with the preschoolers. They're pretty dang adorable too. :) I have one named Tucker who is quite the trouble maker. I laugh my head off every time I'm yelling to him and calling him things like "Come here Tuckaluck!" or calling him TJ after Jen's dog. Or, he's in time out and I'm like "Tucker! Sit Tucker! Tucker, Leave it!" hahah oooh dear. love that kid.

 Of course I have a boy named Isaac, who is automatically my favorite. On my first day I was wearing a flower in my hair and he came up to me and tugged on my sleeve. "Teacher? I really like your flower." SO CUTE!! haha We have a boy named Joelson who was everyones favorite, but he just moved to Texas. :( Alex is the bully. He beats the crap out of people... even teachers. He's huge. But, I am a firm believer in being nice to him and hoping to gain his respect... everyone else is just mean to him. I'm still working on my theory... he's still mean. haha Then there's Dillon. I was automatically drawn to Dillon the first time I heard him talk. YEP - he's got an articulation disorder. :P I love hanging out with him. The other teachers have a really hard time with him cuz he's so hard to understand. The other kids have a hard time too. So, we hang out on the play ground and practice saying "flower" and "cactus" and "catch a tiger by his toe." :) I get so excited when he says something right, and he does too. :) I love that kid. Ooooh Ms. Cassie. I ADORE Cassie. She's one of the smallest of the big kids, but SO stinkin cute! Every time I see her outside she has bubbles in her hand. She loves blowing bubbles, and she also loves swinging. She tries to do them at the same time, but falls out of her seat. Its a sad situation. BUT, every time she falls down and starts to cry, I run over to her, pick her up and say "OOH Cassie! Are you ok?!" and EVERY time, without fail, she says "I wanna Popsicle!" in her oh-so-adorable Cassie talk. They get popsicles if they get really hurt, so she thinks she should always get one. haha She kind of reminds me of what Emily was probably like when she was little. One of the boys was trying to steal her bubbles one day, and she totally growled at him. Made my day. She growls. haha!! I love Cassie. I also have Raef, Cyrus, Shyanne, two Chloe's, Wyatt, Mason, Callum, Brennen, Ivy, Kacy, Klay, Cascade... and that's all I can remember for the moment. Love those kids.

hhh... Anyways, I absolutely love my job. Every day is a new adventure, and no job is perfect, but I think this is about as perfect as it gets. This view will change, of course, once I finally become a Speech Pathologist! teehee!
I just can't believe how blessed I have been. I have the perfect job, the dream calling, and the coolest YSA leaders to boot! They are Ariana and Tyler Miller. They are AMAZING and I look up to Ariana so much. She's 22 and Tyler is like 24 or something and they are just the cutest couple in the world. She has counseled me so much and I am so grateful that they are here this summer. I gave a talk on "Qualities I want in a future husband" in Sacrament meeting, and I was totally dreading it. I had no idea what to say without making it sound like I was miserable because I am not married yet and *gasp* I've been at BYU a whole TWO YEARS! haha definitely NOT how I feel, but getting up and talking in church about how I want to marry Captain Moroni makes me sound desperate. haha Ariana helped me so much to know what to say. She is so wise and wonderful. Tyler is way fun too and he genuinely has interest in people. So kind. He works at Batelle in the secret labs! hehe We went Kayaking yesterday (July 2) and I got to go with them to the docks at Batelle and I felt SO legit! I got to go thru the gate down the disappearing road and I got to see the facilities. Pretty much legit. Best Kayaking trip ever. haha
Also this summer, we had the opportunity to house the new missionary couple, the Sorensen's for a little over a week! :) Over that week, I just grew to love them so much. Sister Sorensen is the most wonderful woman. I just love her. She is so full of love and kindness - so sweet. Brother Sorensen is so wise and always willing to give his advice. I grew to love them so much and I miss them being around. I'm so grateful I had the opportunity to get to know them.

hhh... I love this summer. I have no idea why I have been blessed so much. I feel so in debt to the Lord. I'm having a hard time because life is so perfect right now. I have the perfect job, the perfect calling, amazing friends... I never want to go back to BYU. haha I have just been so blessed here. It's gonna take some serious praying and promptings to convince me to go back.

HAWAI'I. Good!!! Cut the Cake!

First, I would just like to say that this post was actually posted on May 21, 2011. I just am reposting it so my post are in the right order and we don't start by reading day 6. That'd just be weird.


awhhhhh... Now, what can I say about this amazing paradise we humans call Hawaii? Oh boy... not enough, that's for sure! I'm convinced that I need to buy a house there NOW so I can pass it on to all the generations after me. (Maybe 10 generations down, it'll be paid off... haha!) I think I might be addicted to Hawaii. Anyways... We'll start with Day 1. Cuz really... where else would you start? :) (Not with day 6, that's for sure!!)

DAY 1 - May 9, 2011 - End of day mosquito bite count:: 6
Ohhh May 9th. What a blessed day indeed. :) So, just to get the record straight, I stayed true to the Andrea King tradition of never packing until mere hours before it is time to leave. I think I went to bed around 2 and woke up at what, 4:30? Yeah... that was fun. But I sorta slept in the car. Em, Aaron, and Amy had all come up the day before so they rode with us and we met Tom and Shar and the kids at the airport. It was so good to see everyone again! Little Kayda ran up to me and it was so good! We got on the plane and I sat by Kayda. We had fun. We read Pinkalicious and Purpalicious and Goldalicious. We listened to some Michael Buble and watched some Hannah Montana. She was SO stinkin cute on the plane! I felt so proud to be the one sitting by her! haha The whole time before we were moving she was like "WHY AREN'T WE MOVING?!" Once we finally got going, and moving fast, she counted down from 10 very loudly, enough for all to hear (even Shar who was like 10 rows up) with a 3, 2, 1, BLAST OFF!!!!!!! at the end. haha! Everyone was laughing so hard. Part way through the flight she went to the bathroom and was singing at the top of her lungs for all to hear! :P "We're goin to Hawaii, Hawaii, Hawaii!!!" She kept singing when she came back to the seat and the people next to us asked her how long she'd be in Hawaii and if she'd been before. She just carried on the cutest little conversation with them, without a tinge of shy in her! haha She sang Michael Buble with me and when she yelled out "I love Michael Buble!!" I realized, once again, YES she certainly is my niece!! teehee!! Near the end of the flight she looked out the window and saw the islands and yelled "LAND HOH!!!!!" hahahahahahaha!!!! Everyone burst out laughing at that. When we landed and it got all bumpy she just started screaming a goofy scream, like "we're all gonna die!!" but not as high pitched or serious at all. So cute!! haha We were waiting for a while to get off the plane cuz it was hard with Payson and such, and Kaydance went to the end of the row and stood saying "Aloha!" to every single person who passed her by. When they didn't say it back, she'd say it again. :P I swear, that girl made so many people's day that day... or at least made them smile! haha What a cutie face.
After we got off the plane, we got our rental cars and I rode with Tom and Shar to Laie where our house was! It was about an hour drive, but I totally passed out in the car. I woke up hearing the kids and Tom and Shar saying "We're staying HERE?!" haha! that was my reaction too when I saw that AMAZING house. Like, a mansion in my book. And we had the place to ourselves! (Ourselves being all 14 of us... haha!) Anyways, we got all settled in and Mom and Dad and Shar went back to Honolulu to Walmart and Costco to pick up some dinner and food for the weeks. :) I stayed behind to watch the kids with Tom. We played football outside in the front yard... under the palm trees... and by "we played football" I mean, "Tom taught me how to throw a football." hahah! Then we went to the other side of the house and played in the water with the kids!! We didn't mean to play in the water... but... it just happens. haha! Seriously though, the ocean was our back yard. See for yourself:

Gahhh!! It's so beautiful I'm gonna die!! lol walk 10 steps past the picnic table and BAMM! You're in the ocean. This was just barely outside the door of our house.

How amazing is that?! Well, Em and Amy went to the store to get some food while we waited for mom and dad, which was awesome cuz we were all starving. So we had burritos, then a few hours later some pizza!! Jen and Vic got in fairly late, but they had the most beautiful red convertible rental car!! heheh AMAZING! All the sisters may or may not have stood on the balcony to welcome Jen and Vic and well... ya know... maybe or maybe not pretend mooned them as they drove up! haha good thing it was dark! :P I love my sisters! It was a pretty exhausting day so we all kinda passed out early... Hawaii is three hours behind Sequim (4 behind Utah, 6 behind New York... OY!!) so we were all exhausted! lol but what a wonderful day.

DAY 2 - May 10, 2011 - Mosquito Bites:: 9

Bwahaha!! I don't even know where to start in describing the glory of Day 2!! OK - here we go. So, the morning was a fairly slow one. We made breakfast for the kids and let them play around outside while we decided whether or not it would be a sunny enough day to go to Goat Island. We decided it would be and got the kids all ready in swim suits and lunch. We decided to go for a walk along the beach before we actually went swimming, and Kayda found an awesome bottle in the sand with a treasure map inside!!!

 Right on Kayda!!!!

 The map

 I just thought this was a gorgeous picture of Kayda... hhh... she's so cute.

 THEN! Without further ado (psh, whatever that means) we ran back to the house to decode the map and read the secret message on back!!

Jarom was a pro at decoding. He kept saying "Kaydance, I am SO glad you found this! Thank you SO much!" haha we were all very glad Kayda found it. Anyways... 

 Just had to sneak another shot of our awesome view!!

 That's his thinking face

At one point, Kayda started getting scared that the treasure was the pirate's treasure and they'd be mad if we stole it. Jen said "See Kayda? There are no pirates in Hawaii!!" and pointed out to the water... just then we saw this ship out there and all burst out laughing. Poor Kayda!! We had to explain that we knew they weren't pirates cuz pirates don't leave maps to their treasure... hahah

Anyways, We decoded the map and took off to Goat Island to find the treasure! We had the kids on boogie boards and we stabled them and waded/swam over. SO AMAZING!! Sadly, I didn't get any pictures cuz I didn't want to get my camera wet... but I'll try to add some later if I can steal some from Aaron (he brought his camera)! The kids were SOOO excited to find the treasure!! Jarom was jumping up and down yelling "WE'RE RICH!! WE'RE RICH!!" and Kayda looked in the box and said "ooo!! Accessories!!" hahahahaha!!! dahhh!! Could they be any cuter?! I submit that they could not! haha! Haven't we all wanted to find buried treasure at some point in our lives? SO STINKIN COOL! :P

That night, all the siblings (well... some of them... can't remember exactly who) and mom stayed up talking about random stuff and we got on to Sun Valley topics. Talking about the Poose's. We were like "man, couldn't name their kid Winnie!" Then realized almost any name is bad with that last name... Aaron said "what about Runny?" And we ALL burst out laughing. Just then, a Gecko on the ceiling chirped and it sounded JUST like it was laughing. We all burst out laughing again. HAHA!!! It was hilarious! :P It was quite a loopy night. The subject turned political and I fell asleep on the table... wow... hahah wonderful day. :)

 DAY 3 - May 11, 2011 - Mosquito Bites:: 11

Can I just point out the awesomeness of the fact that I ended up with 11 mosquito bites on the 11th? I should make a wish!! But, I have no wishes, except to go back to Hawaii!! lol

ANYWAYS. Today was PCC day!!!! hhh... I love the PCC. I'll just post pictures and tell the story as we go. :)

Best Buddies

Em and I got to ride in the convertible...!!!

NO TOP!! (on the car... *cough*)

Whabammmm!!!

Yeah, I rode in that. SO LAWWGIT!!

I just thought this was a cool shot. ANYWAYS... now on to the actual PCC. 

 Climbing trees in Samoa

 Playing a game in... New Zealand?

 Canoe Show!

 This was my scary New Zealand face! :P I would ROCK as a New Zealander. 

Then I got a sweet Tattoo in Fiji. whoooooo... all in a days work! :P

 Next was the Luau!! Jen and Vic got called up to dance with the honeymooners! :P awwhhh fer cute!

 We got cool Leis for going to the Luau. yayyy! :)

 Jen and I being goofy and showing off our sweet warrior tats! 

These were our girlie faces!

hhhh... next was the night show!! It was called... "ha, the breath of life" and was simply AMAZING. We had front row seats!!! I mean, I was on the second row, but half the family was on the front row, so I can still say we had front row seats, right? haha!! Even so, second row is pretty authent. :) Basically, the show made me ache for hula. What I would give to pass off Polynesian and dance in the night show. Even the canoe show. I could do it too is the sad thing. GAHHH!! I want to dance!!! I wasn't allowed to take any pictures there either, but it was AMAZING. There were fire dancers and all different types of Polynesian dancing. A really cool story, and a beautiful plethora of ridiculously attractive Polynesian men. :P bahhh! *sigh* I love Hawaii. ALSO, Jarom really had to go to the bathroom half way through the show. But, of course, he won't use public restrooms so Shar has these portable potties and she let Jarom use one. After he used it, he held it up to see how many ounces he peed and practically yelled "WOAH!! 10 ounces!! My bladder only holds 10.5 ounces!!!"  hahahahahaha!!!! Oh dear. It's a good thing I was so engrossed in the dancing, otherwise I probably would have peed myself with laughter over that one. (ooooh the irony of that statement....) We were all pretty exhausted at the end of the day. We walked around the gift shop and I got a smashed penny! We bought some pictures of our family and of Vic getting called out of the audience to play the drums in... Fiji? I can't remember exactly where, but it was flippin awesome!! haha Vic is amazing. Wow, yet another amazing day in Hawaii!!

DAY 4 - May 12, 2011 - Mosquito Bites:: 18
Today was a pretty chill day. :) (And by "today" I mean Day 4... May 12. It was pretty chill.) In the morning, the majority of the family went to do a session at the temple. :) I was going to go and do baptisms, but then we weren't sure how walk-ins worked in the Laie Temple... so I stayed home and babysat. :) We mostly just played around, all of us were pretty pooped from the day before. The Night Show went pretty late (especially for the kids) so we played around a bit, then got lunch. I put Payson down for his nap and Jarom and Kaydance watched some cartoons while I cleaned.  After the crew got home, some of us took off to the beach!! Ya know, that one beach which was only like 20 steps away from our house? Yeah. That's the one! We played and boogie boarded and WOOOT!! BEACH! :D hhh... I love da beach! After this, we had dinner and then Dad brought up palm leaves and WE MADE HATS!!! I was still in my swimming suit... but I was too excited to change. haha! Seriously, the COOLEST thing ever. Like, a lot. See for yourself! :P

 Our beautiful palm leaves!

 Tom as the statue of liberty.

 Step one: measure palm leaf to head.

The team of hat weavers!!

 LET THE HAT WEAVING BEGIN!!! Dad's the master. Like, amazing.

 Check out Tom's pro weaving skills!!! That's BEAUTIFUL!

 too much fun. :) 

Step two: weave leaves into hat brim.

 Then the really hard part started and we all felt like this. haha!

 Check out that skill! lol 

Step 3: Umm... what? haha Yeah, I thought I was doing pretty well here too... 

 Then I had to start over. :( bahhhh!! This was so crazy hard! It only succeeded cuz Dad helped me every step of the way the second time through. :P

 Yeah... Amy's hat had a tumor.

 The finished product!! And, no I didn't wrap my wrap around my shoulders because I was cold. I was protecting from mosquitoes. Did it help? Nope. I got 7.

My beautiful finished hat!! I'm so proud!! hehe bwaahhh... That was such a crazy cool project!! :D I'm so glad Dad is such a pro. That pretty much summed up the night. We took a while on it cuz it was rather difficult. :P But SOOOO FUN!!! :) Great day. :) again. hhh... I LOVE HAWAII!!!!

DAY 5 - May 13, 2011 - Mosquito Bites:: 21

WHELP!! Today, we woke up early and headed out for Haunauma Bay!! It was a bit of a drive, but SO beautiful!! We got there and had to watch a quick "protect the wildlife" video telling us not to step on the coral or touch the fish. Especially the turtles. No touching turtles. Then we walked down the walk and swam in the most beautiful bay EVER. Like, greenest ocean ever and SUCH clear water for seeing fish!! I went snorkeling and saw some SWEET fish! Sadly I didn't have my camera with me (yeah... I think we've tested once before how much cameras like salt water... they don't by the way... in case you were wondering.) so I didn't get many pictures of the bay. Actually... I didn't get ANY pictures of the bay... didn't have my camera...  yeah... anyways. SO gorgeous! And the sun was just blazing!! hhh... I'll try to find some Haunauma Bay pictures. hahah! just kidding. I found one. online. SO GORGEOUS!! yes? yes.  

Anyways. After Haunauma Bay we went to the International Marketplace!! SO COOL!! :) There were all these little shops and pagodas. I got a really pretty dress, a sweet hair clip, and a souvenir for Kate. :) We stopped by the ABC store and I got this AMAZING fingernail paint, which comes as like a fingernail polish PEN!! how cool is that?! I'm stoked to use it. Anyways, here are the only pictures I have of the day. It was an awesome day. 

 Sweet Kayda - look at those crossed legs! :P haha!! 

 I really think we need one of these in Provo. This truly demonstrates the genius of Hawaii.

My pretty clip. :) yayy!!

What an AWESOME day. :) What awesome dayS!! lol Whelp, this concludes the first half of Hawaii Journal 2011. We hope you enjoyed your stay. Please come back soon for the second half!!