Tsunami 2010

Friday night is usually when Kasala and I stay up a little later and watch a movie. Last night was just that... we watched a few episodes of Bizarre Foods on Netflix and then I headed off to bed around 1am. I honestly felt as if I had been in bed for an hour or so but about 10 minutes later Kasala came in and woke me up with the news of a tsunami. I didn't get up right away but a few minutes later I made my way back out to the family room. We sat and watched the breaking news on TV and of course jumped on Facebook to see if any of our friends were awake. After being awake for about 30 minutes Kasala told me to start getting our emergency things ready, pack our clothes and get ready to leave.

I had talked with both my parents earlier and while Kasala left to fill up the gas tank I talked with Dad about what we needed to do. Several times before we had gotten our food kits ready and then would eat them little by little. Thats the only bad thing about having good food in your 72 hour kit..... A few neighbors around us were already leaving around 3 am and Kasala was out talking with his residents about what they needed to do to prepare for the tsunami. All the news reports said the same thing, "Prepare for 2-12 foot waves. Have enough food for several hours to several days, sirens will sound at 6am, check the reports and get to higher grounds." The evacuation plan for BYU-Hawaii is to go to the Stake Center, behind the temple, or to the second floor of the dorms and apartments. For some reason this just didn't sit well in my stomach. I guess I didn't realize that the waves would have to go from the beach, knock out all the houses between the beach and our apartments and then get to us. BUT.. I did realize that whatever the waves were bring would end up on our door step. So we packed up and were out of the house around 4am. Terina thought that it was time to get up and didn't go back to sleep until about 11am. We drove up to Pupukea. It is pretty much on top of a mountain and you can look down on to the ocean. It was a loooong day. Terina didn't really go back to bed or take a nap while we were up there. The only time she fell asleep was when we had to walk back down from the Heiau... and then Mia and I had to carry all 42 pounds of her down the mountain. Anyways... the short of it is that nothing really happend. We were safe, prepared and calm all day. I was so grateful for Kasala. He seemed to know exactly what to do and stayed calm the whole time. I felt safe and knew that if I trusted him and did what he said that everything would be alright. I was very scared and nervous for what could happen but knew that because we were prepared that we would be alright.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

I know my mom is probably going to kill us.... but we're thinking about staying in Hawaii now.

I don't think I've written about this yet but Kasala is going to have his BA in Social Work in December. He was wanting to go back to Washington to do an internship. Our thinking was that if he did it there he would be available for interviews and also make some contacts for a permanent job after graduation. So mom, being the most wonderful mom in the whole world, we out and found a couple (more like 20) places that were willing to have an intern. Some of the places already have programs for undergrads who are doing interns and some of the places don't but wouldn't mind having one. So now Kasala just has to decided where he wants to do it and give the information to the head of the department. The department head will then make all the arrangements for him.

The only problem now is making the final decision to move home. It seems like Kasala is having second thought about moving back to Washington. If we moved back we would have to fly back here for graduation in December. Kasala wants to walk and we didn't have enough time to have his dad come over for April graduation. Having his dad at his graduation is something that is very important for him. He's the only one in his family who will graduate from a university. If we move home in August, we'd have to fly back in December, pay for a place to stay and a car to get around.

Dole Plantation

Since our time here in Hawaii might be cut short, we've decided to start seeing the sights. It would be a shame to have lived here for a couple years and not have seen anything.Today we went to the Dole Plantation with the Ikakoula Family. We drive by the plantation whenever we go to Walmart but have never stopped. There's a huge maze there as well as a train ride tour thing. So... of course the kids were super excited to go on the train ride. It was just a short 20 minute thing with some history of the Dole Company. It was really relaxing and Terina really enjoyed it. After our train ride and a little bit of walking around we hit the maze. The maze at the Dole Plantation is the largest hedge maze in the world. The record for getting through the maze and to all 8 check points was 4 minutes. They had the top 5 times on a board so that if you finished between one of the top 5 times you got a prize. It's probably just some T-shirt. Needless to say it took us an hour to get through the maze. It was really fun though. We split up and went Guys against Girls. Siki and I took Terina and Nela and Kasala took Vaea. It was fun racing against them to find the 8 check points. It came down to the last check point and we were literally racing and pushing to get there. It was like our own Amazing Race. And.... although the boys got to the end first, Siki and I punched out first.... so I say we won. After sweating through the maze we had some of their "famous" pineapple ice cream. It was way to sweet but tasted good after running around in the sun. I can't wait until our next tourist outing!

President's Day

Finally a holiday off of school for Kasala. We had decided with our neighbors to have a small BBQ outside. Instead of having it at TVA our friends invited us over to their parents' house for the BBQ. It was a perfect day and the perfect place to have it too. Siki's parents live right on the beach and across the street from my very first place in Hawaii. (I use to walk through their back yard to get to the beach!) So we went over there and the guys started to grill. They had a huge bucket of meat to cook. While we waited for another family in our building to come over we headed to the beach. Terina couldn't wait to jump in! Vaea, on the other hand, is scared of the water.

We spent most of the day in the water only getting out to eat every once and awhile. Terina spent most of the time with Mia and I got a much needed break. I was right there with her but she would rather be swimming with Mia than me. One of the highlights of the afternoon.... the boys taking out a kayak and trying to make it move forward. They must have spent almost 2 hours out there messing with that thing! It was a great afternoon with some great friends. I am going to be really sad when everyone starts graduating and moving away. These are definitely people who we are going to keep in contact when we move away too.

Valentine's Day

Terina got a small package from Grandma and Grandpa. She got her matching shirt and a beautiful necklace. Grandpa sent some money for us to pick her up some candy and balloons too but instead of MORE candy we got her a bath tub Barbie. Then we went out to dinner. I don't really remember what we had but most likely some drive thru didnner.

Over all it was a good day. I love my family near and far. Hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day too!!

How Do You Show Love?

I don't know if it's because Feburary has Valentines Day in it or what but I keep reading blog posts about what people do to show that they love themselves. (That just sounds weird) Anyways.. this one particular post that keeps haunting me talked about the 5 things this lady does.

1. She puts a load of laundry in every morning so there isn't dirty clothes laying around the house.

2. She sorts the mail on the way in from the mail box, throws all the junk out before taking it into the house and then sorts the rest.

3. She works out everyday, eats good.....

4. She finds a sitter so she can go out with her husband

5. She stays close to God

So after I read through this blog post I've been thinking about what I do so that I can love myself more. And I haven't been able to come up with not a dang thing! My laundry piles up until I can't carry it to the laundry room, my mail is all over the place, if you look at me you'd know #3 is non exsistant, we FINALLY got a sitter... once.... but I'm not sure if it'll happen again.

So I'm gonna sit here for a few more days and let the question bother me. "What do I do to show love for myself?"

In the mean time... what about everyone else? What do you guys do?

Road Rage

No... it's not the driver this time with road rage... it's the passenger in the back. This is just something that I want to remember FOREVER!!

I picked Terina up early today from school. I needed to run around in town and didn't want to rush back to pick her up. We were having a pretty good time and were almost to Waipahu when some car cuts me off! He came out of no where almost side swiped me as he was weaving in and out of traffic. Now... I've learned my lesson about watching what I say in front of Terina so I yelled, " ARE YOU SERIOUS?! WHAT THE HECK!!!" And I was content at leaving it at that. But Terina...... she was upset. She said in her (18 year old voice)

"Mom! What happened?"

I told her that it was fine. Some guy was just driving crazy. With that said she smacks the window with her hand and yells,

" Eh brah!! You can no cut us off yeah! I go crack you yeah!!"

I could not stop laughing! I could not believe that this was coming out of Terina's mouth!!

Now I don't talk to Terina like this AT ALL! In fact.. one of my BIGGEST FEARS was that she would start talking like a little local girl. I have tried to correct her when she breaks out her fob talk but I guess it was bound to happen. PLUS... it doesn't help that when Kasala plays around with her he says eh brah, sole, small kine.... and the list goes on. As much as I didn't want her to sound like a little local girl... it's really kind of cute.

I know she's gonna miss it out here when we leave. She is truly turning in to a little Laie Girl.

Only in Hau'ula

I got to school this morning and it was like any other morning. I went to the office, said my "hellos" and went to sign in. I checked the box for papers and then was waiting to get past a couple teachers. A kid walked in to the office and was asking for Mr. Ho to come outside. Well, Mr. Ho kept standing there so I walked outside with the little kid (plus I was wanting out of the office). So I went outside with this little boy and he kept talking about a pig this and the pig that and SURE ENOUGH... I walk around the corner and BAM!! There was a huge black pig just wandering around the school yard. I couldn't help but laugh. The kids were just laughing about having a wild pig roaming around the school. Eventually the pig went back to the playground and I'm sure someone escorted it off of campus. But it brought a smile to my face.