Update...

i just checked, and the last time i posted ANYTHING was back in november. oka....so much has happened since then...so here it goes:

1. FINALLY graduating from college. after a long 8 years of being IN and OUT of school, i finally buckled down, and got that diploma. well..technically i just walked...lol. i won't get my diploma til i finish my internship in april.

2. MOVED TO UTAH!!! this was probably one of the BIGGEST events EVER!!! i've always said i'd move to the mormon state...but it took me this long to finally get here. and now that i'm here......i wanna go back. hahahaha...nah...just kidding. all i know is...as much as i've complained about them, i wouldn't be able to survive without the saaga's presence. i don't think i've mentioned it before, but my sister, one, and her husband and their six kids all made the move out to zion in october. and living here with them has definitely made the transition THAT much easier.

3. KEO/SAAGA'S FIRST white christmas!!! yup...jared, his wife, and my parents all flew out to utah for our first white christmas with the saaga's!!!! unfortunately, aaron and his family, and mahea couldn't make it, but mahea DID fly in just in time for Nui's (my oldest nephew) sweet 16!!! so most of the family was here. we're already planning on having the keo #2's here next christmas. lol!!!

4. my FIRST car...kinda. i was blessed to purchase a car for a whole dollar!!! that has been a huge blessing for us because it runs great!!! its a little more "seasoned", but she still goes. i'll have to post pix when i find my cord.

5. DELTA!!!! after applying like three times to work for ANY airline, i finally got hired with DELTA!!! the world is gonna GET IT!!! i'm sooooooo happy i got this job mostly because my parents can travel back and forth to see their grandkids. yes...their grandkids...nevermind their children! lol. not to mention...they can be our gophers whenever we want something from back home. i prolly won't be able to travel TOO much for the first six month since i'll be in training. but oka...watch out after THAT!!! besides frequent trips to cali to visit besties...my first trip to the unknown will be alabama!!! ahahaha. one...to visit my favorite cuzzie coreen...and two...to watch a tyler perry play..a lifetime (since i was 23) dream of mine! lol.

6. HCC...since i don't start working til february, i've been keeping myself busy interning at the hawaiian cultural center. since i want to get my masters in public administration later....and focus on non-profit organizations, i decided to learn more about non-profit management at this center. ESPECIALLY since its mission is to service native hawaiians in utah. who knew...there's a huge community of hawaiians out there?! i love it! i haven't been doing too much as of lately, but with upcoming activities, i am getting more and more psyched to work there.

all in all...this is the latest in my life. i have been fortunate enough to catch up with family and old friends, and i look forward to what awaits me in the future

Lunch and Elephants

Ok...I just had to blog about this. I swear...my dad's little moments has definitely gotten me back into the blogging world. I mean...who else is gonna document these things right?! LOL! My brother shared this with me and the rest of the facebook world...so I thought I'd share it with my fellow bloggers.

As I mentioned in a previous post, my dad has discovered the wonderful world of texting. So here's another hilarious conversation he had with my brother. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. And for those of you who KNOW my dad...I'm sure you will.

DAD: Boy-Son, when is lunch?

BROTHER: You gotta wait, I have a conference call at 12pm, we go after

DAD: WOW, you just elephant your way out of lunch ah!

BROTHER: What is 'elephant your way out', huh?

DAD: You know, elephants, they just shove guys on the side

Oka!!!!!!! Where does he GET this stuff!!!! First exclamatory...now THIS!!! I swear he has a hidden dictionary full of his own slang hidden somewhere. Gotta love it!

picture courtesy of: http://bilia.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/happy-elephant-01.jpg

Texting 101

Oh the joys of texting. This is nothing new to me. I've enjoyed the benefits of texting for quite some time now, but to share this magical new world with my DAD has been quite adventurous. It all started last night when my sister texted her new phone number to everyone in her contacts list...including my Dad. Due to his lack of experience with text messages, he proceeded to call her back, which instigated the following conversation:

Dad: Did you call?

Sister: No...I texted you!! You not supposed to call me back, you supposed to text me!

Dad: Oh!

He later comes out of the room and tells me, "your sister sent me a text and i supposed to text her back. How I do that?"

Since his phone is equipped with a full QWERTY keyboard, I proceeded to instruct him on the art of "replying" to text messages. Surprisingly he picked it up pretty quickly. His excitement heightened when my sister replied to his reply and their TEXTersation continued! Amongst all the excitement, I texted my brother to inform him of the late breaking news, and HE texted Dad afterwards. This lead to the greatest milestone ever!

Dad: Oh...Jared texted me.

Me: Well, reply. You know how now.

Dad: pulls out his glasses "Ok...lets see." He then proceeds to have a TEXTersation with my brother.

I don't remember the exact message that was received on my Dad's end, but it was something cheeky enough for my Dad to say, "eh! Poto 'oe!" His popular remark after we joke around with him.

Dad: How you spell..."eh"

Me: Hahaha....E-H.

Dad: "Ok...how you write the EXCLAMATORY MARK on dis ting"

Me thinking: what the heck is an exclamatory mark?!?!?!?!?! OH...he meant EXCLAMATION POINT!!! hahahahahahaha!!!!

I couldn't stop from laughing inside. This experience was definitely blogworthy. So...I thought I'd share with my fellow bloggers...not to mention I had to document this moment. This is definitely one for the books along with his "mermaid" moment. Hahahaha. Ahh...the joys of living with the parentals and teaching them the new technology!

WHOA!

IT HAS BEEN TOO LONG!!!!! So much has happened since the European expedition that I don't even know where to start. Do I still have readers? LOL! Oh well, if I do, I apologize for the long absence. Life at home has been nothing but a whirlwind of back to back events. After the 5-week long vacation from Kavaroots, I found myself living there for about a month. We renovated the store, and I must say it looks great! Even though it feels like you're walking IN an Acai bowl, it finally feels like OURS!!! A shot of the new paint job. LOL! I'll have to post more pix later.

The store wasn't the only thing that changed over the last 2 months. Another bestie has graduated to the next stage in life. I never thought she would actually do it so soon, but Aunty Bubs is now a married woman. Her last minute decision to have a reception initiated an impulsive trip back to the mainland. The reception was small and simple, but so much fun!

Me and the Bride

After the wedding I was off to Utah to watch my nephew's homecoming game. Which brings me to the biggest change....the Saaga's moving to Utah!!!! It all started out with Nui going up to play football for a couple months. But as soon as One went up there and saw that she could provide her family with so much more there, she made the decision to move. Nui loves it there. It's so good to see him making so much more progress on and off the field. He's finally growing up...a little. Hahaha. He did so good at his game that I didn't even recognize him! They changed his number at the last minute, so the whole time I was looking for #95, he wasn't on the field. I kept thinking to myself, "man..where is he?! #70 looks a lot like him, but he's too fast!" Lo and behold...it was him!!! What a horrible aunty! LOL!!! Well, at least he's doing better right?

Me and #70...LOL!!!

I've been home now for a couple weeks, and have started my last semester at BYU-Hawaii. I'm excited for it to be over, yet afraid of what the future holds. I have a plan right now, but am worried about any other changes that may occur. Moving the Saaga's has been overwhelming as well. Between watching kids, cleaning, packing, and trying to study I have found myself too exhausted to function...let alone blog. Thank goodness for slow days at Kavaroots. I should be doing homework, but this comes so much more naturally.

So with that, I just wanna say....I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaack bloggers! I don't know how exciting it will be now that my hearts are leaving me....but lets just say I've already got a few trips lined up!!!!

Greece!!!

The final leg of our European tour took us to Athens Greece. It took us nearly two days to get there!!! I couldn't believe it. After visiting the New Moon set, we trekked back to Rome, picked up our bags, and waited for our overnight train to Bari (the port city on the other side of the country). Mind you, most of our train rides were quite pleasant. But we must've been too spoiled cause this last train was a mess!!! Hot, sticky, nasty, and a whole lotta filthiness. I'm glad that was the last ride for us cause i don't think I would be able to do that again. LOL!

Anyhoo...we arrive in Bari around 7am, thinking we could catch a ferry soon. WRONG! The next ferry was scheduled to leave at 6pm!!! So we had to wait AGAIN! But, when we did get on the boat, it was so dang huge, we found a corner in the lounge (since we bought the cheap deck tix), and made house. The ferry ride to Patras, a city 3 hours away from Athens took about 18 hours! So, let's see:

Rome to Bari: 6 hours
Bari to Patras: 18 hours
Patras to Athens: 3 hours
Total traveling time: 27 hours!!! Not including the 12 hours of waiting.

It was quite the adventure. But worth it...cause we made it to Greece!!! Athens was not what I had expected. It was pretty dirty and dusty. But I didn't really care too much about that. All I had on my mind was....BEACH!!!! When we got in, we found a cheap hotel close to the metro station, and not too far from the Acropolis. That was cool! So much history there. But my favorite part about the whole trip was the water. Our first beach was kinda dirty cause it was a "free" beach, so the "sand" consisted of pebbles, cigarette butts, trash and dust. Lol. Kinda like a dirtier Waikiki. A whole lotta hairy old men in speedo's too. Soooo not cute. So we caught the bus a few miles down the road outside of Athens, and found a cleaner, less crowded beach. The water was so cool and refreshing, we imagined we were on the island in Mamma Mia! Hahahahaha! For realz...me and Ane sang the WHOLE soundtrack. It was pretty hilarious.

Later that day, we bussed down to Sounio, home of the ruins of Poseidon's temple, to see the most amazing sunset. It was a great way to end the day.

Being in Greece was definitely another memorable experience to add to the list. However, I just wish I had gone there first. By the time we got there I was so broke, I couldn't make it out to any of the other islands. So that is why I plan to go back and do a cruise in the Mediterranean. That seems like the best way to do it!

Now that I'm at home, and I ponder everything that I've done, I still can't believe it's over. I can't believe I actually got to experience all that I have. Goes to show that once you put your mind to it, you can make anything happen!

New Moon in Montepulciano

Considering we did everything we wanted to do in Rome, we decided to spend our last day hunting down the site of the New Moon movie. According to the fan websites, it was only about 3 hours outside of Rome by train and bus. Since we had the whole day…we decided to go. I guess they filmed a scene in a little town called Montepulciano..which is nestled on top of a mountain in Tuscany. That was a plus. I’ve always wanted to see the vineyards in Tuscany ever since I saw the movie “Under the Tuscan Sun,” and it was just as beautiful in real life. I could totally see myself working out there for a couple months. Since I probably don’t want to promote the production of wine, maybe I’ll just pick olives and make olive oil. Hahahaha.

Ok…getting off track. So…we caught the train into a little town called Chiusi, and then hopped on a bus to M-town. We had no idea where we were going. And since hardly anyone spoke English, we had to use our intuition. After hiking up a hill that seemed to never end, we finally made it to the Grand Piazza where they filmed the movie. We knew we were in the right spot when we saw a “Twilight” menu special at one of the nearby café’s. Then, when we went in to inquire about the special, we saw all the pictures of the set in that café. So of course we took tons and tons of pix to make sure that everyone at home would know that we were there. LOL. So now when we watch the movie, we can totally say we were there!!!

When in Rome...

Rome was a short and quick visit. We arrived early Sunday afternoon, and decided to do the same as in Venice…walk around til we found a cheap place to stay. Thank goodness we did that. We stumbled across a family operated, multi-faceted business. Lets just say…you know its crazy when all operations are conducted out of a Laundromat. LOL!!! Yup…they are the proud owners of a Laundromat/internet service/hostel service/ baggage storage business. It was great! We were able to get a hostel for 20 euro a night…which was completely within our budget. But what was even better was that it included free internet, breakfast AND dinner!!! Not to mention an awfully friendly staff. It was awesome!!! The rooms and bathrooms were a lot “cleaner” than Archie’s, and the dinner was awesome! Definitely a great find.

After we checked in and dropped off our bags, we decided to head out and see the sights. First stop…the Coloseum. That was really one of the two things I really wanted to see. That along with the Vatican. But anyhoo….it was as grand as I had imagined it would be. Its amazing how people totally try to get you to take the guided tour option. Which is true…without it you’re really just looking at a pile of old rocks. LOL. But there were a lot of boards with information regarding EVERYTHING, so I felt like I learned a lot on my own. Quite fulfilling. Our pass at the coloseum was also good for the Roman Forum, which is an area ancient ruins that you could walk around in. It was HUGE! So by the end of the day I was done with Roman history. LOL. Luckily our hostel was conveniently located a few blocks away from the main train station, so finding our home was a breeze.

That evening we were spoiled with the most amazing pasta!!! Ahhh…just thinking about it makes my mouth water. I don’t know what it is…but any pasta in Italy tastes so much better. Thicker, tastier…and scrumptious!!! Ok..enough of that cause I’m getting hungry.

The Vatican was on the schedule for the next day. We figured we should give ourselves a whole day for that place and it’s a darned good thing we did! We were there for nearly 5 hours!!!! That was enough for me. After walking through the different basilicas, chapels, and churches, I couldn’t help but get freaked out by everything. It seemed so dark and uncomfortable. Hmh…something to think about. LOL. The Sistine Chapel was totally awesome. However, that euphoric feeling was rudely interrupted by the blatant disrespect other tourists had for this sacred place. I mean, there was a guy right at the entrance telling everyone to put their cameras away, and to not take pictures, and to be reverent. But noooooooooobody listened! Right when you walk in all you see is FLASH, FLASH, FLASH!!!! And all you hear is CACKLE, CACKLE, CACKLE!!!! I was so offended. So it was hard for me to fully enjoy the experience. Sad.

Later that evening, we took a stroll to see the Fontana de Trevi! That was gorgeous! I so badly wanted to jump in the water…but I controlled myself. Good thing cause I probably would’ve gotten arrested. LOL. We found the best gelato in town! Their mango and strawberry was probably the best I’ve ever tasted in my life. The mango tasted like I was eating the ripest mango from the tree. It was awesome. All in all…Rome was great…but best seen in a short period. Just like in Venice, once you’ve seen one thing, you’ve seen them all. But definitely an experience I will never forget.