Hawaii (june 23-july3)

Well, coming back from France, Colorado, and BootCamp I felt a little overwhelmed; but after Hawaii I felt like I couldn’t do anything exciting at all for at least the next year! But, there was a pretty good reason to this visit. My best friend in the whole world (literally at times), who I have known my entire life and is totally awesome, lives there. Her mom is in the Air Force, and they have always moved around for as long as I’ve known them. Now, while that has been a not-so-positive thing for her in the past, really, how can moving to Hawaii not be the best thing ever?? Especially from Alabama….that’s another story… But all this to say, this summer will be their only summer in Hawaii, and so my family’s conclusion was that there was no possible way that we could NOT go visit them; I mean, I visited her everywhere she’s ever lived, even in Alabama, and plus I am her best friend, so however awful and uncomfortable it might be to take ten days out of my summer for her, even the money and all that stinkin sand, I mean, she is really worth it. The only logical conclusion. But you see, my brothers decided that they had lukewarm feelings about going to Hawaii – even slightly negative! I have NO idea how their brains work sometimes, but I wasn’t going to complain – my mom and I went and it was awesome! So our trip was amazing. It surpassed anything I’d ever heard about how beautiful Hawaii was, and that is saying a LOT. It was more amazing than any pictures, more like paradise than anything I could imagine, more isolated and surrounded by more water than I could fathom. Megan (my friend) and her mom planned things for us to do that were awesome – having friends that lived on Maui for a year before we came rocked!! We went hiking up to a huge waterfall through a bamboo forest; went horseback riding down to cliffs that overlooked the ocean; went on a helicopter ride and saw parts of the mountains that you can’t see any other way; went snorkeling and saw fish that made you realize God had fun making stuff (and I saw two eels and two trumpet fish – 3 footish long needle-like things) ; explored a cave on a black sand beach; drove up a volcano through clouds and watched the sunrise and sunset and saw more stars than you could imagine; and when we weren’t doing any thing else, hung out at the beach that was a 5 minute walk from her house. I would have fun with Megan in a jail cell, but we had a blast and it was incredible to see so much of God’s creation that you just can’t see in Austin, TX. And we ate gallons of ice cream, made cookies, ate at awesome restaurants, saw a sailing ship, wore flowers in our hair, and dug a huge hole on the beach while singing the entire song of 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall. Plus, I got a tan! Haha. The best part was probably meting Jack Johnson and some of his awesome friends(;))! One of my favorite things about our trip was getting to watch so many sunrises and sunsets. It made me stop and realize that to God, it’s never “just another day” – and it’s NEVER, in the words of Napoleon Dynamite, “the worst day of my life, what do ya think?!” (this might only make sense to me, but hopefully someone else gets it.) Everyday God is living and active, and he showed it to me by his magnificent works of art that he paints solely for our enjoyment twice everyday. (It reminded me of Ro. 1:20.) My trip to Hawaii was another one of my favorite memories ever – it was awesome.