College makes me look like this:

First day of school picture. Tradition must be maintained. And also because the "first day of school" picture my Dad snapped last week was actually of me at our front door with no makeup on & wearing sweats, about to get into my friend's car to begin the 14 hour drive to Provo. Not a proper first day of school picture. No. So this will have to do. {Sorry it's awkwardly ginormous... } 

This one's from BYU Photography's webpage and when I saw it in their slideshow of photos from the first day of class, it just made me happy. {They had photographers lurking all over campus trying to capture "candid" pictures of students on the first day, and one of those sneaky guys was creepin around my 8am New Testament class. Nobody dozed off during that lecture, lemme tell ya} These past two days I've been walking around this place with a huge silly grin on my face, and I really can't stop. Why? The feeling that hangs around this beautiful campus. My five wonderful, hilarious, beautiful roommates. Brand new classes and stuffing my noggin full of new knowledge. Laying out on the grass after class. The anticipation of upcoming sports games, dances, and devotionals. Spotting friends from freshman year. The resulting flying tackle hugs. New friends. A new ward. Running my old route through the neighborhood. THOSE MOUNTAINS. You get my drift.

Scheduled for someday = a post about Alaska / the end of summer. Maybe. 

But for the next four months I have other things on my mind.

This girl's life is super goood.

Things I want to remember: Kauai Edition

So I'm heading back to my other life {the college student one} in about two weeks and I've got unfinished business on here. Particularly regarding one of the defining vacations of our summer, which I've been putting off blogging about for quite awhile. And by "quite awhile" I mean almost two months... So today is the day I put the dang thing in the record book.

As you can imagine, two weeks in paradise produced a lot of pictures and a lot of memories, and I'll be honest - I am most definitely not gonna put all of em on here because a) my blog page would take infinity to the fifth power to load; I've already got enough pictures on here as it is, and b) that post would take forever to create and I really don't care THAT much about sharing every little detail. So, I'm just sharing the favorites - a handful of things that I want to make sure never ever to forget about my amazing vacation to the Garden Island. 

This one comes first for a real good reason. I want to remember how much fun it was to be with my Grandpa and Grammie, two of the most amazing people I have ever known. I could go on and on about them. I am so thankful to them for their examples to me of faith, selfless service in their church callings, of living within their means while raising four kids and managing their finances in a way that they can now spoil us grandkids like nobody's business {Like this trip for example!}.

Plus I also wanna remember this cute little chapel where we went to Sacrament Meeting.

I want to remember how pampered we felt at the gorgeous hotel we stayed in and the hours 

and hours we spent on the beach, snorkeling at the amazing reefs, and playing in the pool together.

I want to remember the incredible hike we did in Waimea Canyon and the

mini heart attacks I had every time we came around a bend in the trail. 

Not that we aren't cute or anything, but please take a moment to look behind us at the canyon. See what I mean? [: GORGEOUS.

I want to remember my first real scuba dive as a certified Open Water diver at 

Koloa Landing. Absolutely positively one of the coolest experiences of my life.

I want to remember how amazingly GREEN that place is. And that's coming from a Washington

girl who lives in the middle of the forest. Trust me. I know what I'm talking about.

I want to remember that wave boarding was one of my most favorite things we did, no

matter how many times my poor body collided with the bottom of the ocean. Sorry I suck at boarding, 

little body. I hope you'll learn to forgive me in the future.

Awesome bruise from the wrist strap of my wave board
after a particularly bad wipeout.  Not sure if I should
consider myself super hardcore or just a complete
failure of a boarder.

I want to remember the um, "adventure" we had camping the second week of our trip; the incredible

snorkeling, having a beach in your backyard, falling asleep to the sound of the waves... plus the never-ending entertainment that drunk natives provide as well. Every single night. Till 2am. Yep. Gooood times.

I want to remember the insane amount of wild chickens that were EVERYWHERE on the island, which gave me a perfect opportunity to use the chicken-catching skills taught to me in my childhood on my friend Dani's farm, as well as teach an apprentice of my own.

So fluffy!!

I want to remember the gorgeous hike through the jungle to Hanakapi'ai Beach, which seriously

looked like it came straight out of a National Geographic magazine or something. It was amazing!

I want to remember the fun we had goofing off and being siblings.

I love these guys.

We found seed pods shaped like smiles! As you can see,
 the picture's a total fail, but hey, we tried.

{UV shirts do much more than block sun.}

I want to remember how absolutely terrifying / insanely fun it was to stand atop

Kipu Falls, jump into open air and fall twenty feet into a river. Definitely one of the scariest

things I've ever made myself do, and definitely one of my favorite

things we did. 

I don't ever wanna forget those sunsets,

or the rainbows.

And I want to remember how awesome my family is and how much I stinkin love 'em. 

But I'm pretty sure that won't take too much work.

I'm the luckiest girl in the world.