highlight of my day...

february 23, 2012.

found out that i get to be a cougar,

starting on june 18th. 

could not be more thrilled.

i heart learning...

my sweats, over sized utah jazz tee, my chemistry items and i have been sitting here. on my floor. preparing for a test. for hours now. documenting how i spend most of my time these days is almost more of an excuse to take a break than it is for documentation purposes. whatevs though i think it is a great excuse! 

ok so maybe my phone is here too sending and receiving a text here and there to keep me partially sane. it fits in my hands just like the papers..perfect.

new year new look

please be patient with the odd looks on the blog for a bit.

i decided it is time for a new look with this new year! 

slowly but surely it will come around. 

hawaii 2012 part one

 here begins the picture overload from my amazing week on the island.
i warned you this was coming!

our journey began at eleven thirty at night on january thirtieth (a tuesday) as we set out in a ugly twenty five passenger bus from the good ole' dixie state. the poor bus driver (who just happened to be a guy) had to endure the drive to the vegas airport with a bus full of dancers and cheerleaders all pumped about their upcoming week. bless the drivers little heart!

after a little nap on the bus we arrived at the las vegas airport just in time to go through security and board the plane. the other passengers on the plane definitely thought they were being overtaken by an army of people in dsc garb. they were probably terrified that we might stay up the whole flight and make a lot of noise. lucky for them we all couldn't wait for take off so we could recline the seats and fall asleep.

hailey, camille and i lucked out by 1. getting seats next to each other and 2. having an empty seat on our row. we definitely took advantage of the extra seat and mapped out our sleeping strategy for maximum comfort!

we made it! here we are on the shuttle to baggage claim wednesday morning around five o'clock. please forgive the sleepy looking faces and the forced smiles, we all really were excited to be off the plane and on the island! however, we knew that we had a few hours to kill in the airport while the coaches tracked down all their luggage and got the rental cars all taken care of.

we basically took over the baggage claim area with all of our bags and tired bodies...

and then we took over the empty hertz desk to charge our phones and entertain ourselves with the tall spinning chairs. we had to find something to keep our minds off the one thing we wanted at that moment, to hit the beach!

we finally made it out of the airport and to our home for the week, the waikiki wave hotel. as fast as we could we were out of our sweats and into swimmers and walking as fast as our tired legs could take us to the sand and surf. aloha sunshine!

our first night there we headed to chaminade to watch our girls and boys play! we got to dance at the boys game for halftime. their crowd was so rude to us!! i could not believe how terrible their sportsmanship was. they booed at us while we danced. regardless of the nasty crowd both the girls and boys teams won so the dixie crew left the campus happy as ever! 

we got back to the hotel late and had to run downtown to find somewhere to eat. chili's was our only hope and we basically slept while we ate. as soon as we were done we were off to sleep.

thursday morning we were all up before eight, dang time change. rather than work out in the tiny exercise room at the hotel miranda, lucy, shaylee and i decided to workout on the beach. shay's and i had a little "try and look like a total tool" photo shoot before we left. aren't we cute?

 

miranda and i cooked up a nice workout plan and completely tortured ourselves. #maybe we aren't as buff as we thought.after workout breakfast consisted of jamba smoothies and whole grain muffins. talk about mmm mmm good! eating breakfast on the balcony looking out at the city and the ocean made it that much better! 

{the roomies for the week: jessica, shaylee, tessie and hailey}

 and off we go to the local abc store with the cheer boys to stock up on some necessities. if you have been to oahu you are very aware the there is an abc store on almost every corner, that is not an exaggeration! the store people loved us, probably because we were in there everyday buying stuff and filling up their cash register.

this is my dear lucy. last year on our flight to hawaii she took one of my motion sickness pills to help her fall asleep. because of the texture of the pill she thought it was a sub lingual tablet so she let it dissolve on her tongue rather than swallow it. this resulted in a terrible lingering taste and a numb tongue! because of how the seats got arranged she was about eight rows behind all of us with a bunch of strangers so none of us new she was going through this terrible thing until we got off the flight. poor thing didn't sleep a wink! now we joke about it whenever we talk about hawaii. don't worry she now knows to swallow the pills!

introducing the ko'olina resort. holy moly talk about gorgeous!!! our coach kori's family has a time share here and just happened to be there the same week so we got pampered for the day!

this blonde beauty right here is jacky larsen. she is co-president of the team with me. absolutely love and adore this girl! she is an amazing example of strength to me!

the entire group. cheerleaders + dancers.

our ko'olina day was spent rock climbing, sun soaking, pool hopping and waterfall jumping. the resort had a couple gorgeous pools with caves covered by waterfalls and slides leading into them. we were lucky to get to spend the day there! 

keepin it shaka...

yes, i am home.

yes, i am depressed that i have to wear pants and jackets again.

yes, my week in hawaii was absolutely ah-mazing.

yes, i want to go back right this very second.

who wants to join me?!

p.s. there are about 200 hundred more pictures that will soon be finding there debut in a post...be prepared for picture overload in the near future!