FYI

...just twenty days 'til our wedding!  & only ten days 'til I go home! 

Not a whole lot is going on in Hawaii (for me at least!) We had a Happy Thanksgiving. We ate dinner with our ward and then Jordan headed to the airport ... he is off in Kauai, hiking the Napali Coast with his friends. Its beautiful ... check out the pics, below. 

 This is us, with the Coast as our backdrop! We got to go on a zodiac raft tour of the Napali Coast when my family came out to Hawaii for my graduation this summer.

Sweet Talkers ...

Rachel Ray has created some super fun party favors (I love the "Oh, Baby!" ones). All you do is customize and print these candy bar wrappers, wrap them around some candy bars, and apply a little tape or glue ... TaDa... You have adorable party favors! You can find the pdf here! ... Now I just need a reason to make some 

Do you know what today is? ....

Only 1 Month 'til our Wedding Day! 

I took a spill ...

We have the luxury of taking a lunch break together everyday. We usually ride our bikes down the street to Jordan's house and grab something quick to eat and then head back to work and school. 

Monday was no different. We headed to Jordan's house and made some bagel sandwiches. Then we were on our way back to campus. While we were riding,  Jordan convinced me to try to do a "bike trick." ... Just steering the bike with one hand, but on the opposite handle. I thought sure it can't be that hard... so I let go with my right hand and I brought my left hand across to the right handle. Next thing I knew I was struggling for balance and found my self skidding across the asphalt & I some how managed to get the handle bars rammed into my neck. 

Moral of the story: Don't try Jordan's bike tricks or you will have injuries like these: 

This My neck--This is actually quite painful, cause it is in such an awkward place. I have never realized how much I move around my neck in a day until I had this little scratch to remind me. 

and here is my hip... she is quite colorful now!  & unfortunately on the side I like to sleep on. 

There are a few other minor bumps and bruises. No big deal ... I just thought that I would share my stupid moment from the week. Really ... How many 22 year olds do you know that fall off of their bikes? 

PS its okay if you are laughing at me, I was laughing pretty hard too

DIY Project: Put a Cork In It

At work I have had lots of time to peruse blogs. I have stumbled upon a lot of blogs made by crafty people, who I don't know, but have great ideas. (find them under inspiration ... on the side bar). I am trying to be prepared for married life, by looking for cheap ways that I could jazz up our future TVA studio :) 

Anyways I am going to start trying to follow their artsy examples by making these embroidery hoop bulletin boards. You can find the tutorial here, on sweet jesse. 

Dear Santa,

Last Saturday we went to Kailua with friends .... hung out at the beach and then cruised around the shops. We went into Macy's and they had a big station set up where children could write letters to Santa. So I am going to give it a try... 

Dear Santa, 
I have been a good girl this year, and I only want 3 things for Christmas....

1. A new straighter, mine is no longer functioning. I have been borrowing from Kaitlyn & Marni for a long time. When December comes ... I'll be missing my wonderful roommates and their straighters. 

2. One LARGE piece of luggage, the handle on mine broke :( ... and last time I used it, Jordan cut his hand on the broken handle, but the medium and carry-on sized pieces are in great working order! Plus it needs to be large in size so I can pack all my stuff in one bag ... so I don't have to pay a million dollars for my luggage when we fly here and there ...

 3. Last but not least, I wanna get married! ... Only 35 more days

Humor is the Key to Endurance

Currently there is a Business Conference taking place at BYU-Hawaii which is awesome for us, because Jordan's business classes are cancelled so they can attend the sessions & My boss has given us permission to attend the sessions.... so we get to spend some more time together which is always good! Today we went to a session with Barbara Barrington Jones called "She Who Laughs...Lasts" She is hillarious ... I love her. (I am turning into my mom who loves going to Education Week speakers). Anyways it was awesome. President Monson recently counseled to "Find Joy in the Journey" and Sister Jones explained that the way to find joy in the journey is through humor and laughing. She said that 75% of what we say is in any given day is Negative. Thats crazy ... There are so many reasons to smile, laugh, and be happy. As we get older we find more and more things to stress us out or make us mad, and we forget to laugh and smile. She said that a child will laugh about 400 times per day where adults only laugh about 50 times a day. So I am making it a goal of mine to look for chances to smile.

Sister Jones shared 3 rules for Humor:
1. Look for the Humor in your life
2. Laugh at yourself
3. Find the Humor in Un-pleasant situations & MAKE THE MOST OF IT!

I am not always the best at finding the humor in my life, but I am going to work on it! President Eyring said, "Humor is the key to endurance"

Zombie Bride

Halloween: Not too much happened for Halloween, except the day before Halloween me and one of my student workers were looking at all of the creative Halloween treats. We found a recipe for eye balls ... so I went home and tried to re-create them. They are not even close to as good as the ones online but ... Here is what I came up with. I brought them into work on Halloween with a sign that said "Eye" hope you have a Happy Halloween ... (They were a hit)
Halloween night there were lots of events going on... we decided to go out to gunstock ranch and ride on the haunted hay ride. It wasn't too scary, actually it was sort of hilarious ... but we had a lot of fun.

Bridal Shower: On Saturday my sweet roommate threw a bridal shower for me. We went down the the strip, broke into teams and had a photo scavenger hunt. The whole time they made me wear a crown, a sash that said 'Miss Bachlorette", and a garter. Sort of embarrasing ... but here are some of the photos from the Savenger hunt. I only have my teams, I'll try to get some of the other girls photos and add them later.

Shelley & Lianne "Kiss a man on the cheek"

This man LOVED it, he asked if there was anything else he could do for us, which sounds creepy ... but it was kind of nice because they were rejected by a little asian man just moments before.

Kaitlyn & Me "Give a man a piggy back"
"Chest Bump in Front of the Cheesecake Factory"

*Notice the awesome accessories that I have on!

After the scavenger hunt we all met up and ate at the Cheesecake Factory. It was so nice of Kaitlyn to put a shower together for me. She has been a great roommate and an amazing friend over the past two years. I am going to miss her lot when she graduates in December.