I got to take a trip to Maui, Hawaii with my mom over Spring Break. It was the best vacation ever! Here are a just a few of the several hundered pictures we took. So much fun! We can't wait to go back! :)

Excited to be in Maui!!

At the Luau. So pretty!

First sunset!

Beach!

Normal. Dog at the beach!

Lucious and green scenery!

So excited to be at the aquarium! 

Lovin me some Maui Ocean Center

My momma :)

Sunrise bike ride. Don't worry, it rained, sleeted, and was entirely foggy. This was about what our sunrise looked like anyhow.

This is what we got up at 3 AM for. Haha. It was still fun though!

Cleared up as the day went on!

Pretty!

Snorkeling day! Super excited.

Seriously the ocean felt like a heated pool. It was so great.

Look alike tiki men. It's actually our flippers under water. Hahah.

"Road to Hana". Day trip, so prettty!

We didn't match purposely... wierd.

loved the waterfalls :)

Wine tasting. So yummy!

whale watching! stoked!

 

first sighting! 

All the white on the fin is actually scar tissue. You can generally judge the age of the whale depending on how much there is.

There was some serious business goin down right before this. The mom and her baby were surrounded by 4 or 5 other males, and they were getting really mad with each other, trying to be with the momma. There was fighting happening under the water (less than 50 yards from our boat) and then this happened! 3 times! 90,000 pounds of blubber jumping out of the water. It was seriously one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

On our way back, we got to see dolphins! This was actually our second sighting of them (the first was a school of a few hundred Hawaiian Spinner Dolphins). These are Bottle Nose Dolphins and this picture is not zoomed in. They were so close to the boat! This is also rare cause they generally hang out under the water but they felt like showing off today :) this is the dad, but the mom and baby were swimming close by!

Again, this is not zoomed in. Crazy how close they were! It was super neat!

I decided to take a break from blogging due to a lot of crazy things happening... During the past year, however, I've grown a lot and I'm ready to start again. Just a few things that have happened:

• I went through several bad relationships and lots of ups and downs in my social life. However, Christmas day 2011, I started talking to a wonderful man, and fell head over heals fast. We celebrated our 6 month anniversary yesterday, and I'm so excited for more to come :)
• School got to be pretty confusing and became a total downer for me. I changed my major from Elementary Education back to Nursing (which was my original choice), and tried to take some pre-req. classes again. That didn't go so well, but luckily I had an amazing guy by my side to support me every step of the way.
• I began working at a daycare as a substitute on call teacher during March 2011, and sadly ended my time there May 2012. It was the longest job I've ever had and I really learned a lot while I worked there. During my time there, a co-workers husband was in a serious motorcycle accident and was life flighted, in the ICU, and having multiple surgeries, all adding to around a MILLION dollars of medical bills. By the grace of God, he was wearing a helmet, and he pulled through but none the less it was a very challenging and emotional trying time. I worked a lot for those few weeks, and I saw that not only were we a center caring for children, but we are also a family. We all stepped up to help the family the best we could and it was so special to see everyone coming together. I knew to never take another moment for granted. They can be taken so fast.
• I decided SUU (Southern Utah University) was not the right fit for me, moved home, deciding not to go back in the fall, and applied at SLCC (Salt Lake Community College). I am taking a summer off from classes and will start again in the fall.
• I got a job at McDonalds. It was really rough for the first 2 weeks due never having worked in fast food before. Training was sort of brutal, but easier knowing that I'd be transfering to the new store soon. This is not the job I want for the rest of my life, but it's something to help pay the bills for now. After I got the hang of things, it quickly became much easier and I actually sort of enjoy it now. Although... they just asked me to do graveyard shifts... (9PM-4AM)... not sure how I'm feeling about that yet. I will be starting that at our newly remodeled location tomorrow! Opening day!

Thanks for reading. I feel better now that I'm caught up on here. I'll be more consistant from now on. Til next time :)