Friday, May 20. Weightless.

The feeling of weightlessness is amazing. Love it. It’s one thing to get that feeling when you’re floating in a pool, and another to get that feeling when you’re floating 30 feet underwater. Love it!

On Friday we got to go scuba diving! Even though I had done it before, for some reason I was nervous. We got on the boat and I started to get really nauseous. I went and sat on the edge of the boat, you know, just in case…but right when I felt like I really might lose it a group of the certified divers were swimming right below where I was sitting. Drats. I held it in, no worries! I’m not sure my boss would have been that thrilled if I had thrown up on his head :) The second I got in the water I felt better though, so that was good.

Because we aren’t certified we had to pass off a few skills about a foot under water with an instructor…which I don’t really mind. It’s a nice refresher course on how to get water out of my goggles in case it gets in :)

Scuba diving was awesome. I saw some really neat fish, coral, eels, and a giant conch shell! I can’t really put into words how awesome it is to observe the undersea world.

Getting down was pretty tough for me both times that we’ve gone scuba diving. It absolutely kills my left ear. I don’t know if I can’t get it to pop or if I’m trying too hard to get it to pop…either way it is pretty painful. I’m grateful that the pain usually goes away after a bit though.  I wish I had more to say or pictures to show, but I don’t. To put it just plain and simple, it was AWESOME.



da group



Saturday, May 21. Manta Rays!

Saturday night was so dang awesome! So we had seen signs and heard of tours that people would take at night to snorkel and see manta rays. Well…our boss somehow figured out that for the tour you were basically paying $150 for a two minute boat ride and flashlights. So we just skipped the tour and rented waterproof flashlights! Totally the way to go.  We went where we heard the manta rays usually were at about 9 or 10pm. Kind of scary to snorkel at night. Luckily it was right behind a hotel and they left their flood lights the whole time we were there so we could see where to get in and out of the water. It would have been terrifying if those lights weren’t on.

For some reason I would get a little nauseous because it was dark and the flashlight wasn’t 100% steady so it would go out of focus, in focus, out of focus, etc. But not too bad. We swam out just a little bit and found a giant manta ray. It was SO awesome. I had never seen one before! I guess that light attracts plankton and manta rays eat plankton, so they would come into the bay. It was so so cool to watch them swim around with their ginormous mouths open and eat. When their mouth is open you can see almost all the way through it! You can see all the bones that make up its body…pretty much. In some parts there was SO much plankton. It kind of creeped me out because I could feel it on my skin. When we got home I was showering and when I would rub my skin the plankton on it would start to glow! Blue. I think it was the same stuff that I saw the day we swam across the huge bay. So cool!  Anyways. Words really could not describe how neat this was, so I will try to post some videos that Andy took!

Sunday, May 22. The move.

We went back to the ward we went to the week before and I absolutely loved it. I have never been to a ward that has been that welcoming and loving. So many people came up to us and welcomed us and recognized us and told us it was good to see us again. They are saints. I want to be like that someday! Maybe one day when I have more permanently moved into a ward and gotten to know everyone…then I will know who is a visitor and who has lived there for ten years. Someday!

After church we packed up and moved to the other side of the island. It was a long drive, but it was beautiful. Ry and I saw an amazing waterfall and drove through some amazing forest.

A while after we got to Hilo we drove back towards where we came from and went to the observatory. It was up about 9,000 feet in elevation and dropped about 25 degrees in temperature. Brr! I was in pants and a hoodie and I was FREEZING! Who’d a thought that it could be so chilly in paradise? It was amazing up there. There were big telescopes set up and we got to see Saturn and some really need groups of stars. This place is the only place in the United States that you can see the southern cross and the north star at the same time. I saw them both. So neat. There were a bajillion stars! Ry found “my” star :) sweetheart. It was a good time.

Poor Ry guy was freeeeezing!



it made me laugh :)



Monday, May 23. Running.

Ran. Well, attempted it anyways. We did about two miles in the slowest time I have ever run in my life. BUT. That’s okay! I’ll get there someday.  We ran down to the ocean to see what our coast is like. It was about a 15 foot drop off made out of lava rock. Not somewhere we could chill on the beach at…but beautiful nonetheless.

The second we got home we jumped in the pool and hung out there for a while. It felt a-mazing. We did the same run on Tuesday and jumped in the pool again. Love it.

Wednesday, May 25. I love Ryan.

Wednesday reminded me again how much I love and care and worry about my sweet Ry guy. Tarah and I were working when Andy came downstairs and told us that the sales reps hadn’t been able to get a hold of Brandon or Ryan (they were together) to schedule appointments and that they hadn’t showed up to a job they were supposed to be at an hour or two before. I immediately started to try to call both of their cell phones. Neither of them answered my repeated calls. A while later Andy came down and told us that they had somehow gotten stuck on a dirt road. I have a creative mind when it comes to worrying. Did he mean stuck on the side of a dirt road in a ditch? Did they get in a car accident which caused them to get stuck on a dirt road where there happened to be no cell phone service? So many thoughts racing through my mind. I continued to call both of their cell phones with no success. Tarah and I then came to the conclusion that there is no way you just get stuck on a dirt road unless you were REALLY messing around. Frustration started to add to the worry. FINALLY Brandon answered his phone. He didn’t have great service and he couldn’t talk long because it was starting to get pretty dark and they were still stuck, but he promised me that him and Ry were okay and that they would call me the second they could.

Turns out a GPS told them to turn onto this nasty road. They started to go down it and it slowly got worse and worse. They didn’t know if they should turn around or keep going, so they kept going. It got the point that they didn’t even know how long the road was so they decided to run to see when it ended. They ran about a mile (in slippers, aka flip flops)  and saw the end and ran back. They decided they would rather just try to drive the rest of it rather than turn around and re-drive everything they had just driven. Poor guys. It took them three hours to drive the four mile road. I was so relieved when Ry called to say that they were off the nasty road and that they both were okay. Poor boys.

I love my Ryan to the sun and back a bajillion times x a bajillion.