The Adventures Continue

This is my friend Kristen. We are standing at a place called Pali Lookout that overlooks the city of Kailua and some other cities right on the coast. It is too dark to see in this picture, but the lights of the city were beautiful behind us. You can see all the way out into the bay and up the coastline. It is an awesome sight! Kristen is also the courageous one who took me out surfing, with some of her friends, on Monday! It was a blast! I mostly came back with alot of scrapes, bumps, and bruises, but we had a great time and I'm getting a little bit better.
On Friday, we had a retreat for the Counseling Center staff. This is Leilani. She is in charge off all the special needs resources in the center. She's hillarious! We had a lot of fun in the car as we drove to and from Waikiki to go to the aquarium and to lunch, before we had our training/planning meeting. The aquarium was awesome! It had a lot of animals and information, but it wasn't a huge aquarium. My favorite part was this gigantic cylindrical tank full of moonjelly jellyfish. They were in dark corner and you could see the light glowing off of their gelatin bodies. You could stand right next to the tank and it almost felt like you were in the water with them (without the fear of getting stung! :) ). It was really cool. It was also fun to see creatures that I saw for the first time last summer while snorkeling in the Philippines, when David and Annette Wells and their family and I joined Grant and Susan's family on a boat trip there. It was weird to think that my first experience with many of these animals had been in the water a few feet away from them! Pretty cool!
The weather was beautiful and windy Saturday morning, as we joined our Elders' Quorum for an activity in the park by Kekela beach. We grilled hamburgers and hotdogs and enjoyed the sun. The sand on this beach was really fine and soft. That made it really nice to walk on and play in but when the wind picked up the fine granules swirled in the air sandblasting anything or anyone in their path! :)
This is Vickie. She is a friend from the ward. She's really funny and fun to talk to.
This is the view from Kekela beach. The waves are much smaller and gentler here than the waves along the north shore, partially due to a large stretch of reef several hundred feet off-shore. It is a peaceful and lazy place to play along the shore or in the water. This same afternoon, I went up to Waimea beach with my friend, Steph. Waimea is a large beach up on the north shore. The waves were huge and the view is beautiful. My friend Teresa (who lived here for a few years) told me Waimea was her favorite beach to go to when whe lived here. I didn't get any pictures of it, but I'm sure we will be going back there soon.
This was a busy week that really flew by, but I had a lot of fun with new friends. It has been great to find some "real" friends and connect with them in meaningful ways.
Oh, I also was given two callings in the ward this past week. They asked me to be the activities committee co-chair (this is new for me but ought to be fun) and a sunday school teacher for our gospel doctrine class (woohoo! this would be the calling I'd choose if I got to pick). I'm excited to makes some waves and meet some new people! :)
This week is super full and busy at work, and I have some hikes and other activities planned with my friend Steph. So hopefully, it will be full of adventures and fun!