Tourist Time!

So my best friend from Utah, Kaelyn, was here for the past week and a half to visit me and it was so much fun having her here! She got here on Oct. 8th and didn't go home until the 18th so it was a good long trip and gave us time to do everything we wanted to do. It was her first trip to Hawaii and since this is my last semester out here she took the opportunity to come out and visit me. She rented a car and we basically drove all around the island hitting every tourist spot that we could think of to give her the tourist Hawaii experience as well as the experience of a college student going to school in Hawaii. Plus, I got the chance to go to some tourist spots that I hadn't been to before either so it was good for me to see those things before I leave this place. :(

We went to the swap meet and the International Marketplace to get some shopping done and then stopped by Wal-Mart in town to get a few things we needed.

She came to church with us on both of the Sundays that she was here.

And we all got bright neon Hawaii shirts and decided to all match on Sunday night.

This was Kaelyn's first Thai food experience. We went to Haleiwa Eats in Haleiwa (obviously) up on the north shore. She liked it so much that we went back there a second time before she went back home!

Then after Thai food we went to my school's volleyball game so she could see that too.

We went to the beach, A LOT! This was at Waimea

We also went to the Haunted Lagoon that was going on at the PCC with a big group of people. It was fun that she came in October and got to do this. Everybody in the community goes and it's become so big on the island that they had to have it open the whole month because last year they only did it for like 2 weeks and had to turn people away. They make a lot of money off of it and it's just fun!

Here's Alexis, Kaelyn, and I at the beach again. This one is at Hukilau, the beach right across the street from my house.

And we went to the girl's and boy's soccer games too.

I couldn't let her come to Hawaii and not get the full PCC experience. So we did the Haunted Lagoon one night and then the next day we went back to do the villages and canoe pageant. The luau was sold out for that night so we bought tickets for the next night. Thank goodness my friend Bryan was so willing to help us out and get us 50% off on our tickets since he works there! It was so nice of him. So on Friday night we went back to the PCC and did the luau and night show thing. That was my first time seeing the new night show and it was AWESOME!! This was taken before the night show started.

Then on her last Saturday here we crammed everything else in. We went to the Dole Pineapple Plantation, then we went over to Pearl Harbor. After that we went to Costco so me and Ashlen could get food to hold us out through the rest of the semester (THANKS KAELYN!) and then we went back to get ready (and so I could write my talk) and went to Foodfest on campus that night, then the volleyball game, and went and saw the movie Surrogates after. It was a pretty good movie. Weird, which that's what I was expecting because it's about robots, but it just kinda ended. I was entertained but I'm thinking it was probably a one time see. Here are the pictures.

This was our amazing ice cream we all shared. It was in a half cut pineapple with pineapple chunks in the bottom, the famous pineapple sherbet on top, with chocolate, caramel, and strawberry syrup. Wow! Don't worry, we finished it. (and all gained 5 pounds)

Some things I didn't get pictures of were going to Pearl Harbor on Saturday, going to get acai bowls two different times, once before the beach and once for breakfast, and pictures of foodfest. She's gone now so it's out with the life of a tourist and trying to recover my life as a student. But it was definitely worth it!