my first time cooking a turkey!!!!!

So becasue for thanksgiving we were at the waterpark, we decided to cook our own thanksgiving dinner on sunday. we got a free 14 1/2 lbs turkey from the store with the reward coupons we had. so I took on the job of cooking the bird. I was a little nervous. but with a few helpful tips from my mom I did it!!!! this is the eating crew. dang we were so excited to eat!!!

this was the aftermath of carving the turkey!!!!

this is me proudly posing with the turkey before it was going into the oven to be cooked. that turkey turned out sooooooooo good!!! I was impressed with my abilities! must have gotten some of my moms cooking genes. ha ha ha

thanksgiving weekend fun!!!!!!

Thanksgiving weeekend was a weekend to look forward to. we had a good chunk of time off school and all we wanted to do was play!!!! and that is exactly what we did!!! thanksgiving day was actually spent in a very non-traditional way...AT THE WATERPARK!!!!!!! yep thats right...we spent the whole day splish splashing around in the warm sun and riding some realy fun slides. I know I bet your jealous!!!

there were also a few dances that weekend on campus. one put on by the Tongan club and the other by the Samoan club. of course the Tongan club dance ended up being a lot more fun.

This is my good friend Marisa and I outside of my house. we joke around about the picture being so white trash with us out on our plastic white chairs on our laptops. hey it was a nice day and we wanted to enjoy the sun!!! ha ha ha


we kicked off the weekend with a nice little trip to the north shore to soak up the rays and lounge around the beach.

overall the weekend was a blast...deffinatly a thanksgiving to remember!!!

Halloween Round 2!!!

So the actual night of halloween we dressed up again. we didnt feel like putting too much effort into it so we decided to be M&Ms. Marisa's name starts with an "M" and my name starts with "EM" so we though it was appropriate. even better was out motto..."melt in your mouth not in your hand!" ha ha ha! AWWRIGHT!!!!


Look who we found "hangin around" ha ha ha!!!1 people go all out for halloween here in Laie. it was like a town party! it was a lot of fun to walk around and see all the creative decorations.

we handed out peanut butter M&Ms...mostly to the hot guys we came in contact with at the dances. ha ha ha we are so bad! but hey it worked!

Halloween!!!!

I am not the biggest fan of Halloween! ha ha ha! This year seemed to drag on forever...so I made the best of it! It started last week with a halloween party! at the last minute I decided to be a gangster...so original...I know! we just hung out and played games. it was fun!

this is me and Sia showing our thug side. ha ha ha! below is the crew...getting ready to go!

This is L.J. he is a big Samoan kid! he was craking us up with his costume. he loves the camera and was more than happy to give us this precious picture! ha ha ha!



none of us were ready for this picture...obviously! ha ha ha! and yes I made a grill for my teeth out of tin foil...HOLLER!!!!

Sunset at Sunset Beach!!!

Me and my two friends barrowed a car on friday and made a trip down to walmart and costco. It was nice to be out in the real world for a little bit. I feel like I live at school and home in this tiny little town so it was nice to just drive. well on our way back we just happened to hit sunset beach right at sunset. it was just to perfect so we decided to stop for a minute and snap some pics.


doin a little Yoga on the beach!!!!! ha ha ha


We love living in Hawaii...we really are so blessed to live in such a beautiful place!!!!

A little ALOHA update!

I know I have been so bad with blogging lately...sorry guys! life is crazy busy and im drowning in Homework! HELP!!!! anyways other than that life is good...cant complain. part of the reason for the lack of blogs has been due to the lack of pictures. becasue I spend most of my time in the library doing homework I havnt had many opportunities to snap pictures. but here are a few for your viewing pleasure...more to come...promise!!

this is Audrey and I at the beach just a five minute walk from our house. I think we were going crazy from homework and figured we needed a little break.

this is the two of us taking shelter under a tree. just a few minutes after the first picture was taken, the heavens decided to open up and bless us with a little rain. ha ha ha! oh well...it didnt last long and the tree actually did a good job at keeping us and our stuff dry.

this is a random picture of me and my friend Roy. we were in the library "studying." I got a little bored and just started taking random pictures. he he he!

This a picture of some of the Tongan boys. we were practicing for song fest which is coming up soon. they looked really funny! I couldnt help but catch them on film.
well hope you all enjoyed gettting a little preview of my stressful but fun life here in Hawaii. miss you all! ALOHA!!!!

look who is in Hawaii...CODY!!!!!!

Anyone who knows my friend Cody also knows that he is never in the same place for very long. for the last year or so he has just been traveling all over the world. one week he is in Geece and the next he is somewhere in South America. what a life!!!! so I arrived back in hawaii for school on monday and I thought to give Cody a call and see where in the world he was(literally!!). when he answered he informed me that he was in Hawaii. I couldnt believe it. after months of not knowing where the heck he was from one given day to another, we were finally in the same place. he is actually here dropping his cousin off at BYU since she is a freshman...well thats his excuse. he is thinking about moving back here but he is still not sure.

So today we hit the beach and I couldnt help but snatch these pictures of him drinking his mountain dew. he is always ready for the camera to take his picture!

It was also very entertaining watching Cody play tricks on the sand crabs. they were all over the place and he would talk to them. he would try and cover up the hole they came out of before they could go back in. and he would be cheering them on as they had little battles over each others holes. he was pretty enthrawled witht he little critters. simple things for simple minds...ha ha ha!!

This is infront of the Polynesian Cultural Center. Cody informed me that the tiki men behind me were not made of real wood. he likes to share useless pieces of trivia with me all the time. it makes him feel smart.

The Baby has arrived!!!!!!

Just a quick update on Janea and the baby! She was due Sept 14th but went in for a check up on Tuesday. her blood preassure had sky-rocketed so the doctor decided to induce her that day. Janea called me that morning on her way to the hospital freaking out. she was in tears and her voice was shaky. my mom took off from Santa Rosa and headed down to her house (2 hour drive) to be her birthing coach. well janea ended up being in labor for about 24 hours when the doctors decided that she was not progressing fast enough. so early on Wendsday (August 27th) morning they schedualed her for a C Section. her C section went well and out came a beautiful healthy baby boy. he was 8 lbs 8 oz and 20 in long. they hadnt officially picked out a first name for him until today. So his name is Taylor Patrick Greene. I have only seen pictures sent by cell phone but he looks like the cutest thing. Janea is recovering well. Taylor seems to be a very calm baby. Janea and Jared are so excited to start their new journey off as father and mother. I will post pictures of taylor soon...but for now I am happy to be called auntie!!!!!

Trip to Manteca!

Janea and her husband have moved down to manteca. they have a great little apartment and have settled in very well. My mom, nanny, Kathy, and I all drove down to see Janea and spend some time with her before I left for Hawaii. It was a very nice visit. Nanny had made her some blankets and things for the baby. it was just good to sit and visit and catch up. janea is going to be a great mom.


There is never a dull moment with janea! she had us all rolling with laughter with her funny stories about being pregnant. good times!

Janea's suprise baby shower!

Janea's aunt put on a suprise baby shower for her. I was so excited that it just happened to fall on the week that I was home in between Utah and hawaii. so I didnt tell Janea that I was back in town. so it was a compleat suprise when she showed up to the shower. not only was she suprised that there was a shower but when she saw me peak my head around the corner I thought she was going to go into labor. she was so excited to see me. we exchanged a huge hug and a few tears. I was so good to see her.


she is ALL BABY!!!! Wow girl!

the 8 hour lay over!

So one of my District Leaders had the wonderful opportunity to go to China for the Olympics. he just so happened to have an 8 hour lay over in San Fransico. So Jeremiah and I went down, picked him up and took him on a little tour of the city. we started out with breakfast and then headed to the temple. then we made our way back across the bay bridge and stopped at the embarcadero to walk around. it was a good time. and Ellis was happy he wasnt having to sit at the airport forever waiting for his flight to leave.

Home for Two Weeks!!!!

I went home to California for about two weeks before leaving for Hawaii. I spent the two weeks hanging out with friends and packing. It was fun to reunite with friends I hadnt seen in a while. sunday nights are never a dull moment around the Ginn house.

Saying goodbye to Utah!!!!!

The dreaded time finally arrived in which I had to face the fact that it was time to leave Utah. It sucked! I really enjoyed my time in Utah for the summer. It was hard to leave all my friends and family, but I also knew that it was time to move on.


this was my last meal at Cafe Rio! it was a sad sad day! we dont have cafe rio here in Hawaii.


One of the hardest parts of leaving was saying goodbye to Becky, Chris and the kids. I love those kids so much!

Family Trip To Minnesota!!!

So my family made a quick weekend trip out to Minnesota to see my dad's side of the family. there were two really big events happening while we were there. one of which was my Great Gandmother's 94th birthday party. the other was the reuniting of my dad and his brothers with a brother who was given up for adoption when they were all very young. so my dad and his brothers had never met this brother David. they actually all thought he might be dead because he was born with Cerebral Palsy. but through the miracle of the internet and birth certificates they found our family and we were all once again reunited. So it was a weekend full of fun and geting to know each other. David is married and has four children. Jeremiah and I were happy to hear that we have more cousins and they are about our age. lets just say the cousins on my dads side lacks in numbers. This is Jeremiah and I playing in our grandpa's house. he has some of the wierdest things and these hats were some of our favorites. you can use your imagination to figure out what Jeremiahs hat has on it. ha ha ha!!! Happy birthday Grandma...Smother her!!!!! these are all the brothers! the one in the middle is David. this is Jeremiah and I with our second cousin Kendall. she is way cute!