T-minus 2 days and counting?

Hmmm, so obviously I didn't finish this post before we left for Hawaii. Now it's T-plus a lot of days and counting! Oh well. I'm too lazy to waste all this work typing up a blog and then not use it..so I'll just finish it up and post it anyway.

I've almost made it to vacation time! Yay! The last two weeks have been seriously crazy. Last weekend our stake hosted a tri-stake activity for the youth 14 and up for 5 hours. Since I'm in our stake YW presidency, I was one of the people planning stuff, and feeding 300 people dinner! It was crazy, but it went well, and I'm glad it's over. AND, my symposium on campus yesterday was crazy too, but it also went well and is now over! I only have one big thing left before we leave for our trip: our lab is getting inspected by the university's chemical safety people tomorrow! Remember how I wrote about the chemical spill we had a while back? Well, apparently we triggered a "follow-up" check to see why we had these problems. I'm actually kind of happy that we're getting inspected, because it might just force some of my labmates to start being more responsible...

I have no pictures to post today, but don't worry--I'll be posting lots of pictures of paradisical glory soon. :) But, I did get tagged by Beth for another one of these crazy memes or whatever they're called. I'm feeling less contrary than sometimes, so I guess I'll answer it. But, I must warn you that my answers will most likely be boring. There's supposed to be Eight things about Eight things, but I reserve the right to not finish the lists if I can't think of 8.

1. 8 TV shows I watch
Ha! Boring right off the bat: I hardly ever watch TV. We don't have cable, and only get one fuzzy channel with the antenna. But, I will answer which shows I *used* to watch:
1. the Price is Right--this one I rarely missed growing up. I used to dream of being called to "come on down" the aisle!
2. Bob Ross's Joy of Painting--despite the fact that Bob (may he rest in peace!) didn't show any *real* painting techniques, he sure was fun to watch and inspired me to learn how to paint!
3. Dark Wing Duck--a favorite one as kids. What a classic.
4. Thunder Cats....ho!
5. Reading Rainbow--oh man, I can't believe I almost forgot about this one!
6. Square One. This was a truly great show, and helped make me the nerd I am today!
7. NPR--okay, so this is not a TV show. But is the program I most regularly tune into these days. I usually listen to NPR on my way to and from school.
8. ER--in college I watched this fairly often with Alicia

2. 8 Favorite Restaurants
1. Duke's on Waikiki beach! my newest fav
2. Chilli Works in Los Alamos (for breakfast burritos)
3. Ruby Tuesdays--love their garden bar!
4. Red Lobster--my mom used to take me here when we went to Albuquerque together
5. Kennedy's in Urbana (a really nice restaurant that I mostly only go to when I go to dinner with invited University guests and the university pays the tab.)
6. Biaggis--a nice Italian restauraunt not too far from Kennedy's
7. Ottavios in Provo
8. that one Thai place right next to Regency Apartments. What was that called again? I liked that place.

3. 8 Things that Happened Yesterday

Hmmm, should I write about yesterday, or about the day before I first started this entry? I guess yesterday, since my memory doesn't go back that far
1. I went to the doctor because my ear was hurting
2. I deposited a check at the Credit Union (it took forever!)
3. I slept in reeeeally late--combination of still being in Hawaii in my biological clock, and being kind of sick
4. I ate a lot of yogurt
5. I watched the First Presidency's Christmas Devotional for FHE (we forgot to watch it on Sunday--woops!)
6. I ordered some stuff on barnes and noble's website, but then tried to cancel my order when the confirmation email said it was backordered, and had to call in twice and ask for a manager before they would finally help me.
7. I read some Christmas letters from family
8. I did NOT do the laundry, even though I should have (I'd doing it today, though. Luckily, things hadn't *quite* reached critical laundry mass.)

4. 8 Things I’m looking forward to
Darn, this one was going to be easy back when I first started writing this--I was going to list Hawaii things I was looking forward to. Hmmm, I think I'm still going to put that list--things I *was* looking forward to (and am now happily looking back on)
1. Seeing my family for Thanksgiving
2. Watching the ocean and eating pineapple...for thanksgiving dinner!
3. hiking along the Na Pali coastline on the "Garden Isle"
4. seeing real live lava in person
5. being warm!
6. Falling asleep to the sound of the surf
7. Watching professional surfers on the giant waves
8. learning about Polynesian culture...and FOOD

5. 8 Things on my Wish List
1. A washer and dryer
2. A dish washer
3. A garbage disposal. I should have put this one higher on the list--I'd rather have a dispoal than a dishwasher if I had to choose between the two!
4. A house! Or at least a second bedroom in our apartment
5. A Ph.D.
6. A piano
7. Beautiful scenery to look at out my window
8. Central air conditioning (well, not right now, but in general we would really like to have that!)

6. 8 Things I Love
1. Kevin
2. my other family members
3. dark chocolate
4. step aerobics--does that make me weird? When I first started out, I was a total klutz, but now that I've done it for a long time, I love exercising in this way--the choreography keeps my mind busy so I forget that I'm tired.
5. good health
6. pain killers--I'm sooooo glad someone invented these!
7. going on vacation
8. my kitchenaid food processor

7. 8 Things I Can’t Stand
1. Girls who act dumb to attract boys
2. Cloudy skies--I hate it when I see no blue for days on end!
3. Exreme humidity
4. research projects that never work
5. not knowing how to help someone you love
6. beets. Yuck.
7. how fast my giant bushy eyebrows grow back after plucking
8. waiting in airports

8. 8 People I’m Tagging
Ummm, I don't think even 8 people read my blog! I guess it will have to be 8 things about 7 things...But I guess I will informally tag people reading my blog who haven't already done this one.

Hawaii and Halloween

Okay, okay--everyone keeps telling me I need to post more pictures, so I've overcome my laziness for today and actually uploaded one. This is at our church "Trunk or treat" on Friday night. As of Thursday night, I still hadn't put together a costume or even thought of an idea. So we ended up throwing together some stuff at the last minute and going as Tacky Tourists.

Which, as it turns out, is kind of relevant right now, because Kevin and I are leaving for Hawaii in two weeks! (We hope not to be too tacky there, though.)

Why are we going to Hawaii, you may be asking. Well, my sister Heidi's husband is a professor at BYU-Idaho, and he just happens to be doing a sabbatical thingy this semester and is teaching at BYU-Hawaii just for a few months. We also happened to have a bunch of frequent flyer miles, due to Kevin's numerous flights for conferences (most of which are in Europe) for his research, plus an American Express card we have that we can accrue miles with. So, as it turned out, we had enough miles to fly to Hawaii for free! (Well, almost free, we had to buy the last few miles because we didn't have quite enough...And, we have to fly on 2 different airlines, but at least the flights are almost the same times) BTW, it only takes 35,000 miles to fly to Hawaii, which is really not bad considering it takes 50,000 to fly to Europe, yet the airfare to Hawaii is usually just as expensive as to Europe.

So, we decided we couldn't pass up this opportunity and we'd better do it! We decided to go around Thanksgiving time, but since we were using miles, we were limited on our choices of dates...which means we ended up having to spend longer in Hawaii than the 1 week we were originally thinking of. (I know--darn!) So we're leaving in just a couple of weeks! It's crazy, because we planned this all months and months ago, and I've sort of had it way in the back burner for a long time, and now it's suddenly almost upon us!

The downside is that we have sooooo much to do before we leave! Kevin has two paper deadlines, I have a grant renewal deadline, plus some experiments that have to get done asap. Plus lots of church activities, etc. AND, there's an all day Symposium on campus that I am in charge of just a few days before we leave. So, by then we'll really need a vacation!

We're way excited. A year and a half ago, I went with Kevin to Germany (he had a conference there, so his way was paid by Purdue. I paid my own way and just tagged along for fun.) It was SUCH an awesome trip (you can read my blog from it here) , and I discovered that I really like to plan vacations! I'm thinking that I maybe should have been a travel agent for a living. :) I think I enjoy planning the perfect itinerary *almost* as much as actually going there.

I'm sure we'll do a similar vacation blog like we did for our Germany trip, but I won't promise that it will be done until we get back!