Hawaii

It all started back in September when I was trying to find Nate in the JFSB. As I was perusing the 4th floor, I passed a flier calling for papers for a Hawaii International Humanities Conference being held in January 2011 -- only the submittal deadline was for that day. I told Nate about it and he decided to spend the next 6-7 hours seriously cleaning up two of his papers, submitting them at 11:59 pm (due by midnight) and just being happy that he at least got to submit them in time.

We didn't hear back for a couple of months so we kind of forgot about it...but then at the beginning of December we got good news -- both of his papers were accepted! Nate was going to Hawaii!! So...naturally I decided to tag along.

We missed the entire second week of school and that was for sure a first for me -- there's seriously nothing that concerns me more than missing class! Luckily our professors were all great and we got most of what we were going to miss done before we left.

I hadn't been to Hawaii in a while (last time was Maui in 2006 with my family and my friend Kamille) so I was excited, and Nate hadn't been before! It was great to get away from the snow and just...Provo in general.

We stayed at the Ilikai and loved it -- we had a full kitchen and everything and we were right next door to where the Conference was being held!

And this was the reason we came -- the conference! This is one of the rooms Nate presented in. He gave two different half-hour lectures -- one on Mark Twain's pathological humor and the other on the Brer Rabbit folklore story. He did a great job and I enjoyed watching them -- I was especially glad that it was him and not me.

Between Nate's two presentations we had a great time parasailing, snorkeling, banana boating, paddle boarding, and eating a lot of fresh sushi.

We saw so many sea turtles while we were parasailing -- they were so cute!!!

We really enjoyed the snorkeling at Hanauma Bay -- I was in love with the colorful parrotfish eating the coral with their beaks. I'm pretty sure I followed them around the whole time much to Nate's dismay -- he finally gave up and left me behind haha.

The last night we were there we went to the classic Luau of course. We ate lots of food, had lots of pina coladas, and discussed important things of the world with the Australian family who sat at the table with us. And then of course I went up to do the Hulu because I like to dance -- and that's just what I do!

Basically I owe all this fun to Nate and he owes it all to himself...because had I tried to submit papers and get accepted -- we would have never left Provo in the first place :)