Goaltimate?

Last Wednesday I was riding home from the church with Josh and Joshua. I'm pretty sure we might have been going to Taco Bell because we eat there a lot... anyway, as we drove down South Kihei we saw a group playing ultimate frisbee at the park. It was probably the first week we were here when Joshua and I had talked about how we really wanted to play ultimate sometime so he threw out the idea that we should join this group that appears to play every Wednesday. I agreed to go the following week.

Well, tonight was the following week so with some hesitance I changed into my active wear, if you will, and told Joshua I would go with him to check out the ultimate players. Let me explain what we saw when we drove up... a group of very athletic men wearing cleats and looking as intimidating as ever! Okay, there were also two women in the group, but they too looked very athletic. In my head I was just wishing for there to be a reason that we couldn't play, but of course they ended up being really friendly, inviting us to play, and passing us a frisbee to warm up with. Go figure.

And if you want to get technical we didn't actually play ultimate. Tonight was the first time I have ever played or even heard of what they like to call goaltimate. Goaltimate is the half-field version of ultimate frisbee. How this game works: (1) Same rules as ultimate except... (2) There's an arched goal (3) You must make a completed pass through the goal and into what I will call the "designated goal area" to score (4) Once scored the offensive team keeps the frisbee and works it back (without throwing it back through the goal) to get it past the clear line in the back to start over again. It's a bit more challenging than ultimate and definitely makes for a good workout!

So I won't even deny that I planned on sitting out on the game due to my feeling intimidated and not wanting to ruin the game by sucking. BUT with a little bit of coaxing from one of the guys there that I ended up knowing from Hope Chapel (Maui is so small I tell you!) I decided I would give it a try. To my surprise I actually did okay and I even caught two scoring passes and made a pass for a score!! :) Overall, it was really fun, I was very out of breath and red in the face by the end, and we got invited to play again.

See ya at the park!

The first thing I could think to write...

Things I miss:

- If you are reading this and you aren't here... I miss you.

- Fall. Trees changing colors. Leaves all over. Long-sleeved-tee weather. Pumpkins on porches.

- Thunder storms.

- Sonic runs (if you're in Branson). Classic 50s runs (if you're in Norman).

- Getting in my car and driving around. Just to drive around.

- Snow. Or anticipating snow. Snow days. Just the thought that there could be snow.

- Dance parties and walk-offs at the Institute. Apple Bottom jeans and the boots with the fur!

- Spending hours at Panera because of free wireless internet. And good food.

- Chai lattes from Eurotazza.

- College football. Game days in Norman. TCU games and getting in free. Tailgates.

- Kamp. Kitchies. K-Life. Kampers. The Gospel skit. Lionel Merryweather. Half-Pipe Harry. The Bondage Boulder. Friendship everything. Lake Taneycomo. Canoe trips. Ski trips. Just Kamp.

- Two-stepping. Country music. Cute boots.

- Watching Grey's every Thursday with other avid Grey's watchers.

- Hanging out in the 'tute classroom late at night writing last minute papers with other JBUers. Yup, I miss that!

Okay, I will stop there. That's a lot. What can I say... it's a transition and I miss things! But I know that when I leave here in 10 months (can't believe it's already been two!) there will be stuff I miss about here, too. :)

Bittersweetness

My weekend started with a very bitter-sweet Saturday. In case you were wondering, my weekend's always begin on Saturday because I work on Friday nights. Don't let the sound of it fool you... I love Friday nights! This is when I get to hang out with all the tweens that come to TGIF (Tweens Getting Into Fellowship) and we play games, do a skit, have a teaching, and hang out. Anyway, let me get back to my bitter-sweet Saturday. Some of you may have already guessed the bitter part. Well, as a very dedicated Sooner fan I decided to get my behind out of bed at the crack of dawn to watch the OU/TX game, which in central time started at 11am, but in Hawaii time started at 6am (okay, I missed kick-off and the first quarter b/c I didn't get up until 7:15)! So I watched and was sorely disappointed to see the Sooners lose the game AND lose their #1 ranking in the polls. Boo. Well, moving on. When I say there was a sweet part to my Saturday I mean it quite literally. Kim invited me to join her and the high school girls on a trip to the lavender fields in upcountry Maui.  Basically you get there and it immediately smells of lavender (duh) and there are flowers everywhere. It is very girly. And then there's this little store where you can buy all things lavender. They have lavender everything! Fragrance, shampoo, spices, tea, chocolate, lotion... not to mention there are a thousand different kinds of lavender. Who knew. We walked around for a while amongst the flowers and in the field where the tufts of lavender were. Or at least they look like "tufts" to me. I'm not sure I know what that means... but my favorite thing about the whole day was (actually there are two things) that the weather was perfect (cool with a breeze, perfect for jeans or a long-sleeved tee) and that on the way there we saw a pumpkin patch! Apparently, they don't ever really have those here so it was a fun surprise for all of us. It gave me a little taste of Fall, which doesn't happen often here in Hawaii! Going upcountry, which is when you go up on the mountain/crater, it gets much cooler b/c of the higher elevation. Some of my very favorite things in the world are Fall, cool weather, and pumpkins!! And, yes, I definitely plan on going back up to that random little pumpkin patch to pick out the perfect pumpkin. :)

The rest of the weekend remained on the sweet side. Sunday we had an amazing Prayer and Praise night at the church and Monday was Columbus Day, which meant we didn't have to work. I love holidays!

Random fact of day: In honor of Columbus and the day dedicated to him that got me out of working... did you know that the first recorded Columbus Day celebration took place on October 12, 1792 (300th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of the New World). And the Pledge of Allegiance was recited for the first time publicly at the 400th anniversary Columbus Day in 1892! Cool, huh?

You remind me of the babe. What babe?

So, you know those movies you really liked as a kid and then you go back and watch them again as an adult and realize how awful they are, but you still hold a special place for them in your heart? Well, maybe you do maybe you don't, but for me The Labyrinth is one of those movies. I'm not talking about the more recent subtitled film Pan's Labyrinth. I'm talking 1986, Jim Henson puppets, David Bowie in tight pants... THE Labyrinth! It is one of the strangest yet most hilarious movies I've ever seen. And if you haven't seen it I don't know if I can quite describe it to you. Anyway, we - that being me and the rest of the interns- decided it would be fun to watch The Labyrinth for our weekly Family Night held every Monday. The funny part is that Whitney, Joshua and I talked this movie up like it was something really great and when the rest saw what they were getting into they probably could have classified us as a bit crazy. But they laughed and that's all that matters!

Now that we've all seen this movie we thought it would be a fun idea for all of us to dress up as characters from The Labyrinth for Halloween. So far the two I just can't wait to see are Jerith and Ludo (see pics). Jerith aka the Goblin King is David Bowie's character and Ludo is this big monster that looks like a "wild thing" from Where The Wild Things Are (great book!) and says things like "Ludo hungry!" and "Smelllll..." throughout the movie. He's cute. 

As far as our costumes go... we'll see if we actually follow through with the plan!

POG

This weekend was the Maui County Fair. Here are some of the things that happened:

1. We ate steak and rice. Toni (that's the children's director aka my boss - have I already told you that?) gave Josh and me tickets that she got for steak and rice at the fair. So needless to say it was free and tasted even better because of it. By the way, they eat rice with everything here. You want fish? It comes with rice. You want chicken? It comes with rice. You get the idea.

2. We drank Frosty POG. Let me explain... POG is Passion Orange Guava juice. We drink it a lot here. It's really pretty good! Plus, it is way cheaper than orange juice, which can get up to $10/gal. Crazy, I know. Anyway, Frosty POG is basically POG, sherbet, and ice blended together. Good stuff.

3. There was hypnotism. So, we wandered over toward the stage where there was free entertainment and stood there a while as a hypnotist hypnotized people into thinking they were famous people. At the magic word they would start singing and dancing and thinking they were... Fergie or Justin Timberlake or a whole group of boys thought they were NSync! Man, how embarrassing. Glad it wasn't me, but then again I would never volunteer myself for such a thing. It was probably pretty funny, but we were tip-toeing behind a crowd of people trying to get a look and eventually gave up. I think hypnotism is quite freaky anyhow.

4. We ventured through the "arts and crafts" and "better living" tents. It was pretty much the only other thing that was free. Well, nothing in the tents was actually free. It was more like we were window shopping! I don't know about you, but when I think "arts and crafts" I picture little do-it-yourself crafty projects like scrapbooking or card-making. Nope. Not at the fair. But if you wanted to buy jewelry, sunglasses, and air freshener... then you were in the right spot! One thing that caught our eye in the "better living" section was Shamwow! (as seen on tv). It's a sheet of what to me looks like felt that you use to dry things and wipe up spills. So we stood in front of the booth as the guy continuously spilled water all over the place and dried it all off with his Shamwow and bashed the use of paper towels and sponges. I debated whether or not to get one because my dad saw it on tv once and thought it was really cool, but I decided to save my $20 for something other than a Shamwow. 

5. We ate malasadas. Malasadas are these puffy, fried (kind of doughnut-y) rolls that are covered in lots of sugar. They are about as good as funnel cake, but less greasy and you don't choke on powdered sugar when you try to inhale as you take a bite. I always seem to do that when I eat funnel cake! haha. Anyway, malasadas are delicious.

6. And, sad to say, we did not ride one ride. But I was thinking while I was there that if I had to choose only one ride to go on it would be the Ferris Wheel. I like the Ferris Wheel and it is so classic. You always see it in movies like, Grease, Never Been Kissed, The Notebook... I think I'm seeing a pattern... Well, maybe on my next date we will ride a Ferris Wheel. :)

And that was my experience at the Maui County Fair in a nutshell.

Random fact of the day: Okay, remember pogs? The game that was really popular in the 90's where you stacked discs called pogs and used a "slammer" to hit them and see how many you could flip over... if you're my age I'm sure you remember. Well, the name originated from the juice I told you about: POG. The game actually first started in Hawaii (Maui to be specific!) in the 1920s using POG bottle caps. It just became popular in 90s when a game company decided to commercialize it.

John actually told me about this while we were drinking our Frosty POG... so I Googled it and it's true!

More Cow Bell

There is a new addition to my blog and it's called more cow bell! Well, really, it's just a section of YouTube videos specifically having the keywords "more cow bell" in the title. Kathleen (my beloved sister-in-law, for those of you who don't know) told me my blog needed "more cow bell" so if you like Saturday Night Live, Will Ferrel, Christopher Walken or cow bells I hope you enjoy! And if you've never seen this SNL skit before, it is pretty funny if you ask me.

Anyway... today was a pretty long day. I got to work at 9:30, which isn't bad, but I didn't get home until 10:30 tonight. A long day but a good day... I ended the day at an event we call Big Rise. This is when all the Rise (young adult) small groups all come together once a month in one big group - hence the name BIG Rise. I wasn't expecting to be able to make it, but I was pleasantly surprised that we even got there just in time to hear all of John's talk. A little snippet about his talk: It started with the Great Commission and ended with a challenge to (1) have a right, personal relationship with God and (2) live in the world (not of it), immersing ourselves in the culture in order to reach others and not boxing ourselves up into to little Christian bubbles or what John described to us as the "Christian ghetto." It was a cool analogy... if you want an explanation of the "Christian ghetto" just let me know, but it won't be as good as John told it. Afterwards, while everyone was chatting and mingling, you know the usual, I saw Kim open a door into a room of fun. I was intrigued! So when she came back out I told her I wanted to go in there... by room of fun I mean a closed garage with a ping pong table, mini basketball hoop with a mini basketball to go with it, a unicycle, and some other garagey type things. Yes, a unicycle... who rides those anymore? So I made my way into this room and eventually a game of Around the World got started - you know, where everyone gathers 'round the ping pong table and you run around the table taking turns hitting the ping pong ball back and forth and if you miss it or mess up you're out. And when there's only two people left they have to spin in a circle after every time they hit the ball until someone misses or gets too dizzy to hit straight. I was totally excited to get to this point at least 3 times! People started to get excited whenever I got out. So, I got pretty good at this game... not that it's much to be proud of, but it's something! :) 

Hawaiian word of the day: okole = butt or bumper, if you work at Kamp! *I was told this one while I was learning how to surf/learning how to fall flat when you surf so you don't hit your okole on the reef. Ouch!

The Mauiversary

I stole the term from Whitney, but today is my Mauiversary. I arrived on Maui on August 26th and it is now September 26th - where did the time go?

Some things I've done:

- Snorkeling - I get off the plane, we go to dinner, and Jeremy (he is, or was I should say, the intern coordinator) asks "You want to go snorkeling in the morning?" Of course I said yes! so we went. And I'm pretty sure that was my first real snorkeling experience. I had to get myself used to breathing with my mouth... there were definitely a few times I tried breathing with my nose and you just get a funny snorting noise and suctiony feeling on your face. :) Anyway, we saw lots of fish, specifically Humuhumunukunukuapua'a. That's the state fish of Hawaii and my brother taught me how to spell it and say it before I got here! My favorite sighting was a turtle. And then when we were done Jeremy and Brett decided to tell me and Vini (once I was out of the water) that two sharks were following us at one point. Have I mentioned my ridiculous and irrational fear of sharks, yet??  It's true.

- Surfing - Definitely one of my favorite things I have done so far! Craig, our senior pastor, took all the interns out to teach us at a place called The Cove. The hardest part in my opinion is figuring out the timing of when to paddle and when to stand up so that you can catch the wave! If you work at Kanakuk you can maybe understand why I found it humorous every time they said "catch the wave," which was often! How did I do? I was able to get up and catch some waves all on my own! Just look for me on the next Roxy ad. ;) 

- Haleakala - We were in a van and ready to go by 4:00am so that we could be at the top of Haleakala in time to see the sunrise. Haleakala is the 10,000 foot volcanic crater in the middle of Maui and the tempuratures can get into the 30s. So we drove to top all bundled in our layers of clothing and blankets, "hiked" up a little hill and waited for the sun. It was beautiful and refreshing. The temperature was perfect... not freezing but definitely a bit cold. It felt amazing and I would get up before the crack of dawn again to experience it all over.

- Skimboarding - I tried it and that's about it. There's a place called Big Beach that is known for it's huge shorebreak waves and it's the place to go if you want to skimboard. Skimboarding is one of those activities that most people can't just pick up and be good. It involves lots of falling! My experience mostly consisted of me jumping on the board, going a very small ways, and either bailing before falling or just falling. I was definitely sore for a couple days. At least there was a beautiful sunset!

- Parasailing - Toni (the children's director aka my boss) won a free parasailing trip for two and gave it to me and Josh. I have been parasailing before and it is fun and this time it was free! While we went up we tried to look for sharks down below. Unsuccessful. And then we discussed how many feet you would have to drop from into the water to die and the realized how easy it would be to unhook yourself from the parasail. The carabiners don't even have twist locks on them! Josh thinks parasailing is too peaceful. He's more of the skydiving type. Afterward we tried to find a snorkeling spot with Cassie (Toni's daughter - she's my age). After walking a ways and trekking through some construction we got to a little spot where you jump from a mini cliff into the water... somehow both of our snorkels/goggles ended up falling apart so we just swam around. Then we climbed around on the rocks back to the path to get back to our car. Fun day!

Those are a few things I've done in the month I've been here! And if I told you I never once thought about being eaten by a shark while I surfed and swam around in the ocean... I would be lying!

Hawaiian word of the day: Honu = turtle.

Happy Mauiversary!