Got back from my trip on Monday, why does time see to go by faster when you are on vacation?And when you are at work or the days leading to and after your vacation seem waaaaay longer than they should be. As I told my coworker Parker, I need a job that's always on vacation. Dear Samantha Brown, I'd like to takeover your job. Sincerely, Sarah Kawachi. While we wait for Sam to get back to me, here's my vacay recap, part one of who knows how many:

Family Vacay, Pt. 1.

Colo "rad" o... saw that on a t-shirt at work today.

My vacation started off in good ol Grand Junction, Colorado. It was my first time visiting my sister's college and Colorado (I know, I know, horrible sister, but HEY I planned on visiting beforehand, but you know other trips came along that seemed much more exciting.. NYC, SF, Japan, countless visits to Maui, who can resist that versus visits to Grand Junction the middle of NOWHERE... haha just kidding Kel). Grand Junction, was quite frankly boring. I could see how my sister could get homesick, there's not much. But it does have that small town charm, and I love that there is art EVERYWHERE! My lil sis graduated with a Bachelor's in Business and an Associate's in Applied Science (Culinary) with honors. Woop woop the youngest Kawachi graduates! Welcome to the real world (it's really nothing all that great).

We spent a just 3 days in Colorado, mostly helping my sister move out of her apartment and tie loose ends up, and I was also stuck doing work for the jobs I applied for (writing tests, application tests.. tedious but it's gotta be done). Fortunately for me we took a break from all that work and went to A-Basin for my first taste of snowboarding! Ok so I skate, I surf, I thought snowboarding would be not that hard to pick up. Um HELLO it is incredibly hard and scary AND not too mention it hurts WAAAAAAAY more when you fall. BUT I had a blast, I was definitely HURTING the next day, but it was worth the pain. Next time I go snowboarding I'll be more ready! We also drove through Vail, Aspen, and went to Denver so I could do some damage at Urban Outfitters.

Some Colorado highlights, in no particular order:

-Eating at Noodles & Company. I love noodles, this place was my heaven.

-AHHHHH fresh tortilla chips from Denver Whole Foods.

-Not eating it 3 out of 20 times getting off of the ski lift. That thing is dangerous and oh so tricky to get off from.

-Kelly's graduation dinner at her restaurant 626 on the Rood.

-Sharing a beer in the kitchen refrigerator with Kelly and her college friends, oh how I miss those days.

-Seeing animals on the side of the road and in our headlights. My mom almost hit a deer and I saw the long horned sheep.

-That Expedition we rented, so roomy, great for our long road trips.

Some Colorado fails:

-Didn't get to a Billabong.

-Had only one hour to shop at UO.

-Didn't get to eat at Sonic or Chipotle.

-Sushi bars.

-Only driving past the hot spring, it looked SO good.

-Weird weather, the day of my sister's graduation was rainy as hell, and then the day we left it was hot as hell.

-That damn two propeller plane.

Vacay over. BLAH.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Snowboarding A-Basin! My body is hurtin' but it was definitely worth it! I fell about 6 times trying to get off the damn ski lift. Will I ever get the hang of them?!? Off to denver for a shopping sesh at urbans.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

yay for graduations. Me and my cousin chiemi waiting in the cold rain.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

This past Wednesday I had a Touristy Field Trip day with Ala and Chaz! We were all off from work so we visited the USS Arizona Memorial, USS Bowfin, and the Pacific Aviation Museum. It was hot and crowded, but worth it. I haven't visited the USS Arizona since... well the movie "Pearl Harbor" came out. Back then I was BIG Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett fan, so of COURSE I had to visit. The USS Arizona was free but we dished out $17 to go to the Bowfin and Pacific Aviation Museum.

The Bowfin was cool, you could go in the submarine and look through the binocculars, we even took a picture outside, and the people insert the photo into an old looking WWII newspaper (I still can't believe Chaz and Ala paid for a copy of that, it was just plain paper, not even glossy or anything at least at Disneyland it's glossy and you get a cute frame). The Pacific Aviation Museum was so-so, they only had 5 planes, and the flight simulator didn't look that great. Definitely not worth the money, but I hear they are looking to expand the museum, so I hope they add more planes. I saw in the gift shop that they were selling History Channel's WWII in HD on dvd which I LOVED, if I didn't forget my credit card I would've SO bought it. This most exciting part was seeing the jet up close outside of the museum. AND... it was sitting next to a building they used in the "Pearl Harbor" movie!

Oh oh I can't forget that when you take the shuttle to get to the museum, you pass by the airfield that Amelia Earhart tried but failed to take off from. That was pretty cool.

Later that day we planned to hike Diamond Head but they were closed. We settled on dinner at Onos Hawaiian Food and watching "Pearl Harbor" at Ala's. It was a U.S. History kind of day.

When I get a real job, this is what I will miss the most. Random days off in the middle of the week well spent with great company. While we were on our field trip, we thought of even more cool field trips we wanted to go on. I hope we can do it all before I get a new job!

-------

I am currently trying to pack for my Colorado/Vancouver trip. This whole cold weather thing is really throwing me off because I hear it's not that bad, but I get cold verrry easily. So it's like do I take the Uggs or pack shorts. argh. Not too mention... my Tory Burch flats that I wanted to take (my $110 on sale Tory Burch flats) one of the metal decoration thingys on my heel is coming off! WTH! Luckily Nordstrom will repair it, unluckily it takes a week, so I'll need to find different flats to pack.

Packing my suitcase playlist:

-I Want it That Way-BSB

-Tonight-NKOTB

-It's All Coming Back to Me Now-Celine Dion

-The entire 50 First Dates Soundtrack

-That Faith Hill song from Pearl Harbor

-Random Disney songs.

North Shore advenchas with my besties last Sunday. After church we hit up Cholo's for lunch and this really cool ice cream place for dessert! I had to beg both of them to make the journey up country, Wayne to drive us there (because my poor car is dying) and Anna to actually come (because she rarely ventures past Waikele). The weather was horrible, raining off and on, so that pretty much ruined any plans of getting our food to go and having a picnic at the beach. I'm not much of a mexican food eater and ever since Compadre's closed down, I haven't found any good ones in town yet (there are a couple of taco places I still need to check out), so to satisfy my cravings I went to Cholo's. Of course while I was there I had to get a li hing mui margerita, but sadly I had to drink by myself because Anna didn't want to drink. Poo.

This past couple of weeks I've been trying to make small and big changes in my lifestyle. I've been really trying to save money by not going out and drinking as much, rather spending time with friends watching movies at home, hanging out at Ala's, etc. Also I'm really trying to get in shape... slowly. I've been working out/running at least three times a week and doing the Hip Hop Abs DVDs Courtney let me borrow. The next step is finding a new job, I applied for four today, wish me luck!