Aloha!

Hey everyone! Jenna, I'm so glad you got this started! I'm so happy to hear that things are going well, Alida, Jillian, and Jenna, and I hope they continue to for everyone! I just came back from Hawaii tonight. The time difference is kind of crazy--we left at 8:50pm Hawaii time and arrived at 5:00pm Eastern time--so we lost 6 hours. I can only imagine how much crazier it will feel when I lose 12 hours in Cambodia.
The trip was absolutely amazing--and so much needed. I finally got to relax and do nothing--and I think I read something like 8 different books over the three weeks (horray!). I spent 18 days on the island of Kauai with my family. We were welcomed to the island with dolphins our first morning, and our last night, we were blessed with a rainbow. In between, we did a lot of snorkeling and chilling on the beach. One of my favorite moments came when snorkeling--I was out on an edge of the reef and stumbled across a sea turtle resting under a rock. I just floated and watched it for a while, watched it surface and then return. It was incredible solitude, where it seemed only the turtle and I existed, one of those moments where I could live simply in the present and all was right in the world.
Probably one of my other favorite things was a motorized hang glider trip along the NaPali coast, where I learned to fly it, and we watched dolphins and turtles along a coast that is overwhelmingly beautiful. My dad, my brother and I also hiked the NaPali coast--11 miles to a permit-only beach. The trail was challenging--but in a good way, and there were views that there really were no words to describe all the time. We had an off day between hiking there and hiking back. I kayaked a little with a guy we met (50+ year old aged hippie/surfer but utterly fascinating person), and we went to beaches where it was just he and I and the birds and waterfalls running off the trail into the beach. It was perfect.
Now that I'm back, it makes Cambodia and Trinidad and everything feel very real...I'm so excited, but the reality of what I'm doing is also really really intimidating.
Miss you all!