Hawaii

Bridesmaids: Erin's two nieces and their mother, Erin's sister;
than me, and our other best friend, Heather.
Groomsmen are Victor's friends.  Erin and Victor
together in the center with the two flower
girls in front.

Well, before I get to my mission, since I am still in the process of gathering my letters/emails, I decided to write about my adventures right before that time. School got out in April of 2005 and I immediately left for home after my last final. I drove through the night and arrived for hastened preparations to send in my mission papers and to be a bridesmaid in my best friend's wedding on April 23, 2005. I had less than a week before I was to leave again.

Diamond Head, Oahu, Hawaii

Cheeseburger in Paradise with Lauren, me, Kandice, and
the waiter

The following Monday I left for Salt Lake City where I would meet up with my friend, Kandice, before going to Hawaii. Originally, we were going to spend two weeks with another friend at her family's place on Maui, but due to some miscommunication, she was unable to go with us and we already had purchased our tickets. So, we, of course, decided to go anyway. Because of that, we decided to see more than we had originally planned. I planned the trip, beginning with Oahu. After arriving in Salt Lake City, I had some time with my sister before Kandice and I flew to San Diego. We had a long layover there and spent the night in the airport before finally boarding our plane for Maui. It is quite a long flight, the longest I had been on up to that point (I think 6 hours), but they fed us warm cookies and milk after the in-flight movie, making it the best flight I had traveled on, too.
We had a short layover in Maui before flying to Oahu. We picked up our car rental at the airport, drove to the hostel where we would be staying to check-in and get a little settled. We met a girl from England named Lauren and invited her to go see Diamond Head with us. Unfortunately, they were already closed for the day, but we took a beautiful picture from the ride up (see photo above).
Then we decided to go to a fabulous restaurant called Cheeseburger in Paradise that I had heard about. It's delicious and not too expensive. 
That was our day. What a way to begin our Hawaii trip.