There are perks, of course, when the college your children chose happens to be in a pretty gorgeous spot.

We flew in, filled up our car to the brim with dorm/apartment needs at Target and Savers (ha!) and headed up to where BYU-Hawaii is on the north side of the island.

Here we are racing to soak in this sunset one night, with a picnic of Elephant Thai in hand…my favorite food ever.

Searched for the prettiest spot to sit and eat, and we found it:

We set up Grace’s new dorm room:

She has three other cute roommates and I wish I had a picture of all of them together. They seem so great and she’s excited.

Here’s the dorm from the outside:

And just for reference, here is the funky house Elle moved into:

The view from that front porch and then from the roof:

And from the side:

Yikes it is pretty.

There were all kinds of orientation things going on. Here’s Grace walking into her first…nervous and excited all mixed together.

My heart swelled with gratitude for her and for that place and for those people.

Of course we had to mix in this kind of perk along with the orientation/move-in stuff:

I loved having these two girls of mine all to myself for a few days, giddy with so much excitement for all that lies ahead:

There was something about that that made the whole dropping-of business so much less painful and made me realize I would survive leaving them. Elle helping with Grace’s schedule and showing her around, Grace so confident and secure knowing her sister was there. These girls, like all sisters, haven’t always been all sweetness and light to each other, but they sure love each other and I sat there in that car and on that campus and on those beaches marveling at the beauty of relationships. Especially sister ones.

We had some trouble with places to stay since that little town was so overcrowded with parents dropping their kids off. We stayed on the other side of the island one night, at my brother’s little condo one night, and my friend’s son Brenden’s fiance took us in one night. Oh my word, it was the BEST to be with that cute couple there. My most favorite part of being with them was a jetski ride they took us on in the afternoon. I have no pictures because we were riding full speed over gigantic ocean waves on the jetski and a tube hooked onto the back getting pelted with salt water, but it was one of my favorite adventures I have to remember with my internal camera rather than a real-life one (but then, my internal camera is a real-life one too I guess!) Brenden took us to this little island (Goat Island) and we sat and hung with his fiance and her little sister (who is also an incoming freshman) on the little sandbar there and heard all about their engagement (just recent).

Then Brenden took us back to shore, two by two this time since the waves had increased exponentially since we arrived. Grace and I were first and when he dropped us off he told us to look out for sea urchins as we walked to the sand because he’d seen them there before. So as we were walking gingerly to shore wondering how in the world to “look out” for those puppies in the wavy water, we happened to get attacked by little blue bubble jelly fish. They HURT I tell you, but I laughed until I cried telling this story later to everyone else..waves crashing over us, jellyfish attached, us dancing around trying to get them off. It was an adventure I guess I don’t really need pictures of because I don’t think I’ll forget it! Ha! Things like that sure make you feel alive.

We made dinner at Malia’s place that night and met another person from her home-town who was staying there who we became instant friends with. She was dropping off her daughter as well.

Best night for sure.

Dave came to join us for a little bit since he was en route to China, and it was so fun to have him join the party. We found a quiet spot where he could give the girls father’s blessings before school started:

…showed him their places and had some good talks on the beach.

Very random fact:

We found out that our friends from college have a daughter going to BYU-Hawaii as well. She happens to be not only in the same dorm as Grace, BUT IS HER VERY NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR! How crazy is that?

So happy to have a chance to meet up with them and get caught up. So happy our girls will get to know each other so well!

Spent our last evening on the bridle path to watch the sunset while Grace was at one of her orientation things:

And then bid these two beauties adieu.

How can you be so sad and happy at the same time?

But as we said our goodbyes the happy definitely won out. SO happy for these girls as they head into this grand adventure over there in all that beauty.

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10 Comments

  1. Sorry, I’m going to be that annoying reader who mostly noticed your shoes and would love to know the brand? (But I have a 10th grader and am busy preparing myself for her departure in 2 years – knowing I can’t really be prepared.)

  2. What a fun post. I’m glad your daughters can be at BYU Hawaii together. It was fun to hear about your adventures and see Grace’s new dorm room and Ellie’s house with the view. There definitely are some perks about living in Hawaii. 🙂

  3. We were just there for my son’s graduation in June. Our daughter was a Freshman last yr while he was a Senior. He grandfathered her in and it was awesome…they did a lot more together than we expected and we loved it.

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