H-A-W-A-I-I

Yes, we are in Hawaii. And yes we've been here for over a month and I haven't written a thing about it on here. And yes, we're having a baby :) And that will be the next post, especially for Katie and Kayleen.

And so, our adventure began on May 16. Since then, we have moved into a two bedroom townhouse in Ewa Beach, gotten a dog, and been on lots of excursions around the island.

To name a few:

 We hiked Diamond Head Crater not long after we got here. It isn't that bad of a hike. Most of it is paved, but I just thought it was cool that we were in the middle of a crater of a volcano. :)

Visited the Laie Temple many times. And it is beautiful.

 We hiked to Laie Falls and went swimming one day after going to the temple. It was a beautiful hike, and it was a little bit longer of a hike, which was fun. Parts of it reminded me of hiking in southern Utah; but then you could look out the other direction from where you were standing and feel like you were in a rainforest. We ran back in the rain most of the way. And we were covered in red dirt by the time we got back to the car.

We spent a night walking downtown in Chinatown. It brought back amazing memories from our trip to China two years ago. It was a lot of fun to remember it all again.

Brett loves the huge trees here...everywhere. This was just one of them.

We stopped at a little hole-in-the-wall Thai food restaurant, and it was really tasty. Way too much food, but tasty.

We found the cool "bikes" all along the sidewalks that are actually for locking your bikes to :) Pretty clever...

 

And this was too much a memory of China that we couldn't pass it by without a few pictures.

We took a tour one weekend that was offered by the post. They took us all the way around showing us all the places we need to go visit and all the places we can do fun stuff while we're here. And it was free :)

 At the Pali Lookout Point. It was the location of one of the major battles here on the island. And the wind is crazy up there. I'm surprised Brett still had his hat by the time we got back on the bus.

 After lunch in Waikiki we got to visit the Macadamia nut farm...and crack open our own as well as taste the different coated ones they had as samples. They were delicious!

One weekend at the beach, Brett decided he was going to climb a tree and get a coconut. So he did.

I wish I had pictures of the whole experience, but I didn't have my camera until he was all the way down to the actual coconut. He looked like a monkey climbing the tree, broke the outer shell off on the rocks on the edge of the beach, and then cracked it open to drink the milk with his knife.
That's my Brett!



One of the many things I love about Hawaii. We see a rainbow just about every single day. And what is cool, is that they amaze me every single time. I could take a picture of every one that I see, but it doesn't do them justice. But they are a reminder of the love and power of our Father in Heaven, and I love when that reminder comes from His wonderful creations. Why did He create rainbows? Just for us, because they are beautiful, so we could smile and think of Him.

Oh yea...and we got to see the ship from Pirates 4. Don't be jealous or anything. It's just sitting in the bay at Ko'Olina. That's all :)

 And here is another reason I love Hawaii.
Sunset Beach.

 We went for a run one down along the beach and came back to swim...Brett really just wanted to take one of these guys' boards and ropes and get out there himself. This beach was full of them.

 And the lovely grass we find everywhere...
We went to a movie in the park one Friday night and Brett sat down on the grass before we put the blanket down. He got up pretty quick, and picked the little thorn things out of him for a while after that.
I'm not sure how these kids play sports in this grass. I would NEVER want to fall down. Those things hurt.

 Oh yea. We got a dog. A puppy actually. She came from the Humane Society. And her name is Rika.
I feel like I have a kid already. Someday I will learn to speak her language. Or she'll learn mine.
We're getting there :)
She's cute. And loves EVERYONE. But she has also been a great lesson in patience. I still have a long way to go though until I'm really as patient as I should be.


We went SURFING!!

 And we both got up on our first waves. Go us. It was a lot easier to get up than I thought it would be. But the beach we were at didn't have huge waves. We went again this past weekend, and the waves were a bit bigger. We still got up, it was just a bit harder to get back out without being trampled by my board. I didn't stay out as long...but I surfed.

Brett just rented a board and tried it, and did it perfectly, like he does with everything he tries.
I actually got a short lesson from Buttons, a famous surfer guy on the island. He was really great. And fun to watch on his board.




Just this last week we went to the Botanical Gardens at Waimea Bay and did the walk into the waterfall. But along the way was gorgeous. At one of the first little huts inside this older woman told us all the little trails off the main trail that we should take so that we could actually see everything because there was so much more than just a waterfall. I am so glad we stopped to talk to her.

Apparently there used to be a whole village up in this canyon, but it was all destroyed by rock slides, disease, etc. She told us where to go to find old house foundations, cemeteries, old garden plots, religious spots, etc. And it was amazing.

And we thought these roots were awesome. And these trees. Brett's been wanting to find one to take a picture in the whole time. They remind us of Lost.

 There was a place to stop and play some traditional Hawaiian games on the trail to the waterfall. So we played. Brett won one, and I won one. So we were even by the end. Except my win was kind of just luck. I'll take it though.




There are some pretty amazing flowers here.

 And we made it to the waterfall.

 I love being out in our Heavenly Father's creations. It reminds me how blessed we are and how much He is in every moment of our lives.

That was really long. So I'm not going to go on anymore.
But we love it here, even though Brett is gone for 12 hours everyday. We're definitely having fun.
And hopefully our furniture and things will get here soon. I mean, I love sleeping on a pull out couch, but after not having our bed since October, it will be VERY nice.

Three Years

Of that smile...

Of dancing in the kitchen...

Of singing in the rain...

Of talking and laughing late into the night...

Of making things hard, and making them better...

Of always heading back to what really matters...

Side by side...

We'll walk forever holding hands.

Love. It's what life is all about.

Walking In Memphis

OOOKKAAYYY....

So I've been absent for a while, but seriously, it's been a little crazy. Okay, no excuses. But I'm trying to make up for it right now. We're going to go back in time to April.

Brett graduated from his Engineering Basic Officer Leadership Course in Missouri! He was mostly just happy to be done with school for real for a while. He went to two more weeks of training after that before we actually left Missouri. The first weekend of the month we put our truck on a boat to be sent to Hawaii in hopes that it would make it there before we did so we would have some transportation. This little escapade involved driving to Tennessee to pick up a car Brett's parents were so nice to let us borrow, and drive back to Missouri the next night. But it was fun to spend Conference Weekend with his family, even though it seemed like a whirlwind of a weekend. The next morning we drove the truck to St. Louis to send it off. And this meant that I had to drive a manual transmission for the next month, which I have never done longer than like, well, 10 minutes at a time when Brett would make me do it. But I am proud to say I only stalled once at a stop sign on a hill. I never did get over being nervous to drive every time I got in the car to go somewhere though.

I took another trip to Tennessee with Brett's mom just after graduation to be there when the movers came to get the things we had left in his parent's garage. Once again, they are very kind for letting us stash our things like that. I got back to Missouri with a week left to pack up our remaining things, have one more set of movers come for just a small shipment of things, and clean the whole house so we could check out the next weekend when his training ended. But of course, I left most of the cleaning to the last two days, as it always happens. But we did it :) Brett just got bored and tired of all the cleaning and packing at midnight...and this is what happens when he finds foil lying around...

And after a few hours of homelessness between the cleaning check and Brett's class ending...we started our drive to Tennessee!

Brett spent two weeks working at the recruiting station near his house, but he only had to work part time, which left lots of play time. So we had fun. It was nice for him to have a break.

Zipline rides and landing in the pond

Shooting practice in the back yard

Canoeing and kayaking down the flooding river in the kayak Brett built when he was probably 14 :) 

(I have a picture of it, and it's really cool, but it's on my phone...)

Four wheeling through the woods and the mud

Running through the fields with the deer

Playing with Lydia and Sadie

Fishing in the pond and only Reed being successful

Brett hunting snapping turtles

A night walking in Memphis, complete with a stroll down Beale Street and almost riding in a Cinderella pumpkin...until we asked how much it would cost!

Dinner at the historic Majestic theater in Memphis

 

Watching the flooding of the Mississippi

Brett fixed and sold his old dirtbikes!

And front row seats to a Redbirds game...with fireworks at the end! (Thanks to Lindsay Blain)

I think I'm going to leave it at that for now. Just know it was a fun two weeks. And then we flew to Hawaii...

Hawaii will be another post. I'm getting there. Oh yea, and so will the baby :)

But for now, I'm going to the beach!