Birthdays and Fancy Restaurants

December 17 was my birthday. 26 years old, I think I'm over the hill! Up until age 25, I thought it was pretty fun to become a year older. I think from here on out I won't like it anymore. The 17th was a Sunday, and we sang in a big Christmas concert that night, so we didn't go out to dinner until the 18th. Samuel wouldn't tell me where we were going, but it was in the nicest part of town, a place called Roy's that was INCREDBILE! I almost felt guilty eating food that cost so much, but it was a wonderful surprise. Oh, and here in Hawaii they celebrate birthdays with a nice lei to wear, and Samuel gave me one made of little gardenias and pink roses, so you can imagine the fragrance!

I have to show everybody the fancy plates. As my friend Amy taught me, sometimes "presentation is everything"! Samuel got the most delicious macadamia nut crusted swordfish (it melted in your mouth! We aren't even fish fans, but this was so far beyond what we've ever tasted!) And I got the filet mignon, a big juciy piece that came in some crazy good sauce, with those weird crunchy things on top. (What ARE those things?) And the dessert! Where do I even begin? It was DIVINE!! This melting hot chocolate souffle was fudge inside, it was to die for. I don't know if this picture will do it justice. Anyway, birthdays are fun. My sweet hubby made me feel like a QUEEN!

Trimming the Tree

Well, it's our first Christmas being married, so we got to experience the fun of putting up our tree.

Since we are probably moving in about two months, we didn't know if we should do the whole tree thing. Then, a friend of ours told us she would give us a huge discount from her craft store. When we got there, one of the cashiers handed us a bag with a fake tree, red lights, fruit decorations, and ribbon, and she said, "It's paid for." Samuel and I must have said, "What" and "Huh" three times, until we realized we had just been given a great Christmas present. Our very first tree. I almost cried, it was so sweet.

Tonight we turned on the Christmas music and went to work. Samuel first set up the tree, then we discussed how to put on the lights....He said that when he was a kid he would just walk around the tree in a circle. Hee hee. Not exactly what I had in mind. So he let me do the lights, then I added the fruit, little wreaths, beads, etc. But we didn't have a star, so I looked online and found an idea for a ribbon bow, which I think turned out all right.

I Saw the Funniest Thing Today!!!

And I just had to share it. I was walking home from work, and I passed a little old Asian man. It looked like he was walking his dog, a small, bright-white fluffy poodle. And then I noticed he had chopsticks in his hand, and a plastic bag, and inside the plastic bag was....well, must I say it? He was following his dog and picking up the doggy doo-doo with his chopsticks. Does anyone else think that is the funniest thing ever? HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Happy Turkey Day

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. We hope everyone had a great day. Samuel and I were not able to pay for another trip to the mainland, so we had Thanksgiving in Hawaii. Luckily, there were about 10 other young married couples, plus several extra people, including four missionaries, who also needed a place to have Thanksgiving. So at 3:00 we all got together and had a big traditional meal. I was assigned the mashed potatoes, and they would have made Krystal proud (she's a real lover of creamy mashed potatoes, as well as the famous quote, "These mashed potatoes are so creamy! Mary mashed them.") I used a cube of real butter and a pint of whipping cream. Yum. Here's a couple pictures of the group- we forgot to take one of the whole group at once. We had the dinner at a little banquet room at the apartment building of our neighbors. This is me looking very full....Samuel took the pictures... and not everyone was looking, but that's okay! It was a big group.Then, at 6:00 we had another dinner invitation. We have a friend in our ward named Creagan. It happened to be his birthday, and we were all happy to celebrate it with him. He is terminally ill with cancer, and we weren't sure he'd even make it to his next birthday. He treated us to a great feast with his mother, sister, aunt, and another couple from our ward. We went to a private club on the beach where they served the fanciest Thanksgiving dinner (buffet style) that I'd ever seen. Not only was there turkey, stuffing, and all the usual things, but there was prime rib, lamb medallions, braised beef, caviar, sushi, well, you name it, it was probably there. Too bad I had just eaten a few hours earlier. The desserts were amazing too! I had to go back for seconds on the Tiramisu.Here's a picture of us with Creagan, and then the beautiful sunset we enjoyed from our table.So, I hope everyone had a fun happy day and found lots to be grateful for.

Blonde or Brunette?

Lately I've been getting a little tired of the "maintenance" it takes to be a blonde. But to go dark...will I ever be perceived as bubbly again? Or on a positive note, will people start to take me a little more seriously?

So I happen to have this dark curly wig, and tonight's experiment is to take a vote...you all know what I look like now, blonde, which is what I've been my whole life.

So other than the fact that it's a pretty big Texas hairstyle (no offense to all the Texans out there...) Which do you think looks better?

Happy Birthday to Krystal!

Well, isn't this fun, to send Happy Birthday wishes to my sister! She's the one who got me started on blogging, and just look at all the fun we're having. For those of you who don't know, Krystal is my older sister, older as in "13 months and 2 days" older. Because we are so close in age, we shared just about everything when we were growing up. Rooms, clothes, bathrooms, sports teams. We DID manage to make it without sharing any boyfriends, hee hee.

Krystal is the kind of sister that everyone would be lucky to have. Some great memories I have are:
1. When I missed the game winning shot at the state tournament. It was her senior year, SHE was the star of the team, and she probably wouldn't have missed. I didn't even think I could face her. But she grabbed my arm and gave me the biggest hug. That was amazing.
2. We used to go "exploring" and hiking up the hill by our house, and we pretended we had houses up there.
3. For awhile we had Tara (the third sister) sharing a room with us, and we had three beds that had wheels and could all fit underneath each other, you know, trundle beds. One night we had a babysitter, but instead of going to bed we layered the beds like a cascading waterfall and then we all held onto each other and rolled from one bed to the next, down to the floor. How many times did we do that? Probably like, 12 times.
4. We were able to take a trip to all the church history sights, back in high school, with our Uncle Tom and Aunt Gaylynn. That was such a memorable trip, too many things to mention. But I know Krystal is smiling just thinking about it. Our uncle even taught us to read a little Hebrew during the many hours spent driving.
5. We both love to read- this started when we were little. I have a faint memory of her helping me learn to read. Later on one of our favorite activities was to stick our feet in the sink with hot water, and read for hours. We'd have to keep adding hot water of course.
6. Our trip to Hawaii was a blast- it was us three sisters and our parents.
7. When we were about 11-12 years old, we made an infamous home movie where we did a cooking show, and we called ourselves 'The Kitchenettes." We taught our audience how to make "Choc-Oat-Chip Cookies." It's a real gut-buster.
8. We sang many a duet in our days. We still sing "Innkeeper" at Christmas.
9. About the same time we were doing cooking shows, we were also Wilson Phillops Wannabes. We made "music videos" of us pretending to sing all their songs. And I mean all of them.
10. I had a good one to put here...now it's slipped my mind. I'll add it in later I guess!

Krystal is the best! What can I say? She's easy to get along with, she's solid and avoids drama, unlike me, and she just has her head on straight. She's been very supportive of me, even when others haven't been, and she has been someone who's example I am always trying to catch up with. Thanks, Krystal, for always being there and for playing such a huge role in my life. LOVE YA!! Happy Birthday!

I'm still here

Hi everybody. I haven't had anything happening around here, and I can't think of anything to write about! Samuel has been in Las Vegas at a Real Estate Investment class over the weekend, so I just went shopping and out to dinner with some friends, and hung out at the apt.

Oh, and Samuel went to visit my family in St. George. That was his own choice. And it was supposed to go well, he's just trying to reach out to my family, but for those of you who know my mom, well, I don't know if we can say it ended well. I'm definitely not putting all those drama-filled details on the web!

Let me just say that it's kind of a disappointment sometimes to grow up and realize that your parents aren't as perfect as you thought. I'm not claiming to be perfect, by ANY means, nor am I claiming to have a perfect husband. But as Puumba says in the Lion King, "You gotta put your behind in the past!" :) He probably meant you gotta put the past behind you. But I wish everyone could just do that.

I Work in a Funky Building

So, let me tell you a little bit about it. My boss is in his 60's. He's Hawaiian and Japanese, and he started this company, Metropolitan Maintenance & Construction, about 30 years ago. We provide janitors to banks, doctors offices, shopping centers, and universities. And the construction part is mostly remodeling. Oh, and you should know that I work on the first (ground) floor, all by myself; my boss and the controller have an office on the second floor; He lives on the third floor, and the fourth floor could be another apartment, but right now it just stores a bunch of furniture. It's kind of San Francisco-ish, isn't it? There's even an elevator in it. So, it's pretty funny, but people randomly stop in and say, "Um...what IS this place? There is a sign on the window advertising the artwork for sale, it says "Inquire Within" so it's no surprise that people stop in. My boss is also funny about ordering "knick knacks" from catalogs. Some of them are quite expensive. He has them on display on the first floor. Let me show you the interior.This is what you see when you first walk in. Except I'm sitting in the chair. Then if you keep walking ahead, you enter "The Museum" as I like to call it. Random things everywhere.
I guess I should have turned the lights on for this picture, but oh well. You can see a couple paintings, a few masks hanging to the right, and don't miss the things hanging from the ceiling. Ha ha. I love having the whole first floor to myself. (That also explains why I get away with blogging all the time!)

Happy Halloween

Okay, so it's a few days late. But I hope everybody had a fun Halloween. I've decided that Halloween is most fun IF... 1. You're a kid 2. You have kids 3. There's a haunted house around somewhere 4. There's leftover trick-or-treat candy (or in our case, you get to eat ALL of it, since no one came! Apartment buildings...you just can't trust 'em.)
I've loved all your pictures of your kids in costume. I don't have a kid of my own, and I barely had a costume, but here's my Halloween picture. The little boy is Isaac, our neighbor. I teach him piano lessons. He came to our Halloween carnival at the church, where Samuel and I were doing a Cake Walk!

Scenic Maui

All right, my last pictures of Maui! Most of these were taken on the road to Hana. Specifically, the first picture is the Seven Sacred Pools... you've probably heard of them. The "Fern Gully" picture was taken from our waterfall hike. We had to swim through this pool to get to the last two waterfalls. And the last picture of us is just...for fun. You'll notice the waterfall in the background.

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So...have I convinced you friends and family members to come visit us yet? You better get on it! We probably won't be living here much longer.
Love ya'll! Thanks for stopping in.

Red & Black Sand Beaches

Also on the Road to Hana, you can stop and find beaches with red, black, and green sand. We only had time to stop at two, the red sand beach (which is a darker red) and the black sand beach. The black sand beach was just lava rock, smoothed and crushed by the waves. There were lots of really smooth rocks too, bigger sizes, and I took about 12 home. They are the smooth stones that are used for hot stone massages. So now I get hot stone massages at home. The other two pictures are just different shots we took at the Red Sand Beach.

Waterfalls

Maui part 2! We drove the famous "Road to Hana" and...we found out why it's famous. Because the scenery is unbelievable, not to mention the detours! We stopped about 10 times to see everything. We went on a cool hike to find 4 waterfalls.

Waterfall #1

Waterfall #3
They were beautiful. We had to swim to get to the last one, which wasn't flowing very hard. So we climbed up about halfway and jumped off. My husband the cliffjumper, he was jumping off everything he could find. :) Waterfall #4

I know we are really tiny in this one, but I wanted to show how tall it was. The water was running on our heads, but you can't really see it.

This is Jonny & Brittany, Samuel's cousins that we were traveling with. And one more waterfall on the drive.

Maui

So, I have to admit, one of the perks of living in Hawaii is the opportunity to check out other islands. Flights are only $39 each way. Samuel's cousin has a timeshare, and this year they invited us to join them at the Westin Resorts in Maui. We forgot to take our camera, so they took the pictures and they sent them over last night. There are too many for one blog, so I'll spread them out. To start with, the Villas were gorgeous. I don't think I've ever stayed in a place so nice. The views were great too.

One of the first things we did was go deep sea fishing. It's an eight hour adventure. I had never been, and I went along just to watch. I guess the thing that's so great about fishing in the deep seas is that the fish are huge, and there's a chance you can catch fish that are 300-500 pounds. (It doesn't happen everyday, but there are mini sharks and swordfish that are pretty big.) Also part of the fun is reeling the big fish in, since they fight like crazy, and you practically have to wrestle them to the ground.

Samuel caught a big Mahi Mahi. I was so proud. His cousin Jonny caught one too; They were bright royal blue when they were caught, then they turned green as the day went on. We grilled them up that night and I had to admit, they were TASTY! That's coming from me, and I don't like fish. But fresh fish is a different story! Anyway, here's some pictures.

M & M

Today I got some new pictures of my darling nephews, Maddux & Malakai. They're two months old and beautiful as can be. Nobody is surprised how cute they are, since Tara (their mom, my sister) was the most beautiful baby in the family. Above is Maddux






And this is Malakai.

Proposal

We went to Maui a few weeks ago with Samuel's cousin and wife, and we took some great pictures. I was hoping to have them by now, but not yet. So since I don't have those to post, I wanted to put this picture on. The date was August 20, 2005. I had just finished an internship at Shriner's Hospital, and I was leaving in a few days to visit my family before starting a job here in Honolulu.

Samuel told me that he wanted to go with some friends to this ancient Hawaiian village where they took you around on an old bus and cracked open and shredded coconuts and did fire dances, etc. It was a Saturday, and I thought it sounded like fun. Little did I know that the real reason Samuel wanted to go was for this reason:

I remember getting all teared up, thinking, "This is It!" He had really surprised me, so I was all flustered. Then he said, "You can take all the time you need." That's when I realized everyone was waiting for my answer! So of course I said yes!! He had set it up beforehand, and one of the Hawaiian guys had been right there with his camera to take this picture. I know some of you know that story, but I just found this picture, and wanted to share the happiness. :)

Hawaii Earthquake!!

Wow, is it ever weird to be sleeping and then to wake up because your whole house is shaking and outside it's rumbling and things are falling off shelves. It was my second "earthquake experience."

Around 7:10 a.m., an earthquake hit the west coast of the Big Island. There are reports of it being 6.5-6.7 magnitude.(It was the second largest to ever hit the islands.) It was followed by an aftershock of 6.0, and then about 12 more aftershocks.
Our power went out at 7:12 , and stayed out until 10:30 p.m. Church was cancelled, and thank goodness I had a book to read or I'd have gone crazy. Samuel missed the whole thing, because he was at a Real Estate class in San Francisco. Since I didn't have TV/radio/internet, he actually was texting me information that he was getting.

The traffic lights were all out, so they asked people to stay off the roads. Apparently not everyone did, because about every 15 minutes I could hear more sirens and ambulances.

There is serious damage to the Big Island, broken roads (picture above), landslides, and steamvents are acting up. They are just hoping there isn't unusual volcano activity as a result of the quake.

Thanks to everyone who called to check on us. We feel blessed that we were safe.

Nieces and Nephews

For those of you who don't have kids yet, maybe you'll agree with me. Nieces and nephews are the GREATEST! I am just crazy about my sisters' kids, and I usually spend a lot of money every year so I can go visit them. My older sister has been married for 6 years, and has two kids, Damon (4) and Allie (1 1/2). They are too cute and too fun for words. I spent a week with them in August. We went to Sea World, and we got soaked when it started raining. But it was hot, and it kind of felt good. Here's a picture of me and Damon.
And here's a picture of Krystal and Allie...

And last of all, here are the two latest additions to the family. My little sister was lucky enough to have twin boys in August, and they are beautiful, although they don't look a thing alike. Here I have one baby asleep, and the other is crying, about to wake up his brother any second. She's doing a great job with the little guys. It can't be easy.

I'm a Winner!

No, really, I am! A few weeks ago I was looking at the website of a local radio station, Krater96.com, and it said, "Enter to win..." so I filled out my name and phone number and forgot all about it. Until today when the radio guy called me and told me I'd won! I'm so excited! I won a free year's membership to the fitness center at the local YMCA (which works out perfect, because Samuel and I were JUST about to buy ourselves a membership there) and then I also won a new pair of Nike shoes, worth $120, I guess I get to pick them out, and then also $100 worth of Jamba Juice, my favorite place EVER! That's an $800 prize pack. Pretty cool, huh? I don't think I've ever owned a pair of shoes worth more than $80. I'll put a picture on when I pick them out. I hope they have pink. Well, just wanted to share my good news. Come to Hawaii, and I'll reward you with a Jamba Juice.

Sidewalks and Dirt Roads

Today I have something on my mind. Tripping, falling, scraping, etc. Because I just did it. If anyone caught it on video, it's going to end up on youtube.com. I just know it.

I'm afraid I don't have any fun pictures for this one. You'll have to use your imagination.

I usually walk to work, it only takes about 5 minutes. But I just bought some rollerblades for $15 from some girl. (I love craigslist.com!) So, to get a little exercise, and to get to work faster, I started rollerblading the short distance.

Today I rollerbladed home for lunch, and on my way back I was cruising down the sidewalk, and I wasn't paying close attention...yeah, you guessed it. I think I hit some uneven cement or something, but SPLAT! I went straight down, face first. Luckily my hand stopped my face from smacking down...

First thing I looked around. There, about 100 feet to my left, was a lady unpacking her grocery bags from her car. She was staring in complete disbelief. She couldn't even speak. So I got to my feet quite quickly, said, "I'm okay!" and took off, quite embarrassed. I surveyed the damage, and besides a bleeding hand and some sore spots on my chest and hips, I was okay. Except for a bruised ego. I had to laugh at myself. It reminded me of a time on my mission in Alabama. I was running fast down a dirt road with Amy Lundquist, trying to get to an appointment. I turned and yelled behind me, "Don't Fall!" And then my foot caught on a big ol' rock and down I sprawled. Oh yeah, and I was wearing a skirt. I think we laughed til we cried

So everybody, be careful on those sidewalks and dirt roads. That's all for today.

Dance Me to the End of Love

Don't you just love this picture? It's a painting by Jack Vettriano, and yes, it is titled "Dance Me to the End of Love." The reason I am thinking about it today is because my boss, a man with creative entreprenurial (spelling please??) ideas, bought about 1000 paintings from China, replicas of famous paintings, and is trying to sell them to make a buck. There is a big 3 footer of this one, and I stare at it all day at my boring job. It's so romantic, isn't it? I think I am going to put it on my "to do list before I die"...and that is to replicate this photo, with me in the white gloves. Dancing on ice, at moonlight, with a handsome dark haired man...any volunteers?
I think Samuel is in. Either that or else he's telling me how many kids he wants. Silly. (Te quiero papacito.)

I still need two more couples. Anybody?