Mele Kalikimaka!

Hello! There's nothing new to report, but I finally got some pictures I've been meaning to take for a while. This is at a shopping plaza in Haleiwa, just a few minutes from our house.

(Sorry it's blurry. It's hard to get sharp pictures at night.)

(That's a close-up of the lights on one of the trees.)



Hope you all have wonderful decorations to enjoy, wherever you are! Aloha!

December Update

Sorry -- we didn't take any pictures over Thanksgiving! We were invited to spend the day with a family in our ward, along with several other "orphan island" couples. We really enjoyed spending the day with a big group of people. It felt like a family! (And "Charades" rocked!)

After our trips to the mainland -- of which we also did not take any pictures -- we came back to the island, just in time to celebrate our two-year anniversary! How did we celebrate? By buying this:

Yup! Our very first car! It's a 2007 Toyota Camry LE. We LOVE it! ...Well, maybe we just love that it starts every time we go to turn it on... or that it doesn't get two flat tires in one mile... or that the engine doesn't threaten to explode every time we attempt a hill. Either way, we love it. We're so glad to have a car that we can rely on. We feel so very blessed, and are very thankful for our car.

We also went to check out Triple Crown, the World Series of surfing here on the island... but we were too late. :( It was still fun to watch people surfing. lol, Plus, Dave was able to get a T-shirt for half off, since the competition was already over. :)

This was just a pretty view we stopped to take a picture of before we left. I accidentally got a truck in one of the shots. I thought it would make an awesome ad for the car company though, lol. Dave thinks I should sell them the picture. What do you think?

Happy Halloween!

The formatting on this blog is SUPER annoying, so I don't want to say very much. We went to a Halloween/ Deployment party last night. This is a shot of some of the boys: Oliver (a monk), Jordan (Forrest Gump), John and baby Kennedy (white trash family), and Dave (80's workout guru).

Oliver and his wife, Breanne (midievil princess), and their baby Johnny (dinosaur).

Lala (grapes) and her husband, Rusty (Rafael from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).

My face! Since I didn't have a costume, I thought this would work. I thought it turned out so cool!

I was also going to try something cool with my hair, but I didn't have everything I needed. Plus, I ran out of time. :) I liked the way it turned out, though.

Happy Halloween, and Happy first day of November!

"There's a giant on the beach!"

Dave and I went to the beach -- me with my hopes of seeing turtles in the water -- as the sun was setting yesterday, and we came across a huge sea turtle on the sand! (I made Dave run back home and get the camera.)

How awesome is this?!

(This is me speaking fish.)

Turtle portraits.

People portraits.

Somebody was being a party pooper, and didn't want to play with the turtle.

Fun memories!

Night on the Town

Dave and Ryan planned a double date for their wives, but they surprised us by not telling us what we'd be doing. Those little sneaks!

I was having a little trouble getting the camera to work.

After a quick dinner at The Cheesecake Factory, we headed off to our activity:
Watching the play "Les Miserables" at the Diamond Head Theater!

Brandi and I were both very surprised, and we all loved it!

This is Ryan and Brandi's interpretation of the music.

Yea for Les Mis!

Such a fun night! We girls can't wait for the next one! :)

Making Waves

We needed a day to ourselves, so we did a little shopping, then hit the beach!

There's nothing like a near-death experience to bring a couple closer together. :) We had fun. I think next time, though, we won't be so quick to go so far out in a rip current!

For the Saturday afternoon session of General Conference, we were invited to the Lang's house, along with a few other couple from our ward. It was fun! After Conference, we hung out on the beach right outside their house!

That's me! Isn't the water so beautiful and clear?

Some of the other people in our ward.

This is boogie boarding, or bodyboarding, as the professionals call it. Aren't I so hard core in the gigantic 50-foot waves?

There were actually sea turtles swimming with us in the water! I came up on the beach, and Dave said there was one right behind me! I don't know if you can see it, but it's the dark blob just to the right of me in the picture.

1,000 Words

All 88 keys!

This is our new piano! We found an amazing deal, and just couldn't pass it up. It's a Roland MP-60 digital piano, complete with a library of 65 songs! I still have a lot of catching up to do as far as skills go, but it's been fun playing again. I also did a lot of research on the Internet, and I came across a TON of sheet music, so I'm excited to play more "pop culture" kinds of songs that I know and love.

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Desperate times call for desperate measures...



I discovered, amidst our adventures of house training, that Vixen had a tendency to use the bathroom as soon as Dave shut the door behind him for work. Not elated at the opportunity to clean up urine at 6:30 in the morning, I started bringing my pillow and blanket to the futon every morning to keep an eye on her. This has created a bittersweet daily routine for me; but hey -- as long as she's cuddled up and asleep beside me, that means she's not off peeing somewhere in the house!

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Grandma Clark and Grandma Ridge, I mostly wanted to take these pictures for you! Aren't they beautiful? These were just a few on our short walk to the beach!

Sunset on the beach! Dave and I went for a much-needed walk at the perfect time of day! We also took a book ("The Hobbit") and I read out loud to him. I think that has become one of our favorite things to do together.

ABOVE: It's hard to see here, but there are two sailboats on the horizon. BELOW: What an evening to remember the camera! The sunset was gorgeous. The pictures are blurry, but that's what happens with lower lighting. Just squint and pretend they're sharp! In these first two pictures, there was a streak of blue under the moon, and we thought it looked pretty cool.

These are the kinds of pictures you've been expecting, aren't they? :) We're glad to finally have some typical Hawaiian sunset/ beach shots, and that we can share them with you all!