Mele Kalikimaka

Could it be? An actual blog post on a vacation! Surely you jest! Well, it seems the impossible has happened. This isn't the whole trip, I've actually skipped over my favorite section of the trip (but fully plan on posting about it...), but this is better than, well, I've ever done. Jon and I had a blast on our trip. It was so nice getting away from it all and we will fondly remember this trip. I hope that you all enjoyed your Christmas as well...and are ready for a new, shiny year. 2009! Wow!



Sunset at my favorite beach.


Chillaxin'


This awesome country store in the ranch land where they have elk burgers. Yum!



Just enjoying ourselves...


Sorry for the blur, but it's far away, nightime, and raining cats and dogs. But still, it's lava and that's just cool.


Surfboard fence. Um, that's awesome.


Crazy road.


Looking into the Haleakala Crater.


At Julia's Roadside Stand, home of the the best banana bread on the planet. And a cool dog.



Painted Eucalyptus. They're soooo beautiful.


Nice view on the crazy road to Hana.


At Laulima Farms, coolest smoothie shop on the planet. Yes, that is a bicycle powered blender. I know, amazing.



Enjoying the fruits of our labor. Ummm, so good.


A smaller waterfall on the way to the bigger waterfall. But it's still lovely.



Bamboo Forest. So peaceful.



Enjoying the stream and waterfall after our hike (why did I hike?)



I totally am in love with Banyan Trees...


The perfect way to end a day. And a blog post.

Cocoa, quilts, and a bit of rain.

I love winter. I love cuddling up in front of the fireplace with a cup of cocoa, covered in quilts while a snow storms blows outside creating a wonderland. Granted, I don't have a fireplace, and there's certainly no snowstorm...heck, not even snow. So for now, the rain will have to substitute for the snow (at least we finally have rain!), quilts, and that cup of hot cocoa. Or maybe, a Starbucks Gingersnap Latte. Oh my.

Well, this was going to be a fun Christmas post with lots of pictures of all we've been up to, but our computer that has all the photos is wigging out, so you'll just have to do without. But it'll still be fun.

Jon and I did our Christmas tonight and it was so fun! We just got small gifts, so I got him a couple Jeremy Camp CD's, and he got me some Starbucks mugs I've been wanting, a gift card to there as well, and "The Tales of Beetle the Bard", hooray! After that we read through all the things in our Thankful Jar. It was wonderful! We had so much fun reading through them and seeing all the things God's blessed us with. And it was fun to see when ours coincided. It's DEFINITELY going to be a Christmas tradition...and will perhaps resurface outside of the holiday season.

So, now it's time for some holiday knitting and a bit of relaxing. And perhaps that cup of hot cocoa. So, you guys all ready for Christmas?

Team Edward?

I was just talking to Parker about Twilight. He was making fun of the movie and I tried to defend it by saying, "Come on Parker, you don't even know what the movie's about!"

His response? "Everybody that's seen the preview knows what it's about. It's about gay vampires pretending to be straight!"

Well, that's one theory...

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

Well, it's officially Christmas time. It's past Thanksgiving, it's December, and rumor on the street is that Parker even called it. So yes, it's Christmas.

So, now that we're in the holiday season...how the heck did we get here? Did the year fly by for anyone else or was that just me. I can't believe it's December. Oy.

My goal this year is for Jon and I to do something holiday-ish every day leading up to Christmas. Yesterday we started off with a bang and went to the mall where they have the Festival of Trees. Now people, this is something that's actually cool at our mall. I know, shocker. Anyway, various business and groups from around town put together decorated Christmas Trees with gifts galore and you can buy raffle tickets to win them. One tree has a huge flat screen, and another has a laptop, Wii, and Playstation 360. There are about 25 or 30 trees there with every theme imaginable. Yeah, totally sweet gifts for $1 tickets. It's so fun to see all the decorations and imagine winning some totally awesome prizes. It's on until Decmember 13th, so go check it out!

Tonight I have a fun surpise planned for Jon and I for Christmas goodness, but more on that later. We actually did the same thing last year, so I think it'll be the start to the Christmas season each year. Technically, we should've done that yesterday, but we had Heroes, and that took priority. :)

Yesterday as I was praying during my quiet time God was laying thankfullness on my heart. We have so much to be thankful for and I think I tend to ignore it, or just take it for granted. I don't want to be an ungrateful person, so I decided a Holiday Thankfullness Jar would do the trick. Every night, Jon and I are writing down something we're thankful for, and dropping it in the jar. Then, on Christmas we'll read them all and be able to look back on all God has blessed us with. I'm pretty excited about this, and definitely see it becoming part of our Christmas Tradition.

So, with that in mind, two questions?
1: What holiday traditions do you and your loved ones have to celebrate the season?
2: What are you thankful for?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing you all a wonderful Thanksgiving full of love, family, food, blessings, and more food.

A picture is worth a thousand words...

Chamakin?

I recently stumbled across this old post on Soule Mama and it made me smile. I love the creative spirit and I hope that it's something I inspire in the babe once she's old enough. It also made me think about what I've been making. I would say nothing, but looking back, I've actually been quite productive!

For Michael's birthday, Farah had everyone bring t-shirts. But Jon and I decided to get creative and make one instead. And what's a better theme than Heroes? Exactely. Nothing.

Michael's scarred of Mrs. Petrelli. Aren't we all?

And Carrie guessed correctly I was having a girl and so won the prize there. I made one of the cute Artsy Clutch's from Bend-the-Rules Sewing. I love this pattern, it's so simple and allows for personality to shine. Granted, the babe is stealing my brain cells and it took me forever to remember how to piece it together properly. I was really frusterated and almost broke down crying. I can't wait until I have my brain back. :)

I FINALLY started something for the babe! I have so many ideas of things I want to make her. It almost overwhelmes me, but I decided to start small and work on something that could transfer over to tv watching time and allows me to lounge on the couch.

As for that blanket...well, it's still sitting on my floor, waiting to be assembled. I need some serious motivation on this because it's just sewing up seams which is SUPER BORING. Can someone please send me an elf? Thanks.

I suppose the most important making I've done lately is the babe herself. And let me tell you, she's quite the mover and kicker. Jon FINALLY felt her kick for the 1st time on Sunday and it was so fun! He was so excited, it was adorable. Ever since then she's decided to have a dance party on a daily basis. Maybe it's all the HSM3 soundtrack listening I've been doing? Hmmmm...

Thanks for making the babe so happy, Zac.

And finally, a food making. But this was all Brittany, not me. This was her favorite food from her Japan trip, Okonomiyaki, and she was nice enough to make us all some on Monday for Heroes. Ummm, yum. Now, I love different kinds of Japanese food, but this is probably my favorite. It's sooooo good. Thanks again, Britt, you're the best!

You know you want some.

So, what are you guys making?

P.S. Yes, I know that I haven't posted about the trip yet, but seriously? I haven't even downloaded all the photos yet. Once THAT happens, expect a post. :)

The South...and Haiti

Enjoying the fall.

Hey everyone! We're back from our amazing roadtrip. I said this after our summer trip, but seriously, America is beautiful. There's so much to see, experience, taste...and there's some really nice people out there. I definitely love the South and had fun getting in the middle of it. I have a ton of pics to sort through, but I hope to catch you all up soon enough. In the meantime, here's a little something that's near and dear to my heart.

I've been an avid reader of Soule Mama for quite sometime now. She just started this new blog, Mama to Mama and I'm seriously excited about this. It's a chance for moms to connect to other moms and help out those that are less fortunate than ourselves. So it's a chance for all us crafty ladies to take our art and use it for the good of others. Super exciting, right? And guess who her first project helps out? HAITI! So excited about this! Please go check out the website to get the details, but the first project is called 'Caps to Cap-Haitian' and involves making hats for infants in a place where the infant mortality rate is very high. It's a small way to help out and I'm very excited. So, all you crafty ladies I know (whether you're moms or not), let's get going!And speaking of Haiti, please pray for them. Many people are still recovering from Hurricane Hanna (Cap-Haitian was hit especially hard). And recently a school in Petionville (about 6 miles from the BHM) collapsed. 90 have been found dead, and there are still people missing. They actually called the mission and all the men went to help out. Chris sent out an e-mail talking about how hard it was: "Pray with us for the grieving families. Names of those found alive are read off periodically. Others are still waiting and hoping. From what I saw there will only be a few that are still alive. It seems like we are going from one problem to the other here in Haiti. Pray for those that are still suffering from the hurricanes. There are still many that are living in shelters or with other families because they have no home to go back to." Many people are grieving and looking for hope right now. Unfortunately, most of them don't know they can find that in Christ.

Reformation Day and the Start of a Roadtrip...

Greetings to all from lovely Tennessee! On Friday night the Shaw's hosted a lovely People of Power Halloween Party where fun was certainly had by all.

Brad and Angelina, eat your heart out...

"I don't know, do I? Pew, pew, pew!"

Cutest.Battery.Ever. The PG workers know what they're doing.

These guys aren't afraid to throw Beckham out.

The next morning (Happy Birthday Michael!) we set off for Tennessee for the week. We had a long day of flights but they went extremely well and we arrived in Memphis. We automatically headed for food, which was of course a suggestion from Feasting on Asphault. Jim Neely's Interstate BBQ. Ummm, yum.

Me and the babe are fat and happy.

We got the sampler and I must say, this food rocks. The baked beans (sorry Michael) were the best ever, and the sausage links? Ummm, double yum.

Enjoying the food.

Proof we enjoyed the food.

After food we met up with Clay, and met his lovely lady Jacquline and hung out with the family. Today we went to church then headed for the National Civil Rights Museum. It was amazing. We didn't have nearly enough time there. It's so sad to see what our country considered acceptable as recently as 40 years ago. And not even acceptable, but as a noble goal to live up to. It's bizarre to see signs asking, "Did you do your part to aid segregation today?" that used to hang everywhere. It makes you wonder what we're doing now that will just disgust us in 30 years. I'm so glad we got to go here and learn about the great men and women of our country that have fought over the centuries to make this country a better place. Martin Luther King, Jr. was so amazing, it's sad to see the actual spot where he took his last breath. Even though he died too soon by my standards, God has a plan, and King's fight still speaks today.

Tomorrow we're headed off to the east for more adventures. Hope you're all having a great time where ever you may be.

Autumn, I think.

Well, I think it's time for the fall post. I mean, it's October 28th, you'd think there would've been an autumn post months ago. But alas, when the weather is 90 it's hard to feel like it's really fall. I mean, you can imagine all you want, but that doesn't make it real. However, this week it's started to cool down a bit, rain is scheduled to visit us this weekend, and it's Halloween for crying out loud. All these things mean fall. Other things meaning fall? Apples, scarves, getting darker earlier, apple cider, sweaters, fall leaves and colors, pumpkin patches, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin scones, pumpkin spice lattes...anything pumpkin really. Autumn, I'm so glad you're here. (Please stay awhile.)

And speaking of Halloween, how excited am I? The theme for the party we're going to is "People of Power". I can't wait to see what everyone came up with. And I tried on my outfit last night. Ahem. It's hysterical. I totally look like an idiot, which I'm not supposed to, but it'll be entertaining to say the least. Pictures surely to follow after Halloween.

Halloween 2006. Fitting since I'm so into Project Runway Season 3 right now.

As for crafty goodness, I decided to bust out the ole' sewing machine and make a top... mainly because most of mine no longer fit. I'm super excited about how it turned out, and was even able to wear it today with a long sleeve shirt underneath. See? Autumn.

The goofy faces ensue when there's lighting issues...

And I finished the lovely pink scarf and sent it off to the birthday girl, Anissa! I hope you had a wonderful day Anissa...and I must say you look great in pink. Scarves? Autumn.

Hi Anissa. I miss you. Please move back to CA.

Also super exciting, my favorite actor at PCPA (although he may just be my fav actor period), Michael Jenkinson, is of course staring in many of next season's shows, but is going to be Marius in Les Mis. SO.EXCITED.ABOUT.THIS.SHOW. If you haven't seen Les Mis, don't miss this one guys. It's sure to be amazing. (Okay, this one has nothing to do with autumn, but it makes me just as happy as it being autumn, so there you go.) Picture courtesy of http://www.pcpa.org/

Hi, my name's Michael and I deserve to be on Broadway.

And finally, Little Miss Sunshine is doing good. I have a feeling Jon and I are going to have a fiesty child. She's already displayed so much personality. Yesterday at my appointment they were checking the heart beat but she was moving around so much they were having trouble getting a reading on it. I sat there for about 2 minutes while they ran the thing over my stomach listening for her heart. All of sudden, she started kicking like crazy. I'm sure she was in there saying, "Get this thing off me, this is my space!" It was pretty cute though. Jon still hasn't felt her kick, even though I tell her to kick her daddy often. Hopefully she starts listening to me! (Oh, and you guys can be praying. My thyroid level is a little off. Nothing to worry about, but something they're monitering. I'd rather not be on some medication, so a normal thyroid level would be wonderful.)

I hope you have a wonderful week whether it feels like fall to you or not!

My husband rocks...

My wonderful husband decided to take me on a little weekend get-a-way in lieu of my upcoming birthday. And can I just say, this was honestly the best present. Ever.

Fall in all it's glory

It started Friday afternoon, where we drove up to Three Rivers and stayed the night just outside the park. We relaxed and watched tv and allowed ourselves to do nothing. Quite the little treat.

Having a good time

We woke up the next morning and headed into Sequoia and King's Canyon National Parks. It only took us about 15 minutes to get in the park, but then you have to drive about an hour to get to all the "good stuff". But let me just say, although it doesn't seem to be fall in my little neck of the woods, autumn has certainly reached this area. It was SO beautiful. The winding river, the reds and yellows of the trees, and animals everywhere. Okay, random fact about me. I LOVE animals in nature. Not so much as pets, but wild animals are so, stinking, cool. Just ask Jon and Amy. I freaked out at every animal we saw on the roadtrip, whether it be a rabbit, deer, or a buffalo. (Especially the buffalo. I love the tatonkas.) So, we saw a bear, and since it was from the comfort and safety of our car, I was super stoked.

We finally made it to the center of the park, and there was so much cool stuff to see. The Sequoia's are breathtaking. They're so huge they seem to defy gravity. And they're everywhere!
We did a couple little hikes, nothing too strenous, and just took in the glory of nature. I grew up in a State Park, so I really love the outdoors, especially mountains. It was so refreshing to be there and away from all the stress and worries of everyday life. So after our few hikes, we grabbed some lunch, and made our way to Moro Rock...

Big intimidating mountain...

A bit more strenuous than our little meadow hikes, but certainly worth it. The view from up there is phenomenal. God certainly is an amazing and creative God.

On the top! Yeah for preggo lady kicking the stairs butt!

And then, there was another encounter with a bear. NOT from the comfort and safety of our car. Having grown up around bears, I know what they're capable of. Hence, when I saw the bear, I refused to get closer. My husband however, was like a kid in a candy store, literally running down to get a picture of it. Great. I told him he wasn't allowed to go, and he didn't listen. The nerve! :) I eventually moved down there, but was glad to keep my distance, and also ready to run if need be. It was about 100 feet from us, but really could care less about the 20 tourists taking pictures of it eating. It eventually wandered off, as did we...

Mean bear that is eating...yeah, eating, not attacking, but still scary.

We then made our way out of Sequoia, and into King's Canyon. Jon reserved a little cabin for us there being a nice husband that didn't expect his preggo wife to camp out and walk outside 5 times a night to find a bathroom. They have these cute duplex's and triplex's you can reserve. However, there is one single cabin known as the "Honeymoon Cabin" that has a bigger bed and is a little larger than the rest. For some reason, this was avaliable and they gave it to us. Score! Now, I have this odd fantasy about wishing I was a pioneer women that lived in the Old West with her farmer husband and lived off the land. This was a chance to do that. No tv, no wireless (okay, there was electricity and running water, don't judge me). There was a cute little porch to sit on and look at the stars, and a thick quilt to cuddle under to avoid the cold. (There was also a heater, but again, not the point.) Again, this was great because I figure I'll never live out my fantasy unless:
a. I build a time machine (not likely), or
b. Nuculear fallout (not good).

Can I live here?
I suppose I could become Amish, but that doesn't sound as fun as the others. (Wait, being Amish doesn't sound as good as a nuculear fallout? That OBVIOUSLY came out wrong. Proof the babe is indeed stealing my braincells and making me say stupid things. To all Amish reading this...wait...anyways, I apoligize.)

Cute inside. Sigh...

Okay, funny story. I'm definitely not used to so much activity in one day, so by dinner I was pretty hungry. There was a great restaurant by our cabin and I had a cup of Minestone Soup, and the biggest Ceaser Salad you've ever seen. Seriously. I also had the majority of some potato/jalepeno appetizers, and some of Jon's milkshake. We headed back to the cabin, and I munched on some almonds and a banana. Still being hungry, I polished off most of Jon's leftover pasta, and an apple. And a Cliff Bar. Also, a Nalgene full of water. Yeah, and I was still hungry. But I was pretty much out of food at this point, and also sick to death of eating. I went to sleep, and woke up, well hungry. :)

The babe enjoying herself. And sucking all of mom's energy.

The next morning we got up and did a couple things around Grant Grove where we were centered. We then packed up from our little cabin (tears...I'll miss you) and headed into the heart of King's Canyon. It's about an hours drive down, down, down this intense canyon. We wound around the river and eventually made our way into fire country. It being the last week of their season, they were doing controlled burns. It was kinda fun to see, but also made picture taking less enjoyable, and breathing more difficult. But it was also nice becasue there was almost no one there. I felt like we had the whole park to ourselves. We headed as far from the fire as we could and had a lovely picnic lunch by the river. We then did a meadow hike which was surely my favorite thing by far. For half of it you wound around the river, the other you climbed over these huge rock slides. It was phenomenal.


When we hit the Road's End, it was time to head back to real life. We drove back into society and cell phones and, well, the 21st century. But I'm so happy for our little step into nature and a simpler time where you enjoy God's creations; trees, rivers, animals, and family. Thanks for a stellar birthday, baby.

(Oh, and the winner of the prize is Carrie Swenson! Carrie, can you e-mail me your address? Expect something fun in the mail! Thanks everyone for playing. You're the best supportive friends and family a girl (two girls!) could have. And by two girls, I mean me and the babe. No, still no twins.)