Hawaiian Adventure: the beginning!

(Yes, I am completely drenched here thanks to the 42 days of straight rain that came right after I moved here)

For the last 4 1/2 years I have lived on this tiny island in literally the middle of nowhere!! I moved here Jan 15 2006 to do an internship with the Navy at Pearl Harbor for 3 months. I was so excited for many reasons some being, I had always dreamed of living in Hawaii for 3 months( I really always wanted just 3 months), I had a rough time the previous fall semester mostly due to dating then not-dating then dating again the same person. Mostly I was just excited for a change and I knew that it was only for a few shorts months. I will never forget my friend Pam at my going away party in SLC telling me that it was only 3 months and that nothing ever changes in 3 months. Well normally that is true but for me everything changed.

(My room that I lived in for 6 months, small but came with a maid!!)
When I got here I didn't really know anybody and had never been here before so it was all exciting and scary. The nice thing was there was 5 other interns with me that came from all over the country so at least we had each other to do things with.

The interns: Sarah, Alex, Allison, Matt, Carrie and Me. Our first leis!
We had a lot of fun all hanging out, the hardest thing was we had no cars, it was so hard to be on this beautiful island and not be able to just go see it all. We did a lot of biking, a lot of bus riding and a lot of Walking(especially when we would miss our bus stop, we seemed to do that a lot)

(Me, Trisha, Jamie)

There was a few people that I knew here and one I owe a lot to because without her I probably would not have met Jared. My first day out here was a Sunday and I called Trish, who was a friend from my ward in SLC who lived out here and she was hanging out with our friend Aaron who was out here visiting. They had just gone to the Singles branch and mentioned that if I was looking to date someone then I probably wouldn't find anybody in the branch. Aaron said it was slim pickins. I was DEFINITELY NOT looking for anybody to date since I had just gone through a bad break-up so Iwasn't really concerned about it. (Once I went to church I was actually surprised that they were more options than they made it seem, but compared to our SLC ward it was slim pickins.)

My aunt and uncle were out here on mission serving at the Temple visitor center so it was nice to know that some family was close by even if it took me 1 1/2 hours to get to them by bus. Their son Kerry and his family were also here, he was teaching at BYUH so it was fun to see them as well. The bummer was their mission ended a months or so after I got here, but it was nice just to have some piece of home here even if just for a little bit.

I became instant friends with Jamie, we were both doing the same thing with pretty much the same major and we both ended up extending our time here. We had so much fun.

I had the coolest internship ever. I worked at the Outdoor Adventure Center on Pearl Harbor. In the shop we rented out all sorts of fun equipment but the real fun came on all the excursion we led. I did a lot of hiking, snorkeling, surfing, ropes courses, dolphin excursions, special events for the sailors and their families and anything else you can do outside here.

I went to the Big Island with Matt, Carrie and Allison. We got some Shaved Ice (yummy!), the sign said they were big and it was right, they were big shaved ice.

The Arizona building aka my home for 6 months.

The one and only time that I have actually done the Pearl Harbor tour, but don't you worry we are scheduled to do the private military tour here soon and I have gone to the USS Utah memorial many a times.

Brayden and Kansas my two buddies out here. Brayden and I became really close and hung out all the time. They were so much fun!! Love them! I decided before I got here that I was just going to try and make a lot of friends right away since I only had a short time and it was awesome to have such great friends so fast.

Some of the gang from church, notice that Jared is there, this is pre-dating time for us. The other interns were pretty amazed that I had a whole group of friends so fast. It just made me realize how great the church is, anywhere you go you can instantly have some great friends.

The interns and I met some great young sailors who had just arrived on the island and spent a lot of time with them. This is the only picture I could find of Ed, who became a dear friend. He was so sweet and innocent, who knows what has happened now that he has been on a sub for 4 years. I hope he is still the same.

I could not share the beginning of my Hawaiian adventure without sharing my sweet ride. I got so tired of not being able to get places except by bus or having friends drive me so I found this beautiful thing. This is the first car that I ever bought and I loved it. I paid $300 dollars for it and had to actually tie the muffler on so that I could get it on to base. For Jamie and me this car brought freedom, even if we couldn't go too far in it, we could go and that was all that mattered to us. Isn't she beautiful!! I really wish I could have taken off the hood and hung it on my wall.

(In the background is the destroyer)

By far the coolest thing I got to do for my internship was ride a Navy Destroyer Ship from Oahu to Maui and back. The Captain contacted my boss about setting up a camping trip in Maui for the sailors, basically we just had to plan a trip and provide the gear. Nothing beats a free trip to Maui on a navy ship no less.

On the way over they let everybody tour the boat and even drive it. Here I am taking my turn at it.

Our room for the first night. We got in too late to camp so we stayed aboard the first night and then camped the second night. Definitely tight quarters, don't know if I could ever be a sailor.
On the way home we got to shoot clay pigeons off the deck of the ship, so cool and I hit 3 out of my 5 not bad for being on a moving ship!

Eating dinner in Lahaina, Maui with Alex the intern and Aj our amazing boss. Technically she wasn't our boss but was in charge of all the outdoor adventures so she became our mentor. One of the coolest ladies ever a true hippie!(Notice my racoon face, it took 7 hours to get there by ship and I fell asleep on the deck for a few of those. It was cold and overcast so I didn't think about sunscreen. Oops!)
This was the exact moment that changed the course of my life. They offered all of us interns the opportunity to stay on another 3 months if we wanted and I just could not decide. I would go back and forth. The biggest reason that I didn't want to extend was because I would miss my college graduation. I know most people would gladly choose Hawaii over a boring graduation but I had worked really hard and paid my way through college and it just felt as though it would not be official unless I was there. As I was sitting at this restaurant eating dinner I had the thought "would I regret if I stayed?-Probably Not, but would I regret if I didn't?- Yes I probably would. So here in this moment I decided to stay and the very next Sunday is when I first met Jared.

Babies and Puppies my two favorite things!!

We attempted to have family pictures taken last week but the weather was kind of crazy and it just didn't turn out very well. We are going to try again next week, hopefully the weather and the child cooperates this time. There were a few cute ones.

Kailie wore her headband for a whole maybe two minutes, little squirt.

The best part of the day was this super adorable puppy that was on the beach. My friend Aj who was the photographer, her husband brought him over to help get Kailie to smile it definitely worked. She loved, loved, loved the thing and he as you can tell loved her just as much.

Doesn't it make you want a puppy!! It made Jared want a puppy so you know that that was one cute puppy if Jared even admitted that he would want a puppy. Seriously can I just eat them both for dinner.
Too cute!!

The puppy just followed Kailie everywhere so cute
and she of course just laughed and loved it all.

One of the cute shots!

Help Help:I am trying to decide what we should wear for our next photo shoot. I love Kailie's little Hawaiian dress and the color matches the water so great but it is such a hard color for us too match. I am not good at putting things together so if you have any advice that would be great. I have been looking at lots of family beach photos online and it seems that all white or white with Khaki looks good. What do you think option 1: Kai and I in white dresses, Jared in white shirt with Khakis Option 2: Kai in the above dress and then me in a brown, blue, tan and Jared in probably the same shirt? Or Option 3: anything you think would look good. I don't know this things! Help

John and Sammie Visit

Jared's Brother John and his wife came out to visit the end of April. It was nice to have family out and to just relax. They stayed at Ko'Olina which is a beautiful resort.

Cuddling with Aunt Sammie, man she never cuddles with me!!

Realized I had never written Kai's name in the sand!

Getting buried by Daddy!

Very rare that we are all at the beach together.

Going to dinner at Haliewa Joe's one of our favorites. Kailie was a super stinker at dinner and then at the end she was eating all the food she dropped on the floor around a her highchair. Yeah we are the best parents.

The sunset on our way to dinner.

Hot tub time or Heaven time for Kailie!!

Playing on the rocks.
Thanks John and Sammie for helping us have such a great time.
Love you guys! I hear that Syracuse has a nice timeshare you can look into!!

Miss Mischievous

Kailie has definitely turned into a mischievous little girl. I swear every time I turn around she is either in, on or gotten into something.

She finally learned that pens right on her as well as on paper. Now I am waiting till she figures out that they work on walls too.

Water is her obsession, no matter what form, drinking, bath-tub, puddles, ponds, drinking water fountains, water fountains say like on the temple grounds, the ocean, pools, hot tubs and even dirty ponds. If there is water around you can bet that Kailie is either in it, drinking it, or trying to get into it.

She loves to climb inside things and is not scared in the slightest if you close the door and she is in the dark, she just laughs!
One day as I was loading clothes into the washer, Kailie of course was in the room with me since she is my little shadow. I opened the cabinet door to grab out the detegerent, poured it into the washer and turned back around. Kailie was gone so I assumed she left the bathroom, right as I am walking out I see the cupboard door open as much as it can with child latches on. The little squirt in like 2 seconds had climbed in and shut the door.
Anywhere that has an opening you bet she is going to climb in and check it out.

On!! Yep she can climb on to our tall kitchen table. Thankfully she hasn't learned to pull the chairs out yet. When we move we will definitely get a shorter table.

This is my favorite mischievous thing she has been doing lately. One day shortly after she was diagnosed, Jared, Carolyn(J's-Mom) and I were out in the living room and we had put Kai down for a nap. She was all quiet for almost an hour and we went to check on her and there she was sitting in her crib pulling apart all the cotton balls that we had in there for her blood checks. She shredded almost the whole bag and then threw them on the ground. Since then she has gotten into her garbage can,glucose monitor and anything else she can reach on her side table. I never know when she is quiet during nap time if she is sleeping or destroying usually it is both, destroy then sleep. Little stinker and you can see by the photo that she thinks she is so funny!

She has started to say a few more words. Before she was diagnosed Jared was all concerned about her speech and made me take her to the speech therapists at his work, she scored below average on her speech but I was nor ever really worried about it. At some point she is going to talk. The only words she said then were Mom and daddy and tick tock which she pronounced tih tah, so cute. After diagnosis she started saying more words like doggy, birdy, baby, thank you, and my favorite Uh-oh which she says the most. It will definitely be nice when she starts using words that are helpful like more or water, yes and no. Right now if you ask her any question she just shakes her head no so I never no if she actually means it or not.

Here is a video of her playing the water at her friend Savannah's Birthday Party!

Dole Plantation

(Kailie right after the worker put this dole hat on her, she gave him this look like what you doing to me!!)

Kailie and I took a little trip up to the Dole Pineapple Plantation a few weeks ago. It was fun and something that I hadn't really done yet. The only sad part was we didn't have time to try a dole whip, everyone is always talking about them, so maybe we will have to make a quick stop in another time to try one.

I am still amazed even after living here for over 4 years how beautiful all the flowers and plants are here. There were many that I had never seen before such as these two crazy plants.

Then there is the common ones like this Hibiscus flower that comes in many, many different colors!

I have see lots of funky trees out here but I don't think I have ever seen this one. It almost looks as though it is growing elephant tusks.

This one is cool, if you click on it too enlarge it you can see the black, creepy, slimy bugs that are on it. There were very mean looking.


Can you find the critter hanging out on the Papaya's

I had never seen a red pineapple before but they were all over the place.
Anybody ever tried one before?

After walking through the garden and taking many Photos Kailie was ready to play. She fed the crazy fish forever.

When she got bored feeding the fish she went on to chase the birds.

Then decided it would be fun to feed the fish these big tree things

She found a whole branch of them and would pull one off then throw the big bunch on the ground, then go throw the the piece to the fish then come back and repeat the process until she got the idea to throw the big branch in to the pond and at that I stepped in, she didn't like that very much.


I actually got her to look through the hole long enough to take a picture.

Then it was off to ride the Pineapple Express.

Lets just say Kailie wasn't the best toddler as we waited in line and boarded the train.

But after a few minutes she calmed down and was pretty good during the ride.

I couldn't pass up the chance to take this picture. If you look closely at the sign it says New York 4972 miles that way. How appropriate since we will soon be living 4972 miles away!!

The day has finally arrived!!

What day you ask???

The day that Kailie turned 18 months which means she can officially go to nursery now. Wohoo!!
Not that we have been counting down the days or anything!! Although I must admit that before the Diabetes I was really looking forward to it and now I am nervous. Today I took her in and let her play while I talked with the nursery workers and found out how it all works. She of course had a blast and didn't want to leave. Next week we will put her in full time and then just maybe I will get to go to sunday school and actually be able to listen for once.