Hawaiian Adventure the 2nd beginning!

Now is where Jared comes into play. Jared was in the same singles branch as me the whole time but I never talked to him until March 19th. I had to give a talk in church and I guess previous to that Jared had noticed me but thought that I was a 19 yr. old and to young for him than after I gave my talk since I was so "mature" he thought I was older. The funniest thing is that he said he knew that I was older once he actually talked to me that day and noticed that I had wrinkles by my eyes. How sad that that is how he knew I was older. :)

After church that Sunday he invited Jamie and I over for some Navajo tacos at his place. I was just excited one: because I love food and after living in a hotel for 3 months I jumped at the chance and two: I found out he was an ENT doctor and of course I wanted to ask him about my chronic throat problems. At that point I hadn't really even thought about dating him, seeing as I was on a dating hiatus and just having fun.We hung out a few times and then I found out he listened to Patti Griffin and then I started to realize that we had a lot in common. Eventually he got the guts to ask me out. Our first date was on April 7th, we went to Haliewa Joe's and then hiked to some pillboxes that overlook the ocean and a couple of little islands. It was a great first date and we hit it off. Every thing else in my life was changing, the interns were all getting ready to go home and Jamie was leaving for a while so I was sad that everyone was leaving, but happy to have Jared around to keep me busy!

Right in the middle of all these changes these three guys came out to visit and we had an amazing time. Rob to my right was one of my best friends in SLC and was and is so dear to me. The other two are good friends too so we had a blast. I think we watched either the sunset or sunrise every single day they were here. We went and went and went, until my car died, then we went in my friend Ed's car.

We discovered this amazing breakfast place. Still to this day these pancakes rule the pancake world or should I say the Macadamia Nut sauce that goes on top rules the pancake world.

If you are every here on Oahu you must go here but expect a 1 to 1 1/2 hour wait. The place is called Boots N' Kimos and it is in Kailua. Yummy!!

The guys crashed in my hotel room, I kind of felt bad that I had this huge bed all to myself and they were all crammed on the floor, but hey it was a free place to stay in Hawaii. While they were out here I of course told them about Jared and that we had gone on date. One day we were hanging out in Chinatown and Jared called me to ask me on a second date, after that Rob told me that I was going to marry Jared and I thought that he could be right. On our second date we went Kite surfing or more kite flying on the beach. It was super fun and scary, those kites are strong! The third date we went to the golfing range, before I met Jared, I didn't like golf or golfers at all. I thought it was a stupid sport and that they were all snuty. I eventually really enjoyed golfing and became good at some parts of it.

Jamie moved back and we did a lot of hanging out on the beach!
No wonder I got so tan!

Jared and I spent all of our free time together and moved really quickly from dating to serious in just a few weeks.

Of course we had our rival going on, him in his BYU hoodie and me in my Utah hoody! Don't worry though, really I am still a cougar!

(Heather, ?, Helene, Me, Jamie, Brandi, Heidi)

The time eventually came that I my internship was coming to an end and by this point Jared and I were pretty much engaged, minus the ring and actual proposal. This was my first Aloha Oe and such a sad one. I loved all the people in my branch and was so sad of course to be leaving Jared.

Jared made this beautiful lei for me, isn't it pretty?

(Right after he proposed)

June 19th was my last day here and that night Jared recreated our whole first date except this time he brought his guitar and a shiny little rock with him. When we got to the pillbox, he sang some songs and then eventually got down on one knee and proposed. So crazy!! I was so scared, excited and nervous all at the same time.

The next morning I woke up with a sore finger, because the ring was so heavy since I wasn't used to wearing anything. I was all worried that I wouldn't even be able to wear it but eventually I got used to it. I flew back to Utah that morning having my whole life completely changed and no idea where I was going to live or work until Oct 7th which was the wedding date.

Pretty ironic that we leave exactly 4 years to the date of our engagement, June 19th!

Before and right after we got married I was not super excited about living in Hawaii for another 4 year. All of my good friends were moving off island so I was sad and felt very alone, now here I am totally sad to be leaving!
As I am writing this, I am sitting in our almost completely empty apt on our last night in it and cannot believe that our time here is over. It feels like we have been living in this weird dream world and now we are going back to reality. This is Home to us now. We have so many dear friends that we have made here. Hawaii is all that we have known together as a couple and it is scary to think that in a week we will get on a airplane with only a one-way ticket.

Hawaii has definitely been good to me and I will always have all the fond memories that I have made here. Can you imagine where I would be right now had I not decided to extend my internship, I definitely would not have this little squirt and I cannot imagine life with out her!

Soo Tired!!

Two Sundays ago, Kailie went to her first day of nursery and loved it. Usually I try to get her down for nap before church or she takes one during EQ/RS but she didn't take one in the morning and then she was in nursery so she didn't get one at all. We got home and had just over an hour until we were supposed to go to dinner at the missionary couples house in our ward so I didn't put her down, big mistake!! Right as we started eating dinner Kailie just started freaking out. She wouldn't eat, she didn't even want some of her favorite things. She threw her first full fledged temper tantrum that lasted the whole dinner. She just layed on the floor under our chairs kicking and screaming. It was pretty funny because we really didn't know what she wanted so we couldn't even calm her down. We had already given her her insulin so we knew that she needed to eat something. We offered her ice cream and brownies and she would't even eat those either. So we ended up leaving pretty fast to get her to calm down. Here is the hilarious video of her eating at home. Obvioulsy she was just super tired and melted down. FYI-I don't usually let Kailie eat in her Sunday dress but Jared was the one that set her up to eat and by then it was already all over her!!

Memorial Day

We have had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. We got to do a lot of hiking and and just spend time together as a family and with some great friends and it is all possible due to these men and women who gave their lives to keep us free.

Every year growing up we always went to the cemetery on Memorial Day to visit families graves but this was the first year that I got to go to a war memorial cemetery. Jared had never gone to a cemetery on Memorial day and he really enjoyed it. It was calm and peaceful and just made you think about those who came before.

At Punchbowl National Memorial Cemetery there are 30,000 soldiers along with some of their wives and children that are buried there. Every year the boy scouts place a flag and a flower lei onto every single grave.

I took this picture and when I got home I looked at it more closely and realized this young soldier died on his 24th birthday during WWII. So many of the WWII graves were young men in the prime of their lives and it just makes me grateful to them for their sacrifice.
May we always Remember their Sacrifice

Memorial Day Weekend Adventures

We had a really great Memorial day weekend even though Jared was on call. The best part is that this was Jared's LAST weekend of Call in residency and his last holiday call of residency!! WOHHOOO!! We are very excited about this and am grateful that the call pager was so nice to him to this weekend. Saturday night we hiked KOKOHEAD crater, this was mine and Kailie's second time doing this killer hike and Jared's first. He got the privilege of carrying the little squirt up it, I had my turn last time and we were both huffing and puffing the whole way.

We hiked it in the evening so it wasn't too hot and it was beautiful and nice to see a little bit of the sunset.

View at the top.


We hiked with our dear friends Andrea and Justin who we are going to miss so much here in a few weeks.

Sunday we just got to hang out together at home, which never happens on Sunday, it was nice and relaxing and gave our sore bodies a chance to recover for our next hike which we did on Monday.

We hiked to Maunawilli Falls and according to all the websites this was a nice, easy hike. Maybe it was just because we had a lot of kiddos with us but this hike did not seem easy and was definitely longer than we thought

But we eventually all made it! Jared enjoyed jumping off a really high cliff into the waterfall pool and Kailie enjoyed playing with Savannah in the water.

My good friend Mykel from SLC is here, she and her friends joined us on the hike. Her brother Rob also a very dear friend of mine came out here 4 years ago and we started this same hike but it was rainy and we decided not to finish it, so pretty ironic that I finally do the hike after all this time with Mykel.

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.