It's been 2 months since I last posted??

Okay, wow, time has flown! I may have to change the title of my blog, because life has been actually pretty exciting lately. Here's a quick rundown of our non-boring lives lately:

1. We are moving! Only one mile, mind you, but we are moving! Our landlords decided to raise the rent for this fall, and while we don't hate our current place, it just seemed like we could get a much better value elsewhere. So we started apartment hunting. It wasn't easy, because we were looking for a place with *more* space and most of the1 bedroom apartments around here are tiny (college town). In fact, a lot of the 2 bedrooom apartments around here are tiny too! We started feeling like maybe our apartment wasn't so overpriced after all and maybe we would just stay...

Then we found an apartment that was *really* nice--newly remodeled, had a dishwasher, nice tile floors, granite counter in the bathroom, etc. It was smaller than our current place, but it had a carport and the lady was going to let us store some of our stuff in the basement. And it was cheaper than our current place (so definitely cheaper than our current place would be in the fall). The only problem: she was trying to lease it *now*, not in August. We started considering subletting our apartment and moving right away. I put our apartment up on craigslist to see if we'd get any response. We got one guy who was pretty interested, so we told the lady we wanted to sign the lease. "Oh," she said. "Someone else just signed it today." Doh. (So, Amers, I can empathasize with a small part of your recent house-hunting frustrations!)

We were back to square one. We thought we'd probably just stay here after all. Then, Kevin got really interested in a duplex up on craigslist. This one was also trying to lease in April and not August, but since we previously had opened our minds to the possibility of subletting, we decided to look into it. We went and saw it, and we LOVED it. It has 2 bedrooms, a FULL (unfinished) basement with a washer/dryer (heaven!!) and a nice little yard with a garden. The price is very reasonable--higher than we would be paying in the fall, but we felt like it was a much better value. So we did it! We signed the lease. And, we found a subletter too! She's signed her sublease. So now, all we have to do is move, which we're doing in less than 2 weeks. Craziness!

2. My little brother is going to take my family (parents, siblings, and spouses) on a trip to Mexico (Cozumel, which is close to Cancun.) He works for Epic games and just got a giant, humongous bonus for this game he worked on (Gears of War 2), and he insisted he wanted to spend some of it in this way. It turns out direct flight tickets from Chicago to Cancun cost less than $300!! That's cheaper than flying home to New Mexico usually. We're all going to stay in this big beachhouse that Matthew's renting. We leave at the end of May--awesome!!

3. And...I'm going to Ireland in June! I know, I know--it's right after Mexico. I'm going to be a world-class traveler! Kevin got a paper accepted into this prestigious conference in Ireland, and I decided to come with him. My reasons were the same as when I went with him to Germany--the hotel and Kevin's plane ticket are already paid for by Purdue, so it will cost a lot less for me to tag along than it would if we just both up and went for fun. We don't have any kids yet and that probably won't be the case for much longer (I said that 2 years ago too...hmm....hopefully it's much truer this time), so it was the chance of a lifetime. Well, twice in a lifetime apparently. I'm way excited about it, but I actually feel kind of guilty about it too. I mean, I have been so blessed to go on so many amazing trips lately--Germany, Hawaii, now Mexico and Ireland. It's really not fair that I get to do this many and lots of people haven't been on any. And even though it's a great deal to go to Ireland without having to foot the whole bill, it still will cost a good chunk of money for the part I do have to pay for. It's not that we can't afford it, but it somehow feels...frivilous maybe? But then again, we really won't have these opportunities forever. And I really have treasured the memories of our previous trips. I never ever would have ever imagined myself going to these places--when I was younger I just never saw myself as the traveling type. But when opportunity knocks, how can I not answer?

Day 16: Yes, we were there for 16 days!

Our last day in Hawaii was pretty laid back. We attended a temple session with Heidi in the morning, which was really nice. Then, Heidi took us up to see Laie Point (a small rocky peninsula). On our walk up there, we passed by a monk seal sleeping on the beach. Monk seals are one of the few native Hawaiian animals, and they are endangered, so it was a real treat to see one! You're actually not allowed to get too close to them by law, but we didn't even notice it until we were really near...and we needed to pass by that stretch of beach somehow! At least we made sure to stay back some and not disturb it. But, um, let's just keep these photos between you and me, so as to avoid any awkward questions.

When we got back, we took a half hour or so and sat on Heidi's beach chairs to say goodbye to the ocean. Then, it was time for dinner. With a stop at Heidi's kids' school music performance, we were off to the airport with Brian. Kevin and I parted ways again to get on two different airlines (his left first) and I was left to mourn the loss of paradise alone. I found solace by drowning my sorrows in chocolate covered macadamia nuts.

The problem with taking a trip to Hawaii is that no matter how relaxed you are at the end of your stay, you will always feel exhausted when you arrive at your home airport. But eight hour flights notwithstanding, if you ever get the chance to visit this patch of Eden, don't hesitate--just go! There's a reason every calls it paradise. (Just don't stay in Honolulu the whole time, okay?)

Day 15: Waves and Goodbyes

Tuesday was my parents' and Matthew's last day in Hawaii. Their plane left later that night, so we had to check out of our beloved condo Tuesday morning. It took some work to get ourselves extricated from that place--I guess we really felt at home! Once we were finally all packed up, we went to Heidi's house and then up to this little shrimp shack on the side of the road nearby. The garlic shrimp was really fantastic, even if I did have to pull the little legs and shells off myself. (The first one I didn't realize that, but it didn't take me long to learn!) They also had smoothies--mine was banana coconut. I've been craving another ever since!

Then we drove further north back to some of the North Shore beaches. This time, we struck gold with the wave sizes--they were HUGE that day, probably 15 feet or more! We sat around and watched the waves and the wave-riding surfers at Pipeline in awe. Amazing! It sort of made me want to learn how to surf and try it myself. Kind of. Almost. The lifeguards wouldn't let any "normal" people anywhere near the water, though--not even to put your toes in! We also drove along the shore a bit to some areas with rocky shores and watched some more incredible pounding. Since all the cameras were packed up, the pictures of this day are pretty slim pickins (they're all from Kevin's camera phone). I guess you'll all just have to go there yourselves and see!

Mom and Dad and Matthew took off for the airport after that, and Kevin and I crashed at Heidi's house that night. It was a bit of a let-down to sleep on their couches instead of our luxurious master bedroom that night, but we survived and even slept pretty well.

Day 14: Sea Kayaking and Sunset Beach

Since our schedule was a bit thrown off at the beginning of the week, when Monday came, it was time to decide what we *really* wanted to do before our time in Hawaii was up. We had a rather lengthy debate, and in the end we decided that Matthew, Kevin, and I would wake up early and drive to Kailua to go kayaking while Heidi took my parents to see some stuff closer to Laie. The kayaking idea took hold when we were in Kailua earlier watching kite-boarders--we had noticed several kayakers heading out to a small island nearby, and it looked like fun.

Now, it should be noted that none uf us had ever kayaked at all before, let alone on the ocean. Luckily, the kayaks we rented were open-top, meaning you wouldn't be stuck inside should you capsize. But still, we were rather apprehensive. We rented two kayaks (one 2-man, one 1-man) for the afternoon from a local store in Kailua and pulled them on some cart things to the beach. Pushing off into the waves was a little tricky, but overall not so bad. You have to make sure to NOT stand behind it and push it straight out into the waves until about waist deep, then pull yourself in and start paddling fast before the waves push you back. There was a group next to us with one poor lady who never could get up onto her kayak--she sort of belly-flopped onto it and couldn't get all the way upright. I think she gave up in the end.

After successfully pushing off, we opted for the longer route past the first island and onto a set of twin islands (called the Mokalua islands) which are actually bird sanctuaries (although the only bird we saw while we were there was dead...hmm...) It was actually a fairly long trek, and a little tiring for the arms. The worst part was that, although we tried our hardest to follow the directions told to us at the rental place about which route to take to avoid getting too close to shallow coral, we ended up right over top of it. My oar even touched it a few times on accident--I felt TERRIBLE because I know that coral is easily damaged and can take years to heal. I really hope it didn't get too damaged from that! We did do our best, though!

It was me and Kevin in one canoe and Matthew in the other on the way out. We stopped to take some precarious pictures on the way with Matthew's fancy camera. Taking that thing out of the wet bag was nerve-rattling. But we didn't drop it! When we got close to the island, the waves got bigger and started hitting us from both sides (some waves curl around the island since it is so small and create this weird cross-wave phenomena). Kevin and I made it to shore okay, but Matthew was hit by big waves on both sides at once and capsized. He was fine, since he was only a few feet from shore by this time anyway, but it was definitely a shock.
By the way, the water in Hawaii, while it is not as cold as say, California, is still really not all that warm. It definitely feels cold when you first get in. Or get dumped in, as the case may be. He nearly lost his sandals, but gained a whole lotta sand!

We ate some food and drank some water as we rested on the beach. There were several other kayakers there at the same time--I guess it's a popular kayaking spot. We were rather worried about being able to push off into those cross-waves and get started again, but we had the benefit of watching several other groups do it successfully (after several attempts in some cases) and figured out the best way to go. (The most important thing was to wait for a relative calm, then push out FAST and paddle like mad until you were away from the island enough to stop worrying about the waves.) Matthew struggled some on the way back--because of the wind we were pulled a lot to one side, which happened to be the side that he has a weak arm. (When he was in middle school, he was involved in an explosion which shot shrapnel deep into his arm muscles and they've never been the same since.) We stopped to rest about halfway on a beach further south than Kailua, called Lanikai beach. This beach was AMAZING--the most beautiful one I have seen to date. Unfortunately, though, we couldn't stop for too long to enjoy it, because our four hours were nearly up.

My arms were pretty tired by the end, and Matthew was dying, but we made it! We lugged the things back to the rental place, stopped off for some smoothies at Lanakai Juice (mmmmmm....) and drove back up to Punaluu, where my parents were waiting.

We decided we wanted to see some of the big waves on the North Shore, so we drove up to Sunset Beach, which is a big popular surfing beach. The waves were actually not very big that evening, but the sunset was plenty enthralling. Yes, it is trite, but we loved the sunset at Sunset Beach!

We then met up with Heidi's family in Haleiwa (a major surfing town) for dinner at Haleiwa Joe's. They had good seafood, but it was no Duke's, mind you. We had a nice time, though--and it was the last dinner we ate all together as a family on the trip!

Day 13: Another Hawaiian Sunday

On Sunday we went to church with Heidi's family in Laie...at 8 am once again! Those crazy Hawaiians. 8:00 is WAY to early for church to begin. We like our Champaign 1st ward time of 11!

The church service was nice, and one of Heidi's neighbors invited us over to her house for lunch after she heard us discussing what we could pull together from what we still had in the fridge. We brought over some food and had a pot-luck of sorts with them under their big tent canopy thing (Heidi says they leave it up all the time because they are always having people over for food outside.) Heidi's neighbors were from Fiji (in fact, they worked in the Fijian village at the Polynesian Cultural Center for a living) and were super nice and friendly. They also cooked super Fijian food. :)

We sat around and visited most of the day, and my dad started learning to play one of Heidi's ukuleles. Later in the evening, we went over to the Laie temple visitor's center and had a look around. The Laie temple is beautiful, but what you may not realize from seeing pictures of it is that if you stand at the door and look out down the terraced steps, you can see straight to the ocean--gorgeous. It looked especially nice with the temple lit up under the full moon.

It was a nice, relaxing day--a vacation within our vacation!

Day 12: Pearl Harbor day

Saturday we drove down to Pearl Harbor to tour the Arizona Memorial. We had to go pick up our tickets first, then wait for our entrance time, so in between we stopped by the famous "Swap", which is giant open air market place where you can buy all kinds of fun stuff. We stopped by one tent where they had hand-carved wooden totem pole figures and decided that would be a fun addition to our decor at home. The wood carver even carved out an inscription for us on the back.

Afterwards, we went back for our Arizona Memorial tour. They have you watch a short movie (which is very sobering and sad), and then take you on a little boat to the memorial, which is right over top of where the sunken USS Arizona ship still lies. The ship is like a graveyard--it is still full of dead sailors' bodies. It was a very somber experience to visit there.

I was worried that the effect might be overbearing, like my experience when I visited a concentration camp in Germany. Luckily, it wasn't like that--I could pause, reflect on the tragedy, and move on without being disturbed for weeks afterwards. So that was a good thing!

We also toured the USS Bowfin (a submarine) and the Battleship Missouri which are all there in the harbor. It was neat, but I found that all the men were much more enthralled with the submarine and battleship than I could ever be. Kevin and my brother took LOTS of pictures of the submarine especially, but since I'm writing this blog, I get to choose the ratio of beach scenery to heavy artillery around here!

Heidi's kids were pretty pooped by then, so they decided to head off home. My parents, Kevin, my little brother Matthew, and I opted for something much more exciting. My sister had seen a coupon in this tourist book we were looking at for Cirque de Soleil in Honolulu. My little brother got on his iPhone (lucky guy!) and found out when the performance was and where. My parents LOVE Cirque performances (they've seen them in Las Vegas), so it was easy to persuade them that we should go. The funny thing was, when we got there, we realized our coupons were for a discount at the Cirque store, not off of the admission tickets! But since we were there, we decided to go anyway. We *did* get a free bucket of popcorn from our coupon anyway...yes!

The show was amazing. Very amazing. They don't let you take pictures, though even if I could it's not like I would dare to distract the performers, like the tight rope walker who had no safetly line at all! So you'll just have to imagine to yourselves some seriously amazing acrobatic feats and death-defying acts.

After Cirque, we decided to go to Duke's for dinner. Duke's is a famous restaurant right on the Waikiki beach, which is name after Duke Kahanamoku, who is known for popularizing the sport of surfing. They have an amazing salad bar and really, really good fish. It made a perfect end to our busy day in Honolulu!

Day 11: Shake those hips!

On Friday, we spent the whole day at the Polynesian Cultural Center in Laie (which is run by the LDS church.) Brian scored us some 40% off tickets since he was a BYU-H employee--yes! The place is HUGE with all these little "villages," each representing a Polynesian island (or group of islands, rather.) Each village has a show of some sort (ukelele and hula dancing at the Hawaii village, Tongan drummers at the Tongan village, etc.) and usually some sort of activity you can do or skill you can learn (like throwing spears, weaving little fish out of leaves, etc.) At the Tongan village, they asked for volunteers to come help them play the drums, and my brother-in-law Brian got picked. In the village of Fiji, they taught some dances and asked for people who had had a birthday that month to come up--which was me! So I stood up there and tried to sway my hips around and follow the dancers on the stage (there was a big group, though, so it wasn't too terribly embarrassing.) Kevin and I got "tattoos" at the Fiji village also. One of our favorites was Samoa, where they demonstrated how to start a fire with sticks, peel a coconut, and climb right up and pick the coconut off the tree!

We watched the river show or boat show or canoe show or whatever they called it, where each village had dancers on a big boat dancing around while they floated along the river. That was very cool--we especially liked the Mauri dancers with their mean faces and tongue-sticking-outing. (see my niece's Mauri face impersonation below to get a better idea.)

Then we had the luau, with LOTS of yummy food! Not that we needed another huge feast the day after Thanksgiving...They showed us the kalua pig after they unburied it and before they cut it up for eating. (Luckily, that did not ruin my appetite). The only thing I didn't really like much was the poi. That stuff is just plain weird. It doesn't taste bad exactly--just very bland with a VERY strange goopy texture. (My old roommate Alicia would have despised it, I know, for textural reasons.) Some people ordered smoothies for $7 extra, which came served in coconut shells and looked really impressive. I was too cheap to buy one, but I wished the whole rest of the trip that I could drink something out of a coconut shell, because that is just plain fun. Ah well.

The crowning event was the Horizons show, which is full of lots of singing and dancing from all the different islands again. But this time, they incorporated things like shooting burning spears from way above stage down onto stage and back. It was fantastic to watch. But the most amazing part was probably the way those Tahitian dancers can shake their hips--seriously, wow!