I Could Get Used to This

James and I returned last night after a week on the Hawaiian island of O'ahu. Our second tropical vacation in less than a year...how lucky/blessed/spoiled are we? I could certainly get used to this life of luxury :)

We both have a lot to say about our trip but I'll try to keep it simple by mostly telling our story through photos.

We went paddle boarding one afternoon. It was really fun but a lot harder than we thought it would be!









Most of our time was spent like this:



We went to a huge outdoor market and bought touristy things.





We went to Northshore where we ate shaved ice, admired the views, wandered through art galleries, and took pictures of ourselves.







We visited the Dole Pineapple Plantation. Delicious pineapple ice cream!!











Sidenote: At the Dole Plantation they were selling small surfboards with names on them. "Joni" and "Lucas" were among the 20 or so names on display. What are the odds?? Lol.



We hiked Diamondhead and saw some gorgeous views at the top!









We went to Pearl Harbor and saw the Arizona Memorial. I think we were both very moved by our time there.







70 years later oil is still coming up from the sunken ship. Survivors say it's the tears of the men still trapped below.



We went to a luau at our hotel.



That is a pig.







Here's a picture of the view from our balcony.



This is us in front of the Margaritaville sign. Apparently the person taking the photo didn't understand that we were standing in front of a huge sign because we actually wanted the huge sign in the photo. *sigh*



Hope you enjoyed our photos!! We sure enjoyed experiencing everything in them!!

In other news:
I deactivated my Facebook account today. When I told James what I had done his first response was, "But what are you going to do at work?" I think that question in itself should explain my reasoning. Time for a break!

James' B-day

James turns 26 today. His special request for his birthday was that I make red velvet cupcakes. Last night I happily went to the grocery store and scurried around the kitchen preparing his delicious birthday treat.

The recipe I have makes a lot of batter so I decided to only make half. I soon learned that when you are halving an entire recipe, that means you should half every single ingredient. Including salt.

So, happy birthday, Husband.



I promise I'll make it up to you somehow.

Friends

These are my besties.



We all met in college and have since dispersed, yet thankfully managed to keep in touch and get together from time to time. One lives about an hour away from us, one two hours, one three hours, and one about a million kajillion miles away in Texas. Needless to say getting together isn't a once a week occurrence these days, so I cherish the times that I do get to see them that much more. Over the last month or so I've been lucky enough to see all of them :)

About a month ago Julie and I met sort of in the middle and spent the weekend in Vegas. We mostly just laid out by the pool and enjoyed some girl time!! It was the second year in a row we've met up there and I'm already looking forward to next year :)



Then last weekend James and I got bombarded with friends from all directions. Bombarded in a good way. It was so awesome to see Blair, Jess, and Erica all in one weekend!! They all just happened to be in Ventura County this weekend so I had a great time getting to catch up with everyone. Blair and her husband Justin stayed with us and we celebrated Blair's graduation from Physician Assistant school with a barbeque, champagne, lots of wine, and Dance Central on the Kinect. As you can see we kept it classy with plastic cups.







Waaaah, I didn't get any pics with Jess or Erica :( So good to see them and their hubbies (and little G) though!!!

James specifically requested that I share his creative genius in my blog post today. Here is how he has decorated our kitchen:




These are all wine bottles that we've collected over the last couple of years from special occasions...our engagement night, our wedding, our honeymoon, special dinners etc. James wanted me to point out the two newest additions to the collection, Eos and Tobin James. These are two wineries that we visited back in May with Blair and Justin and James got the same wine for us to celebrate with last weekend. He's so sentimental, I just love it!!





And while I'm being random, I just wanted to celebrate the fact that it has been cloudy and rainy all weekend which has made me feel that it is appropriate to light my pumpkin pie candle. In addition we purchased our first fall decorations yesterday:



Yay Fall!! We're ready for you!! Also, yay Kohl's!! Love that place :)

I Will Honk At You

James thinks I am an over-zealous honker. I think of it as my duty to make sure people on the road know when they are incompetent. He wasn't very amused by my activities today.

My office is on the second story of a two story building. I have a huge window which overlooks the parking lot and I have a perfect view of my car. Every once in a while, two men will drive a van into our parking lot, set up shop and start washing the cars of people who work inside my building. They have a giant water pump in the back of the van with the loudest motor of all time and they spray, spray, spray until not only the car they were washing is thoroughly soaked, but also all the other innocent bystander-cars. Like mine. Why do they always end up parking next to me?

Well today, I'd had enough. This was the first time they'd done this to my new car, and since we just got it washed on Sunday I was not happy about the watermarks these car washers were likely giving me. I wasn't angry enough to go out there and confront them, make them move the vehicles blocking my car, and then park somewhere else...but I was just irked enough that I wanted to teach them a lesson somehow.

I decided the best method would be to hit the panic button on my car keys when they walked by my car to freak them out. So from the safety of my office, I set my car a honkin'. I watched as the two men stood straight up, looked at each other, said a few words, looked around....then just laughed and kept working. Argh!! The panic button wasn't nearly as satisfying as I'd hoped it would be. But I still like honking at people.