October

The waves were HUGE at Makapu'u this last Saturday.  Not only was the weather weary, the waves were rolling in in strange places.  Check this out!

We caught an amazing sunset from our lanai.

Here's the girls at Meghen's birthday celebration! We had a blast!


Roxy, Caroline and I performed at the Honolulu Youth Theater's "A Mid-summer Night's Dream" fundraiser.  Here we are in our fairy suits having fun at Kahala Mall after the show.

Fairies in a cart.

It has rained so much in the last few days that the waterfalls that don't normally see much action are overflowing!  Here's my shots of the Manoa Falls...taken from my truck.  Usually these falls aren't visible from the road.  It was AWESOME.
If you look closely, you can see the falls in the background.
Cool thing about Hawai'i? It was cold today...sweater weather...like 75 degrees.  Haha!

Blessings everywhere

I recently went to Tucson to celebrate Brandon's 21st BIRTHDAY! WOOHOO!!! It was awesome. He has become the best person...he is humble, kind, fun, studious, honest....he is my hero! We had a lot of time to hang out and enjoy each other's company. Here we are in the jungle at the Shanty!
B and I got to watch a few Ohio State games together. Here I am in his Buckeye helmet. OSU Football here I come? eh?


I've started dancing with a modern dance company in town, called Convergence. It has filled a hole in my heart that has existed for three years...dance! Wonderful people! Good work! Wow...I am just so thankful. Here we are at our first performance together.


We went to Las Vegas to celebrate Brandon's 21st. It was super nuts. I haven't been up that late in years...Although Vegas is not my priority, family certainly is and we had a great time! Here is my family:

Beyond these blessings, Nick has really been enjoying his new job and is looking forward to continuing his career, I am excited about the possibility of grad school for Special Ed, we are moving into a two-bedroom apt (need I say more??) and we are getting married in a few months! This is just a GREAT time in life.
Cool thing about Hawaii? While the rest of the nation is starting to feel fall, we are still enjoying beach weather! Yes!

Aloha! Mom's been here for a few weeks! Here are some pics from our time together.  

We went to a fancy dinner on the 32nd floor of a hotel.  Wow it was cool! Here is the view from our table:

 Here we are in our fancy clothes.

Here is our wedding site!!!

Another view from the wedding site:

Here we are in our garden.  Nick has been taking care of our new community garden space.  So far, we have tomatoes, sweet potatoes, strawberries, zuchinni, and green chile.  We've met a lot of fun people who have gardens, as well.
Well, that's it for now! Cool thing about Hawai'i? We can grow just about ANY fruit or vegetable without worrying about the temperature dropping!!! 

What have we been up to for the last few months?? ALOT!!! We have been revamping our apartment and it looks FANTASTIC!!! We are trying to get out of the college dorm that we have been living in and make it look like we are professionals!  Pictures soon to come. 

Brandon went to Orvieto, Italy for over a month this summer.  He had an AMAZING time and has the pictures to prove it! He is well on his way to becoming Indiana Jones.  
We attended the wedding of Nick's brother Tony to his beautiful bride Melissa in April!  It was absolutely beautiful...every part of it.  Here we are at the wedding! 

We are just planning away for our wedding! Getting very excited! I have been testing cupcake recipes and enjoying every bit of it.   More to come!

Lately...

Lately I've been...

Catching the island in some beautiful poses through the eye of my camera...

Pretty darn busy trying to prepare for our first musical "Dr. Seuss on the Loose"

Sick...I guess it's brought on by all the kiddos I see every week

Nervous...typical me, anxiety ridden!

Thankful for the blessings that surround me...our apartment, the ability to provide food, pay bills, etc

Thinking alot about my best friends...I wish we were all closer. 

Cool thing about Hawaii?? We pick coffee berries from Ko'olau mountains...and they're free!

February Beach clean up

What a success!  

Our beach clean-up today was wonderful! Of course, there were many moments with each of us in which we had to take a time to mourn the reality of why the trash was on the beach in the first place, but we quickly regained our pace and completed the day with plenty of momentum.  Thanks to ALL who participated, gave their advice and supported our efforts today.  

We met a lot of wonderful people, as usual.  Some of whom were in effort to support the same cause and some were just relaxing on the beach.  One man, in particular shared a story with us about a time when he was on a boat from Hawaii to Seattle in the 60's and he remembers seeing them dump bag after bag of trash off the back of the boat.  He said that image will stay with him forever. 

 Despite the humongous amount of marine debris we find, I remain mostly disturbed by the "fire pits" we find as left-overs from contractor fires in which they have burned their old wood and left the nails (and broken beer bottles) behind.  Not only is happening upon a scene like this dangerous...it's life threatening! Imagine a child running down to the beach and not know that the sand they are about to run through is FULL of rusty nails! What in the world must happen to make this stop?

What a blessing it was to know that there were two other groups (that we knew of) combating the same issue on different beaches around our island.  We felt the brotherhood and energy of everyone involved......thank you to Malama Makapu'u, B-E-A-C-H.org and the many volunteers that encompassed those events.  We know there were beach clean-ups organized through Kokua Foundation on Saturday, as well.  Between all of these events, we figure that over 150 people were out cleaning up the beaches this weekend! WOW!  

Again, a HUGE mahalo to all who assisted us in both the preparation and the execution of today's event!  We look forward to going back next month to continue our mission! 

ALOHA

Lindsay and Nick

MLK Jr. Weekend

What an absolutely wonderful weekend we had!  We started off Saturday by working...I know working isn't always wonderful, but we feel blessed to be provided for.  Saturday evening we went to the Honolulu Academy of art with our good friends Mitchell and Lisa.  That night, we made lasagna...homemade! Noodles and all! We used our new kitchenaid mixer to make noodles...it was incredible.  The only bad thing about our love of cooking is that it is totally ruining our chance of ever enjoying a "fancy dinner" out on the town! 

On Sunday, we went for a hike to watch for whales with some friends and then had dinner with some other friends.  It was a great day of being around people who we love and adore for their compassion for the environment.  

On Monday we visited the farm of the friends that we had dinner with and lended some helping hands. We got SO dirty from the mud. It felt wonderful to be in touch with the earth and to learn about how things grow.  I haven't been that muddy since Kevin and I swam in the mud pond by Nisha's house. 

We really had a wonderful weekend. It was great getting to talk to so many people and hang out with other humans...which is something that we rarely do...we just like each other too much! 

Good thing about Hawaii: It's finally getting "warmer"...it's been way too cold...like 75 degrees! We're now back up to 80 something. Wow, am I spoiled!

Bethany Hamilton! I got to see her surf in the Reef Hawaiian Open!

Emily and me at my first pedicure...




















Aloha!

I first would like to share with you something that I learned as I was watching pro football today: Your hair is part of your body. (yes, the sportscasters said that). They were trying to decide if a guy was out of bounds because it was only his hair that was out of bounds...meanwhile the problem of global warming continues to spin out of control with no answer in sight.

I went to Colorado and California in December this year. I was blessed to be a bridesmaid in Emily's wedding! I also got to spend a lot of time with my family in San Diego. Any time we get any more is precious, as we all live in different places.

My good thing about Hawaii? It's been a "cold" winter...65 degrees and counting. Hahah!!!