From my window, I can see...

Our new apartment has the BEST view...checkout the sunrise/set from our point of view:

Goin' to the Chapel....

We're married! Yeah! We got married January 7th on Waimanalo Beach.  It was an incredible day that started with rain...lots of it...enough to cause major anxiety on my part.  Nonetheless, there was a beautiful rainbow, wonderful friends and lots of family.  About 5 minutes before the ceremony began, the rain cleared and the sun came out!  Talk about a rain blessing!! 

Our goal in planning was to make sure that our wedding was eco-friendly.  Some of the things that helped us to do that were 1) Using only one vendor to cut the emissions from transportation to and from the site. 2) Using Styrophobia plates, spoons, forks and knives.  3) Recycling! 4) Making our own cupcakes (they tasted just as good as a professional and we made them from a box!) 5) Having our ceremony in the day time to eliminate the need for lighting.  6) Giving recycled notebooks, fashionable reusable grocery bags and slippers for wedding party gifts.  7) Buying wedding rings from Touch Wood Rings, a man that makes incredible rings from recycled wood!  www.touchwoodrings.com 8)Using real flowers...fake flowers left on beaches are eaten by birds and turtles. You can guess the rest.  You'd be surprised how many fake-flowers we see on the beach left over from wedding ceremonies.  

I'm sure there were more details that I've forgotten, but nonetheless, it was exactly what we wanted.  Earth-friendly, people-friendly...to all a good time! 

Enjoy the pics!!!

Awesome thing about Hawaii? It was free to get a permit to have our wedding on the beach!! Woohoo!!

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