TSUNAMI

we survived a false alarm.
Saturday morning at 4 am-loud knock at the door. our elders quorum leader.
-_- sleep -_-
6 am- the sirens go off.
-_- sleep -_-
8 am- gather stuff together and prepare for the arrival of 3 feet of water in the house.
-_- sleep -_-
10 am- pack our stuff out of the house and climb the hill behind the temple.
-_- sleep -_-
12 pm- get word that all is well and pack our stuff back to the apartment.
-_- sleep -_-


it was quite an uneventful event. in the end we realized how much it would suck if we had to spend 3 days on that hill with our limited 72 hour kit. so lets just hope and pray that there won't be a next time and our lives will remain uneventful.

a whale of a whale watching time!

we went whale-watching this passed weekend up at kaena point. this is an aerial photo of the point (north-west tip of the island of oahu).

i love this hike...especially on a cloudy day. we encountered a bit of mud but made the most of it. can you see the airborne mud in juano's pic?

brynn and nate- do you remember this hike? i took you guys on it...around sunset...i hope you still don't hate me for that...

(first pic) allow me to introduce you to our good friends, Janelle and Mike. they were married around the same time that juan and i were and live just 4 doors down from us in the temple view apts. we get together often to play settlers of catan and have potlucks.
(next pic) now this is a hard one- guess who's legs belong to who.
(last two) the views were amazing out at the point. we saw a bunch of albatross birds too- you know, like the one from the rescuers- juan thought one was going to take his head off when it flew over us. i was just nervous that he would drop a giant crap on us.
well needless to say- we made it out minorly sunburndt and uncrapped-upon. oh- i am almost forgetting the reason for this post. here it is....

okay...fixed it...now i can post away!!

Happy New Year!! and boy did january fly by....
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
coming soon....our hike to kaena point and witnessing whales breech...

I made gingerbread- I MADE GINGERBREAD!!!

just look at me! another post!!
i worked harder this weekend then i ever do in a 40 hour week- my feet even ached after all of this. but it was worth it! we made gingerbread houses with 8 of our friends and we made the gingerbread ourselves (janelle, amanda and i)!!! the recipes that we looked up on the internet all gave a level of difficulty and guess what it was for making gingerbread?- DIFFICULT- and that it was to be sure. but we tackled it. isn't it grand??
look at that!! we made it!!
we actually ended up making more gingerbread than we needed and used up all the molasses in it. i would have to say that the batch we made with a little bit of honey was far better than the one with a full cup of molasses- note to self. we mixed up the dough on saturday and then let it set in the fridge overnight (you really only need to leave it in for 2 hours). then on sunday we pulled it out and rolled it out on the back of a cookie sheet. we had to make a lot of houses so it was tricky cutting them all out and making sure they were the right size but thanks to amanda we got the pattern just perfect. this is definitely a task that cannot be done solo- we worked as a team. then all of our husbands got to do the fun part of making the houses with all of the colorful candy. but i am jumping the gun... ----matching game- which wife belongs to which husband???----...before we made the gingerbread houses we had a nice potluck dinner. i made the infamous pomegranate salad and we had enchiladas and baked chicken (amanda i still need that recipe- yogurt and ritz- who'd a thunk?), and potato salad- i love aissa because she doesn't put yucky onions in her salad, and rolls and....other stuff. so we ate all the good food and then had a great time putting these lovely houses together. I can't believe that it worked! and our house is still standing two days later!! the candy canes are melting because of the humidity but my goodness! it worked. look at that masterpiece!! can you see where we have picked off of it?
i taught juano how to do this... so so so much fun!! i love these guys!!

Forget about the rest of our trip way back in SEPTEMBER!!

...its nearly christmas....so it is time to move on!!
recent haps....
Hallowing came and went like ichabod crane on a horse. laura sent us those classic scary stories to listen to while admiring our masterpiece of a pumpkin. we got so scared listening to 'em that we had to cut them short. it took too long to get to sleep- we had to hold each other and just when we were about to dose off one random light turned on in the house. we felt like a ghost was roaming around and didn't want the lights out. SCARY!! we prayed and were able to get to sleep.

My birthday followed halloween and juano planned a surprise party with a bunch of our friends. he got me good. we went to play volleyball and he skipped out early telling me that he had to do some homework...i should have known but i didn't have a clue. he had already invited a bunch of our peeps over and they waited patiently for me to finish playing. i didn't want to leave so i made them wait. it was fun to come home and find a bunch of people celebrating my day. it was fun- i love our ward.

the day after my birthday i found out that we had a miscarriage (oh yeah- we were pregnant for a little while). i had a D+C a few days after and have recovered well. to make things a little easier on my emotions we put a cute little christmas tree up and lights in our living room. i have had the tree up for about a month already and i love it. isn't it cute?
we are going to utah for christmas!! we leave in 15 days!! i can't wait to go home- i don't know what i would do if i couldn't be with my family for the holidays!! it will juano's and my first christmas together married!! this picture was taken last year around this time right after we were engaged.

Day 2 of our Big Island trip

after pealing ourselves off of the church sidewalk we dressed quickly in the car and walked the few steps to the temple. no one noticed us walk away from the church with our sleeping gear so we acted like everything was normal. we enjoyed another session and also doing a bunch of sealings afterward in the tiny temple.
as soon as we got out of the temple we all felt ready to start our next adventure. we stormed the pantry at safeway and hit the road. juano drove as i stuffed turkey and peperjack cheese sandwiches and flaming cheetos down his throat. it was kind of a lengthy drive but well worth it- we were headed for the south point and THE GREEN SAND BEACH!!
this was one of the highlights of our trip- we walked the windy walk to the fabulous green bay and swam our little hearts out in the beautiful water. this is juano's favorite picture of him catching a wave. it was really hard to leave but we were betting to bum a ride back so we ran to the top of the hill before some of the other swimmers hoping they would see us walking and have pity on us. a cute couple with a load of southern hospitality stopped for us. we all piled in the back of their rented jeep. what a ride. we thought we might roll over or worse a couple of times. we did it DAVE style.
after we brushed ourselves off and got comfortable in the car. we jetted over to the lava flow to see if we could get there before sunset. we didn't make it but got to see the glow of the lava flow for our last little adventure of the day. afterwards we went to the Hanza's-our big island friends for a warm bed on the rainy side of the island.

Day 1 of our Kona trip

its about time i tell you about our trip to Kona. The temple has been closed here in Laie for about 8 months now so we haven't been to the temple since we got married. so time was way over due and the opportunity arose to fly to big island for a temple trip. tickets were 25 bucks each way! you can't get any better than that!! So we flew into Kona early friday morning and went straight to the temple. We did baptisms and confirmations which was pretty sweet because we were able to do the work for Juano's Grandma.
After that we went snorkeling. we asked a guy how the snorkeling was in that area and he said it was excellent. What he didn't tell us was that its a rough and rocky entrance and exit from the water. We chose the boat dock route of entry and just after a few minutes Juano cut his foot. I was pretty determined to check out the reef there and being the stubborn person that i am i practically forced him to keep swimming. we swam around for a while chased a turtle and got a few good underwater pictures. then it was time to get out. the waves were crashing pretty hard against the rocks and there were a lot of sea urchin in the rocks. for those of you who don't know- sea urchin are poisonous and have quite a sting. one of our friends pointed out a 'good spot' for him to climb up out of the crashing waves. inevitably juano was pushed and pulled by the waves which caused him to grab on tight right in a sea urchins nest. so now not only did he have a chunk out of his toe but also about 20 sea urchin spines in his palm.
while juano did minor surgery on himself- plucking out the spines, i paced around trying to figure out what to do with myself and felt completely responsible....
the torture didn't end there....
we found a beach park after searching for 45 minutes and showered and got ready to go back to the temple. we went to a session and after we got out we had to figure out where we were going to sleep. hotels in Kona are ridiculous so we ruled that out. we had already check online to see if there were any camp grounds. nada. we had heard that the beach parks were dangerous. we told the temple president after our session that we didn't have a place to stay...that didn't click.
so... our only option was the chapel next to the temple. we slept on the grass.....until the sprinklers came on at 2 in the morning. then we moved to the sidewalk. at least we had an air mattress. the Chisms had only a single sleeping bag. it was a night to remember.