This must be one of my favorite Vampire Weekend songs. I love the lyrics, I love the music video, and I love that everything Vampire Weekend related reminds me of my dear friend Ashley B. Ever since I saw this year's Tommy Hilfiger commercial it has a whole new Christmas meaning. I have been riding my bike around Laie with this song on repeat just stoked out of my mind to be going home for Christmas in 2 days.
We pass this tree all the time and I just love it. Last week Rod stopped the car and took a picture of it. If we had a tree like this in our yard we would definitely make our own buoy tree.
Thank you for the wonderfully dreamy anniversary date last weekend.
Shopping + Honolulu Light Parade + Santa sandcastles = Christmas fun
Kai Market was delicious and so nice.
Thanks for not eating your shrimp head
I love having a Christmas themed anniversary. . . so romantic.
Most of all, thank you for getting a KING bed - it was such a nice break from our springy full. . . twas like sleeping on clouds held up by angels in an air-conditioned sky.
This week was the O'Neill World Cup of Surfing at Sunset Beach. It was the 2nd part of the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing. Basically for this event they set aside a week to have it, and then just wait for the waves to get good. I would wake up every morning and check online because I have been waiting to go to these competitions since the day we moved here. Thursday was the day! I played hooky and we spent the entire day spectating and being showered with SWAG!
Tanya modeling some of our prizes (vans trucker hat, tank top, and sunglasses). We also got more trucker hats/sunglasses, ties, beer cozies, bandanas, a beach umbrella, and lots of Rockstars.
These were the mens finalists, and Raoni Monteiro from Brazil won. We were front and center for the awards ceremony.
These were the womens finalists. 16 year old Tyler Wright from Australia won.
Here they are just soaking in the glory. Next Up: The Billabong Pipe Masters this week.
Tonight we really wanted it to feel like Christmas. We got in the car, cranked up the AC (to get cold), turned on the Christmas music, and drove to Hauula for some hot chocolate.
We'll be home for Christmas in T minus 2 weeks. We really can't wait. Let's hope we don't freeze to death (I'm afraid I've acclimated).
School is almost over and next week I'll take my last finals FOREVER (for realsies this time). Then it's just 20 weeks of student teaching. Yay!
Rod is doing really well at his job. I'm so proud of him.
We had just about the best Thanksgiving weekend we could have asked for away from home. It was the perfect school-and-work-less break that we needed to hold us over until Christmasland 2010.
On Thanksgiving morning Tanya was worried about getting our place set up for dinner, so she sent me surfing alone. I loved it. Being alone with my thoughts and the ocean is so refreshing every so often. When I got home we still had spare time so we went to Bikini Beach and read and relaxed.
We invited some other married couples from our ward over for Thanksgiving dinner. We had 16 people at our little shack! We did it at our house because most of these people live in studios that don't even have full kitchens (like no stove or oven) so a lot of them came over and cooked their stuff in our kitchen. Everyone brought/made part of the feast and it all turned out to be so good. We're so grateful for the friends we've made so far here. It's fun to be with people that are in the same boat as us. We're all far away from our families and it was nice to share this holiday with them. On Friday, "Women be Shoppin'!" Tan went with our friends Natalie and Ashley to do some Black Friday shopping (not at an unholy hour) so Mark and I had a bro day. We played Donkey Kong (for Super Nintendo!), got our Taco Bell on, and surfed at Turtle Bay for almost 4 hours! (we have no pictures from this day)
Yesterday we went to Sunset Beach during the day. They are all set up for the big surfing competitions, but are just waiting for the waves to be big enough. They are predicting that it will start this Thursday. I will not be going into work on Thursday.
And we tried a new natural frozen yogurt truck that just popped up in Kahuku. It was very good.
And last night our new friends Zach and Julie invited us to come with them to Haleiwa. Every last Saturday night of the month, they have an art walk where all the art galleries stay open late (9:00, as opposed to the whole town shutting down at 7:00) and they have live music at all of them.
We went to a gallery of a girl named Heather Brown who is a local surf artist here on the North Shore. We would love to own one of her canvasses one day, but they are very expensive. her style is very juvenile, but in a cool way. She was actually at the gallery and we wanted to talk to her. Maybe next time. Then we went to the Ron Artis gallery. He's an artist and he has a family band with his wife and 11 kids. They all just jam out and the little kids dress up in costumes and dance around. It was so much fun and they are very good. They can play any style of music. Here is a sample of them that we found on YouTube
This past weekend our little town had the privileged of having our Prophet Thomas S. Monson here to rededicate the Laie, Hawaii Temple. It was so wonderful to hear him speak and we are so happy that our temple is open again.
Local photographer Mark Lee was able to take some awesome pictures of the cultural celebration that happened on Saturday night. Check them out here.
I found this video on my friend Brynn's blog, and it is so crazy and cool. Here is what they said about it:
"In the city of Tarragona, Spain, castellers gather every two years to see who can build the highest, most intricate human castles. This uniquely Catalan tradition requires astonishing strength, finesse, and balance. Not to mention courage"
How did people not die in those spills? And what parents are letting their little girls be the tops of these towers?
Whenever we make it to Spain, we will plan around going to this event (or the one where they throw tomatoes at each other - or the running of the bulls - all equally entertaining)
When we moved here, we had come to terms with the fact that we would not be able to come home for Christmas, and we were fully prepared to spend the holidays alone (even though we knew we would miss being home with everyone)
Then some of Santa's little elves (pictured below) came along and graciously offered to fly us home for the holidays. We are so thankful for this gift! It was really important to them (as it is to us) that we be there, since my brother Brian's family will be there from New Jersey, my sister Marianne will be there from Washington D.C., and my sister Danielle's family will be there from San Francisco. This will be our first Christmas all together in years!
We will be home for two glorious work-less and school-less weeks!
We also have two little nuggets that we have yet to meet . . . Our Nephew Asher who was born in July And our niece Chloe who was born in October We are excited for the following as well:
To be in cold enough weather that we can wear our jammerz from last year Our bed - we took the comfy queen that we have in Utah for granted before we moved here to our springy, squeeky full. (This isn't really our bed at home, but you get the idea - mind you, it's sitting in a room with the perfect temperature for sleeping, rather than a sweaty studio) Our baby Winslow wearing one of his many Christmas sweatersPlaying Sequence, Scum, Settlers of Catan, Killer Bunnies, and Mario Parties with Tanya's very competitive family! Tanya misses them, this is the longest she has gone without seeing them. Hopefully going snowboarding if we can find a way to make it happen The list goes on and on.
This weekend started out with Tanya deciding she wanted her hair chopped and colored dark, so she had our friend Natalie do it. She's an awesome hairstylist. Isn't it hot?
On Saturday morning I ran my first half marathon. It was at Gunstock Ranch which is right by Laie. It was a crazy course. The whole thing was a trail run with steep hills, through forests and jungle areas, and pastures. There was even one point where a bunch of us got to a river and wondered where the trail went - then we saw the colored flags on the other side. We had to cross the knee-deep waters (twice) and ended up slipping through the mud after. I had a lot of fun though and will possibly train for a full marathon within the next year (Maybe the St. George?)
Tannie was nice enough to cheer me on and make me this sign
Yesterday afternoon we went to a new beach that was really cool with our friends Mark and Natalie. It was nice and secluded. Best Halloween ever?
Mark taught me how to spearfish, but the conditions were not ideal, so we didn't catch anything
Last night we went to our ward's Halloween party. It was good old family fun with everyone and their babies! Haha. And musical chairs . . . it happened - and it got really intense. We dressed up as tourists - sadly, we already had a lot of the items that we wore
And ate so many sweets that our heads almost exploded. Tanya made the white ghost cookies
Halloween was more fun here than we thought it would be. People get really into it and don't have to ruin their costumes with coats and sweatshirts!
(Billabong Pipe Masters Surf Competition)
