Hau'oli lā hānau Rodney!

Yesterday was Rod's 26th birthday! We celebrated all day long starting with an early breakfast at Hukilau Cafe. It was AMAZING!

Of course he ordered the hungry Hawaiian which immediately resulted in crossed eyes.

Then we drove to Honolulu to buy Rodney's birthday present. . . a surfboard! (He actually has two now, apparently he collects them.) Here is a pic of the first one he bought. It's a little small for the waves this time of year, so we bought a bigger soft top board. It's great for smaller waves and for beginners.


After we got the board we headed to Waikiki and went to this darls flea market.
We walked around and then had lunch.

On our way to the beach we saw a little head poking out of the ocean. It was a Hawaiian monk seal looking for some warm sand to nap on. He scooted up to the shore and then we spent the afternoon soaking up the sun together.

Rodney tested out his new board and tore it up. I wanted to go out and take some pictures of him but our underwater camera is currently being fixed. . . hopefully we'll get it back soon, I miss it!

We did a little shopping

And then went to dinner. Duke's of course.
Here is Rodney throwing up shaka like a nerd. I love him so.

We had dinner and a show! The show was just a couple of old drunk people dancing to the live music, but it was still awesome.

Then came HULA PIE. In the words of my brother Court. . . this pie tastes like angels. Angels covered in macadamia nuts, ice cream, hot fudge, and whip cream.

The birfday boy with the birfday pie.

When we got back to North Shore we met up with some new friends and went crabbing. Rod was pulling live crabs out of sand holes with his bare hands! It was crazy and way fun.

It was pretty much a dream day with my dream husband. He is so kind, such a hard worker, and makes my life so much fun. I don't know what I would do without him.

Happy Birthday boo! Love you!

Lately

Wow, we have already been here for a month! Here are some updates:

• For our first 3 weeks here, we went to the ward that the internet told us to. It was a family ward and we expected there to be other young couples like us, since this is a college town. There was NO ONE our age and we had a hard time there. We started researching and calling around and found out we were supposed to be going to a married student ward. We went for the first time last week and it was gold. I think we're really going to like it. We already met so many cool couples and can't wait to get to know them better.
  

• Tanya only has two weeks left until she is done with her first term. They have 2 semesters and 3 terms a year here, and they are all fast and furious. She is taking 9 credits, but since the term is only 6 weeks long it's like she's taking 18+. She has worked so hard and actually reads all the long chapters in her books, which I rarely did throughout college. After this term she has a week and a half break before Fall semester, and her mom is coming to stay with us for that. It will be a lot of fun and she will be our first house guest.

• I am enjoying my job. I'm the marketing director for Sleep Center Hawaii, an overnight sleep study clinic for people who snore, have sleep apnea (where they quit breathing in their sleep for short periods), etc. I had kind of a rough start because the president was on another island my first week and no one would train me or help me out. They blindly sent me out to meet with doctors with no training and no idea what I was doing. This last week I was finally trained by the old marketing director and it has been better. Because doctors are the ones referring patients for sleep studies, I will be working a lot with them setting up luncheons and dinners where they can meet with our doctors, arranging and going to medical conventions, and meeting with them in their offices. I am also in charge of all the conventional marketing and implementing some online marketing, which they have never done before.

I think we have a problem . . .We are all out . . .

• So we live on the same property as a house full of BYU-H girls and share a yard with them. There's one girl in particular who we have been feuding with since day one. She insists on parking her ratty old car right outside our bedroom window, all up in our bidnass. She leaves at 5:30 every morning and since our windows have to be left open, her loud car wakes us up. Twice now we have asked her nicely if she will park somewhere else since her and us are the only ones with cars and our front yard is pretty much a huge parking lot. She refuses and is so snotty about it. She also always has immature boys over who yell and slam doors until all hours of the night, and she has this whiney voice that chills our souls. She moves out in 2 weeks (thank heavens) but what should we do until then? Start blocking her car in when she parks there? Leave it alone and wait until she moves? Try talking to her a THIRD time? Suggestions greatly appreciated.

Yesterday was glorious. We started the day going on a jungle hike to Manoa Falls near Honolulu. It was just what we needed after a long week.

A lot of the hike was through bamboo forests

It wasn't a big roaring waterfall, but it was about 150 feet high

Once we got to the falls there was another trail that kept going . . . so we took it.

Beautiful view of Manoa Valley . . . and my beautiful wifey.

After the hike we went to Costco for lunch and groceries, then drove to the North Shore to pick up my birthday present as well as some wax and a scraper for it . . .

And got some shave ice

Then we had some friends over for a BBQ in our yard - hamburglers and homemade fries. Then we went hot tubbing with them. They are cool and a lot like us, and they just moved here about the same time as us.

When we opened our hot tub, we found this little guy cooked alive. The girls next door must have done it, or their idiot friends.

Aloha!

Rod and Tan

School of Education

This is my first blog post since we moved to Hawaii. . . Probably because this is me

Study, study, study is all I do. Luckily this is my study hall, not too shabby.

I seriously love my program. My classes are intense, but I am learning so much. I love meeting and working with people from all over the Pacific. I love being able to feel the Spirit while I'm at school, and I LOVE volunteering at the elementary school. Even though I'm going into secondary education I have a soft spot for the darls keikis.

Life is good.

Weekend

We had a pretty good week. Tanya met the teacher and saw the classroom where she will be doing her student teaching starting in September. The teacher talked about how teaching health is so much fun and that she will love it. I also (finally) got a job. I guess we have only been here for two and a half weeks, but it felt like an eternity trying to look for a job. I'm going to be doing marketing for a medical sleep center and am pretty excited!

To celebrate our victories, we had to go on a date to Waikiki. Although it isn't even close to being the best part of Oahu (I honestly don't understand why people spend so much time there), it is still fun to visit.

We started out going to the beach and relaxing

Then we went to Duke's, our favorite Waikiki restaurant. They have patio seating right on the beach with an amazing view of Diamond Head. They also had live music. This was the view from our table.

They have such good bar food. These buffalo wings surpassed my high expectations and don't even get me started on the pork nachos and criss-cut spicy fries.

We watched the sun set from our table

Then we went to all the little shops and just walked around. We ran into a Japanese street festival

Today we went to Hukilau and boogie boarded the afternoon away

Then we barbecued hamburglers in our little yard.

Hale

We finally feel like we have cleaned and fixed our place to our liking.
Here are some pics of it

The outside (and Suzi with her new Hawaii plates)

Our patio and dining table

Our bedroom/living room.

For some reason half of our kitchen is in our living room.

Our backyard and hot tub.

Our kitchen

It's all we ever wanted and more.