Cat Babies

They're back . . . it must be a summer thing.

When we first moved here, we started hearing what sounded like a perfect mixture between babies crying and a bag of felines being hit against a brick wall. We started investigating and found out that it was the stray cats that live under our house. Some say that they do it when they're in heat. Others speculate that they just get lonely when it rains.

Around October they left, possibly headed north for the Winter? However, this week they returned.

We've nicknamed them "cat babies" and at this point they're changing everything we ever thought we knew about them.

Scuba Steve

Becoming scuba certified is a high priority on my bucket list. Even though deep ocean water actually scares me pretty bad, I figure there is no better way to overcome that fear than diving right into it (no pun intended). The cost has always deterred me, but when there was a Honolulu Groupon for $99 certification I knew it was meant to be.

This past week I did all of my classes and dives. The homework made it seem so complicated, but it all came together once we started doing it. We had two days in the pool, and then two days in the ocean.

Our first ocean dives were at Electric Beach. This is the one that has hot water being pumped into it from the electric plant across the street. It was so fun! The water was incredibly clear and we got shot up by the hot water. There were so many fish, but unfortunately no dolphins (which this beach is famous for as well).

Our second day of ocean dives was at Magic Island. The water wasn't as clear but we got to explore little underwater canyons and a turtle snuck up right next to me!

Next stop: hopefully running into a whale shark off the coast of Thailand! 6 weeks . . .

Visitors

Last week some of my family came to visit. We stayed with them at Turtle Bay and it was so fun to be together.


We started our mini vacation watching Rod surf. I could do this for hours, he's getting really good!

There was some amazing snorkeling at Shark's Cove and Turtle Bay

Uncle Mark getting his snorkel on

Waimea Falls

On my birthday we went to Waimea Valley. It was gorgeous and so fun to just be together. My golden birthday (24 on the 24th) couldn't have been better.

Nerds

Somehow my Courtie grew a foot since Christmas. He's taller than me!

My darling Grammy

Dole Plantation - Yall'z

Jumping at Waimea

Chillaxing

I love you family. Miss you already!

Unexpected

Today was a day of the unexpected.

We woke up like usual at 5:20. Rod left for work at 6:00 and my carpool picked me up at 6:15. 25 minutes into my 40 minute drive to school, Rod called me and let me know that a water main broke, a bridge was flooded, and the only road to town was completely closed off.

We decided to pull off into a neighborhood so we could decide what to do. We had no idea when the road would re-open and it was an hour and a half drive to go all the way around the island - yuck. Me fellow student teacher who was driving called her cooperating teacher and was told not to bother to come in. Unfortunately today my cooperating teacher was at a workshop and I was being left alone to teach completely on my own. A sub would be there to watch me but he didn't know what to teach. This meant I could not go home and would need to make the trek around the island. As luck would have it, we stopped right in front of another teacher's house from my school as she was getting ready to drive around too! I jumped in the car and we began our journey.

After we drove the 25 minutes back to Laie Rod called me again to let us know the road had been re-opened (he waited the entire time - over an hour). We decided it would be faster to turn around and drive back to Kaneohe rather than fight the traffic in Pearl City. Eventually we made it to school (40 minutes late) and the kids in my first period cheered when I walked in (it's moments like that. . .) It was a crazy morning but spending the day pretty much alone with my students was awesome. They crack me up and make me so excited to have my own classroom someday.

After this crazy day I was stuck at school without a ride home. Rod was sweet enough to leave work early so he could pick me up. We decided that since we were already in Kaneohe that we should go see a movie (it is often hard to want to drive 4o minutes or an hour to get to a theatre).

We saw Limitless and it was fantastic. The cinematography was amazing and the story was intriguing. There was quite a bit of violence, but I still really liked it. I love that Bradley Cooper looks like a strung out hobo for a good portion of the film - it proved that he's more than a "hot guy". Well done, good sir.

Here is a trailer just in case you have no idea what movie I am talking about . . .



Living on a island is amazing. I often take for granted how beautiful it is here. The inconveniences (like having to drive an hour to get to Costco/Walmart or being at the mercy of a two lane highway that often gets blocked) are for the most part trivial. We love this island, we love our one-stop-light town, and we (usually) love our shack on the Point. I am not yet ready to say goodbye in 2.5 months.

Sorry for the long story,

Mahalo for reading it. Goodnight!

Utah Photo Shoot

Over Christmas when we were home we had a Rasmussen family photo shoot at Trolley Square. We had Tanya's friend Ashlee Brooke take the pictures and we just got the disc. Here are some of our favorites.

Mo' Maui

We just got back from our week in Maui. It was the perfect break from school and work. We loved staying in an air conditioned condo with king-sized beds, sleeping in every morning, and exploring a new land together. We were happy to be joined by our friends Jozie and Tommy halfway through the week.

Way too many pictures were taken to squeeze into one blog post, so we made a slideshow of the best from our camera as well as J&T's. Highlights include:

• Basking on beautiful new beaches and hanging out with a friendly monk seal and oversized novelty sea turtles
• The Road to Hana and all of its twist and turns
  
• Hiking through a bamboo forest to three different waterfalls
• Great food including organic pizza, homemade banana bread, world famous fish tacos, fresh fish & chips, ono roadside fruits and avocados, and more than one pazookie.
• Whale watching (yeah, they really jumped out of the water by our boat) and Tannie didn't even cry!
• Lounging poolside and solidifying our friendship with J&T, BS 'n P style
• Birthday shopping for Tanya - my favorite is her feather hair extension.
  

Maui 2011 from Rodney Rasmussen on Vimeo.

We were sad to come home, but happy that we have a beautiful place that we love to come home to.

Aloha

Tsunami

Last night at around 9:00 PM we started getting calls and texts from friends around town saying that there was a really bad earthquake in Japan and that they expected a Tsunami to hit Hawaii at 3:00 am. We looked up videos of Japan and, as most of you, were shocked and saddened by the destruction.

We decided to head to Foodland grocery store with our friends Jozie and Tommy to check out the situation and get some provisions. It was pretty chaotic. The line was wrapping all around the store with people buying jugs and cases of water as well as stocking up on food.
A typical grocery cart - notice the Top Ramen and Vienna Sausages. Top priority.
While we were there, the town evacuation warning sirens started going off. Even the locals were getting pretty nervous at this point. It was an eerie sound and an eerie feeling. We caught it on this video:

Untitled from Rodney Rasmussen on Vimeo.

We didn't want to wait in line, so we went home and packed our car with what we had (Thank J&T for keeping us hydrated!)

We decided to go behind the Laie temple because it is higher ground and that's where a lot of people were headed. It was basically like a big tailgating party. We tried to sleep for awhile in the car, but it was super uncomfortable. At about 2:30 we headed up the hill to a cemetery/park that is right behind the temple. We lay under the stars and waited . . . and waited . . . and didn't really know what was going on. I guess it didn't do much damage because eventually we were given the OK to head home. Tan took this sunrise picture on the way home.

All schools and lots of businesses are closed today (we both had the day off already) so we're going to bed now. We are lucky that it didn't turn out to be much, although it was scary at the time. We are also happy that the airports will be up and running again soon, because tomorrow we head to Maui for the week! We will continue to pray for those in Japan.

Aloha