Christmas 2015

Zach and I had a wonderful Christmas!
We were a little sad to think this was our last Christmas in Hawaii and could possibly be our last Christmas just the two of us.
We wanted to keep it simple; eat good food, enjoy opening presents together, and go to the beach.
On Christmas Eve we made ham, mashed potatoes, and stuffing and made enough so we would not have to cook again on Christmas {we love leftovers}.
We've tried to make watching Elf our Christmas Eve tradition {so far it's only happened our first two years here} we forgot the movie last year when we went to Utah and this year I only made it through the credits before I started to fall asleep.
On Christmas morning we woke up excited that Santa had come, of course! Popped a french toast bake in the oven, opened presents, and called our families to wish them a Merry Christmas.
Zach had the best idea to take our little tree with us to the beach so we took the ornaments off and packed our beach bag.
It was a beautiful Christmas beach day. We planted our tree in the sand and took some photos.
Other people walked over and ask us if they could use our tree to take a photo with.
'Tis the season!

Big Waves

I think one of the coolest things about living in Hawaii is being able to see big waves and what's more impressive than seeing the waves is hearing them.

One of the new things Zach and I have been doing is volunteering as Honu Guardians with Malama na Honu on the north shore. Basically we educate visitors about sea turtles. 

The turtles come ashore to bask on the sand and Honu Guardians are responsible for roping off the turtles so visitors do not disturb them. 

We have enjoyed learning about sea turtles and spending more time at the north shore. 

Yesterday we were scheduled to watch the beach but due to the high surf that rolled in earlier this week the beach was closed. 

So we drove down the road to Pipeline to watch the big waves. 

We sat there for over 2 hours watching the waves and the brave surfers. 

The water was so powerful yesterday like nothing we have seen before, at one point there were 4 sets of waves rolling in at the same time. 

Seeing waves over 20 feet high is truly an amazing experience. 

The Honu

Zach Turned 30!

A couple weeks ago I surprised Zach with a weekend getaway to Turtle Bay for his 30 birthday.

I booked the room back in March and it was so hard to keep it from him for months. 

There were moments where I'd get so excited and almost blurt out, "When we are at Turtle Bay..." but quickly remembering Zach didn't know we were going to Turtle Bay. 

It was fun to surprise him and getting our families involved to help me out!

We had a wonderful weekend and loved being away from it all for a couple days. 

The resort is lovely and we had a wonderful view of the pool and ocean. 

We swam a lot in the pool, even the rain didn't keep us out. 

We explored the property and walked along the beach. 

The only downfall of the weekend was the stormy weather.

I had also planned for us to do a shark cage excursion but due to the bad weather it got cancelled. 

We'll have to save that one for next year. 

I wanted to make Zach's 30th special because we are embarking on a whole new chapter in our lives in our 30's and that is exciting! 

View from our room. 

We enjoyed watching the surfers. 

The movie "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" is one of our favorites and they filmed all over Turtle Bay, including a large portion with those cottages. 

We quoted the movie the whole weekend. 

Cheers to 30! 

Check out our Turtle Bay Video

Our First Wedding Anniversary

To celebrate our first wedding anniversary we went camping at Malaekahana on the north shore. We
had not used our tent since we lived in it on the farm so it was good to set it up again and reminisce about our start on Oahu nearly 3 years ago. The camp site was really nice and we enjoyed spending uninterrupted (no cellphones) time together. We sat up our camp and then walked the beach. As we were walking we saw a lot of Portuguesse Man-O-War (box jellyfish) so we were a little skeptical about going in the water  but that didn't stop Zach from taking a quick dip. Even though the sun was still up we decided to start our campfire as there were dark clouds forming over the mountains and we were hungry. We cooked up some chili dogs and made s'mores for dessert. After we ate we walked the beach again for a little bit and then drank champagne while enjoying the sound of the waves. Everything was great about camping except for the fact that we got no sleep.  It was windy so our tent was flapping all night and for whatever reason we thought the ground would be soft enough that we would not need an air mattress but it was hard as a rock! (our mistake). We got up around 6:00 and ate breakfast by the ocean then we packed everything up and left the camp ground after 7:00. Our plan was to stay at the north shore for the majority of the day but we were zombies and just wanted to go home. I took a 3 hour nap and we bummed around our house before going out to dinner. On Sunday we did a 5 mile hike and on Monday I took the day off of work so we could go to the water park. It was nice having a long weekend together to celebrate our first year of marriage!

Malaekahana Beach

Portuguesse Man-O-War

Cheers!

Check out our latest GoPro Video

Beach Photo Shoot

It seems our GoPro movies have taken place of our blog...and the fact that we haven't really been exploring much this summer. Work and school have been taking up the majority of our time lately. But we have a few fun things planned in the next couple of months.

How the heck is it already August? It's crazy that we will be celebrating our first wedding anniversary next weekend! Our first year of marriage has been awesome. I am very blessed to have Zach as my husband and for the life we share together.

I was able to talk Zach into taking pictures on the beach for our one year anniversary and I think he actually liked it. We were laughing through the whole shoot and I love that the photographer was able to capture those moments of us being silly and truly in the moment!

Our Week in Kauai

I am so grateful I got to celebrate my 29th year in such a beautiful place as Kauai and I'm happy my mom and Dan were able to spend the week with us as well. 

If you have not been to Hawaii before I would highly recommend booking a vacation to the island of Kauai. 

It's pretty incredible. Full of lush green mountains, tons of waterfalls, crystal clear ocean, uncrowded beaches, and home of the Grand Canyon of the Pacific and the Na Pali Coast. 

A week was not enough time to explore the island. We could have easily spent the whole week hiking Waimea Canyon. But our week was filled with other fun things like zip lining, water tubing down old irrigation canals, boating along the Na Pali Coast and seeing caves, driving all over the island, eating yummy handmade Hawaiian ice cream, relaxing on beaches, hiking, going on bike rides,  snorkeling, playing in water falls, and chasing rooster with our GoPro.

Our week went by too fast!

Hiking to a waterfall in Waimea Canyon.

One of Zach's favorite things is playing in waterfalls but Dan was the first one in at this fall.

The red ridge line to the left of the waterfall is the ridge we were hiking in the first photo of this post and the water fall Dan and Zach swam in leads into this big waterfall.

Waimea Canyon is beautiful.

The Na Pali Coast line. 

You can only get to this northern part of the island by boat or hiking.

I was in complete awe of this coast line. This was definitely one of our high lights for the week. 

We road bikes one morning to watch the sun rise and took some photos of my mom doing yoga.

Happy I got to celebrate my birthday with my mom!

On our way to tubing. Watch our video to see how much fun we had!

The peak to the right of Dan is Mt. Wai'ale'ale one of the rainiest places on earth. 

The waterfall from that mountain flows into the irrigation canals, which is what we road down in big inner tubes and that water was COLD and even colder in the dark tunnels!

For all those tourists. 

Wailua Falls.

Hanalei was my favorite town. It's so green and pretty. 

We spent a couple hours at the Ke'e beach which is where hikers begin their Na Pali Coast hike.

The Na Pali Coast from the opposite direction from our boat ride. 

Dan zippin'!

Zip lining was a lot of fun as well. 

He knew I was trying to get him! 

Check out our GoPro video for more of our week in Kauai.
  https://youtu.be/rTe6CXeSmR8