A Very Happy 29th!

I normally would not devote an entire blog entry to my own birthday, but I must share with you just how special my day was thanks to some very thoughtful friends...and my hubby, of course!

I wasn't too excited about my birthday this year...besides entering the LAST year of my twenties, I just don't know many people here well enough yet to think they would want to share my birthday with me. I really thought I'd spend the day alone, waiting for Blaine to get home from work. I was also a little sad not having my mom here to bake a cake, like she always does for all of us on our birthdays. I had to make my own cake. :( Pitiful, I know! You'll see from the pictures that I decorated it with an exciting "29"...I just couldn't write out "Happy Birthday" to myself!

My morning was filled with phone calls and texts from dear friends and family from the mainland, which was a great start to my day. I talked to my family through Skype, so I got to "see" them on my birthday, which was great. Blaine also surprised me with my birthday gift (a Shark steam mop that I've been eyeing for some time now)...well, I surprised HIM when he walked through the door at 8 a.m., carrying an unwrapped gift ;)! Thanks, sweetie!!

My sweet friend, Elizabeth, treated me to lunch at the Sand Bar and Grill (located on the beach here at Hickam AFB). We had Mai tais with our food and then laid out on the beach to get some sun! It was great...thanks so much, Elizabeth, for spending the afternoon with me!

So, Blaine plays on an intramural softball team here on base and had a game on my birthday. I have to admit, I was a little bummed that he was going to play softball instead of taking me out to dinner and having a "normal" birthday evening, even though I really do enjoy the games and hanging out with the other wives. Right before we rushed out the door to his game, we decided to cut the cake so that our neighbor, Jewlee, and her kids could help us eat it! They were so sweet and excited about the "birthday party"...they sang 'Happy Birthday", helped me blow out the candles, and knew exactly how to remove the candles...making sure to "clean" each candle of it's icing. ;) Thanks for the help, Jake, Brodie, and GiGi!! And thanks, Jewlee, for the super-adorable bracelet!

Blowing out ALL of those candles!

Eager to help remove the candles so that we can cut into the cake!

As we showed up to Blaine's softball game, the girls yelled "Happy Birthday!" I was a little confused and surprised that they knew it was my birthday. Right away, I noticed the dugout was different...the girls had coolers of beer, they bought a birthday lei for me, AND baked me a birthday cake!!! It was all I could do to contain myself and keep from crying! I asked them how they knew...Blaine had told one of the girls' husbands and they all got together and did all of this for me in less than a day. I couldn't get over their thoughtfulness! It was so sweet!! Thanks so much, Elisha and Linsey, for going out of your way to make my birthday so special! The guys won their game :) and some of us went out for Mexican food afterwards. It was so yummy and the perfect end to an awesome day!

Linsey, Elisha, and Erin helping me celebrate!

The birthday cake! Victim to the heat, yes...but OH SO YUMMY!

Thanks to everyone's kind hearts and generosity for making my 29th birthday more awesome than I ever imagined! I am always blown away with just how blessed I am with amazing family and friends!! Y'all are the best!

A Stay-cation!

What a great time we've had! From attending my sister's graduation in Texas to having Blaine's family here with us in Hawaii, the past couple of weeks have been a blast...

We flew to Texas the first week of June to be at Cassandra's high school graduation. Although it was a short visit, we had a great time and were so happy to be there to celebrate her accomplishments...check out all of the cords and ribbons around her neck! We are so proud of her and know that she will continue to excel at Texas State University in the fall...yes, the alma mater of both of her sisters! :)

Blaine's family actually arrived in Hawaii the day before we returned, so we were greeted by very familiar faces when we got home! From the day they arrived until just hours before their flight back home, we made the MOST of their visit, squeezing in everything that we could. And we had SO MUCH FUN!

Soon after our plane landed, we took Blaine's family to Schooner's, a really neat restaurant on Pearl Harbor. It's run by the Navy base, so they have military prices instead of Hawaii prices. And we sure did appreciate those $3 Mai Tais after traveling for 10 hours!

The next day, while Blaine was working, we took a scenic drive around the Windward side of the island (my favorite drive) after eating at a cozy tea room in Honolulu. The gorgeous blue water and waves crashing on the rocks is just one of the many reasons I love this drive so much!

On Tuesday, Blaine was still working, so I took everyone to Iolani Palace in downtown Honolulu. This was our backup plan, after we tried to visit the USS Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor and there were no more tickets available. So glad we went to the palace, though, what a beautiful place! Before we moved here, I had no idea Hawaii was once a monarchy, ruled by a royal family until 1893. Captain Cook only discovered Hawaii two years after we signed our Declaration of Independence! I thought all of this in Hawaii had happened long before that. My favorite room in the palace was filled with the royal family's jewels and King Kamehameha's cape made entirely of yellow and red feathers. You'll see pictures of this cape all over the island when you come to visit ;) but it was really neat seeing the actual thing in person.

Just outside Iolani Palace, you'll find these amazing Banyan trees. The trees drop roots from their branches and the roots grow toward the ground, and eventually grow into the ground, expanding the size and width of the trees. So neat!

The next day, we tried to visit the Arizona memorial again, but it was closed due to high winds. So, we decided to check out the USS Bowfin submarine instead. I can't even imagine living in such a small place for months at a time. Check out where they load the torpedos!

On Thursday, we spent most of the day at the Polynesian Cultural Center. This place is incredible! It's run by the Mormon church and their profits support students coming from the Polynesian islands to attend Brigham Young University-Hawaii. In fact, most of the tour guides and employees are students of the university. Our tour guide was a native Tahitian who is studying English and plans to return to Tahiti to teach English. The center is made up of different villages, representing the islands of Hawaii, Tahiti, Fiji, Aotearoa, Tonga, and Samoa. Throughout the day, each village puts on shows and demonstrations. After visiting the villages, a luau dinner was served, followed by an amazing broadway-quality show!

A Samoan climbs a coconut tree to pick coconuts.

Blaine and Tim learn a Tahitian dance. You should really see the video! ;)

Kalua Pig at the luau dinner.

"Ha, Breath of Life" show after the luau.

On Friday, we had Blaine's promotion ceremony at the Officer's Club on base. There is an amazing space at the club available by reservation that sits in a tropical garden and overlooks Pearl Harbor. It was just perfect for us! His commander had wonderful things to say about him and everything was just so nice! We are so glad Blaine's family could be here for this celebration!

Blaine's mom and I pin on his Major leaves.

Reception area in the garden...the club did an EXCELLENT job setting up for this!

Food and drink tables at reception.

"Cupcake cake" for reception.

Celebrating Blaine's promotion with a beautiful sunset backdrop!

After the excitement surrounding the promotion ceremony was over, I was able to relax a bit :) and enjoy the rest of our family's visit. We headed up to our favorite spot, the North Shore, for Mary, Tim, and Lisa's last full day in Hawaii. We stopped at the Dole Plantation, hiked to a beautiful waterfall, snorkeled Shark's Cove, and had a yummy Thai dinner at Haleiwa Eats Thai! It was such an awesome day!!

Pineapple plants at Dole Plantation...how many of you knew pineapples grow like this???

An extra treat...we stopped at Turtle Beach in hopes of catching a glimpse of a sea turtle. To our delight, there were PLENTY of turtles out that day and we got to meet this guy up close and personal!

Waimea Falls...at the end of a gorgeous hike through botanical gardens.

Shark's Cove is a great snorkeling spot. This was Lisa and Tim's first snorkeling experience...had we known how much they were going to LOVE it, we would have done this at the beginning of the week and made time for much more snorkeling! They loved it so much that we woke up early the next day and snorkeled at Hanauma Bay just hours before their flight back home! :)

Hanauma Bay

It has been such an exciting couple of weeks...we loved seeing family in Texas and I also feel like WE have been on vacation here at home. We really learned more about Hawaii and found a deeper appreciation for the culture through this week's activities. We're super excited about all that we will be able to share with our next visitors...I hope you're getting excited, Matt and Rachel!! :)

An Outdoor Weekend!

We were on the go this weekend, complete with two spearfishing outings and getting some much needed sun! And, yes, I made sure to have the camera on hand this time...

We headed out early Saturday morning to Ko'Olina, on the west side of the island. Ko'Olina is a very pretty resort area and a favorite spearfishing spot of Blaine and some of his fishing buddies. I actually took pictures that day with my old "point and shoot" camera...NO photo editing whatsoever. Yes, Hawaii really IS this beautiful! As I have done before, and said I would never do again :), I snorkeled while Blaine fished. And, once again, the visibility was poor due to high winds and waves and we couldn't see more than a few feet in front of us. I have never felt more like prey in my entire life...again, I caught myself instinctively wrapping my arms around my chest and abdomen, protecting my vital organs from nearby predators. If that doesn't just scream "fun"! And Blaine told me AFTERWARDS that a tiger shark is known to frequent that area. Awesome. I'm sure that shark was watching and stalking me the whole time. ;)

Since Blaine didn't catch anything Saturday, he headed out for more spearfishing on Sunday. He took a buddy with him this time, so I was able to hang out on the beach with the dogs and some friends. Hickam AFB has a beach just for dogs, which is a nice relief since most beaches in Hawaii do not allow dogs, not to mention this beach is just a two-minute drive from our house. We had a good time...Blaze and Holly seemed to enjoy it, maybe because they were very interested in and excited about all the other dogs there. Here are some pictures from our beach outing yesterday...

Blaze checking out the water

Holly smiling at the camera

This is Dog Beach...and one of Blaine's spearfishing spots. If you look really closely, between the two bushes, WAY out in the water, you can see a tiny speck. It's about 400 yards out. That speck is a cement platform that Blaine swims out to...the same place I swam to with him the first time we went spearfishing, when I swore I would never go again. :)

We saw another submarine while at Dog Beach. They come through here often because Pearl Harbor is just right around the corner...I think this area of the beach is technically in Pearl Harbor. Submarine sightings have become a regular occurrence, but it's still so cool every time we see one!

We made a new friend while at the beach...actually, I spent a lot of my time keeping the dogs AWAY from this new friend. Doesn't he look menacing?!

Hanging out on the beach, soaking up some rays!

Heading back from spearfishing...again, empty-handed.

We will be pretty busy over the next couple of weeks, gearing up for a short trip to Texas and Blaine's family visiting us here. With all the sightseeing we will do with Blaine's family, we should have plenty of pictures to post! Until then...

Our New Place: Part 2...

I thought I'd add some outdoor photos, now that our yard is freshly mowed and I was able to take pictures. Drum roll please......seriously, don't get too excited. ;)

Here is our building...you may recall that it's a "fourplex", like four townhomes in one building. We are one of the middle units, closest to the corner unit that you can see here. Most of the houses are set up this way, unless you are a Colonel or above. Oh, and that's Blaine's spearfishing-scuba diving-surfing-beach going Tacoma parked in front. He insisted he needed a truck just for those purposes. :)

This is our front yard and door. You can see our neighbor's door in this picture, too. It's a good thing we get along so well, being as close as we are!

Our back patio, complete with new furniture and all! I have also added some planters, my favorite being the half wine barrel you see here. This is our herb garden, complete with two types of thyme, two types of basil, oregano, mint, italian parsley, and sage. We also have rosemary, green onions, cilantro, and four types of peppers in the other planters.

Another angle of the patio...and a view of our fragrant plumeria trees! I think you can kind of see how close the units in the building are by looking at the space between the sidewalks. No complaints, though, as our neighbors to the left make awesome pina coladas and mai tais, while our neighbors to the right BBQ regularly and feed us more than we feed ourselves!

Here, you can see our papaya tree, a couple of tropical bushes, and our lime tree.

Stay tuned for "Our New Place: Part 3" for the upstairs pics! And don't forget the picture I promised of Blaine in his spearfishing gear...we're going tomorrow and I plan to pack the camera! ;)

Update: No spearfishing yesterday, as the parking lots near Blaine's favorite spot were full. But we did find an awesome snorkeling spot on the North Shore...and discovered an even MORE awesome Thai food restaurant! Yummy!

Our New Place...

I know you've all been waiting on pins and needles for pictures of our base house! ;) Well, maybe you really have been if you hope to make Hickam AFB your next assignment and are considering living on base. Before you look at the pictures below, let me warn you that we still have SO much to do in the house, but I want to get these pictures on here so that you can see where we live, even if it is half-decorated...

This is the view upon entering the front door. To the left is the living room, which leads into our office, and to the right is a hallway that leads into the dining room. I plan to paint that big white wall in the living room and office; I just haven't decided what color yet. I would like to find a color that accents the blue that is already there.

This is the hallway and view of the stairs from the front door. There are a couple of closets and a half bath in this hallway.

This is our living room...which has been extremely frustrating when it comes to decorating and arranging furniture. I'm not sure the furniture will stay this way, but it's working for now...and I've moved these couches a million times now and don't want to touch them again. We also want to mount the television on the wall, but I'm not optimistic we'll ever get to that. :) Notice the "stylish" vertical blinds that protrude from the wall at least six inches...it's nearly impossible to hang any type of window treatments. We're making it all work, though!

This is our "dining room"...yes, the floor plan calls this little nook a dining room. I can't, for the life of me, figure out why on earth you would carpet a dining room. We have decided not to use this as our dining room. It has, instead, become our office. This floor plan has really required some creative thinking on our part!

Just another angle of the office...you can see where it is situated with regards to the living room. I must comment on our desk here. Blaine's late Uncle Bob gave us this desk. Uncle Bob was an amazing man with even more amazing life experiences. He was from England and spent a significant amount of his life in Africa, where his children still live. I should probably write an entire blog entry on the life of Uncle Bob sometime, since he deserves way more than a couple of lines in this paragraph. Anyway, I'm not sure how he acquired this desk, but we do know that it came from the USS Alabama, a WWII battleship. It has a metal seal with a serial number and everything! The desk was an orangeish-yellowish finish, but we had it refinished in this espresso color. And we love it!!

This is our kitchen, looking into the office and living room. It's not too exciting, but it gets the job done!

Another shot of the kitchen...yes, I know I am missing some cabinet doors. :) The couple who lived here before us wasn't crazy about the "pickled oak" cabinets (imagine that!) so they took the doors off for more of an open shelving look. They also painted the inside of the cabinets, which actually goes very well with our cobalt blue Mexican glassware! We like it, and it's unique, which isn't a bad thing when you and all of your friends on base have the SAME house.

Here is our "family room", as described in the floor plan. We are using this as the dining room, since that makes the most sense to us, being that it is not carpeted and is located right off of the kitchen. If you look closely, you will see the light sitting in the hallway. This is my proud Craigslist find...it's an iron and wood chandelier and I got it for $20! While I like the shell chandelier that is currently in this room, it doesn't really go with my decor. So, as soon as I can talk Blaine into hanging it, we will have a new light!

You may have noticed that there are no upstairs pictures on here...that's because there isn't a whole lot to take pictures of up there yet. I've just started decorating the bathrooms, so two of our three have nothing more than hand soap and a hand towel...not picture-worthy. Our bedroom is not even near completion and one bedroom is completely empty! I promise to post those pictures as the rooms come along. I will also post some outdoor and patio pictures in a later entry...this post is long enough as it is.

I know I'm putting too much thought into a place we will only inhabit for two years. The last thing I want to do is be stuck indoors, trying to overcome my "decorator's block" instead of enjoying this beautiful island! That said, I am planning to get out this weekend for some snorkeling while Blaine spearfishes. It will be my first time at the beach in over a month! And I could use the break from organizing and decorating...

Another Water Sport...

On our second day in Hawaii, we saw a man wearing a camouflage wetsuit, toting a spear gun and his fresh catch of the day, walking down the street near Waikiki Beach. At the time, we thought it was hilarious...but I should have known it would only be a matter of time before Blaine added this sport to his list of hobbies. :) Blaine has quickly taken up the sport and has been spearfishing the last four weekends.

Spearfishing is a pretty physical sport, complete with lots of gear. Blaine wears the following when spearfishing: a wetsuit, a hood, gloves, booties, fins, a mask, a snorkel, a knife, he carries a spear gun, and he also has attached to him a float with a dive flag. Why the float with a dive flag, you may ask? Because spearfishing is all about taking a deep breath, diving down to anywhere between 30 and 60 feet, stalking a fish, spearing that fish, and bringing it back to the surface. The flag lets boats know that you're there so that you don't get hit. Boats? Yes, Blaine swims out 100-200 yards into the ocean to do all of this. I went with him one time...when I couldn't see the bottom anymore, I decided it would be the last time. I am still extremely afraid of sharks...thanks to watching Jaws when I was a kid. Did I mention that he strings whatever he catches to that float right above him? It kind of looks like shark bait, if you ask me. But he loves it, and I love it when he comes home safely!

Last Saturday, Blaine brought home four trigger fish and two octopi. We found out very quickly that a few fish and some octopi tend to attract every kid from the block to our house. The kids were all so amazed and had a blast squeezing the ink out of the octopi. It made for a messy, but fun, afternoon!

I haven't actually captured on camera Blaine decked out in his full spearfishing gear yet...but, you can rest assured that as soon as I do, it will be posted here for your viewing pleasure and for a good laugh!

Side note: You can see our beautiful plumeria trees and our back patio in the pictures posted here. More pictures of the house coming soon...STILL organizing and unpacking!!