Iceland

David's brother was getting married in Iceland, so of course we "had" to go. Man oh man did we have a blast. And remember that new camera I mentioned, WELL 3000+ pictures later we can officially say we love it!

Day 1: Nap time and some downtown fun!
Now its only a 5 hour time difference (only) but after leaving San Antonio at 6 am-a couple fights and layovers later-we land in Iceland the next day at 6 am. Talk about a long day. So a nap was necessary! Then we headed to some observatory that looks like a boob. Most of the locals we met even call it a boob. But I guess the real name is the Perlan and it's a cool observation point.

This is where I got my first taste of food in Iceland as well as their crazy prices. Then we headed downtown to play be lost tourists.

Find the creeper (me)

where's waldo?

The church. (Iceland is mostly Lutheran so all their towns are centered around churches)

Day 2: Spa Day
The Blue Lagoon is a geothermal spa that is also a huge tourist trap. But hey it was way worth it. We had an awesome time putting on volcanic ash mud stuff and looking like fools. And everyone of course knew who the loud obnoxious Americans were.

Day 3: Icelandic Independence day!
Everyone and their mom came to the capital to party! Apparently its a big deal :)

 Getting in the spirit! 

Day 4: Golden Circle tour.

A bunch of us went up to a geyser and an incredible waterfall. Iceland took my breath away quite a few times and most of them were on this day trip. 

 The continental drift in a cool artistic perspective :) 

getting a little Steamy :)

 Impeccable timing (okay we took like 10 pictures to get this) 

 Just before it blew!

 Amazing waterfall

I told you it was big :) 

Day 5: Travel Day

A long beautiful 5 hour drive to Siglo. Man did it take forever but we tried to play tourist as much as possible along the way. 

 On top of a crater with the pretty setting

 Ninja gentleman helping grandma

 Such a beautiful drive! 

 See even pretty flowers along the way

And we had to slow down for the sheepies that were crossing the road.

Day 6 & 7: Rest and exploration: 

It was pretty much the calm before the storm. We had plenty of time to explore the little town of Siglo and to drive to the next town (Akureyri) and look around there too.

 The tiny town of Siglo 

 Clear as glass

 sexy in our waders! Fly fishing here we come! 

 My fisher man! 

 Hello Handsome! 

 Touching a VERY cold Atlantic ocean

 Another waterfall (number 15 of 100000 a lot)

Day 8: Wedding day! 

Man did they pick a breathtaking spot to get married! They make a cute couple and it made me all the more excited to get married to my man ! 

 Our Smooch 

Their Smooch

Day 9, 10 &11: Travel, travel and more travel! 

So we drove back to Reykjavik, spent some more time there picking up the last of our nick-nacks and souvenirs and then started out trip back to the mainland. We had a long layover in DC so David and I met up with one of my old roommates and then the next day David, his mom, nephew and I went to the Air and Space Museum. 

This was such an amazing trip, but boy am I glad to be home sleeping in my own bed and eating "normal" food again. We were so blessed to be able to go on this trip and man do I look forward to so many more with this wonderful man! 

Galveston!

Since I am so good at posting ;) I thought I would do a half way post to ease the load because a lot is happening this month.

Towards the beginning of the month we had an awesome vacation in Galveston with David's brother and his family. Alex (David's brother) works in the hotel industry so he got us the hookups to stay at the Hotel Galvez for an awesome rate. The hotel itself was full of history, including a living through a couple hurricanes, having been there serving their guests since 1911. What I thought was the best part about the hotel was the fact that it was right across the street from the beach. I felt right at home. It was like living at the Bus Stop house all over again, just better and it came with housekeeping :)

We had a fabulous time just playing at the beach, hanging at the pool and getting into shenanigans :) One of my favorite shenanigans was renting paddle boards and just going for it. I (having lived on an island for a couple years) knew how to paddle board but for everyone else they had a new fun experience. It was fun watching everyone try and pretty much succeed. Had it not been such rough water I think everyone would have been pretty good at it. Jordan (Alex and Jackie's oldest son) was at it for hours and was having a blast.

Alex and Dylan partying on the paddle board.

 Cute little Callen

 David going for it 

 Me having some fun

 The whole gang! Some may not be showing it, but we were all excited to be there! 

Me and Callen hanging out by the pool

David and I also had a nice little date night while by the coast. We went to a little restaurant for dinner and had a fun time on Pleasure Pier (a mini boardwalk). And our date of course included a nice long  romantic walk on the beach :) 

It was so wonderful to be by the beach again. But it was even more wonderful to be able to spend it with "almost" family and to just relax and enjoy ourselves. I am so blessed to have all these new people in my life now! 

May in June

One day I will post on time. But here is another late post.

This month has been busy with wedding planning galore! I have:
-Bought a dress (go here to see some pictures)
-Finally found a tailor that wont charge an arm and a leg.
-Took our engagement pictures (a quick peak)


-Made, ordered, and received our announcements
-Written addresses until my hand wanted to fall off... and still have more to go.
-and so much more! ( I wont bore you guys by talking about every detail.)

On the fun side of things we have done a bunch of stuff too!
-Went to a Josh Abbott band concert. (way fun)

-didn't wash away in the flooding but we got a little dirty :)

-Went to the Texas Ski Ranch and went wake boarding (that's me in the picture)

-Went to the Natural Bridge Caverns with Caroline: a friend from Hawaii here for an internship

-Partied at Six Flags Fiesta Texas
-and I cant think of more but I'm sure we did other cool things too.

Well life was eventful but I cant wait to blog about next this month. look forward to lots of pictures because we just got a new DSLR camera and we cant wait to find excuses to use it!

April Engagements bring July weddings :)

April really proved to be an exciting month... I'm engaged! I'm sure the few people who read my blog already know, but I'm going to write about it anyways!

It all started on the morning of Friday the 12th. We had plans that he would come pick me up at like 10ish so we could go on a motorcycle ride and have a picnic. Well then I get a text that morning that he has to run an errand for his mom really quick and then will be ready by 10:30. no big deal... well then 11:00 rolls around and so I was starting to get a little annoyed that he still wasn't here and I hadn't heard from him. So I text him to make sure he was still alive. To which he replied that he got sidetrack talking to his mom and still needed to take a shower. Well then he finally shows up at like 11: 45. I wasn't happy. So we go for our bike ride and eat at Chick-fil-a, and then he drops me back off at home because I had to babysit and he had to take his mom to the doctors. I was not a happy camper and he knew it. So he said he would make it up to me that night. Sure whatever.

So he comes back at like 4 to come pick me up for our date. He picked up 2 dozen beautiful red roses, which in my mind was the making it up to you part. Oh how wrong I was. So we proceed to Jason's Deli so we could get sandwiches for our picnic that we were finally going to have. Then we drove out to the Guadalupe river state park to have our picnic. Things were going great and I wasn't such a grump anymore. So we ate and just enjoyed the river. Then we decided to go on a walk, so off we went. While walking we were just talking, holding hands, and ya know doing normal stuff. Well then we came to a dead end so what other thing can you do at a dead end but kiss ;) Then David told me he made me something. So he pulled out this envelope from of his backpack and hands it to me. So I opened it and look at this finger painting he made me which along with the picture said "will you marry me". I look up from the painting and there he was on one knee with a little white box.

I of course said yes and gave him lots of kisses! We then joked about how he really made it up to me and how surprised I was. Then I started all the crazy phone calls to friends and family to tell them the news.

Now some fun facts about me and how I wanted my engagement to be. I did not want to pick out my own ring 1. I wanted it to be a gift from him and 2. because then I wouldn't be waiting for him to propose and could actually be surprised when it did happen. Well before this we had talked about getting married and would joke about rings and he knew what some of my ring requirements were (round cut, white gold, etc.. just very general guidelines) but I didn't know my ring size. So Cindy and I had a girls night on the 11th (the night before he proposed) and stopped at Jared's and got sized. Then that night when David asked what we did, I told him we went to Jared's and I was a size 5 &1/2. He played it off like a champ, "oh that's good to know, maybe in the future I will use that info"... something along those lines. Well little did I know that he had already bought my ring on the Tuesday before and gotten the approximate size from my mom. Since I had told him my ring size I decided that from then on out I would 1. have my fingernails painted and 2. always dress "nice/up" so that whenever/if ever he popped the question I wouldn't look like a slob. Thank heavens I started on Friday since David was so on top of things! :)

 And I have to give props to my parents for keeping the secret! Growing up, I always thought that they would give it away since whoever I married needed to call daddy first. Well I was so wrong! David called and talked to my parents on Tuesday a whole four days before we got engaged. I talked to my parents twice in those four days and even mentioned about maybe marrying David and they just gave me their normal answers like okay sure whatever you think. I didn't even get an inkling that he had called already.

So April engagements bring July weddings! We have decided to get married on July 19th in the Houston LDS temple. That was one of the easier decisions to make. Now we are in the thick of planning a wedding and there are so many more decisions to make! But I cant wait to start my life with David and be able to spend eternity with him!

Oh and since David knows I'm writing this he wanted to make sure that "everyone knows that he really, really, really loves me!"  True story. I am so grateful for him and the love that he shows me.

March Madness!

So, no this post is not about basketball although this years March Madness has been nothing short of madness. I mean come on so many upsets and poor Kevin Ware's broken leg. YIKES!

As far as my march madness, there has been a lot going on (hence my post being a little late...oops). First, there was spring break! Wahoo. I had David, school free, for a whole week! awesome. So we wanted to make the most of it. We did a lot of cool things just right around town like the Riverwalk, the Witte museum, and just chilled.

There were cool photo bombing dinosaurs at the Witte Museum. 

We wanted to have a super fun day too, so we went to the beach. I was so happy to feel the salty windy in my hair, to hear the roar of the ocean, and to feel the sand between my toes! Lets just say I was excited! David had just bought his new Tacoma with 4 wheel drive so we had to try that out! It was a blast to drive on the beach! What a great spring break!

Squinty Squinty! 

Yeah we came across a camel at the beach. When I am rich, I too will take my pet camel to the beach...  :)

David couldn't resist posing his black beauty for a nice little photo shoot. 

Then, my parents came out to visit. It was more fun than I was anticipating. WE took them to some local joints and ate WAY too much food. Also, when us girls get together we of course have to shop! So we shopped until we dropped. I was looking for a specific item while out shopping, heels! I know weird, me wearing heels. But that is the wonderful thing about having a boyfriend that is 6'9" I can wear crazy heels and still be significantly shorter than him. I can finally try and be tall instead of wearing flats to have a bigger range of men to date. Now I just need to make sure I can walk in them. Thank heavens I haven't tripped yet. (key word: yet)

Bought these sexy bad boys..well mom did :) Thanks mommy

Now for the reason this post is so late... I was in Arizona for the past week. David and I went out to visit his brother Jeremy, Jeremy's fiancee Steina, and their son as well as to see Davids old mission buddy, and my friends Kahanu and Krisha. Talk about a full week! so I will let the pictures do most of the talking.

First I got to see this awesome lady! Kahanu was down from Hawaii visiting a friend so of course we had to meet up and cause some trouble. 

We also had a double date with David's mission buddy and we were able to go to the wonderful Mesa Easter pageant. It was beautiful and so nice to visit the temple and to be reminded of the true meaning of Easter and the loving sacrifice that our Savior has made for us. 

One of the things I miss about good ole Cali is In-N-Out Burger. I missed In-N-Out so much that during the 1 week I was near an in-n-out, I went 3 times. I had to stock up for the In-N-out famine I am currently in and do not know when I will be blessed with a delicious double-double again.

Also, Saturday was Off-road Appreciation day so we had to be extra appreciative! Jeremy knew some people that were going to go from Lake Pleasant to Crown King (a 30+ mile off road trail) so we decided to join them. David, Jeremy, and their mom bought a Can-am Commander so we HAD to take it out and keep up with the gang. Well we kept up alright.... except for that one time.

Most of the trail is minor bumps and rocks all over the place except for a few "challenges" that you can decide to take or not. Well Jeremy was driving, I was just the passenger along for the adventure (David was in a friends Toyota FJ) and we did not want to be shown up by anyone! We conquered all challenges (some more than once) except one that we didn't try because we didn't have the clearance for it, even one of the FJ's got high centered.   Well, one of the times we were taking on the hill things got a little interesting. We  had just gone through the rough patch once and looped back for round 2. We were going up, going up, then all the sudden we are going sideways and the rock next to me kept getting closer and closer until we were on our side, skid-plates showing and needing some assistance to get back on all fours. It was frighteningly awesome!

One of the other fun things that happened was going to a Baseball game. We hit up the Arizona Dimondbacks vs the St.Louis Cardinals. We had great seats and just enjoyed hanging out.

All in all it was a great month. Now I could just use a vacation from all my vacations to just chill and
relax. But then I wouldn't have anything to write about for April... so I will find some crazy adventure or event to make blog-worthy.

February Fun!

So lots has happened since my last post which is great because that means note worthy stuff has happened and I can blog about it!


With February comes valentines day and man did I have a great V-day! Part of having a great valentines day is having an amazing valentine, which fortunately I did! Blog world meet David!

 Unfortunately he goes to school all day on Thursdays so we could only celebrate that night. So I surprised him and wrote him a "little" note on his drive way and kissed his truck (Lipstick +lips + truck windows = kissed truck). Then when he was done with school we went and celebrated. He showed up with these wonderful flowers! 24 BEAUTIFUL roses accompanied with chocolate! SPOILED!

 Then we went to the Cheesecake Factory (one of my absolute favorites! try the avocado egg rolls if you go YUMMY!) where he spoiled me some more! it was a great evening just spending time together!

Okay, now that the gushy stuff is said and done time for some other fun that happened! So I guess every February San Antonio has a rodeo/stock show ( I haven't lived here long enough to say with certainty). Cool. But the best thing about it are the awesome concerts with cheap tickets! So in one week I saw 3 concerts! (I think I almost doubled my concert list in one week!) First, on the 18th David and I sang along to Dierks Bentley! (what an awesome concert and a great performer) Then on Wednesday the same week I partied with a gal-pal to the rocking music of the Band Perry! They played some of their new music coming out in April and man am I excited now! Then on Friday David and I went to an Anberlin concert (not at the rodeo) . Unfortunately, I got what I am pretty sure is a migraine right before the show, so I couldn't enjoy that concert as much as anticipated.

A little bull riding! 

Dierks jammin' away

The Band Perry 

Anberlin. Yeah the lights did not help the migraine...

On a side note, walking around the stock show really brought back high school memories of the fair and all the fun that went along with it: funnel cakes, showing pigs, barn duty, corndogs, rides, etc...  man was I nostalgic walking through the cattle barn and seeing all the FFA stuff everywhere.

That's my February... until March... Oh wait that's in like a day. Good thing I finally posted so I can count it towards achieving my goal. 2 for 2 and still going strong!

Hey its 2013 already!

So its still January so we are all still getting used to new goals and writing 2013 (I almost wrote 2012 in the title). One of my goals this year is to write on my blog at least once a month if not more. I am pretty sure I have already set this goal in the past and have failed miserably  so we will see how this actually goes. But I have decided that this is a good way to make sure I do something noteworthy at least once a month.

This month so far has been all about adjusting. I moved. Yup I now reside in the lovely state of Texas. Some things I am still trying to get used to: The weather is not as humid here so I now have to (frequently) put on lotion. The weather is colder so I have had to expand my wardrobe to include an actual coat, real shoes, and warm pajama pants. I sleep with at least 3 blankets a night. My gum doesn't dissolve in its packing (in Hawaii if you leave your pack of gum open and not in a zip-lock bag or the fridge for more than 3-4 days you have a sticky wet mess that you have to peel off the wrapper if you want to even try and attempt to chew your gum.) There are lots and lots of different freeways with funny names and I can EASILY get lost,  People not understanding you when you say slippers, shoyu, or anything else pidgin. And hardest of all, I have had to get used to a new culture.

But overall I am still mostly glad I moved here. I say mostly because I mean its Hawaii, how can you not be sad about moving away. That and I am still trying to figure out my life here when I had a pretty nice one going for me in Hawaii.

One of the best things about being in Texas though is hanging with family. I am so thankful for my brother and sis-in-law for letting me be a moocher for a bit until life finally settles. Oh and I totally have favorite aunt status in the bag with these boys now!

Welp, until I do something cool or notable. adios!