Aloha!

Sometimes really cool things happen to me. Cool like a free trip to Hawaii. Yep, that happened to us thanks to a very good friend and her generous family. I'm not going to go into the details of why we were there, but it was some work and some play. Mostly I was just happy because it was WARM! And we saw the ocean every. single. day. In fact, this was the view from our condo

We ate delicious food. And met really nice people. And drank coconut juice. And wore flower leis. And let the humidity heal our cracked lips and skin.

In some ways it made me miss Florida. We were there for 10 days, and it was long enough to start feeling a little Polynesian (minus my blindingly pale skin).

Anyway, I figured I'd tell most by sharing some pictures.

 Amy and her family were so kind to greet us with traditional Hawaiian leis. Mine smelled amazing!

Here's Josh with his lei. He is standing at the balcony of our condo. AMAZING VIEW! 

We are so happy to be in Hawaii 

The beach at Turtle Bay 

Check out those waves 

We went to a fresh fruit stand. Yum! 

Here's the group (minus me because I'm the photographer). The Keelers, Amy and her Dad, Les and Josh (I'm sure his eyes were with us in spirit). 

We went to the Dole plantation and had a Dole whip with fresh pineapple. Delicious! 

You could get fish feed for 50 cents, so me and Amy decided to try it and the fish went crazy! 

 

Our first time at the Polynesian Cultural Center 

Aloha! 

Learning the hula 

Clearly I was born for this type of dance 

As was Josh

 Awesome entertainment

Hawaii is pretty incredible because you have the ocean on one side... 

And mountains on the other !

Cracking macadamia nuts 

Our tour of the macadamia nut farm 

Our tour guide was great 

blowing the conch

So cool! 

We had so many delicious coconut flavored things! 

 Flower goes on the left for someone who is married!

Our tour included a boat ride where we saw beautiful scenery and saw when Gilligan's Island and parts of LOST were filmed 

 That mountain was so beautiful!

Pearl Harbor 

We did the audio tour; you can see the memorial in the background 

USS Arizona. Such a sad part of American history. It is neat to see how the ship has turned into a reef and is full of aquatic life. 

Hawaii is breathtaking 

Hanauma Bay

The shaved ice was one of the best things I have ever tasted in my life!

This pineapple smoothie was also a little slice of heaven.

Sorry for the picture overload, but it seemed like the easiest way to share a 10 day trip. We'd love to make it back to Hawaii someday! Mahalo

We are going to...

HAWAII...in 8 days. That is all.

Joy in the details

Living in Rexburg during winter is hard sometimes most of the time. I’m totally fine from October through December, but when the holidays are over and I’m staring at another 3-4 months of cold, snowy weather I get discouraged. Luckily, my dear hubby is so great about helping me find ways to stay warm and enjoy the winter.

 

As most of you know, we like to hike! We like to be in the mountains and enjoy nature. Well, most of our hiking opportunities hibernate with the bears for winter. However, there is a short trail that is really easy and accessible (parts of it are paved!) that we’ve hiked probably 8 or 9 times because it’s only about 20 minutes away and it offers beautiful views. It’s called Cress Creek trail. So, a couple of weeks ago we decided to try and hike the trail even though it’s January and it was about 15 degrees outside.

 

We got ourselves a nice dslr camera for Christmas and so we’ve had a wonderful time learning about photography and taking pictures in manual mode. So we brought our camera with us. My goal was to find color where the prominent colors outside were white, brown, and green. I was also trying to find beauty in the details. Josh was all about the landscape on this trip. Anyway, without further ado, here are some of the pictures we took.

 

You can see the brown, white, and green I'm talking about. It's not the prettiest time for photos but still looks nice.

Loved the detail on this one.

Orange moss/lichen on a branch.

Shimmering snow. You can see the wind turbines in the distance.

Not much color, but the fluffy golden texture on these is nice!

A slight bluish tint to the berries.

A reddish/orange leaf holding on.

Blood red berries! I was so happy to find these berries bursting with color and life.

Here's the creek itself! It's naturally heated so it's running all winter. The green plant is watercress. Another beautiful color!

I loved these red branches.

We met a few friends on the trail.

Josh captured this gorgeous picture of the water and the vivid green color. You would think we took this picture in July!

Sun flare.

Rosy cheeks.

Cold, but happy.

Mission accomplished! I went home appreciating the beauty around me. A little slice of heaven on a hike.