Updates...

In the middle of the Hawaii musings:

1) Grandma is through surgery (as of Friday the 14th, oops sorry, forgot to update that for a couple of weeks). She had a steel plate put into her leg and was moved to a nursing home at the beginning of this week. Currently my mom is spending about 10-15 hours a day at the nursing home because the care there sucks. She is trying to get the doctor to let my grandma move into my parents house at the end of this week. We will see...

2) Garage ghost... There have been a couple of more instances of the window phenomenon. Even more freaky? Last week during the middle of the day the FJ, Duncan's emergency alarm starts going off. Tim is the one at home (but I'm talking to him on the phone at work) and we both hear it and are like, "Geez that is loud!" and then he realizes that it is coming from OUR house. He doesn't have his keys on him, they are upstairs. I am obviously not at home. Additionally, I got into the mini earlier this week and the gage is going psychotic... back and forth at insane intervals per minute... So freaking creepy.

Maui Day 2...Marriage licenses and Ziplines.

Second day in paradise: Wake up, eat a huge breakfast (isn't this what you do on vacation?), sit on the beach for a while (since we were still on Seattle time and got up at literally like 5am), drive to black sand beach and explore around, get our marriage license!, head to east Maui to do ziplining for the rest of the afternoon, go to Kanapali beach and play in the waves at sunset, eat at Nick's fishhouse for dinner (possibly the best restaurant ever). Here are the pictures:

On the way to breakfast in the morning I found a little horse statue. It looked fun to sit on for a picture op until I realized that the sprinklers had just been on and it was wet.

At the black sand beach. It wasn't a dark black sand but still very cool.

The islands off in the distance at the black sand beach.

Me at the black sand beach.

Ziplining... totally awesome experience. A bit scary at first but I would highly recommend it for whoever feels like an adventure. It is so much fun and the views were amazing. You start off down in Kanapali and they take you up the huge cliffs of eastern Maui. There are seven ziplines up there (the longest is 1000 feet). Some are steeper/faster because of how much pull the line does or doesn't have. Midway through you stop to have lunch at the top of one of the cliffs overlooking Maui. It's pretty awesome. You can't really see me above but I am on the line (at the very top of the picture). This was one of the first lines we did... I happened to hold the thing wrong so I kinda smashed my middle finger on my right hand. I think I pinched a nerve or something. I literally still don't have feeling in that part of my finger. It's pretty funny.

Tim on the ziplines (in the middle of the picture).

Look at that landing! I think my form on this landing was actually pretty good. I landed well everytime so that's good. Midway through they switched out Tim's and my gear... he was going super fast and I wasn't really going that fast at all. I think it was some sort of weight issue... After they switched, I didn't feel like much changed. It felt fast everytime, regardless!

All decked out in my head gear... although I'm pretty sure if you fell, this would not help much. You are basically really high up above any sort of ground just hanging by a cable. I mean, you're going back and forth between cliffs. If something happened, well, we just won't think about that because it didn't!

Tim all decked out in his gear.

At the lunch spot. The mountains were behind us and we were looking towards the ocean (and down at Kanapali in Easter Maui). It was a gorgeous view.

Look at that posture! Perfect! You're supposed to kinda lean back and kinda squat/sit. Not really sure why but it did seem to make it smoother and faster.

Getting all hooked up! This guy was one of our tour guides, Frank. Funny guy. I couldn't remember his name for the life of me and did not stop hearing about that when he realized I knew his partners name and not his. What can I say?

A running start! Once we had a couple of lines under our belts, they let us start taking off by running. This made it so much more fun!

Tim in the middle of a long zipline.

...and coming in for the landing.

A view of the ocean and eastern Maui from one of the lines. Beautiful.

Getting hooked up to the last and longest line.

I don't have any pictures from Kanapali beach or from Nick's fishmarket... I think we were tired of taking pictures after all of the pictures we took ziplining. Kanapali was AWESOME after getting so hot and dusty from ziplining. The waves were perfect so we body surfed some and watched the sunset. Nick's fishmarket is known as one of the best seafood restaurants on Maui. It's at the Fairmont which is why we decided to go there since we didn't get back until it was dark. The food was amazing and fresh, and the service was incredible. I would highly recommend it to anyone who visits Maui.

Maui, Day 1- October 15, 2008

On the first day, Tim and I got up at the asscrack. Try 4:30am on for size. And for the record that is 1:30am Hawaii time. This was not particularly fun but I think the anticipation of going to MAUI! made us forget about the early time. We got to the airport by 6:30ish for our 8am flight and landed in Maui after a 5 and a half hour flight at around 11am. The flight was not particularly long, I think because we couldn't wait to get out of the freezing Seattle weather and into the sun. Here are the pictures- they tell the story best:

Our first picture in Hawaii... after we got "leid" after walking off of the plane.

Look Seattle! Maui has Starbucks too. It was our first stop for iced tea. It felt SO HOT since we had layers on because when we left Washington, it was freezing.

In our POS Sebring Convertible (seriously, who buys these cars?!) and on the way to the Fairmont in Wailea. It was cloudy the first day. But hot and fairly humid. It was so nice to have a convertible.

Taking pictures while trying to get out of the rental car place.

Our view to the ocean when we first walked into the lobby of the Fairmont. Beautiful!

Our room wasn't quite ready so we took pictures while we were waiting.

Lovely. He looks totally thrilled.

We walked to the spot on the Fairmont grounds where we would be having our wedding night dinner together on the 20th. It was right next to the ocean and very secluded. So perfect.

More of the same spot without the view of the ocean.

Kissing picture down by the ocean while we were waiting on our room.

We then trekked to the pool bar for some lunch and fruity drinks. Here is Tim with a strawberry daiquiri. It was the best way to kill some time even though both of us wanted to have our room so we could be in our swim suits! And let me just mention this pool bar (and all of the Fairmont restaurants, really) were unbelievable. They were all natural, all organic. These cups are made out of corn. We felt really at home here. It was perfect for us.

Maui Mojito. Drink of the whole trip, hands down. It was amazing.

After lunch and after we got our room, it was mid afternoon and we made our way just south of the Fairmont to Makena. There is a little hidden beach down there, appropriately named secret cove beach. This is the beach that we got married on. We went to check it out on the first day. It was absolutely pristine and more than we could have hoped for.

Standing in the water at secret cove beach.

The waves here were so gorgeous. It was still so weird that first day was so cloudy.

More of the beach... in the background is Molikini Crater- a popular snorkeling spot.

More beach.

Feet in water... it was so nice to be in WARM water again!

More of the secret cove beach.

Climbing the lava rocks above the secret cove beach. Let me just say- I did this 5 days later in barefeet and a wedding dress. THAT was a riot, I am sure (well, I know... I have the pictures to prove it!) It was probably good I practiced climbing here.

Leaving the beach in the sebring.

A view of the Fairmont grounds.

A view of Polo beach at the Fairmont.

More of the Fairmont grounds. It was a beautiful resort.

There is a pathway that goes all the way from the Fairmont to the Grand Wailea to the shops at Wailea. We walked this on our first night to see the scenery and to just be on the beach. It was gorgeous. We saw huge green sea turtles along this first walk as well. And, funny enough we literally saw about 4 weddings on that first day along all of the beaches between the resorts. Apparently Hawaii is a popular place to get married... not really a big surprise given the scenery.

Our first sunset of our Hawaii trip did not disappoint.

More sunset. We walked back to the Fairmont and spent the rest of the sunset just sitting on the beach and listening to the ocean. It was the perfect beginning of our two week trip.

Probably not the Hawaii recap you were looking for...

But I just want to request that everyone out there who reads this keep my family in your minds... pray if you do that or just send good thoughts our way.

My parents and brother along with my aunt and uncle were headed out to the great northwest this coming weekend for a little shindig we are having. However, as most people know, my grandma (mom's mom) is 89 years old and still lives by herself. She has actually been in pretty good health, not exceptional but not bad considering her age.

Lately she has been falling a lot more. This week alone, she fell twice in a day (on Monday). Last night she called my mom around 6pm to tell my mom that she was going to bed. Earlier in the day during physical therapy, she was very disorientated and didn't even recognize herself in a picture (it was her at my mom and dad's wedding 34 years ago). Late last night my mom was driving home and just had a feeling that she should stop and check on my grandma. When she got there, my grandma was on the floor in the hallway. She had fallen again.

She wears a necklace around her neck that she can push if it's an emergency to summon paramedics/call 911. But it was not functioning last night. At least my mom had the gut feeling to go check on her. We aren't really sure how long she was lying there but my mom called 911 when she got there. It took the paramedics 2 hours to get an IV in. [As a sidenote, Tim could not believe this. He said it's absolutely ridiculous. But then again paramedics in different states- like washington- get trained a lot more than in other states and have other methods if they can't get an IV within 2 tries.]

At around 1:30am my mom and grandma finally made it to the hospital. My grandma has severely broken her femur and will require surgery if her heart is strong enough (her blood pressure has been extremely low lately). A CAT scan also revealed that she has had a stroke that has affected the right side of her body. Understandably, she is in excrutiating pain and it has been difficult to keep her pain at a tolerable level.

My uncle is flying out to KC today to be with my family. My dad and brother are still flying out tomorrow, my aunt is no longer coming up here and my mom is going to try to make it at some point this weekend depending on what happens in the next few days and when/if my grandma does have to have surgery.

That is all I know right now and I will update if I find out something further but mainly I just want everyone to keep my family and my grandma especially in your thoughts and prayers. I love her very much and wish I could be there with her.

Hawaii Recap

I am going to start a little bit of a Hawaii recap. I am going to try to be diligent and make a post a day about various days of our Hawaii journey. If I miss a day, no emails. I will try my best. There is an incredible amount to post. But lucky enough, I have pictures that tell most of the story better than I ever could.

I thought that last week was Halloween?

I guess since Tim and I had only been back for a day on Halloween, we are celebrating the creepy holiday this week.

Several days this week, we have gone down to the garage in the morning and Winston's windows have been wide open and he has been unlocked. Ok, let me just say- we just got back from 80 degree, sunny Hawaii weather. It is, in comparison, FREEZING in Washington, not to mention it has been pouring down rain for the whole week we have been back. Yep, rainy season has started. (Apologies to all people who are coming up to visit us in the northwest next week. It will not be pretty).

Anyway, to say that it does not make any sense why the windows are down in Winston every morning would be an understatement unless coming home from work I unconsciously decided that I wanted to take a freezing cold bath. Plus, I am somewhat compulsive with locking the cars so it is pretty much a guarantee that when I got out of the car, I locked him.

So the first day this happened, it was just a "what the hell?" kind of a moment. That moment was compounded by the fact that standing there, the FJ decided to beep continuously at us even though neither of us was touching the remote to that car.

The second day was just eerie creepy. I decided to start a routine of trying to not make Winston or the garage haunted. That basically involves not shutting myself in the garage and booking it out of the car and the garage as fast as humanly possible. Pretty much I imagine a fire in my ass and book it up the stairs. It scares the living c-rap out of me and TWICE since I've been scared like this in the garage (after the Winston incidents), Tim has managed to ALMOST make me pee my pants. The first time he was sitting on the stairs when I walked in. I was all, "What in the f*** are you doing there?" And then almost fell over and died because my heart was beating so fast. He was sitting on the stairs calmly so he wouldn't scare me. Um, really? The second day, he was not around after I almost lost my life the first day but he turned on the light for me WITHOUT. ME. SEEING. HIM. making me think that our garage ghost was trying to trip me out even more.

Needless to say, I'm freaked. It feels like it should be Halloween week. Now I want this to be over and the garage to stop being haunted. I am willing to flirt with the thought that MAYBE Winston has an electrical problem. But since I started doing my little routine of booking it into the house (along with making sure everything- including the radio) is turned off on Winston, he has not rolled his windows down and Duncan has not been making any strange noises as he did at the beginning of the week. Hmmm. What does this mean?

It should be mentioned that his windows have been down at varying heights and he doesn't do this anywhere BUT in our garage.

Stay tuned for updates on Mr. Garage Ghost.

And we did it...

I am so proud today to be an American. For so many reasons.

It wasn't just about Obama winning and McCain losing, it's about the change that I am now hopeful will occur for us now and for our kids in the future. It's about a nation that is hopeful, accepting, and willing to take steps forward.

VOTE bitches!

I do not personally care who you vote for or why... whether you are ignorant and just pick someone based on what the media says or just because you like their, um, style, but the point is that everyone should get out there today and vote. I did, several days ago actually.

I have been following politics religiously this year and like to think that I am much more informed than I have made myself in the past. I have read both candidates policies have watched countless hours of both right wing and left wing media, have read articles and articles of opinions, policies, personal addendums... It has become somewhat of a passion. Because whatever you do or don't believe, this country needs a new leader, a change, someone in a time that is uncertain at best.

It is in ALL of our best interest for our future, our kids future, our country's future to take an active and vested interest in who we want that person to be. We can all make that choice for whoever we respectively believe that person to be. For me, I have no hesitation saying that I voted for Barack Obama.

Now your turn- go vote.