Day 307-- Hawaii is over

Well, the time for Hawaii has ended. Pretty sad. Before we left, we tried to have as much fun as possible. Brenden came out for a wedding and so we took advantage of his scuba certification and went to shark's cove and then to Waimea.

Before we left, I also painted another surf board for our boss Blake. It kept me sane while we waiting for the date of when we were leaving.

We are now in Bakersfield, CA! The sunsets are definitely different here, and the water is more still and has no waves. It's also located up the mountain rather than close by the house. Today the temperature is about 106 degrees and when I took the car to get the oil changed they told me they had this really cool process that was so fast I could just sit in my car. Well, you know how they tell you not to leave a baby in the car because it will boil their insides? Add adults to the list. I was soaked by the time I left. But it was fast, but not cool!

As of yesterday, I finally unpacked the last box. All of the decorations and pictures aren't organized, and my painting supplies lie all over the spare bedroom and our files are still skidiwompas (mmm I'm convinced there's no real spelling for that word). BUT-- the main things are all in place and organized.

Since we left Hawaii on July 20th, we have been super busy. The first few days we stayed in Oceanside with Matt and Amanda (thank you). The first stop after getting off the plane was a good old Mexican breakfast burrito :) After a few days there, we traveled to St. George where the Smith family girls trip was taking place. We stopped in for a night and hung out with family we hadn't seen in quite a while, and were able to go see a play at Tuacon. After St. George, Lisa, Cole and I caravanned (sort of-- Lisa beat us by about an hour!) up to American Fork where we stayed with her, Logan and Addie for what was supposed to be 4 days, but turned into 8. Thanks Ken Garff of Orem. Although you suck a little, at least we got to stay in Utah longer! We bought a new truck to replace the truck we sold before leaving for Hawaii. His name is Atlas. We needed the truck in order to pack up all of our gear and head to California. More on the trailering situation later.

While in Utah we took advantage of each day. We spent time with as many people as we could. Of course we saw Lisa and Logan. Cole and I were introduced to my niece for the first time and spent some quality time getting more Mexican food with Leslie and Adam. Breakfast and a gun show with my whole crew which I will highlight with a photo. There were plenty of barbeques and dinners out with friends and family. I don't think I have a photo with my favs, the Huntington's :( I will regret that.

After the week long visit, it came time to leave. Our truck was finally ready and we'd rented a dolly and a uhaul in order to transport all of our belongings. The set up went like this: Me driving the new truck with the dolly hooked up behind towing the Maxima. Cole driving the uhaul and towing a 23 foot trailer. Yikes! It was 60 mph the whole way to Bakersfield. So big surprise when the first leg of the trip to St. George took over 6 hours. Ugh. Pent up anxiety had us running to pizza and breadsticks once we reached our hotel and I couldn't stop waking up in the middle of the night to make sure no one was messing with the whole of our earthly possessions outside. Morning began the remainder of the long journey to Bakersfield. We began with breakfast at Denny's and put off starting the drive for as long as we could justify the distraction. But eventually we began. Slow and steadily. Once we hit California, it was 55 mph, and for the last hour and a half we were mostly on a very small country highway. Yuck. When we came over the mountains though, I was surprised at how pretty the farmlands were compared to how I imagined this dry desert town. At least I could imagine us finding plenty of places to dirt bike. When we pulled into Bakersfield, we couldn't just go grab dinner and head to the hotel. We had to stow away all our crap and return the Uhaul. So we head to the storage unit. Watching Cole back that trailer up in to a long storage unit was super impressive. Such talent. So happy to be married to man who can get crap done! The day ended with Mexican food and sleep at our hotel (home for a week). We made it safely.

Well, I may have thought the driving was done at this point. Not so. That arrival began days more of driving around neighborhoods, to realtors offices, property management companies and rental properties. Exhausting! I finally found us a place that is perfect. It's a lot like our home in American Fork but with 3 bedrooms on the first floor and no basement. Ideal for moving in with only Cole and I carrying all of the furniture. For the past week and a half, we have been unpacking and organizing the house. Our last box was unpacked yesterday and Cole has begun to build temporary shelves in the garage. Surprised? He even has a spot for the trailer behind a locked gate on the side of the house. He's pretty happy with this house. The bathroom, kitchen and bedroom are huge, which makes me super happy. And for the first time since October, we are sleeping in our own bed. A real bed. Not just a memory foam pad on the floor. Surprisingly comfortable, but still not a real bed. It also feels nice and homey with a surf board painting of Hawaii.

Since we arrived, I have started job hunting. With each day, the search gets more and more serious. I need a job! Mostly just so that I don't go crazy. I stay busy every day, but if I'm not providing monetary value, I am not satisfied. Looking for a job is pretty tough. Each application can take so long, depending on the company, and a lot of positions require assessments and tests. My laptop and I are becoming good friends.

Cole's birthday was this past weekend, and it was full of adventure. We went down to Oceanside to stay with Matt and Amanda and were joined by Cole's parents and Adrienne and Tyler. Kids were all present as well. Cole was able to jet ski, which of course made me jealous! We went out to dinner with Matt and the kids the first night. Which ended with dessert that had sour cream for whip cream... what? Exactly. That only begins to tell the story of how terrible that server was that night. The next day was Sierra's birthday, ending with Olive Garden for everyone. Sunday, was Cole's birthday. I took him to get his favorite breakfast, banana crunch french toast at Beach Break.

He got a gun cleaning kit from me, as well as a bag of tasty treats. The rest of the day we hung out with family and let Mimi cook a delicious dinner finished off with homemade ice cream cake. Cole and I left the next morning, but not before he went jet skiing and we had Mexican breakfast burritos. Oh, and more cake!

The latest news is that Cole will be leaving for Maryland for a week to several weeks. We are heading to the house boat this weekend and then he might take a red eye out Sunday night, or head out on Monday. For the moment, Cole will manage the Maryland office until they can get a new OM out there. I plan on visiting over labor day for 5 days, but will mostly be staying here so that I can continue to search for a job, and also have access to a car and the gym. If I stayed locked up out there, I think I would be worse off than being lonely here. Hopefully Cole will be able to come back soon.

Day 217-- holy shnykies

I have been terrible about taking pictures and about blogging! Cole and I have been up to a lot. I wish I would have kept better track. It's been two months since the last post!!

Here's everything that's happened...

1) My parents and youngest brother came to visit us. They stayed in our house for the first few days, and then in a hotel in Waikiki for the second half. Based on their visit, a week is not enough!! It came so fast and made me realize how much I miss family. We had a blast. They all came scuba diving with us and were great sports. My mom kept floating to the top- good thing we weren't very deep- it was hilarious. Both my dad and my brother kept themselves down on the bottom :) Afterwards, Taylor asked if they were certified now. Pretty cute.

2) We went dirt biking on a big track they have up on the North Shore in a place called Kahuku. Why they put a track in the rainiest part of the island where the clay turns to glass when it's wet, is beyond me, except that it is so much fun when it's not wet!

3) Cole spoiled me for my birthday. Homemade ice cream cake, volleyball on the beach, dinner at my favorite restaurant, and gifts. My parents also took me to Cheesecake Factory for my birthday which was great.

4) One year anniversary. Cole surprised me with a dinner cruise to watch Friday Night Fireworks on Waikiki

5) We are planning to move to California to work in the Bakersfield office. The time frame is unsure, but since we have to be ready to move, we ended our lease, shipped 80% of our stuff, and moved in with friends so we could leave at a moments notice. This has been super stressful, but we finally got everything situated except for the move itself.

6) We went to Kauai for a weekend. Legit. It's so different there than here. THAT is the island experience. Although Oahu is fun, you don't find much peace and quiet. Cole and I went with our boss Blake, and it was difficult to get us all to talk much. We just relaxed and layed on the beach almost the whole weekend. Except when I made the boys go on a hike with me. It was the only thing I wanted to do there before we left.

7) I died my hair blonde

8) We are about to have the third 3 day weekend since moving to Hawaii-- and already we have scuba planned and dirt biking. I'm so excited!

9) My sister had the first grandbaby on my side!! She's adorable and wonderful and has a big dimple just like me :) She's so cute, I'm in love. ( and no, Cole and I aren't having kids yet or for a long time, lol, I knew you'd ask)

We're excited to potentially see a lot of our friends and family soon! We'll keep everyone posted.

Day 155

It's been a while since I've written a blog post, sorry about that. However, I'm getting a little bit better at making sure we take pictures! So, that will at least make this one more interesting. I hope.

Cole and I are still finding adventures all the time. Even with just one day off a week, we definitely have learned how to fit in a lot of stuff into one day. We do have to go to bed between 8:30 and 9:30 almost every night though in order to make sure we can work hard and play hard to the fullest. A couple of weekends ago, Cole and I met up with some of the people from work and their friends to play sand volleyball and lay on the beach. We ended up renting paddle board, which I've been wanting to do forever, and took some pretty cool photos.

We also stole a baby, or so it looks like, and played around with him in the water. It was pretty hilarious watching this kid. Cole took some cool panoramics and other pictures.

We also had our friend Amy come out, which was super fun. 

We went all over the island and to a lot of beaches. We were also able to go sky diving! It was my first time and I always told Cole he had to make me do it. So I did. Awesome. We jumped from 14,000 feet and the drop before pulling the shoot was for a full minute. We got up to 120 miles per hour. Let me tell you, the pictures of a person going 120 miles per hour are a little crazy. We didn't buy any of the pictures though, so I don't have any to show you. But it was sweet. From up there you can see both side of the island, whales, the whole north shore is below. It was incredible.

We have been getting quite a bit of dirt biking in. I'm definitely still learning. I'm getting a pretty good arm work out in because I have to lift my bike out of little ravines and up hills a lot. I can't count how many times I fell in the mud last sunday. No one would be proud except of my last hill climb. No no, it wasn't successful really, but I made it. All by myself. So I was proud. It was a rough one. Every one is still saying the only reason I made it is because I cursed Cole's name the whole time! Not true, but funny. I made it because I was sick of being beaten. "anything you can do, I can do better" right? :)

This month I also ran the Hapalua Half Marathon. Yes! This was my first bucket list item for Hawaii.  

There are more pictures, but they are on Cole's phone, and I haven't uploaded them yet. So this little video of my run across the finish line will have to do. I must say, I owe the entire run to 5 Hour Energy. If you have never ran after drinking one of these, or downed one towards the end (I did both), you are missing out. I had to drink so much water at the end to compensate though. That will definitely dehydrate you! My time was 2:03 (which seems wrong because the finishing time says 2:04 and it took me far more than 1 minute to cross the start line after the "go", but I'll let it go for now). This means I had a 9:23 mile through the race. I'm proud. It's one minute faster than my fastest one. Talk about pacing, I've got that crap down. Anyway, it was super fun, and I'm considering doing a full marathon in December, but it sounds awful so I don't know.

My second bucket list item while in Hawaii was to paint a mural on a surf board. The day before the race I needed to relax and get ready, so I finished my mural. I'm so excited about it :) Scott if you read this, thank you for calling me! I just realized I haven't called you back yet, but I will.

We're still having little adventures all the time. My parents are coming out next Thursday and staying for a week, and then it will be my birthday, and then... our 1 year anniversary. Ya, we made it. I can't believe you voted against us! :) just kidding. It's been a really really fun, and probably unconventional, first year. I hate to be sappy, but I love Cole more and more all the time.