Day 76 -- Officially 2013 is Here, "The Holidays" Continued

So for our first Christmas away from our families, it didn't turn out so bad. It was actually pretty fun. I've always loved a saying that Cole's sister Sunny has about her family "Maxwell's Do Hard Things." I think it's awesome. I tried to say one day to Cole that "Smith's Do Hard Things," too, and we both kinda stopped and decided that may not be entirely true. So instead, we decided that "Smith's Do Fun Things!" It may not be admirable, cheers to you Sunny, but it's something that anyone who knows us would vouch if you asked them. Christmas was no different.

In the last blog post, I think I laid out everything we did for Christmas. I forgot to show you though the super cool T-Shirt I designed for Cole :)  A little prideful I know, but I love it.

There's also a teal one in the same design.

So of course I talked about the fact that we went scuba diving on Christmas Day, but I didn't give you the goods! Cole did an AMAZING job with the footage! I am seriously impressed. Even at 120 feet the images are awesome. He seriously caught every major moment that any of us wanted captured! Except maybe our guide getting bit by the eel, but that was over in a second and only I saw that one :)

First, before I go into scuba details. We did go to Hanuma Bay for Christmas Eve (at least I think it was Christmas Eve) with Jim and Kate. So beautiful. Here are a few of those snapshots, if it pleases you:

On our way, not too bright and early Christmas morning. We start our trip at about 1:30 pm

Yes that's me... I'll add this picture, but I'm not proud of it.

Better...

Showing off my ability to clean out my goggles underwater and not have a panic attack... this is a huge improvement for me.

Jimbo

For those of you who aren't fascinated with fish... I apologize now. Cole loves them :) And he adorably takes 100 times the amount of pictures he takes of people or cooler sea animals (as some might think others are cooler, not me of course) of these little fishies.

Kate was showing off for the camera, she was flipping around which was probably for the sake of video... but Cole happened to be taking pictures. Sorry Kate!

The bite from the eel. At least we got a photo!

Me and Jimbo post dive.

The problem with blogger, is now that I've loaded all the videos, I don't know which one is which. But I can safely tell you that this is the one of Kate and Jim kissing :)

I think this is the one where the Octopus got stuck to my face! Enjoy!

If you're into diving, definitely watch the videos. Like I said, Cole did a fabulous job catching everything exciting. The first dive was 120 feet, that's the ship wreck. Everything else was at 40 feet.

After Christmas, it was back to Utah for Jim and Kate as well as back to Seattle for Brenden and Julie, so we were once again by ourselves. Not so bad! However, Cole went back to work too. So I spent my time blogging:

Learning Spanish:

And going on a green tea cleanse to recoup from the Holidays.

Then surprise! We had another holiday and Cole had another three day weekend. We spent this one with some of Cole's co-workers who we love hanging out with and are a lot of fun. On New Years Eve there were some 20-30 foot waves on the North Shore that only happen about 1-2 times a year. On the way there, we saw this super cool guy with ape hangers on his bicycle ... bicycle, with pedals. haha

 We went to two different beaches, the first was Waimea and the second was North Shore. These are all mixed up, but it's safe to say that anything where the light is starting to fade and it looks like dusk, that's North Shore.

Traffic was terrible with everyone wanting to check these waves out, so we took the time to snap a photo of the two of us. We don't do this often, so I'll cherish it :)

New Years Day we went surfing. I told you that I've been boogie boarding. Or attempting to boogie board. Well today, Cole wanted to teach me to surf. And I wanted to learn! I didn't really catch anything, but I did end up with this little bruise from my fin: 

After surfing, we headed to Waikiki with Cole's co-workers (I'll give them names finally: Blake and Skylar) and we did some shopping. Since coming to Hawaii, I have become a hat collector. You would too if you had beach hair all the time. No I'm not bragging, but yes it's nice enough here that I have beach hair all the time :) I bought a new hat yesterday, but I think it will be my last since Cole has noticed that I've been collecting them: 

We ended the night with some great seafood. Wonderful wonderful seafood. 

Happy New Year to everyone! 

To end this post, I will tell you that I just got a job today! Yay! I start training tomorrow at 10 am. Yes, it is for Vivint Solar. For life, like I said :)