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.

Day 82

So this week, I finally get used to not working, and guess what, I have to work. It's so good though, even though I have productive days without a job, there's nothing that feels better than having something to do that's required and pays you! I'm training right now, so how hard am I working? Not that hard yet. I'm doing my old shoe work, sales again. So I'll be selling for Vivint Solar. In fact as of right now I'm about to shadow the manager-- I knocked by myself on Saturday, but I think I need to see some of this before I get a good feel for it. Sitting here, I'm sorta wishing I took of picture of this uniform, but then I'm not too worried about everyone seeing my in a collard shirt and shorts. But I pull this look off! .... chirp chirp, chirp...

Anyway, I've been training really hard at the gym since Cole started working so much. I've lost 8 pounds total, and I've got some cool muscle lines starting to pop up. I won't show you because I save all those pictures for Facebook-- oh wait, that was when I was single-- oh wait, I'm not a d-bag, I never did that. Nor did I ever do the duck face, well I hope I didn't. Good thing I'm married now and I don't have to worry about trying to fit some cleav, an innocent wide eyed, while trying to be sexy look, as well as a good angle of my lip gloss that'll catch the light and shine just right to attract the innocent male Facebook browser. That's a tough picture to catch! Okay I never did that, but secretly admired the girls who were able to totally transform the way they really looked with the right angle, flash, lighting and some other things I'm sure I know nothing about. Wow, I've really gotten side tracked. My point was, since I've been working out so much I've gotten into pretty good shape, but I wasn't sure what to do with it. It's like earning 100 grand and having nothing to spend it on. Well not exactly like that, cause I can spend 100 grand. Or I bet I could if I had it. SOO what I've decided to do with my fitness money, or whatever, is train for a half marathon, and then obviously a marathon. I am registered for neither one right now. So I guess I'm all talk. But I have the races picked. There's a half marathon in March, and then a full marathon in April. I'm up to 8 miles right now, so I'm hoping by the half marathon I'll be to at least 16-18 and have plenty of time to be ready for the full. Here's praying. So after I go out shadow knocking today, I've gotta hit the treadmill for a 7 mile run. I know what you're thinking... treadmill? Ya, until I can get an arm band that fits my montrosity of a cell phone I have called the galaxy SIII, which I love, but it is quite huge... I can't run outside and legitimately track how far I'm going. It's on it's way though, so hopefully by next week I'll be golden.

So, one thing that I really wanted to do while I was out of work was paint! I didn't get a chance to do that at all yet. In fact, the paints I order to redecorate an old surf board we bought, only just got here today! #HawaiilivingmeansnothingshipshereforEVER (I hate and love hash tags) Here's the crappy part though, everything came except the paintbrushes! Are you kidding me? So I'm still stuck waiting. I guess they are on back order or something. Come on, as if people have time to paint you're so busy you have to back order these things.

Oh the best part about knocking doors in Hawaii, I'm wearing slippers. (for you that means flip flops, and for me, but I'm trying to blend in here). So much better than tennis shoes! Life is so laid back in Hawaii, I couldn't ask for a better lifestyle. However, it is giving me time to read more, and I don't think it's making me more educated, just paranoid. I listen to Paul Wescott and learn about people like Alex Jones, and I think Cole knows I might be a little bit of a conspiracy theorist if I let myself get caught up in it. So, other than the zombie apocalypse which I know is coming someday, I'll try to keep the crazy to a minimum at least for him.

I'm pretty sure that's everything for now! Wish I had more pictures for you, but I don't so guess we'll have to deal with it until next time.

Day 19/20

First I'm going to begin with saying that I can't believe my last post was day 17, because it honestly feels like it's been a week since I posted and I thought I was leaving everybody hanging. Second, it is only 7:46 pm, and I am currently 100% ready for bed and lying in bed pretending like I don't want to go to sleep, but I do. I really do. I'm so sleepy. My calves are sore, my eyes are tired, my head is fuzzy, and there's just the fact that I'm tired. BUT I'm also super relieved and so satisfied with how everything is going out here that being tired really doesn't matter.

So Cole and I bought a car! Yay! I don't know how many of you know this, but I name all my cars, and Cole's cars. My first car, a powder blue mini van, had many names, but it was usually Bertha. Worst name. I promise they get better. My second car was named Siv--Honda Civic, not clever but whatever. Then there was my little red Mazda, and her name was Babes. My fourth car was a Nissan Pathfinder named Toby. When Cole and I met, I started naming his cars as well. The first was the Maxima. He was named after Gladiator: Maximus or Max. Then there was the old truck, Charlie. The new truck, Leonitis or Leo. Finally, his bike which he named Thor to follow the theme.  Here in Hawaii, was have a 2001 Ford Explorer and his name is Loki. The god of extreme jealousy and a trickster. Since he seems to have fooled us: the gas tank always says full when it is not, a learned lesson since we bought him, he seems to live up to his name.

It was also on this day that we got a house to live in! We got approved for the apartment, but we couldn't decide if we were going to take it, and then we realized if we didn't we'd have at least two more nights sleeping with wild boars and in the rain. So we decided to take the first house that made sense. It's a two bedroom, so for those of you who have been hoping they could come stay with us, you got your wish. We have a spare room for guests! We're excited because it's also in a gated community and even though Hawaii is pretty safe, we had been to some rough neighborhoods and so we are glad we lucked out with this place. We are now residents of Waipahu Hawaii! Look below, it's directly left of Pearl City. This means we live amongst a ton of military. Cole's hair cut gets us a lot of people who ask if we are military. I feel a little like we're out of the club.

Since we had a place to stay most of our worries were solved! We hung out at the beach and with friends all day. We even got to crash on their floor instead of camp,

Interrupt: remember how I said I was so tired? Well, I fell asleep in the middle of that sentence, so I'm starting again on Day 20. Yes, I can fall asleep anywhere! It was before 8:30 and I was sound asleep.

So! We had crashed with our friends and the next day we signed a lease on our new apartment! It's 2 bedroom, as I mentioned and we are very excited about it. The rest of that day we decided to play! We went to the beach, where we played in the water and laid out. I got burnt--yes it's still hot enough to get burnt here. Then we had the most delicious BBQ pulled pork at this little place called Gracie's. I think. It had 3 tables and about 5 stools. We will definitely be back. After, we met up with our friends and went to breakneck beach with them. Jordan and Cole played in the waves for about 2 hours while Tierney and I jogged around, did a little calf work out, sat in the waves that came further up, and mostly just laughed at the boys when they got owned by the monstrous waves coming in. When we went to shower off, it took forever to get the sand out. I was seriously digging in the bikini bottoms to try and get everything out of there. I'm sure someone got a show, but glad no one took any pictures. After, we ran around taking pictures. Check out this cool tree! That pose is our international symbol for being awesome. It's a good story, I'll tell you sometime :)

This is the picture of the four of us: Jordan, Tierney, Cole and me in front of Shark's Cove. Not cool to snorkel in right now, but normally pretty sweet.

We then met up with some friends of theirs and had dinner. I swear if we weren't being so strict, the food here is so delicious it would be fun to gain 300 lbs. Don't worry, we won't. In fact, both of us have lost some weight since being here. Look how skinny Cole looks:

I get after him to make sure he's eating. But I think both of us want to take advantage and lose a few extra pounds. We're in Hawaii after all, every season is beach season!

After getting some acai bowls (which are like frozen yogurt) Cole and I said goodbye to our friends and went home. The next day was errand day again. Costco, Walmart, thrift stores, it was exhausting. This is why I was so tired last night. While we were running around Walmart, we did see some interesting, umm, patrons? Little birds :)

So what have we been doing today? We went into Cole's work to get him set up with HR. And then? More errands. We got memberships at 24 hour fitness and worked out. Joining a gym was one of my move requirements, so I'm so glad that Cole was on board and we made it work. I'm thinking of working there! It would be pretty rad to work there, I'd love it. After 24, we went thrift store shopping. Can I tell you that I should have been doing this all along??? Today we got 2 dressers, a leather chair, a bamboo/wooden side table, a really cool and don't know how to describe it TV stand, a worn blue leather couch, and so much kitchen stuff. We probably spent $200. It was amazing. And it looks good! We also officially have a bed. It's makeshift, but comfortable and king sized which is the most important part :)

Well we're making it work, and once again we have lucked out and are enjoying our new life!

PS one of my highlights of the last two days was a text from Megan, "Hey frito feet, I miss you!" I laughed for 15 minutes. Girls don't smell like sweat, they just kinda smell like chips. I'm more frito and Megan is more Tostito's. Don't ask more, because it's probably too much information for you already :)

5K Mud Run! Mudder X

Since getting married, Cole and I have made it a huge part of our lives to remain active. We don't want to let anything get in the way of the happiness that we have when we eat well and stay in shape. One thing I've done to help us eat well is that I make everything out of whole wheat. I have an awesome recipe (thanks to my best friend's sister and a few minor changes to the recipe) for whole wheat bread. I make it once a week and that's the only bread we use for sandwiches or any other needs. We love it.

We also do most of our own cooking. Not only does it keep us healthy, but we've found that it saves us a ton of money!

Cole's new effort to stay in shape has been doing triathlon related activities: biking, swimming and running. I have also been doing swimming (once, I'm not a strong swimmer), biking, and I am running again (and love it, running is my favorite). A while back, Cole signed up for a half marathon!! He ended up running a 5K instead, but he did great! The 5K was cool because it started at night and everyone had glow sticks attached to themselves. Cole ran it with our friend James (who finished in 10th place!! Go James!) and then we sprinted off to a soccer game for Megan and my girls team. It was a really fun night. Barbara came to watch, which was so fun and great to have her support there for Cole.

I forgot to mention that Cole came in 39th place!! Go Cole :)

The next morning, Cole and I woke up super early and went to run in the mud :) It was the mudder X! We ran with Adam and Maranda Crop. It was SO much fun! We also found out that Adrienne is expecting her third little one and we were told in the coolest way.

Look at those cute little guys :) Thatcher's shirt says "biggest big brother" and Truman's says "big brother." I guess Tyler was the one who puff painted both the shirts. 

Here are some pictures from the race. It was a lap of just over one mile (we completed it twice haha). The lap has mud, obstacles, hills, slides, everything you can think of-- we definitely want to do another one.

Also I think you'll enjoy these videos :)

We plan on having a lot more adventures like this one. It definitely makes life more fun!