Brandons Goodbye

I’m not technically sure, but I’m pretty sure our friend Brandon is a doctor now.  He was moving to New York and therefore we had a little goodbye party for him, redneck style of course.  We had homemade corn dogs that were to die for and then blew up a picture of him and signed it with memories.  I’m not sure how Brandon and I met initially but I served with him as a ward missionary for years, I’m pretty sure even Will was a missionary with us too.  We had a lot of funny moments in our meetings, mostly me crushing on the elders and him having to hold me back! JK, that only happened like once.  My other favorite part was that he would make cookies a lot for us to deliver, but he always made too many, and so we got to eat them too!  Brandon hosted many parties at his house and we always had a lot of fun watching Bachelor or General Conference.  It’s gonna suck not having him to hang out with, but apparently he is living in the Hamptons and we have all talked about going to visit him…but hopefully he gets a job back in AZ soon!

I seriously could take pictures with this kid all day(and I do)! Our little redneck baby, with cut off jeans and a wife beater, you just cant beat!

Seriously how cute is this redneck/white trash baby!!!!

Front yard

As soon as I got back from Hawaii, I went to Home Depot and bought paint for my house, because I knew it would be on sale that weekend.  My home owners association sent me a letter saying my house had been inspected and I need to paint my house!  Of course I was in the middle of redoing my front yard, taking out the grass to put in artificial turf and putting in a new sprinkler system. I didn’t want to finish the grass, just to spray the house and have the risk of getting paint on the grass!  So I spent every day I could, getting the house ready to paint.  For never painting a house before, I don’t think it looks horrible.  It was crazy to see how much the paint really had faded and with the colors that I painted, it really did look like a different house.  Though I hated the name of the colors of the paint, like “baked potato”, who would want to paint their house that!?!?

I really wanted to buy a tractor/bobcat to do this job, but ended up getting this electrical machine off craigslist for like 50 bucks, and it worked like a charm.  Every day after work, I would come home, run the machine and then fill up bucket after bucket and box after box with dirt until the sun went down. One lady on my street drove by and yelled out the window, "you inspire me"...all I could think was, I wish I inspired myself!

I felt like I dug for days, trying to rip up the old line, that had a hole and would flood out anytime the sprinklers went on.  I was able to replace it with a new line and run it under the pavement to the otherside of the yard. 

Pre house painted and grass, I think it looks super pink.

This was literally the scariest time of my life. 

Hawaii

I have never been to Hawaii in my life. And apparently I know nothing of geography because I got on the plane thinking it was going to be a three hour flight and it turned into 6 hours!!! I so wasn’t prepared for that at all.  Not to mention that I actually had a window seat, but this guy sat in it!  I was basically miserable the whole plane ride, trying not to cough and wanting desperately to sleep and not being able to get comfortable. Cris was at the airport to pick me up and it was a little rainy so we went back to the hotel and waited for Tyson to get off work to go eat.  During the week we were able to hit the huge swap meet, hanama bay, a few beaches, a waterfall, swimming with sharks, the PCC, the Hawaii temple, the dole plantation and other fun places.  Pictures describe it way better below. 

(None of the pictures are in order, but just some of the highlights of my week in Hawaii!!!)

Saw both my Godsons less than 24hours apart, one in AZ and one in HI

We got a discount at Sealife park and it was cool, because hardly anyone was there and you got to see animals pretty close up!  I think next time I might even swim with dolphins.

We ate at cinnomns a famous place, and I totally got screwed on the bill.  4 pancakes ended up costing me 20 dollars instead of 10 like the menu said! The guava was the best though for sure!

My frist time snorkeling...which took some getting use to since I had been so sick the weeks prior and had shortness of breath.

All the fish were really cool, though I really wanted to see a sea turtle.

Walking in backwards they say is easier.

On our way out to swim with sharks!

In the cage with the BIG brown family!

Since you only get to swim for like 20 mins, I wanted to make sure I was underneath the water as much as possible.  The water was the best you get, so said the captain, it was crystal blue but still pretty much freezing to me!

One of my favorite pictures of me and Kasyn that some lady took while Cris and Ty were swimming.

                                

One evening after the guys got done with work, we hiked to a waterfall.

Stouson eating an apple

Easily best part of the PCC was getting to see my bro Gunski! Randomly, completely randomly I saw him try to get a seat at the performance we were watching,  I didnt think it was him at all, since hello he just got engaged and why in the world would he be in Hawaii?!? but it was really him and it was so fun getting to hang out with him there! Wish we had more time together for sure!

When I read the list of things you could do at the PCC, taking a canoe ride, was def on my list of things to do.  Though I was sad it was such a short ride, it still was alot of fun!

Gunnar and Tyson, both got volunteered to dance at one of the mini celebrations and got these cool flower headbands for participating.

We splurged a little on dinner and went to the Lau.  And after dinner was the fire show, which was pretty amazing!

I also got to go to Hawaii temple, which was really cool and the grounds were so beautiful of course

The dole plant was kinda a bust, because it was so freezing.  All week I hadnt been getting anything pineapple because I wanted to wait till the dole plant.  Well sure enough the day we go, it was kind of rainy and so downing pinapple yogurt wasnt the easiest, but it sure was really good!