Hawaii January 2011

The first week of January 2011 Colton and I went on our "real" honeymoon to Kauai, Hawaii. I had never been to any of the Hawaiian Islands so I was super stoked to go. The crazy part was we would be leaving Arizona during one of its coldest months wearing sweatshirts and running the heater, to flying on an airplane to a place we would wear swimsuits and lay out under the sun on the beach. My parents picked us up super early in the morning and next thing I knew we were headed to Hawaii.

The Plane Ride Over: I thought I was going to die. Literally crash in the ocean and be stranded on a floating piece of plane for days. Okay, maybe not that dramatic but the flight was one of the bumpiest I have ever been on and I have flown a LOT for basketball and family trips. Not joking, women on the plane were screaming because of the turbulence. Needless to say, when we finally arrived I had already convinced myself I would never get on another plane again. Which would be fine because I would be stuck in Hawaiian Paradise my whole life. 

(Hawaiian Island, finally I felt like I would survive)

Where We Stayed and Our Car: We stayed in a condo called The Cliffs in Princeville and it literally was on a cliff. We drove around a black mustang convertible and always had the top down.

Lovely morning hair feeding our morning friends who joined us for breakfast every day

 The Cliff View

Right outside our room

Activities We Did: We spent a lot of time driving around and just exploring all the towns, waterfalls, caves and shops. There is one "main" road on Kauai and chickens everywhere. We also went snorkeling almost every day on Kauai and I had never been before. We would have beaches to ourselves and so going out alone was kind of scary but we didn't get attacked by sharks so everything was good. We survived!

Looking down into Hanalei

 A beach we found because we drove down this tiny dirt road... No one here!

Hanalei, Colton's favorite little town 

 Waimea Canyon

It was FREEZING up there!

One of the Days: We went to the Princeville Ranch Adventure and went horseback riding to ziplines. That was one of the best days! I never had been ziplining before and we were with a group of hilarious people that kept us laughing all day. 

The Beaches: Our favorite beaches were Tunnels and Poipu. Those are the only two beaches we really swam at. We swam with sea turtles, tons of fish, saw a sea lion, fed some chickens on the beach. 

Wednesday: On Wednesday we flew from Kauai over to Oahu. We went to Pearl Harbor and the Polynesian Cultural Center. I can ALMOST laugh about it now but we spent 8 hours on the bus that day driving around from both of those places because we didn't have a rental car set up. It was still fun to get to see both those place for just the few hours we got to. We flew on the 30 minute flight back to "our island" that night.

Sunday: Late Sunday night we flew home after our last adventure of playing goofy golf on the beach at sunset. I know what you are thinking "awe, so romantic!" Colton beat me by ONE point so naturally we both said we would have to come back "solely" for the purpose of a rematch. I had a BLAST in Hawaii and promised myself that I would return again as soon as I could. I could not have picked better company to have on that trip then my handsome husband. I would call our second but first "real" honeymoon a success. 

The Girl Who Loves Hawaii, Erica

Hawaii January 2011

Everything Else is Just a Bonus

Thanksgiving weekend 2010 we moved into a little one bedroom house that we rent from a family in our ward. It is the perfect set up for us! Huge open field for our dogs to play in, cozy little house with an open kitchen for all my baking and cooking, horses just out our front yard. How much better could it get? Next month we will have lived here 2 years. I absolutely LOVE where we live! I'll be sad when we finally have to move someday. The family we rent is such a great family and we feel lucky to have them let us rent from them. We spend a lot of our evenings playing outside with our dogs or going on walks around the neighborhood. It's actually quite the walk because there are peacocks, horses, goats, chickens, alpacas, emus and every other farm animal you can imagine. Never a dull moment while walking.

View from our front door, not too bad right?

Our first married Christmas was spent in our little home we rent. We woke up super early, Colton was a little excited, opened our gifts to each other and then went to my parents for the morning to open gifts with my family. We spent the evening at Colton's parents with his family. It's not always easy coordinating around two different families with their own traditions but I am grateful that it always seems to work out that we get to spend time with each of our families. 

People kept asking me around the holidays the typical Christmas gift question "what do you want for Christmas?" That year I honestly didn't have an answer because I didn't "want" anything. I already have everything that I could possibly want or need. Everything else is just a bonus.

The Girl Who Wants Nothing, Erica

The Girl Who Got A Puppy

Colton and I decided that we wanted to get a puppy after we got married. On Thursday, August 30th 2010, I had work off so I met Colton in the afternoon at the animal shelter / dog pound over by Tempe Marketplace and the freeway. Let me just tell you that it's not the cleanest/happiest place to be. I always get sad going in places like those because all the animals look so unhappy and I just want to take them all home with me.

We started at the far end in the puppy area. There were quite a few puppies in that day so we took our time looking around. I came across a kennel that had this tiny, sad looking puppy that was shaking in the corner. The sign on her cage said "Chihuahua Mix" a.k.a they didn't know what breed of dog she was. I wanted to hold her so bad but Colton said we should look around somewhere else because we already had a 7 year old Chihuahua dog that is my sister's but has lived with me for the last 5-6 years. He's basically our adopted dog who sleeps 20 hours a day. I was persistent and told him I just wanted to "hold her" so we took her out into the human sized cages in dirt lots that they have where you can "play and really get to know the dogs"... Basically I just held her and she snuggled right up to me and began to cry. I was sold! Now I had to figure out how to convince the hubby. I made him hold her and she did the same thing and he said "oh alright, we can get her." I cheered... out loud! 

They have to neuter all dogs before they leave the facility so we had to come back and get her the next day. I was worried for that whole 24 hours that something would happen and we wouldn't be allowed to keep her. So I stressed as new dog parents often do... Completely normal, right? We bought her everything imaginable that a puppy would need that night. Kennel, toys, food, treats, a cushioned dog bed for relaxing, collar, leash, etc.

The next day we went back and picked her up. She was so tiny and timid back then. I picked her name off a "best dog name" website thingy and we decided to call her Bella. All little kids ask me, "did you name her after Bella from Twilight?" Why yes little kids I named my dog after a vampire-loving-fictional character. You caught me! ... No. We named her Bella because we both liked the name. She now is brown with very little black and has the cutest curly tail.  Here she is as a puppy the day we brought her home...

Colton made me promise that no dogs would sleep on the bed and I agreed, even though I have shared my bed with our family dogs, even our huge chocolate lab, pretty much my whole life. The first night Bella cried all night long. I put my hand in her little bed box and she slept in my hand that night. The next week or so she cried all night, every night. Eventually, after being sleep deprived, Colton let her sleep at the foot of our bed in her little dog bed. She stayed in that for a few weeks but soon she started creeping up to sleep closer to us. She now sleeps right in between us with her head on our pillows and the blanket up to her neck. See:

At least once a week, in the middle of the night when I've been asleep for hours, Bella will start to randomly lick my face and then turn over and fall back asleep. She's so precious! We have absolutely LOVED having dogs. Bella has so much energy and requires a lot of playtime. She loves to play soccer, Frisbee, fetch, go for runs and walks, or go to the dog park. She definitely keeps us super active! She was the best $50 we ever spent. :)



The girl who got the puppy she wanted, Erica

Our Reception Party

We had a few weeks to get adjusted to the married life and get Colton all moved in. Until the house I grew up in sold, we would be living in it to take care of it. It was really cool to live in a two story, five bedroom house just the two of us but when Colton would go to school I would go over to my parents house because it was creepy to be home alone. Three weeks after our wedding day, on September 25th 2010, we had our reception. Some people didn't agree with how we did it, and were questioning it, but I am so glad we did it that way! Our actual wedding day got to be just about our sealing in the temple and our reception night we got to just party and have a great time, not feel exhausted after a long day, and get to actually enjoy everything. Another main reason we did it this way was to have our reception outside at my parent's house and have it not be in the 100 degrees at 7pm. Again a special thanks goes out to my mother who really planned everything for our reception and to her wonderful friends who helped her with all the food.

Warning: possible picture overload:

The walkway into the backyard

We had a really fun photo booth

That hand drawn picture in the top right was a wedding present from my friend Chris Kennison :)

Caramel apple bar! 

My sweet grandma made our cupcake cake for our wedding

My mom in her natural working environment that entire night

I love this picture of my dad for some reason

These little boys are ADORABLE! They aren't little anymore but I used to sit with them every Sunday in church when they were little to help! Pretty sure the best hug I got all night was from Daniel (the one closest in the picture). He gives the best hugs!

This little guy loves his Uncle Colton!

Mark and Rob, Colton's best friends

I'm pretty sure I fed Cole close to 5 cupcakes that night.

Now don't me wrong, I LOVED seeing everyone there and had a blast but this was my favorite part:

 My best friend Conger surprised me by showing up when she had told me days before she wouldn't be there. For once, she actually fooled me!

I loved our reception! Colton and I both felt so loved by everyone that showed up to support us. I was exhausted by the end of the night so I have no idea how people have a wedding and reception in the same day. I give all those who do that a big virtual high five. I made it a person rule that Colton and I weren't going to use any of the gifts we got until I had written thank you cards and sent them out. Yes, I'm going to brag a little about myself because I wrote 350 hand-written personalized thank you notes and mailed them in less than a week. GO ME!

The girl who fed all the little kids unlimited cupcakes at the reception, Erica