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