New Beginnings

Sean and I arrived in Hawaii just in time for the aftermath of the flood. Our family, along with thirteen other families on our street, had to evacuate their home for major restorative repairs. We also found that our Mom's mazda miata was totaled, and our VW passat was sitting in a shop. In short, our poor family was homeless and carless.

Sean and I are a benevolent sort and thought that we should lend a helping hand to our poor family. We immediately began the hunt for a temporary home and transportation.
We would have been happy with anything, but to our pleasant surprise our findings exceeded our expectations. We found some cozy quarters on beachfront property. We also found a large vehicle with great air conditioning and plenty of room for all of us. We have been so blessed this Christmas season.

Mom's Christmas Tree

This is Allison's Vocalmotion choir when they performed at Sunset Beach.

This is a picture from a more sane, normal time. I was in charge of our school's tree for the Turtle Bay resort Festival of Trees (for Elementary Schools). Since our school is really into recycling and the environment, we did a "green" tree, with everything being made from recycled products. It was a new challenge for me, but I think it turned out quite well and those who helped with it had a good time.

The Aftermath

Flood Pics

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Here are some pictures of the flood. But these were taken when there was only about five inches of water in the house; it kept flooding after that.

Wet Winter

Well, it hasn't exactly been a great start to the holidays in Laie. It all started on Thursday morning when I woke up for seminary and looked out the front door. It was pouring and our driveway was totally flooded up to the porch, and our backyard and lanai were completely submerged; it was only about an inch from coming into the house. So I woke mom and dad up, and we started running around, panicking, calling people to get sandbags that didn't exist. Mom and dad finally decided it was best to get some cinder blocks to raise our furniture up, so they got in the kayak and paddled to someones house who had bricks we could borrow. (I think they actually ripped them out of the wall in the backyard) Lots of people came to help, since our house is the lowest spot on the street, and the first to flood. We got most of our furniture up and then the water started coming in through the doors and flooding the house. Pretty soon we had a foot of dirty, brown water in every room and we finally decided to evacuate. We couldn't open the door or else even more water would come in, so we had to climb through the window onto the driveway. The water was about two feet deep outside, so we got in our kayak and paddled to the other end of the street, which is higher, and wasn't flooded. We stayed at the Compton's house for a couple hours, and then the storms drains started working, and the water was gone within an hour! There probably wouldn't have been any problems if the drains had been working in the first place. So we went back to our house, and, with help from people who didn't get flooded, ripped out our carpets, swept out the water, and started cleaning. We're still nowhere near ready to move back into our house though, and neither are quite a few of our neighbors.
Then today, we were still working on the house and guess who showed up? President Eyring and his guides and security guards. I guess he wanted to see the damage, so we got to talk to him, and shake his hand, and show him inside our house, and take a picture with him. It was awesome!
We'll hopefully have some pics up soon, we took a lot, but we can't download them on this computer. (sorry heather, you'll probably be here before we can get pictures on our blog)

Halloween

Halloween in Laie is a huge deal. We passed out 200 0tter pops, and about 700 pieces of candy, and we still ran out! I dressed up as a world traveler, and dad stuck an old sheet over his head. I'm not exactly sure what he was supposed to be. Mom was the wolf who ate Little Red Riding Hood's grandma.

This past sunday I took my scriptures and camera to the orchard (one of my favorite spots). After a short nap in the warm indian summer sun, I thought I would capture the colors and light that was surrounding me. Here are a few images:

I also wanted to show an example of a project I am working on in sculpture (an animal in a representational-abstract form). It is an ethiopian wolf. They say that who you really are comes out in your artwork (you can tell a lot about a person by their art). I was surprised at what I learned by doing this little piece. Can you spot a thing or two?

Allison Drives At Last!

I finally got my permit on Wednesday, barely. You're allowed to get six wrong out of 30, and I missed 4. So yesterday I convinced mom to let me give it a try, and I actually did pretty good. I drove around the BYU parking lot about 25 times, and then I drove all the way home, it was awesome! Of course, I never got above 10 mph, but in Laie that's OK.

INVASION!!!

Our house is being invaded by creepy crawly things! We came home one night and there were a couple of tiny little frogs, or toads hopping around our kitchen floor. Then we looked in our sink and there was a slug leaving it's slime all over the place. What's going on?! And of course, we have humongous cockroaches and geckos, but those are normal. We have never seen frogs or slugs inside our house though! We think it must have something to do with our screens, so hopefully the problem will end when we get them fixed.

This is a picture Heather took of our wonderful sunsets. We do have fabulous lighting here and we like to be out at sunset time to take advantage of the wonder.
This is our new water feature! Instead of having Heather build me one (costly and time consuming) we found one we liked ready made on on a great sale. I love to sit on the lanai now! It's very relaxing and rejuvenating.
Heather's last task here was to help us transplant this big tree. It was quite a hassle to get the tree in the first place and cost more than I ever thought I would pay. It is a plumeria pudica and is supposed to have a lollipop look to it, with a profusion of white flowers up top. Well, it got a little overpruned and went into shock so we now call it our "faith" tree. We have faith that it will perk up and look beautiful one day.
This is the small version of the tree that I originally bought. It is doing well, but will take about 5 years or more to reach the height I was hoping for. Isn't landscaping fun?

Heather in Hawaii

We all have a list of things we need to see, do, or eat while in Hawaii. One thing on my list was to eat breadfruit. There's nothing quite like breadfruit baked with coconut milk and onions.

While walking behind the temple (the garden with the gazebo and cemetary) I noticed little breadfruit on the ground. I asked nearby gardeners if I could take them.

"What you gonna do with those?"

"eat them."

"O, Eat them! No, you can't eat those, you need some good breadfruit" He then gestured to some large ripe ones high in the tree. These two tongan gardeners found a long stick and with care poked down the best, ripest breadfruit.

The very next day, two went mushy. I baked one of the overripe ones with butter, brown sugar, and spices. It was pretty good. Then, that evening Alli and I baked the firm one with coconut milk, onions, and shrimp. I don't know what happened, but that breadfruit was overripe as well! We tried to down the slightly sweet and gooey starch, but succumbed to the garbage can. I think I have had my breadfruit fix (:

Heather's Graduation and Yellowstone

The happy graduate.

We got to go horseback riding when our B&B host saw us petting the horses. He was injured and couldn't do his usual work, so he was happy to show us around and let us ride.

We chased down the river after this beaver, and finally it came right up on the bank to eat some plants.

After the Canadian Rockies we got to watch Heather graduate. Well, walk anyway. She still has one part time semester left. After her graduation we went to Yellowstone for a couple nights, and Sean came too.

The Canadian Rockies

We forgot the name of this lake, but it was on our 11 mile hike. Doesn't it look like the silhouette of a dog or wolf?
We got to walk up this glacier a little ways.
Mom and Dad in front of a glacier lake.
This is one of the highest waterfalls in Canada. I think it's called Taketawa or something like that.
We got our own private viewing of a black bear with her two cubs. They were right on the side of the road when we drove past, and the cubs were playing with each other.

After Glacier, we went to Banff NP where we went hiking, and camped for 3 nights. It was really beautiful, with lakes, and huge mountains, and wildlife, and wildflowers; but it was really cold too. We had to wear coats and thermalsat night, and slept with 2 sleeping bags. When we went to Jasper, we got rained out, so instead of setting up our tent in the freezing rain and eating canned soup for dinner, we stayed in a bed and breakfast, slept in nice warm beds, and took hot showers. And of course, only a few minutes after we arrived at the bed and breakfast it stopped raining.

Summer Trip 2008: Glacier NP

Lake McDonald on our first night in Glacier

A mountain goat

We saw a bigger variety of wildflowers than we've ever seen on a hike. And of course, dad took a picture of every single one of them.

This year we took a month long trip to the mainland. We flew to Utah and were there for a week and a half. I was at tennis camp for a week during that time, and almost died in 102 degree weather. It was pretty tough, playing tennis matches, doing drills, and conditioning(running and stairs) for 6 hours a day in the hot sun. But I survived and I met some nice people. Then we drove up to Rexburg to watch Heather's performance before heading up to Glacier NP. We were there for 3 days, then went to Banff NP and Jasper NP in Canada for a few days before driving back down to Rexburg for Heather's graduation. We helped her pack up and move out, and then we all (Mom, Dad, Heather, Allison, and Sean) went to Yellowstone for 2 days. Oh, we also got to go horseback riding when we stayed in a farmhouse bed and breakfast in Ashton, Idaho.

Adventures With the "No Bo"

It's been so fun having Noah around this last month. We got to see a lot of firsts with him while he was here. His first haircut, his first time pulling himself up to stand, and his first time crawling.
Noah's first haircut

Outside of the Hukilau Cafe.




"C'mon Noah, just crawl already!"

He had fun eating his little baby biscuit. Mmmm.