HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!

 What a wonderful week it has been! My first Christmas and birthday away from home was not nearly as sad as I thought it would be, it was actually really nice spending lots of quality time with Tyler and skyping with the family. We spent Christmas morning opening all our wonderful gifts our family had sent us, Tyler and I got camelbacks from his mom, I got an underwater video camera from my parents and Tyler got a tool set (finally he can start fixing some stuff around here!) Tyler made me a sign for our house! He actually woodburned it himself and put a little turtle on it to represent Hawaii, everywhere we go we will take it with us and add to it :)  He also got me games so we can have people over for game nights and a really pretty koa wood and ivory necklace :)   So of course I had to get him the most manly and dangerous gift, a spear gun! haha  Its actually a really big sport over here, a lot of our friends do it, you dont even need a license! Just go out in the ocean and catch me some dinner! :)  

After all the gift giving we spent the rest of the day watching christmas movies and drinking eggnog :) 

We also decided to make our first Turkey! As you very well know, we dont have an oven, just our little table top convection/toaster oven. To put it in a nutshell, it was a very funny process and took some mad skills to cook that turkey! I made homemade stuffing (which was literally the best I have ever had, thank you very much) :)  And then we stuffed our little bird, and made mashed potatoes and gravy! One of the bast Christmas dinners ever (ALMOST as good as grandmas!) We have sooo many leftovers though! We boiled the turkey carcass and have enough stock to make turkey soup, my favorite! And Tyler has already made lots of gravy, who knew, he is actually a pretty good cook ;) 

 All in all it was very very nice :) Four days later it was my birthday! Yay I love getting spoiled all week long :) Its like the fun just never stops! haha On the actual day of my birthday Tyler took me out to Huggos ( a really nice place on the water I have been wanting to check out) for pupus and dessert.  The next night we went out on the Body Glove cocktail cruise!  It was very nice, free drinks and appetizers while watching the sunset. We met some pretty cool people on the boat, and had a great time! 

And now its new years eve! We both work tonight, but should be off around ten. Not quite sure what the plan is, a lot of places are having new years eve parties and Im pretty sure the town sets off fireworks over the water, so Im sure we will find something fun to do! 

In other news, two of my best girlfriends Sam and Sarah are coming to visit in 2 days!! AHHH Im so excited you dont even know! Its going to be so nice just to see faces from home!  I took the week off work so we can spend as much time all together as possible! Im hoping our little apartment can comfortably fit us all! I think the three of us girls are going to try and fit in the bed and we will just kick tyler to the couch :) haha We have about 1 plate and 1 glass per person haha  Its going to be tight, but who cares, its going to be great! We plan on cramming a lot of activities in in one week. I think we will rent a car for a couple days to go around the Island. We did buy a second scooter that can hold two people, so the four of us can all scoot around town :)  Tune in next week to hear about all our adventures! 

XOXOX  Laur

Tis The Season..

..To be Jolly?
I have to say I am very thankful to be able to say Im having a Hawaiian Christmas, but i cant lie in also saying I wish we were home for the Holidays. I know how much I can complain about the wet, cold weather of Oregon, but I do miss bundling up and warm hot chocolates and SNOWBOARDING and...mostly spending time with family. But this is just one year out of the many many christmases I will enjoy and im going to make the most of what we do have to celebrate.
So, today was the day we (Tyler) picked up all the christmas gifts our wonderful family sent us! And I have to say, Im still a kid at heart and always will be on Christmas, I CANT WAIT TO OPEN GIFTS! haha its just so exciting :) And our new tree just looks so complete with all the gifts underneath now.
So, in Hawaii I guess you have to be quick to get things, especially on Christmas. Because once they run out, it takes a little while to ship in new merchandise. Our tree for example (from Oregon it said on the tag) was pretty spendy for a LOT TREE (no U-cuts here :(  all the smaller ones were sold out so we had to get a bigger more expensive one and have them cut it down a bit. And I swear we got the last Christmas tree stand on the Island! We went three places and finally I got the last one at Target!  But after all was said and done, it looks great! Tyler managed to set it up by himself (and it wasnt even crooked!) and we decorated it with a wine bottle tree topper and random knick-knacks from around the house :)   We weren't about to spend a fortune on ornaments! But i think its perfect! my first reaction is "oh shoot we dont have enough lights to cover the whole tree, and we HAVE to go get ornaments and a topper for it" But Tyler calmed my irrational and unnecessary stress and made me realize things dont always have to be traditional or "perfect" We made it our own, and in the spirit of Christmas it feels more like "us" than any store bought decorations could have made it.

xoxoxoxo

In other news, we went to our first Hawaiian movie, Sherlock Holmes 2 last night. Really the only difference from going to the movies in Oregon and going in Hawaii is they greet you with Aloha! not Hola!  :) oh, and you get to butter your own popcorn :) thats pretty sweet! 

Also, I know I have talked about the fruit here, but I bought my first avocado the other day and I just HAD to take a picture of it! That thing could feed a small village for a week! Crazy Big! 

This week we are getting a second moped! Going to be very very nice to be able to have a little more independence from each other ;)  Tyler wont have to get up and drive me to work early and I wont have to wait for his ass to get off work to go pick him up! Also, in the budget this month was a Kayak! It was on sale at Sports Authority for 300. Which was actually a lot cheeper than the USED Kayaks we were looking at! Its a great brand and can seat 3 people! We still need to buy one more paddle and hopefully take it out this week! We are banking on being able to cary it across the street and dock it right there in the ocean, hopefully that all works out ;) Keep you posted on the Kayak adventures! But we are definitely going to be bringing it home with us too, take that bad boy out on the Columbia or the Willamette!

our new baby fresh out of the bubble wrap :)

Well its about dinner time, going to see what I can whip up :)  Until next time, Merry Christmas! or should I say Mele Kalikimaka   :)

Meeting people and living life

Well, it seems like we have finally gotten to a point where we have established a name for ourselves in Kona. I've realized it takes a lot of effort to put yourself out there, make new friends and create a place for yourself in a town where you once did not exist. Just by simply staring conversation with anyone and everyone you meet, you would be AMAZED by the stories you hear, the relationships you start, and just how connected we all really are to each other. We have made friends with a bartender who is a scuba instructor who is going to certify us and he is also a pilot and said he could fly us to any island we want to go to! Being a bartender, all I do is talk to people all day, I have met flight attendants, cruise ship workers, a famous chef who cooks for celebrities, people who have told me about all the hidden treasurers Hawaii has to offer that I would never have read in a guide book, and the list goes on. That is one of the reasons I love my job and why I will never stop working with and around people, everyone has so much to offer, you just have to start talking. And it makes me sad thinking how American society has become so self involved and timed around strangers. Most people live in fear and keep to themselves on a daily basis. Sitting on the max even, and looking around everyone is clutching their bags and looking forward at all times. If someone so much as starts up a conversation we assume they are a creep and respond in short non-inviting one liners. Imagine if we just said hi to everyone we came in contact with? Who knows who you could meet, the opportunities you could come into, the lasting friendships you could make. The world would be better off for all of us if we just broke out of our shell once in a while. Because really, its all about who you know.

Ok so enough of all my philosophy :)  I haven't wrote in a while, so thanksgiving was really great. A couple from my old job at Persimmon, who were members that I had known for almost two years, happened to be staying on the Big Island for Thanksgiving and had invited us to have dinner with their family. They have three kids who are all around our age and their boyfriend/husband who were all on vacation with them, so it was a pretty big group of people. They were so hospitable to us, made us drinks all night and fed us a giant meal of lobster tails and steak! So all in all it was a great way to spend the holiday even though we were missing our family. 

Tyler and I have both been working a lot, which is bitter sweet. We both love our jobs and are making good money, but at the same time I didn't just move here to work, I want to be able to explore as much of the Island as I can. With that being said I think I might drop down to working only 3 or 4 days/week instead of 5. 

A lot of things we want to try, though, we are waiting till friends and family visit to do them, because we know they will want to do them anyway. Things like the manta ray night dives, zip-lining, helicopter tours over the volcano, going to a Luau, driving to the top of Mauna Kea to watch the sunrise, ect. are all things I know we will do, but were waiting to share them with all our visitors! 

We did rent a Kayak the other day though :) It was awesome, I really want to get one now, we are searching craigslist to find a good deal. I would love to start kayaking and get good at paddling so we can cruise down the coast and find hidden beaches that you cant get to by foot. That and another Moped are in our near buying future :) 

My city at dusk :) 

I have been buying and trying lots of new fruits. Custard apples are really strange. Spiny and green on the outside, and soft white fleshy fruit on the inside. I get fresh pineapples all the time and make smoothies out of them. Also I have got mangoes and Mamey Sapote, which is this picture i found. They are a almost carmel sweet taste, I have tried this fruit when I was in Australia as well. 

 

And I also got a raw coconut the other day! We poked a hole for the milk to come out (which actually does not taste as good as I thought, does anyone know what you can do with the milk? ) and then Tyler cracked it open with a hammer! The actual meat was ok, still not as good as I thought, but im basing my love of coconut flavor on pina coladas and coconut cream pies :) 

Anywho, everything else is going great, we've made some awesome friends we go out with quite often, we know our way around good, and learn something new everyday. The weather is mid 80's everyday mostly blue skys and lovely.  :)    Well until next time........

The end of another amazing day with my love