2008, Wasn't It Great?

The following are some of the significan happenings of the past year:

10. I moved out of the coldest place around, Logan, UT, after living there for 5 non consecutive years.
9. The "Wendy Rash" was officially diagnosed as- Skin Allergy: Formaldahyde & Cobalt (it means I'm not supposed to use regular ol' soap and other things)
8. I took a photography class and now I want a better camera.
7. This is the first year since 1985 that I did not attend school.
6. For the first time, we have our own health insurance and retirement savings plan thing (I shouldn't be old enough for that, right!)
5. Got to see the musical, Wicked, on Broadway
4. I traveled to Guadalajara, Mexico for a month to study Spanish.
3. After submitting over 40 job applications, I got my first real full time job. And the best part is that I get to do exactly what I wanted to do: teach English to international college students!
2. We moved to Hawaii and live on a beach... sort of.
1. I got married to Dave, the best husband EVER, in the Timpanogos Temple!

Happy New Year Everyone!

Christmas Decorations

Since we're not going to be in Hawaii forever, we didn't really want to invest in a lot of Christmas decorations here and then have to figure out what to do with them later when we move again. So we went to Wal Mart and this is what we came up with for cheap. It's not much, but it helps us feel the Christmas spirit a little. Some of the gifts are for us and some we are giving away.

We tried hanging these lights around the frame of the window inside. But they wouldn't stick... and Dave tried all sorts of tapes! Even duct tape. So we just draped the lights over the curtain rod. It works.

Liquid Sunshine?

This is the start of our day today. We quickly realized that the way to make it through a day like this in Hawaii is to get out of your car, put on shorts and flipflops and walk. It's forecasted to continue raining for the rest of the day! Here's hoping our ground floor apartment doesn't leak.

Too Sneaky.

So, what do you think?

Black Friday

So this video is at Waimea Bay, the day after Thanksgiving!!! the surf was huge!! throughout the video you can see some kids about 10-12 yrs old, and how the waves just drown them, there are some adults as well and the waves tower over them.

Whopper Experiment: My Photo Class

I've been taking a photography class for the last couple weeks and I've learned so much! The only real problem is my little Canon Power(less) Shot can't do what I want it to do! But the only qualification for the class was that we have a camera with manual settings, and it did, so I signed up. I experimented a ton and had many unpleasant results, but these I kinda liked.

This is an example of a slow shutter speed, catching the motion of the falling Whoppers.
Then in this one I used a faster shutter speed, the fastest my camera has, and sort of froze the motion of the the Whoppers. My favorite part is that the Whoppers are falling just as fast as they are in the first picture (cuz all objects fall at the same rate) but they look like they're moving slower. It needs more light though.

The story behind the Whoppers:
I'd been craving Whoppers. We found some at WalMart last week for $2. I opened them. Excitement. Bit into the first one. No crunch. No crisp. No good. They tasted like they'd been on the Wal-Mart shelf for several years on a humid, tropical island. So I used them as props for my photography experiment instead and then tossed 'em in the trash.

Our Apartment

This is the outside of our apartment. It looks like one giant house but there's really 4 separate entrances. We have the main front door on the bottom floor and the garage on the left is ours. There's another entrance through the garage that we use most of the time.
Here's another view of the front. The 2 windows that you can see are our living room.
Bedroom. It's hard to tell in this picture, but we really have 2 twin bed pushed together. We rent them from the university for $2.50/month each. They didn't have a queen bed...they said.
Kitchen.

Us eating spaghetti and homemade bread sticks last Sunday. Our kitchen table was given to us from my boss. He told us to borrow it as long as we needed it and he also threw in some beautiful table cloths so we could hide the old church folding table underneath.
First run of the new vacuum. It does carpet and hard tile floors (which we have a ton of!)
Living Room. Dave playing the Wii. We also rent these couches from the university for more than they're really worth, I'm sure. They're hard and the back part only comes half way up your back. One day, we're going to have huge, soft, full, leather couches.

We feel lucky to have this place because the way it goes with university housing, everyone pays the same amount based on how many bedrooms there are. But the quality of each apartment varies so drastically! There are some really trashy places. Ours has its quirks (wait 'til you see the bathrooms!) but it's pretty nice. We're just across the street from the campus; it takes me a little less than 10 minutes to get to my office and it takes Dave about 15 minutes to get to work. The temple is about a 10 minutes walk the other direction and our church building is right next to the temple. The beach is a 3 min drive in the car.

I Got Tagged

This one's for you, Cher!

4 Favorite TV Shows:
4. The Today Show
3. Bewiched
2. Heroes
1. King of Queens

4 Things I did yesterday:
4. Received hate mail from an upset student
3. Went to the gym
2. Ate Oreos and milk
1. Watched my very first James Bond movie...ever

4 Things I'm looking forward to:
4. Going to the beach this afternoon
3. Dinner and a movie with Dave tonight
2. Getting paid on Wednesday
1. Flying to Utah in a month from today!

4 Favorite restaurants:
4. Ruby Tuesday
3. Guadalahonkey's
2. Blue Bird Cafe
1. Applebee's

4 Foods I hate:
4. Applesauce
3. Tuna fish
2. Seafood
1. Bananas

4 things I want to learn:
4. Graphic Design
3. Finances
2. Photography (in progress)
1. Tongan

4 Things I'm obsessed with:
4. Correct uses of their, they're and there
3. Dave, obviously (he told me to write that)
2. Dinner
1. An organized filing system

4 Things you may not have known about me:
4. I married a cheer leader...I mean a yell leader
3. I bought an end table today for $4 at a garage sale
2. I resent some of the BYU Rules
1. I got my finger smashed under a shopping cart when I was in 2nd grade

4 Words that crack me up:
4. Nook
3. Garbanzo Bean
2. Snorkel
1. Gravy

People I tag
- Allison A - Katey T - Hannah O - Michelle L

Ocean View Apartment!!!

So can any one find the ocean in this view!?!?

OOH OOH I Can!!!

Secretive Woman

So we used to live on Wahinepe'e St. but most of you know we have moved now, but a little funny thing we learned about our little street when we still lived there. The word Wahinepe'e means "Secretive Woman". Wahine means Woman and i guess pe'e means Secretive or some form of secret. So wendy is now my Wahinepe'e!!!

Cost of Living

How much do you pay for a loaf of bread? A gallon of milk?

We knew when we chose BYU-Hawaii over the U of Alabama several months ago that the cost of living was considerably different. We knew there was a reason why the difference in salaries was so huge. But we came here anyways.

Yesterday we spent the day "in town" (this is what they say over here when they're describing the other, more populated, side of the island) doing our weekly shopping. We bought a vacuum, went to dinner at a place that I would take YOU to, if you ever come to visit, fueled up our car and went grocery shopping. I was so excited when pulled into a gas station that actually had gas for under $3! Ok, so it was $2.99. We were so happy to see that gas had come down so much from when we first arrived! (In August it was like $4.20 something.) But then my dad told me that gas around the Salt Lake area is down to $2.25 and $2.30! What the heck!

Then we went to Safeway for some groceries. I hate it when you get to the check-out-line and have to pay! And it's even worse in Hawaii. For example, green bell peppers were $1.25/lb, cheap Safeway-brand white bread was $3.89, and a gallon of milk is always like$9/gal. It all adds up!

Here's the catch though: All Hawaiian grocery stores offer a frequent shopper card to punish the tourist and reward the resident, I think. So that means we have a Safeway Club Card and a Foodland Maka'i Card (oh yeah and there's only like 2 kinds of grocery stores on the island) and they give us all sorts of great deals on their already hiked up prices. Take last night for example...our bread only cost us $3.59 and those green bell peppers, well, they didn't have a special deal. And the other day when we ran low on milk, instead of paying the regular $9/gal, it only cost us $7 with our Maka'i Card!

There are some other alternatives. There's 3 Walmarts in town but none of the them really carry grocery items. They all have a small section where you can buy cans of soup, jelly, frozen pizza and the like. Those prices aren't too bad, but they just don't have everything we need. Sometimes if we're over there, we'll get what we need, but it's not worth going out of our way. We also have a Costco membership that we use now and then. But let's be honest, there's only 2 of us, we really don't want a year's supply of spaghetti noodles and Frosted Mini Wheats. They get old pretty quickly...just ask Dave!

At work, I'm often reminded by my coworkers that my predecessor up and left in the middle of her contract because she and her family couldn't make ends meet. Besides wondering if they're trying to tell me something, I'm actually not at all worried about that happening to us. We're careful with how much buy and how frequently we shop. We definitely have all that we need and then some. We both feel lucky to have the jobs that we have--I love mine and wouldn't want to work as anything else and Dave tolerates his, is happy to have it now, but even happier that it's not permanent.

And maybe when we move back to the mainland, inflation will make all prices there what they already are here and it won't be that big of a deal!

Ka'ena Point

Our friend, the only friend we have right now, invited us to go out to Ka'ena Point (most Westernly point of the island--only 4 Wheel Drive and hikers are able to get out there) a few Saturdays ago. It ended up being a small group of people from a student ward on campus, which our friend had been invited to, who invited us...anyways, we all ended up being tag-a-longs, but nobody cared. We even rode in the school bus they had rented for the activity. Dave and I still think singles ward are more fun that family wards!

The tide was out while we were there which made it possible to see all sorts of low tide life, for example this seal. Look how blubbery it is! You wouldn't think they could move at all on the land, but they do. This one just about leaped on top of one of the idiot student ward guys who wouldn't leave him alone! But, of course, we have no pictures of that!

We read in our guide book that the water hitting this point of the island may possibly have come from opposite end of the Pacific. The exact quote would be, "The rocks at this point are getting slammed from the north swells that may have originated in Alaska. The south side of the rocks my be assaulted by New Zealand-born swells" (Doughty, A. 2008, Oahu revealed: The ultimate guide to Honolulu, Waikiki & beyond 2nd. Ed., p. 184). My interpretation in the video may not be entirely accurate!!

All in all, the hike took about 3 hours, which was about 1.5 hours too long. The hike back to the school bus was not too fun. Have you ever tried hiking in humidity?! It's the worst thing on the whole planet! Not recommended by me. There is seriously nothing left on your entire body that's dry! Guess that's the price you pay! It was a fun time though! It was good for us to get out and do something with other people. Now, if you ever come to see us while we're here, we'll know how to take you to Ka'ena Point!

Pounders Beach

We went to this beach in Laie, where we live, because we were told it had good body boarding waves. It didn't take long to learn why the beach is called Pounders...every single wave sucks you up and then POUNDS you into the sand.

A Few Wedding Pictures

Dave talked me into having one element of Star Wars in our wedding. He's a Star Wars freak! (And I'm not joking--right now he's reading Star Wars Insider, the magazine...it's kind of cute.) So we thought it'd be fun to have our cake toppers be Han Solo and Princess Leia. Everyone loved it! And by the way, I think the cake tasted pretty good too!




These next 2 pictures were taken before our reception started. The back of the reception center had a garden and water and stuff like that. We chose not to have our reception out here for 2 reasons--1. It was hot and 2. We had just had an outdoor reception the night before in Dave's parents' backyard (which was so nice)

Now were looking from the front door/stair to the Front Room on the Right. Master bed and 2nd room close on the Left and 3rd room and 2nd bath back Left.

Our Apartment looking from the front room to the kitchen, hall on the right and front door/stairway on the left.(That's Wendy)

Lunch in central Park!!