Reynolds Ohana

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Surf's Up!

So I haven't posted in a while...

And it seems like the longer I go without posting, the more I think "Oh my heck, I have so much to catch up on. Where do I start?" And I become overwhelmed... and you know that moment, when you think of all you have to do, so you just decide not to do ... any of it?? It happens to my blog. And since this blog is somewhat my form of journaling, I feel guilty.

SO!

Life is good. Mike and I are really enjoying every minute we have together, and trying to explore every last bit of this island!

The other day we went into Waikiki and used a groupon that my wonderful mother-in-law had given us a while back. I got to go surfing!!

Oh boy it was definitely an adventure!! I loved it but was also frustrated because it was hard to control the board and there were sooo many people that I was worried I would crash into them. Luckily, I didn't!

I thought that it might be kind of like snowboarding, but it actually really isn't at all.

After I was all done! It was great, I wish I was better at it though!

Another groupon adventure we got to do was having out photos done on the beach! It was absolutely perfect.

I was so glad to get these pictures done, we had a blast doing them!

Here are a few of my favorites...

It was fun to get them done, we also have a ton of WONDERFUL photos that my cousins Nate and Marilinda took on their trip out here... which will certainly be a topic of future posts! :)

Another fun happening was game night! this was the first one we've hosted, and it was super fun! Brett & Heidi, and Isabel & Cesar came. Sadly, I did not get a picture. But it was a night full of laughs and fun, for sure!

Mike's parents also had some friends that were coming out here for a few weeks to visit, so we ended up meeting with them for a few hours as well, that was fun. Their name was Linda and Mike Rubin...

They wanted to see Bellows Air Force Base Beach, so Mike got them on. It was a BEAUTIFUL day.

And tonight we cleaned and did homework... all in preparation for our good friends Mario and Holly, who are coming out to visit tomorrow!!! We have been planning this for a long time... I can hardly wait.

Life. Is. Good.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Resolutions

It's that time of year! Time to set some new goals for myself... I feel like 2012 could be one of the greatest years of my life... if I allow it to be!!

In the summer of 2008, I sold security systems. I really didn't like it at all, but I learned some great lessons about myself, and it defined a lot of who I am today. One of the things I learned from that summer was how to set goals. A goal, to be a goal, has to meet some criteria...

Write it down. It's not a goal unless you have written it down, and made a plan to achieve it. Otherwise, it's just a wish.

Make a plan... a detailed plan, perhaps with several baby steps along the way.

Put your plan in a place where you can see it often, a bathroom mirror, in your car or room...where ever you need so that you can review it constantly!

Incentives.. Reward yourself for working hard, for accomplishing a goal that you set.

AND hold yourself accountable. Involve other people to hold you accountable as well. It always helps to have a friend to keep you in check with your goals, one who has your best interest at heart of course!

Last summer while Mike was deployed in Laos, I set some MID YEARS resolutions. Because I felt like I was getting stuck in a rut, and needed to make some goals for myself and where I wanted to be. This post is going to be dedicated to reviewing those goals... there will be a follow up post with some new goals for myself... But I just want to take some time and think about what my goals this year will be.

Without further ado... here are my MID YEAR resolutions from 2011. Colored text is the goal, white text is my added evaluation.

Finish the Book of Mormon by the end of the year .... CLOSE! I have worked oh so hard on this. I am in Ether now. I have been consistently studying, using the Book of Mormon student manual. I feel okay where I am with this, because my study has been interspersed with ensign talks and messages. Will finish by February.

Sign up for a work out class! One of our friends in Hawaii is a body pump instructor... MUST get details on this! I have been doing great at this one! I work out at the Hickam gym and go at least 3 times a week. I have yet to go to Heidi's body pump class... But I am planning on going in January!

Register for school... try to figure out a way to get into ANY nursing program at all. Start hammering out pre-requisites this semester (anatomy & phys... microbiology lab... medical terminology... to start )Check!! I am successfully enrolled in school and working hard at my first semester back. Weber State baby!

Throw myself into Paparazzi Jewelry. Get details on selling at swap meets, set up parties, talk to people Ummmm... yeah. This hasn't been going so well.

Start working at Ho'okele Health Love working here. So far so good.

Figure out the pros and cons of being a home health aide vs. pursing my own business with Paparazzi. Re-evaluate goals 5 and 6 in a monthI think my previous comments answer this question...

Finish reading all the conference messages by September 1! :DRead most of them.. not quite all of them.

Do a random act of kindness everyday for someone This could use some work. I could be a little more outgoing and kind to the people in my life.

Welp, there you have it. I feel pretty good about where I am in accomplishing my goals. I'll be back in a few days with some new goals of where I want to be by the end of this year. That's all folks!

Monday, January 2, 2012

Holiday Re-cap!

This year marked the very first Christmas Mike & I spent together as a married couple. It was an incredible experience to have, just the two of us to celebrate the holiday! We had a lot of fun bringing together our traditions and creating new ones... The whole month of December was filled with conversations on Christmases we had growing up and what we did with our families.

One Christmastime tradition we will definitely keep is making gingerbread houses! We made these last year with Skitz and Emilie, but Mike was high on morphine at the time so his building skills were highly impaired...

This year was much better!

Another fun & new tradition I decided to do was FUDGE! My friend Emilie's mom makes fudge every year that is sooooo yummy, and around December I always get real excited for it! Unfortunately, I was not home to partake of the goodness, so I decided to make my own! I branched out and made a cookie dough fudge... The consistency was not quite right but it was still pretty tasty!

I decided to get especially crafty (thanks, pinterest...) and do a couple sewing projects for my parents Christmas gifts! All us kids went in on a kindle for my Mom, so I decided to attempt sewing a case for it! This is the finished product...

For my Dad I decided to make this remote control holding pillow... I also stuffed the pocket with macadamia nuts, for a nice Hawaiian touch... I can't find the photo, but you get the idea.

We also spent sometime walking around downtown Waikiki and enjoying all the Christmas decorations!

The Friday before Christmas we ventured into Honolulu to see the city lights. They had some fun displays. We got hot cocoa and pretended like we were cold so we could get more into the whole experience. :D

Gotta love the creepy doll in the background!

My favorite was the surfing snowman!

On Christmas Eve we opened up our stockings and our presents... because we could. And neither of us wanted to wait. Okay, well mostly I didn't want to wait. Haha! Then we read the Christmas story from the bible.

Christmas Day we lounged around and did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. It was so wonderful.

Finally we decided we would go to the beach and spend a nice relaxing day there... We took some sushi and had a picnic on our rockin new beach mat! We just laid in the sun and watched the waves roll in.

This was the sunset on the drive home!! Beautiful.

It was just about the best Christmas ever! After Christmas it seemed like New Years was here in the blink of an eye! We spent New Years at our house watching a movie... Once 11:00 rolled around we meandered down to the beach to watch some fireworks. We went out on this jetty and there were waves crashing around us as the fireworks went off to celebrate the arrival of the New Year! It was very romantic. Can't wait for the great events of 2012!

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Manoa Falls

This past Sunday we got the chance to go on a beautiful hike to Manoa Falls! It's about 15 minutes from our place... just a short 2 mile hike but it is well worth it!!

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Our excitingly boring life!

It's been a while since I updated.

Does anyone read this anyway? Oh well... I thoroughly enjoy reminiscing on my excitingly boring life anyway!

Living in Hawaii is great. And dreadful. It's a definite love/hate relationship. It's just not something you can understand until you've actually lived here...

Mike and I did some quick math today and figured out that it takes us longer to drive the 8 miles to and from work than it would someone driving northbound from Salt Lake City to Ogden during rush hour (that's 22 miles..)

Many hours a day I am stuck in traffic, cursing 'this rock'

BUT everyday is an adventure, because I am with my best friend! Even though there's some hard stuff and unique challenges we face, I have never been happier. And I'm thankful for smokin' hot man who never ceases to make me laugh!

Here are a few little adventures as of late...

For our 8 month anniversary, we went to Jose's Mexican Restaurant. This is the only Mexican restaurant I have even seen on the island. It wasn't Utah mexican, but it was still SO DELICIOUS. Oh my goodness it's been a long while since we've gotten our fix of tasty Mexican.

As you can see, Mike was... excited

Okay, let's be honest, I was too.

AND Mike surprised me with a set of knives for our kitchen.. and they are freakin SWEET. I have been complaining because we only have these crappy knives and it takes me FOREVER to chop food with. NOT ANYMORE! I love that Mike pays attention to what I whine about and makes it better. :)

Since I had a brand new set of knives, I found a sweet stuffed green pepper recipe and got cookin! It was pretty tasty if I do say so myself...

I do love cooking! One of my favorite things.

Oh, and a sad note of the week... my friend Kali is moving back to the mainland.. I will miss her! She was my visiting teacher and introduced me to MENCHIES (aka the best frozen yogurt place EVER)

As a going away party some of the girls in the ward got together and we went to the cheesecake factory.

I will miss Kali!!

Another fun adventure of the week was cooking hamburgers with my patient at work..

and burning the burgers...

and setting off the fire alarm...

and panicking...

Luckily they are cool and we were all laughing!

My Hawaiian Grandma trying to save our dinner...

Today Mike showed me a really cool beachy place. Apparently it was where his work party was, which I couldn't go to because I was working.. lame.

Oh, and we saw a Navy sub going by! It was sick!

There you have it! Everything happening in life. SO EXCITED FOR CHRISTMAS!

Only one week away!

Mele Kalikimaka!

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Rise Up!

This weekend was incredible!

Despite getting off to a rough start Friday morning... car problems, figuring out transportation, minor meltdown... Things got a lot better for the weekend! I made it to my patients house and was able to help her get ready. She knows how much I love BYU football, and as I was leaving she said, "Oh yeah, enjoy the game! I really hope BYU wins." Her son (who happens to be a huge Hawaii Warriors fan) gave her the most traitorous (is that a word? I think it should be a word.) look I have ever seen. Oh I loved it!

I went to my next patients house after, and he was excited for me too. He even saved me the sports section of the Honolulu paper because it had some spotlights with BYU players in it. It made my day!

Friday night we went to a special fireside. We made the long journey to Makakilo with Brooke, a cute girl in our ward! We had fun chatting the whole way out there.

The fireside featured the BYU football team and Coach Mendenhall. It's so crazy to think that that's how my football players are getting ready for the game the next day... by sharing their testimonies and how football has built them. One of the linebackers (La'haina) sang, "I Heard Him Come." He played the piano/sang at the same time and it was so beautiful - it was incredibly spiritual.

Funny post-fireside story... So the players sign autographs for 20 minutes after the fireside, right? So I wanted to get my Y bag signed, but I didn't want some secondary who I didn't really know who they were to sign it. So I went up to one of the players, and this is the conversation that ensued..

Me: 'Hey, is Heaps here?'
Player: 'Oh, Jake? No he couldn't make it tonight.'
Me: 'Oh yeah? What about Nelson?'
Player: 'Riley couldn't be here either.'
Me: 'Oh dang. Well thanks anyway.' ... walked off, leaving random
player with pen in hand...

Mike was laughing so hard... He gave me so much crap all night about it. Yeah, oops.. that was probably kinda mean. Oh well, I'm sure he gets it all the time.

The game... wait, you want me to use WORDS to describe the game?

It was euphoric. We had to leave our section and go sit with the Y fans because I'm sure some rabid Hawaiian fan would murder me for cheering so loud. Oh how I loved seeing my boys dominate on the field! What a way to end the season!