The Move

I must be pretty busy if it's taken almost 4 months for me to make this post. But, it's better late than never, right?

At the end of June Matt and I packed up and said goodbye to Provo.

But first, we had to sort then pack. What a nightmare, but we got it done! My mom helped me pack and sort though all of my old bins in storage.
We found the shirt I wore home from the hospital when I was a baby. It says Happy Baby (in Navajo).

My dad's wedding shoes! Haha, I had to laugh when I saw these, they were definitely married in the 70s.

And my brother's hat from the early 90s that he would always wear.

Anyway, we had to rent a Penske since we had so many things.

Who knew we had so much stuff!

We said our goodbyes and hit the road and drove 13 hours to Los Angeles!

I followed Matt in our car as he drove the big rental truck.

Thankfully, we had my family to help with the packing in Provo, then a couple days later when we arrived in LA Matt's parents flew out to help us unpack and settle in. It felt like they were dropping us off at college for the first time since they took us to buy supplies for our apartment ;)

Our living room with all of our boxes.

Taking a break in Downtown LA to find a place to eat...
We ended up at a nice Italian restaurant where I ordered this HUGE calzone. Yum.

Our kitchen. It's the first thing I set up.

Here are the "glamour" shots of our apartment complex (you know, the ones they have on their website to make people want to live there showing off their best features...)

The Gym

The pool...which sadly, I still haven't used!

And this is a picture my cousin (who helped us apartment hunt) took of Matt and I as we were signing our lease. I had to include this since we've never had to "rent" until now.

The first few weeks were a little rough. Unpacking, learning to navigate the busy streets (because we're scared of the mean LA cops, or as they call themselves "Peace" Officers) and just getting used to LA in general was a little tough. We were both a bit home sick. Luckily, we found the nearest Cafe Rio and drove 20 minutes to it in Manhattan Beach. It did the trick, we felt like we were at home for a bit.

One of the Provo employees now works/manages this location and he recognized Matt when we went in and gave us a free meal! As you can imagine, this totally made Matt's...week!

You can see Matt in line for 2nds.


Of course, the drive home reminded us we weren't in Provo anymore with all the traffic! Why does it have to take an hour to drive 12 miles?

Oh Hawaii

Matt and I have been SO busy the last couple of months, I finally have a minute to update the blog. In May we went to Hawaii for a few weeks. It was so nice I wish we were there right now!

Before we flew to Hawaii we stopped in LA to look for an apartment. It was not a fun experience. Luckily, with my cousin's help we found a nice apartment a few hours before our flight departed! Thanks Keao! This was the only "happy" photo I took while we were in LA. Matt and Charlie, Keao's cute little dog. I think this is a funny picture.

So on to Hawaii. This is our third time going since being married and we love it more and more each time we go. It's our secret goal to move there someday...I guess it's not a secret anymore. Anyway, we had so much fun, food and were able to relax before starting our busy lives in LA! I'm so glad we did.

For Memorial Day we were able to get on to the Kaneohe Marine Base beach with Uncle Darrel. It was SO nice. It's one of my new favorite beaches because it is so secluded and a prime spot.

You can see Matt walking to go boarding. You can't really tell in these pictures, but this beach really is lovely. The best part about this beach was everywhere else was PACKED for the weekend, but it was almost deserted since it is a reserved beach.

The Maris family was able to join us. Noa, their son, is such a cute, happy little boy.

We also had a BBQ at the beach. One of my favorite things is beach bbqs! Eat and swim, eat and swim. It's the best.
Brett, Matt and Chad all served together in the Hiroshima mission. It's always fun when we all get together!

Amy took us to a nice lookout in Hawaii Kai one evening. It was so nice, but scary at the same time. These huge waves come up against the rocks. One was so big a girl was slammed against the rocks. I just held on tight and closed my eyes. There were even some guys surfing next to the ledge since that's where the waves are the biggest. Nuts!

While we were there Megumi and Chad blessed their newborn, Kaiyu. He is a little cutie. We had SO much fun hanging with the Marises. We missed them when they moved from Provo to Hawaii for school. We are happy we'll get to see them every time we visit now!

Laie Temple

When I was little and my family would go to Hawaii there were certain places my dad ALWAYS took us. Even though we went every time we were in Hawaii it was still fun. I decided to take Matt to a couple of the sights and show him some of the things I did with my family.

The first place was the Pali lookout. There's a corner where you can stand and your hair will stand straight up because it's that windy. If you go with sheets and hold them like a cape the wind will pick you up a little. My dad used to throw his hat over the rail down the cliff, wait a few seconds, then it would fly back up!

Left: Pali lookout Right: Punchbowl

After the Pali, we went to the Punchbowl Memorial Cemetery. Here, they have trees with bark that is really soft, soft enough you can punch the trees without it hurting. It was so windy here that day and with all the flags up for Memorial weekend we had some fun pictures.

After, we went to Bubbies. I LOVE Bubbies. They have thee BEST mochi ice cream!

We had a bon fire on the beach one night (another one of my favorite things in Hawaii).

We cooked hotdogs over the fire, sadly, one of the slid off as we were get ready to eat it :(

Before we went to Hawaii I just finished watching all 123 episodes of LOST on Netflix (yes, it is addicting). I had to see what all the hype about the show was for myself. Anyway, Amy took us to the "Lost" beach:

Lost fans, does this beach look familiar?

If you watched Lost, you'll recognize this is Sawyer's tree (the one he's always reading under and has his tent set up next to).

The beautiful sunset

This beach is also called Turtle Beach...I think you can guess why.

Mr. Turtle

We hiked to Maunawili Falls one weekend. It's a fun, medium-length hike. The bonus of this hike is the waterfall at the end.

Can you see Matt jumping in?

Let me explain the following picture. The last time I hiked to Maunawili Falls was the summer after I graduated from high school. Being in Hawaii I wore board shorts and a tank top w/ flip flops. I came back from the hike with so many mosquito bites. I even had repellant on, but it was no match for the deep woods mosquitoes. I was so miserable the rest of my trip I never wanted to do this hike again. Matt really wanted to go this trip, so I had to suck it up and go. I prepared by wearing a t-shirt, yoga pants and tennis shoes. I made sure I had 40% Deet mosquito repellant for deep woods, and I kept spraying myself throughout the hike. I'm happy to say I didn't get one bite, but I'm sure everyone who passed by us was wondering who the weirdo was fully clothed in this humidity! I was seriously drenched (in sweat, gross) but anything to make Matt happy! ;) (also the reason my head is cropped out, I look awful).

More jumping Matt...

Towards the end of our trip it rained a lot! The power went out one evening for a few hours so we had to use a lantern.

These were the roads the next morning, some places were even worse.

Of course, we used some of our Starwood points and stayed at the hotel and cranked the AC to 64 degrees.

We drove to the Dole Plantation then on to Wahiawa (where my dad grew up). My grandpa worked for Dole for many, many years so I needed to take Matt around that side of the island.