FINALLY!!!

MY HOUSE FINALLY HAS ELECTRICITY!!! they can't have much more of an excuse to let me move in, right??? i want to move in!!!!! i need a home again!!!!!

Let there be light!!!

Posted by Val

sean, amy, eli, annette, kristin, kevin all hanging out on the porch...

i want to get rocking chairs...wouldn't that be cool???

Bunch 'a loiterers!!!!!

Posted by Val

Comment Away!!!

Okay, i fixed the comments spam deal.

now, if you want to comment, you need to do the whole word verification thing. easy for humans, not so easy for automatic computer spammers.

so...comment away!!! =)

Dress up

Okay, our favorite tea place has a back room where they keep hats and boas...we couldn't resist, especially Sean. Here's a pic:

Annette and her pimp Sean

Posted by Val

No more blog spam!!!

Okay, kids, I allowed "anonymous" commentors on my blog so people didn't have to feel like they had to sign up for a user ID, but in doing so, I have let tons of spam comments in.

NO MORE!!! I'm tired of having to go in and delete them all...

So sorry, kids...if you want to comment here, gotta sign up for an ID. Sorry, I truely am, but I know no one wants to read blog comments spam any longer.

This may cut down on comments, but i hope not. I love hearing from everyone

HAWAII!!!!!

Well, its Wednesday, and I have been having to deal with work and jetlag for the last couple days and haven't been able to post, but enough said, sit back, relax, its quite a bit of reading!!!

We left Friday evening and had to travel from Orlando to Houston to L.A. to Kauai. We had to
'homeless' it at the LAX airport Friday night/Saturday morning since our plane didn't leave for Kauai until Saturday morning. By the way, flying stand by wasn't bad at all. We weren't able to get on only one flight the whole trip, was able to get into first class one time - could've been two, but we weren't "dressed for the occasion" being that somehow our shoes weren't suitable to be a standby first class-er. However the airline people on the Hawaiian side were much more lenient as long as I changed out of my denim wear...

Here's a picture of me sleeping in L.A. Thank my thoughtful boyfriend for capturing this fabulous look for you. Oh, yeah, and we carried on all our luggage.

Hawaii - Saturday

So, Saturday we get to Hawaii. it was so nice, but we were on the tired side. we sooo didn't have the Fantasy Island welcome that we were expecting, but the majority of the Lihue airport is outside, so that was interesting. We rented a car and took off for the resort only to be told we were early, so what do you do when you're in Hawaii and want to kill a couple hours??? Go to the beach. Here's a picture of Poipu Beach. I took the picture while laying down...Eli is on that little sand bank somewhere poking at some innocent sea creature amongst the rocks.



It was nice, I slept (tried...sand and people watching interrupted that attempt), and Eli swam. The rest of the day was spent sleeping. Oh, and it was quite interesting that our resort had the 3ABN channel! Go figure!

Sunday - Ticket!!!

Sunday was a busy day.

My sister, brother-in-law and his parents came in sometime Saturday night, so Sunday was the first day we had together. Eli and I woke up promptly at around 5am (gotta love that time difference) breakfasted...then we were off to explore the island.

On our first trip out following my sister's car, we had to do several U-turns and backtracking, being the tourists that we were...and lo and behold, as Eli was trying to keep up with our leader car, we saw pretty red and blue lights flashing behind us and heard the siren. Yup! Eli's first Hawaiian traffic ticket. He got cited for failure to Yield.

(we had to tell the Filipino joke about the man and the yield sign a couple times after that...you know the one about how he got pulled over for not yielding, and he told the cop, "but op-icer, I yieeld and I yieeld, but no one answered!!!!!)

I would've taken a picture of this event, but I figured it wouldn't help the situation since the officer didn't seem to sympathize with our caravanning explanation.

Anyways, after that we found ourselves at Spouting Horn.


Note how close Eli was to the Spouting Horn. He got much closer to the hole (which the book advised strongly against) and between the hole and the ocean for a better look at...something (which the book pretty much forbade), but I didn't get any of those pictures since due to my horror, I was turning a blind eye along with my sister and heading for the cute trinket booths close by.

After that little sightseeing trip, we headed off to Waimea Canyon. It's the grand canyon of the Pacific, and it was beautiful, but quite the drive up and down. We stopped off at a couple lookout sites. Here are some pictures.

Oh, by the way, when I say “the book,” I am referring to the blasted book "The Ultimate Kauai Guide book" EVERY TOURIST uses. It offered a lot of good local places, advice on what to see and what not to waste your time on, and it was written in a very humorous and easy to read way. The book was great, but sometimes too good...it was like putting a kid in a candy store for Eli... let me tell ya...we had some words about the purpose of a vacation...but enough about us.

Anyways, the book told everyone to hike out to the Pu'u o Kila Lookout that is absolutely gorgeous . Here’s a pic:

Oh, you Filipinos will appreciate this little tidbit...my sister cracked me up!!! She was in Hawaii, but she didn't want to overly tan herself, so here's a picture of one of her methods of accomplishing this:



Yes, that's my sister, who I'm sure you can't possibly recognize...well...maybe by her teeth.

Monday

Monday, Eli and I got up early for the resort's morning hike. It was a really cool one hour walk. Here are a couple pictures of the sunrise and other sights:



Oh, and we ducked into this little cave on the cliffs and Eli was like, "uh, Val, do you want to tell me something about you and Todd???" I didn't do this, I swear!!!!!



GORGEOUS sunrise...it was sooo awesome!!!



After we got back, we threw on the bathing suits and headed out the door. On the way to the beach (Ke'e Beach, I think), we stopped by this lookout - Hanalei Lookout. They grow stuff there, heck if I remember, but it looked cool. (oh, they grow taro)



There were also kayakers on that river down there. I tried to get a picture of them, my zoom tried!!!



We eventually made it to our first snorkeling site. It was my second time going snorkeling, so it was quite fun. The backdrop of the huge mountain right behind the beach was so awesome...wish every beach was like this!







Thought this tree at the beach was really cool



Eli and I took off for a bit and did a little exploring of our own Monday. Here's the Kiluea Lighthouse


Wailua Falls - top- you'll see the bottom soon.

Tuesday

Tuesday Eli and I spent it all ourselves. We drove around looking at waterfalls, but mostly going snorkeling and hanging out at the beach. We tried to check out a couple caves, but they weren't as cool as we thought they would be. One little cavern was called the Blue Room since you needed to jump into a pool and swim under a ledge to get to it, and certain times of the day, because of the sun and water, the room you'd come up into would be bathed in blue!!! Well, as of late, the water levels have gone down, so it wasn't so much blue anymore. So we didn't jump in. Oh, and my picture-taking skills are lacking, so my pictures of the cave didn't turn out very well so no pictures, well, no good pictures.

Oh, yeah, freshwater on Kauai had the chance of having this bacteria called leptospirosis in it. Being that a fish came up and gnawed on Eli (an unusual occurence except if you are Eli), open cuts weren't a good thing to get into the water with. Of course, after snorkeling and being washed up on rocks and stuff, we were pretty scrapped up, so back to Walmart we went...but here are some of the pictures of the day:




Sign at Walmart - I thought it interesting that it tried the scare tactic.



Eli's fish bite...should've taken the picture when it was more fresh.



Didn't feel like walking all the way down in my very inadequate shoes. If you go to Hawaii, bring hiking shoes - you'll need it!!!

Wednesday - Hindu Monestary

Wednesday, we all headed out again. Our first stop was at this Hindu monastery. They were up-to-date considering...they claim they were the first people to network their computers when computers first came out (they put out a newsletter), and Apple came to study them. Hmmm...

Anyways, they are also building a temple; here are a couple pictures of our tour guide and our tour:

Their founder-guy and my sister



This is our tour guide. Now, its weird to actually hear myself say it, but he was young, funny, witty, and not bad looking! An attractive monk??? I feel dirty just thinking of THINKING this!!!!



Supposedly if you eat this leaf from this particular tree, mosquitoes won't be attracted to you. Since my sister went through at least 2-3 bottles of bug spray, we stuck a handful of the leaves in her purse. Don't know if it works...I didn't try it, are you kidding???



Apparently it tasted nasty. My sis stuck to the bug spray.



Part of the temple and its carvings all done by hand.



Demonstration on the carvings & the ONLY tools they used to make the temple (other than a fork lift which they referred to as their elephant).

Oh, and the monk was carrying around a camera. They take pictures every day and upload them onto their site. You can see our day's pictures on their site. I actually was behind a little girl that he took a picture of and posted on their website...just a few more feet up and I could've been immortalized on their website since they have archived forever and will continue to do so forever...


Eli and Brad trying their hand at the stone - no fingers were lost as a result of this picture...



Close-up of Founder of the temple - he was born in Oakland, CA.



Sculptures



Apparently if you hug this tree, all your worries will be absorbed in the sap...something else happens, but I forget. You should've seen all the people seriously getting cozy with the surrounding trees. I didn't take pictures of them, they needed their private moment with the tree.

Wednesday - Luau

That night we went to a luau at this place called Smith's Island Paradise. Didn't sound likr a very island-ish name to me, but hey, they were supposed to be the best luau on the island.

This is the Imu ceremony where they unearth the slow-cooked pig that was cooked in the ground over night or something...



The music and the food was pretty good!!!



I only took one picture of the actual show with the dancers and everything. We were in the stands, and they were on a stage over water. It was night, there was funky lighting and even a volcano. They put on a really good show, though I thought they were starting to run out of material when they decided to showcase dances from the ancestors of the Hawaiians such as Japan, China, Haiti, and of course, the Philippines. They actually did the tinikling!!! But overall, it was a really good show.

Below is a (not so good) picture of them doing a Hawaiian dance bathed in some fluorescent lighting.

Thursday

Thursday, Eli, my sister, Brad and I took off. This was the most strenuous day. We hiked down to the Wailua Falls, went out seeking the secret lava pools (which were quite hidden that day), and pretty much wore me out...but it was fun.



Ab, Brad & Val Hikin' it up


Oh, they had the BEST pineapples and mangos there! mmmmm...we practically cleaned out a roadside stand of their fruit...yummy!!!

Brad vs. the Ocean

Other things...

Here’s a picture of a common occurrence on the island – IGNORING SIGNS. Its fine “everyone does it,” it just keeps one responsible for oneself – no litigation!!

Here's a view from our room's balcony.



Here's a view from the back of our resort.




Here's Eli towards the end of our trip out there. Yeah, that's how I felt, too.

All in all, it was a FABULOUS trip. Eli and I have been wiped out lately because of the jetlag and overindulgence of macadamia nuts mmmmmmmm…..yummmmmyyyyy!!!!! But it was a great trip which we nearly didn’t come back from.

Thanks for inviting us, Brad and Manang...we soooooo owe you. You housed us, fed us... We had a wonderful time. You guys are my favorite sister and brother-in-law EVER!!!!! :)

Un Dia - por favor

Hey...I just put my post and pictures on a word doc, and the thing is, like, 30 pages long!!! I'll get it on here tonight...PROMISE. :)

Jet...lag...

Hello...just to let you know, I'm back in Florida, and I'm completely jetlagged. Yesterday I woke up at 1:30 pm Florida Time!!!!!

I'm working on my post of Hawaii, but I didn't want to piece-meal it in anyway, so it'll come...just sometime after my cup of coffee...which I'm about to go in search of...

But its good to be back, not back working! but good to be back nonetheless. :)

Kauai - Thursday

Hey Kids!

Just a quick post from the beautiful island of Kaua'i, HI. It is absolutely beautiful here! Having thick Florida blood, i hear its a little humid, but to me, i only feel the constant breeze that blows by.

I'll post more detail later, but here's a synopsis of our trip so far:

Poipu Beach
Eliasib receiving his first Hawaiian traffic ticket
Spouting Horn (almost lost Eli there)
Waimea Canyon (the grand canyons of the island)
Hiking
Snorkling
Swimming
Laying Out (under an umbrella of course)
Waterfalling
Luau-ing
Crashing other hotel pools

(quick, only 42 more seconds)

all in all, a great stay...so far

LAX

Well, I'm here, sittin at an email/internet terminal in a virtually deserted terminal at LAX - Los Angeles. Thursday night i had about 3 1/2 hours of sleep, tonight, i'm not having much. I think we're going to do the homeless route and bench sleep tonight at a terminal. hopefully i'll be able to pry my contacts off my eyeballs before i take my standard issue continental mini-blanket and lay down with my standard-issue continental mini-pillow on a bench...and if i'm luck, i'll find a bench of four seats together without that blased metal bar separater...

anyways, i'm going over my alloted time on this thing...just wanted to say...

T-MINUS 0!!!!!! WE'RE ON OUR WAY TO HAWAII!!!!!!!! :)

hopefully i'll be able to post during the week. if not, i'll fill you all in when i get back.

Comics, not necessarily of the funny sort...

I love reading my comics. One of the ones I like to read is "For Better or For Worse." Unlike a lot of other comics, the family in this strip actually grows up, graduates from highschool, goes to college, etc. They deal with a lot of issues. The mom has a store and had to deal with a girl that was lying and stealing from her.

This last issue, though, kinda surprised me. The oldest daughter is home for the summer working for a friend, and a guy at the company has taken to stalking her. Today's strip actually finds them 'alone' and he's assualting her.

Its definitely not something I would've expected to see in a comic, but its a place a lot of kids go to. Maybe this strip will help someone reading it. Read the comic here if you like.

At least it looks like she has a rescuer. Can't wait to see who it is tomorrow. Comic Soaps...

Wednesday - T minus 2 days

By the way, where does the phrase "T-Minus" come from?

M & M's (Lunch Break Post)

M & M's

Posted by Val
I get teased for liking to organize my M & M's (any kind other than plain) by colors. I don't buy candy very often, i'm more of a chips and nuts sort of person myself, but for some reason, today's lunch felt lacking in the sweet/salty sort of way.

Anyways, i like to line up my m&m's next to each other in rows by color (in the order of the colors of the rainbow) and eat colors that have the most m & m's in an even fashion until i have all the rows with equal numbers of m & m's for each color represented. then i finish them off by eating one of each color in order to keep the rows equal.

Unfortunately, when i opened up my little bag, yellow (7), green (7), and blue (6) dominated red (1), orange (1), and brown (2). that ruined my method of eating my m & m's! i mean, might as well eat it alll......regular if i'm just working down to the red & orange (1 each).

*sigh* will anything go right for me this week?????

...ya know...before I go to H-A-W-A-I-I!!!!! :)

I know, i know...this trip is going to suck because i'm looking forward to it so much...

n-e-ways...how do YOU eat your M & M's???

Tea Time

Robin & I at Trish's Teas - our favorite tea shop

Posted by Val

Eliasib, Robin and I enjoy frequenting Trish's Teas, a tea shop. The owners, Pat and Al, are the coolest people ever. We normally don't spend less than an hour or so there just relaxing, surfing the internet, or just talking with the owners or with each other. I personally like my teas iced, and my favorite is chocolate coconut, or something like that...mmm, yummm...

Location, Location, Location!!!!!

We were visiting some friends at their home, and although this neighborhood was really nice, all gated and with a golf course, just beyond the neighborhood was some sort of factory that sent big white plumes of smoke up in the air. It added to the neighborhood scenery, don't you think???

I stand corrected, Jim says its steam. Still makes the neighborhood look on fire...but fascinating.


Posted by Val

T - Minus - One Week!!!!!

I'm going to Ha-wa-ii...

I'm going to Ha-wa-ii...

a week from today, i'll be leaving..."on a jet plane...don't know when i'll be back again..."

i haven't been this excited about going somewhere in a looong time.

did i mention i'm going to hawaii?????

hehe...i'm giddy. :) and i don't have any church responsibilities tomorrow...i'm just stressfree this weekend...

you jealous yet?????

Movie Refunds

So...you legal eagles out there, please set me straight if I'm wrong, but I heard that if you can prove that you bought a ticket for any of the following movies betwen the dates August 3, 2000 and October 31, 2001, you are entitled to $5 a refund from Sony Pictures.

• Hollow Man
• Vertical Limit
• A Knight's Tale
• The Animal

I didn't read the Court Notice , I heard it on The Daily Buzz, but you have to download a form and all that stuff. I thought that was interesting, though I don't plan on actively getting my $$$$$ back. But feel free to read the notice and let me know if I am mistaken in anyway.

Oh, and this is because between that time frame, advertisements for the movies included a reference to a movie critic's review of the movie...and lo and behold, the man cited for his (i'm sure) fabulous review of the movie DIDN'T EXIST! hmmm....getting them on false advertising, i believe.

The Couple that Laughs Together...

Back in college, a friend once told me that you were 'permitted' to stay up the latest on Thursday nights since Fridays were usually short days, and (since everyone knows you feel the effects of a late night the morning after the morning after a late night) you can sleep in on Sabbath morning. I completely agree with that line of thinking...Thursdays are the nights (if any) to stay up late!!!!!

So Kristin and I went and looked at a beautiful bridal gown (she's going to be soooo beautiful on her wedding day...not that she's not now, of course :)), then went and and caught Wedding Crashers. Its pretty funny if you haven't already seen it.

Afterwards, Eli and I held true to the Thursday Night Rule (staying up late) and flipped around on the tv while surfing the internet. He landed somehow on Spike TV and on the late night show that I think is entitled "Most Extreme Elimination Challenge"(MXC).

Now this show is set in Japan, and is completed dubbed in English. I was wondering if they were actually dubbing accurately because the comments that they were dubbing were so very odd though hilarious. The point of the show is for contestents to take part in all sorts of challenges (mostly physical, I think) that just make them look completley silly. I've seen them try to run across a small river on river logs, or make it through various obstacles without being hit off by a gigantic fist, or something like that.

Last night, much to my "we're not going to watch this are we?!?!?!?!", we watched and laughed for some time. The one we laughed at the most was set up like this:

this episode all the challenges were set in snow. This one challenge in particular, four doorways were connected together in one panel, and four panels were stacked probably 50 feet behind each other with a man dressed up in a big Japanese warrior outfit (made to look like something you'd see in a kids cartoon) standing between panels two and three. So, the goal of the game was to pick the door on each panel that was actually a door and not blocked by a wood panel or a net and get through the fourth panel as fast as you could. Oh, and you didn't open the doors, you just broke through the paper.

The results were so funny, Eli and I were just sitting there laughing our heinies off. Don't know if it was the late night, or if we were truely enjoying watching these people running full speed to bust through the first panel by choosing the correct 'door,' only to run smack dab into a 'door' that wasn't a door...all these people crashing to the ground when they thought they were going to run through a door was just hilarious!!!!!

Anyways...it was fun to sit and laugh with the bf. i had heard a statistic that married couples only speak with each other face to face an average of four minutes a day...could you believe that??? that's just so sad. I'm not married, but after being with someone for years, i've seen that that statistic could actually be more true than anything.

it was weird to actually feel like the bf and i were actually relaxing and having fun together... with life to live and responsibilities to everything and everyone under the sun, its so easy to take for granted the person standing right there next to you.

So, this weekend, i encourage everyone to really truely enjoy yourself with those closest to you. Don't take their presence or them for granted. do something nice for them!!!

or just watch MXC. It'll be fun!!!!!