Vacation time! Off to San Diego we go!
Here's some pictures from the Howard's fun Ugly Christmas Party!

Sequin sweaters and all...

The Tafa's baby loved the reindeer antlers...

In the White elephant gift exchange, Cameron got these praying hands... haha nice!
Just what everyone needs right?

And poor Shean got our thanksgiving gourds that we gifted. He was trying to put them under his sweater.

This vacation is long overdue!
Can't wait to see family and enjoy wonderful San Diego!

it's been a while...

I haven't written here since before thanksgiving so get ready for a doozy.

1. Thanksgiving, Tiff, Nick and Karch visiting:We had a great time with all our thanksgiving visitors. I realized I absolutely love to slave over a hot oven for hours!! :) I really do! I sent out my husband and Karch to surf and the visitors out to drive around till 2 and dinner will be ready when they come back. I babied my 21 lb. bird like no other, even brining it (letting it soak in salt water, herbs and spices of choice) for16 hours before roasting it. It turned out great and brining does make a difference. Actually everything turned out really really good. Except the peas. I burnt the peas haha... out of all things. :)








Here's what I made from scratch. I wanted to do EVERYTHING from scratch:
21lb. Turkey
homemade stuffing
Yams with pecans and brown sugar
Creamy Mashed potatoes
green bean casserole
Rolls (Karch did these and they were SO good!)
Peas
Carrots
Cranberry Relish (this was amazing!)
Gravy (ran out of time so i didn't do this by scratch)
Pumpkin Pie
Apple Crumb Pie
Pumpkin Chessecake
And it was all so so so yummy!! I started at about 7am and finished at 2pm and I loved every bit of it!

2. What we have been doing since thanksgiving:
Since then, finals, work, and exercise have been taking a lot of our time. The end of the semester is coming and so is a lot of studying with it! The 10 day Christmas vacation will be much needed after this week.
This has been one of those weeks with Jeanne. Boy oh boy. She has a crazy week every so often and this week was it, on finals week... perfect Jeanne, thanks. So I come in on Monday morning and guess what Jeanne has been craving all weekend? STEAK! And she wants it bad. So I call all 81 steakhouses on the island to see who is open and I found one. An hour drive and lots of wining later, we get there. Of course Jeanne's steak wasn't cooked right, sends it back, she's upset and blah blah blah... so when she final receives her perfect steak, she takes one bite and is full. After all that? oh brother. So what does Jeanne do when she is down and out? By flat screen TVs!! Of course!! Who doesn't do that when they're not having the greatest day? We go to Best Buy, buy a 32'' flat screen TV and we're out of there. Phhheeewwf. I was going to tell her she doesn't really need a another flat screen TV since she has one in every room... but I didn't. And so guess who realized she had too many flat screen TVs when she got home? Big J. So who did she give her extra to to put in there casa?
Us. :)Thanks big J for this lovely addition in our bedroom. We are not really ones to have TVs in our bedroom but hey, guess we are now.

3. What we woke up to this morning:
Keep in mind that this week has been pretty busy. We also had are dear friends Rory and Ashley come to Oahu to stay with us! We're so excited to have them stay! Of course we have finals till Friday at 10am but after,it's all fun!
Well all last night I kept waking up from the rain and then by this morning there was lightening and thunder. Well, we got a pretty big shower last night. It flooded Jeanne's whole property and not to mention... our guest bedroom. Poor Rory and Ashley found a little swimming pool in their room after breakfast. It rained really hard.
Jeanne and I were supposed to go out to lunch in Honolulu today but the roads were all shut down. I walk into Jeanne's house to say good morning when all the sudden Henry's( Jeanne's 90 yr-old boyfriend, they've been dating for like 40 years) nurse comes to us worried and says "Henry is tired". Well due to Henry's medical past,Jeanne instantly knows Henry is going through a stroke! We all rush into his room, I call 911, we try to keep Henry alive, Jeanne is crying/yelling, I call 911 again to see where they are and they are at the wrong house, ambulance is having a hard time getting around due to flooding, I run outside to flag down the ambulance and drop my phone in the knee high flood water, I'm soaking wet from head to toe from rain and flood water, I chase around paramedics because they don't know where to enter the house, paramedics come in and take out Henry, Jeanne is upset etc. etc. etc.
Luckily we hear Henry is doing fine. We found 4 really big leaks in Jeanne's house... my goodness.
Here are some pictures from today:

Brown dirty water everywhere!!

Ya see all that stuff in her drive way that's brown, ya that's a huge river going from the mountains, through Jeanne's yard and into the ocean.

Friday at 5 p.m. will be bliss. (Or I hope so.)

friends...

I'm picking up these peeps from the airport today!

Can't wait to see them!

I'm picking up Karch!! (my brother in law)

And I'm also picking up Tiffiney!!
So excited to see one of my best friends and spend some long overdue time with her!

Rule # 45: Don't go grocery shopping hungry.

Today on our weekly outing, Jeanne wanted to try this restaurant in Waikiki in the Halekulani Hotel called Orchids. Looked like a pretty posh place and so I was in to try. As soon as the waiter gave us the menus, Jeanne hurried and ordered as quick as she could. "Mahi mahi please!!" I scattered around the menu to figure out something fast and quickly said "and the seafood pita for me, thank you." Well... I forgot to look to see what was going to be bundled up inside this seafood pita. When the dish arrived, I was quickly brought back to yesteryear from the distinct aroma. I was all the sudden back in Sea World feeding the dolphins their nasty fishy treat when I realized... it was on my plate. I usually bring leftovers home to Cameron after going out with Jeanne and today it was more of a joke. Here's a picture of it.

Notice the small friendly octopus in front.

I avoided that wrap and ate the small veggies that garnished the sides. I also had a pumpkin and vegetable soup that was sooo delicious. And I didn't let Jeanne know that there was creepy crawlies in my food.


So since I didn't eat much at all (thank goodness I had a 3 pancake breakfast this morning) I was starving later in the day. And guess what I had to do... Jeanne's grocery shopping while she sat in the car. Never go grocery shopping hungry. I got into Safeway and made awesome discovery.. Vons (grocery store in CA) and Safeway are related and if Vons had my favorite eclairs then so did Safeway!! I don't know why I had never come to this conclusion! I have been depriving myself of chocolate eclairs from Vons for almost a year now! My mom occasionally calls me from San Diego to tell me she's eating a chocolate eclair from Vons to rub it in but now I can too!!!
This is what they look like:
I ran to the bakery in the bake of the store and grabbed a box of two. Yumm... I ran to an empty grocery isle (happened to be by the baby diapers) and stuffed one of those puppies into my mouth. As I continued to shop... I figured I would slowly eat the second.
As I'm picking out Jeanne's organic eggs in one hand and feeding a chocolate eclair into my mouth with the other, a little girl sitting in a grocery cart peers around her father, looks at me with a big smile and says, "Barbie! Barbie!" The little girl's dad ignores her and she continues to say, "Barbie! Barbie! Why is Barbie here?" while looking at me. I'm thinking... oh no... very far from it. I don't think Barbie would be stuffing two chocolate eclairs in her mouth. The little girl was pushed away in the cart by her father and I heard her say, "Aw... dad, you missed it" thank heaven. Haha... kinda cute. I guess the blond hair got her a little confused.

I finished the shopping feeling a little sick. I went to the check out stand and put my empty eclair box on the belt. The check-out clerk picked it up, looked at the empty box smeared with left over custard, and looked at me with a confused face. I said, "I got kind of hungry and I couldn't help it." She laughed and then warned me to never go grocery shopping hungry again.
I didn't want to tell her it wasn't my fault I was hungry...I had a pita full of surprise seafood parts.

"Bird"

Sometimes
this lady ----> miss Jeanne

makes me laugh so hard.

I came in yesterday morning to find this on the grocery list.
Jeanne wanted a turkey so she wrote "Bird" and drew a picture of a turkey.

I giggled to myself for quite a while.
haha... sometimes she can actually be cute.

Weekends are our favorite.

Running.
I really DISLIKE running. I have always disliked it. In elementary school, in Junior High, High school and now. I quit soccer when I was 5 because I had to run and it made me sweaty. In Junior High I ran a Junior Olympics relay race and hated it the whole time. At Byu-Idaho, I was on the cheer team for 2 practices and then when they told me we had a half an hour of running time at the end of practice, well I ran straight to the locker room and quit. No way was I going to run. That's just too much to ask for.
But... I have been recently pretty good about running. I go on fads on liking the elliptical, the bike, running, work out videos etc.. But recently I've been running about 4 miles a day (which for me is pretty darn good). And guess what, I hate it the whole time I'm doing it but... I love the feeling after.
But I wouldn't be surprised if by next week I really dislike running again and start liking something else more.


This last weekend we sold the white beast. We didn't really need a second car because we live where we work and Cameron and I usually go everywhere together except school and gym. We sold it and are putting some of the money towards bikes! I've been wanting a bike soooo bad so I'm so happy to finally get one!
Cameron and I took a late night trip and bought the purple beauty beach cruiser. The feeling of riding a new bike was like Christmas morning!
We are still on the look for a bike for Cameron so we can ride together!

Yesterday we had a great ward activity where we had an a service project at our ward farm and we had an Umu (a Tongan way of cooking a pig underground) and a Luau! It was so neat to see how they prepare a pig to eat! Beware, some of these pictures are really gruesome.

Chris preparing the pig

Cameron was helping with the pit

Sara and I eating some roasted liver
Getting the meat off...
Putting it all in the pit
Some ward members watching
Then we drank/ate some coconuts
and about an hour and a half later...
the final product.

Christmas break... in a month!

Cameron and I bought our tickets (with the help from our lovely parents) to San Diego! I can't wait. I really think about it everyday. We haven't been to San Diego together since we were married almost a year ago. I can't wait for these things:

See the Family:
The Collins

And the Rondos

And of course baby nephew Trey!
Juanitas Mexican Food
Where I will get something like this... California Burrito!
It looks better than this lousy picture

Carne asada, French Fries, Cheese and Sour Cream = heaven
WindnSea Beach... my favorite beach
Cameron is excited to play/surf at his favorite beach, Stone Steps.
Extraordinary Desserts. Most amazing stuff you've ever eaten.
Something I will order there...

My mom and I will shop here:
And here...
And we will eat these while doing so (Pat and Oscar's Bread sticks)

And Cameron and I will look at Christmas lights while drinking hot cocoa like we did in high school here:
Can you tell I'm just a little excited?! Well I am.

I as you can tell I will be returning back to Hawaii at about 300 lbs. with new clothes and great memories.

Well I'm excited for Thanksgiving as well. My 2 friends are coming to stay with us and so is Cameron's little brother, Karch! I'm excited to cook my first Thanksgiving dinner. Hey, I'm getting 2 free turkeys! Woo hoo!