Our 3rd Anniversary

We had our third anniversary this October, and it was definitely the best one yet!  Blake really went above and beyond to give us the most incredible day.

It started out with a lovely breakfast in bed with my favorite kind of breakfast: fancy cheese.

Then he showed me the present he made for me.  We had a lovely mirror in our room that had fallen over and broken recently, and so he took the frame and turned it into a jewelry organizer for me.  He even made it artistic by lining the hooks up on an angle.

Then we got in the car and headed east.  Blake was keeping our activites for the day a secret, so he kept telling me we were going somewhere but then saying he was just kidding after we drove past it.  Then finally he turned at the entrance to Sea Life Park and I knew that I was going to have the best day ever.  Blake had signed me up for a dolphin encounter!  After I got a life jacket on they led those of us participating to a large pool.  They gave us dive masks and had us swim out into the water and watch the dolphins do tricks under water.  Then we stood on a platform in the water and got to kiss the dolphins!  It was so incredible.  The one I kissed was named Adella.  We also got to pet the dolphin and watch it do tricks.  The trainer had a few of us put our hands above the dolphin's blowhole to 'feel it breathe' but then had it spurt water up at us.  Silly dolphin.  The funnest part of all was the belly ride, which is when the dolphin turns on it's back and you hold onto it's flippers and it swims really fast with you hanging on.  It was so fun!  I really have a soft spot for dolphins and being able to play with one like that made me so happy I couldn't stop smiling all day.  After that we went to a couple of the shows they have at the park.  I got a season pass with my dolphin encounter and Blake bought one too, so now we can go there any time we want. Blake took a video of me with the dolphins, but until he gets around to editing it these pictures of the back of the camera will have to do.  Sorry, I can't figure out how to rotate them the right way (they're the right way on my computer...)

The next thing we did was go check into a hotel.  We stayed at the Marriott Waikiki Beach Resort.  It was really nice.  They had a free ti-leaf lei making class that we were able to do.

For dinner we went to the Old Spaghetti Factory.  It was delicious.  I wish I had some of it right now.

I really don't know if that day can be topped.  I mean, I kissed a dolphin for goodness sakes.  I am so grateful to have a husband who would do something so incredible for me!

A Decoration for Every Holiday

I just finished my first craft in pretty much forever, so I am pretty excited about it.  I saw this cute framed pumpkin on pinterest, but why stop there?  I designed one for every season and can keep this decoration up all year long!

January: Snowman

 

February: Heart

 

March: Shamrock

 

March/April: Easter Egg

 

May/June & August: Umbrella/Beach Umbrella

 

July: Star

 

September/October/November: Pumpkin

 December: Christmas Tree

 I'm sure there are lots of other fun shapes you could think of to use for the different times of year.  It's a really easy project that I think turned out pretty cute!

How Hawaii is Different from Utah

I assume that every state is quite a bit different from the others.  There are some things I have noticed about Hawaii that are so different from Utah. 

• There is no fast lane or slow lane in Hawaii.  Whereas in Utah people get angry at you if you go the speed limit in any lane but the outside one.
• Instead of finding spiders in my house, I find baby geckos (and sometimes cockroaches.)
• Birds here are stupid.  They don't get out of the way of cars until the absolute last second, and sometimes they don't at all.
• The bees here are different.  There are giant black ones, little ones that walk on the ground instead of fly, and weird wasp things that look like their behind is stuck on with a stick.
• It is acceptable to call both women and men 'bra' (meaning bro.)
• No one here knows what cardstock is.
• Flip flops are called slippers, or actually 'slippaz.'
• When a store posts it's closing time as 5:00, they actually mean 4:45.
• Sometimes, the stop signs are blue.
• There are lizards everywhere!
• I used to think the weather in Utah was crazy.  Here it goes from overcast to sunny to pouring rain back to sunny within 10 minutes.
• "Howzit"
•  Parking spaces are made for smart cars, and there aren't enough spaces.
• The stores run out of things all the time.
• Gas and milk are the same price per gallon.
• Flip flops are acceptable wear at pretty much any event.
• Everyone's crazy for spam here.

There's so many more things I could think of, but that's probably enough for now.