Paradise Found

Hi Friends!! Sorry it's been so long since I've posted here. We have made the move back to the mainland, and have actually been in North Carolina since March 24th! It's been two months since we got here, and we still don't have our on-base housing, so we've been living in hotels, and now a temporary apartment. This means we're still living out of the suitcases that we left Hawaii with!! It's crazy.

I bought a laptop when we left the island to TRY and stay online... but I still went without connectivity for what felt like a LONG TIME! I hate paying .18 cents a minute, at some places.

But we're back online now at this apartment. I wanted to share the last exciting thing that I did before leaving Hawaii!! Going on a SHARK DIVE was one of those things that I had always considered a "Must Do!"... and I left it until the last week that I was there to accomplish. LOL

Here's my new email address... now that we're back on the mainland, I'm dying to hear from some of you that I haven't talked with for 3 years!! -------------> brazenlisa@gmail.com

Ok... the pics!! Now, this adventure ROCKED!!!!!!!!! No two ways about it. :D I'm going to put up all of the pictures that I have on my computer right now. They're only the under water shots.... the pics from inside the boat I can't get to right now.

So, in no particular order.... the sharks!!

Ok, LOL, that's the whole roll of film! I took one of those waterproof disposable cameras down with me. I was so worried the day that I went, our household goods had already been packed up, and we were living out of the suitcases... and I hadn't saved out any contact lenses!! So I knew I couldn't wear my glasses down there with the snorkle gear, and I was SO afraid that I wouldn't be able to see well enough to even take good pictures.

WHO KNEW!!? Those sharks were SO close that they filled up the whole view finder! LOL You'd have to be flat blind to not have been able to see them. hehe

They would swim by me, and bump their sides onto me... it's like they were checking me out. LOL My pictures got better, once I knew to expect the bumps, because they were really strong! And I'd get knocked pretty good, some times. LOL All the whites bubbles in those pics up there are from them swooshing either their bodies or their tails right next to me.

These sharks, I was told, were Galapagos sharks and averaged 8 feet in length; the females were bigger. =o)

Here is the first installation of pictures from our summer. Just a scattering of shots... I have to comb thru the pictures and these are the first I came across. Elizabeth's best friend from SC, Mackie, came to visit for a month, and we have lots of beautiful pics from that... that will be a Summer Update post all to itself later on.

Both kids played baseball... here are two of E:

And two of N:

On Mackie's last day here, we went up the North Shore to Turtle Bay Resort and went horseback riding. It was a gorgeous trip, and even The Boy did really well. It was WEIRD seeing him riding a horse without any help!

That's E w/ her hair dyed brown

The 4 of us... Mackie, Me, N and E

Also while Mackie was here, Staind came in concert at Bayfest, and it actually fell right on her birthday! So I took both the girls to the show. The pictures are not great, but we were right by the mosh pit and I could hardly get my camera up, let alone held still... so I took about 50 pics, and they mostly look like these:

Two random shots of N one morning before school:

Back in April or May I posted up some progress shots of my fitness transformation... so here's a few more from August:

That's it for now... I need to get changed and ready to go to the gym! Don't forget you can leave a comment here if we haven't talked in a while... I don't use the bikergirl_brazen Yahoo email address anymore... had to change that several months ago. So if you've been writing to that, I'm not getting it!

Hi all! I know I haven't written in months... hopefully you guys are still out there. =o) It's been a long time... since April I guess. Can't really catch up on all of that time... but I can start with recent news.

C was just home on his 2 week R&R from Iraq. We're home now from taking him to the airport for the return trip. It was a fantastic 2 weeks... and the pictures I'm sharing tonight are from that time. Maybe tomorrow I'll post some that are a bit older... from the summer months.

So C's been gone for over 9 months now, and unless there's a last minute extension, the unit will be home before Christmas. It's strange to see how much the kids have changed in 9 months' time... stranger even for C, I'm sure.

To start out the pictures......

I was able to get an oceanfront beach cabin for 3 days/2 nights of child-free time! This was our cabin:

And looking up the beach at more cabins:

C standing on the seawall off of our porch:

We made sure to be outdoors for the sunsets both nights, so here are some pics of them:

This guy was really cool! He paddled all over the bay (Pokai Bay)... and spent hours going thru the surf along with the surfers!

E received an early Christmas present; it was a huge surprise to her, but something she's been asking for:

His name is Bruiser and was almost or right at 2 pounds in these pictures when we got him. LOL!! He's 2.5 pounds now, and 9 weeks old. He's 3/4 Chihuahua, 1/4 fox terrier. His mom was 7 pounds, and dad was 4 pounds.

While C was gone for the first 9 months, I worked on designing my next tattoo... and once I was done, C really liked it and decided to get it done too! So I got mine done first, and two days later he went and got his.

The pictures aren't that great yet, because the flash made too much glare on mine, especially. The ointment made it all shiny. When it's all healed up, I'll get new pics taken.

These 3 were taken earlier today, before we left for the airport:

Hi Everyone!

It's Memorial Day Sunday and we're getting ready to spend the day at the beach on the North Shore. Chun's Reef. I haven't been taking scenery pics around here lately, and I am going to change that today. Need some new beach pictures!

I did upload a few of the pictures of me during my whole fitness transformation. I'm not done yet, but I at least have some good results. I take pictures about every 2 to 3 weeks, but I'm not going to put them ALL up here. LOL!

I'm just going to start with April 21st. You all pretty much know what my "before" self looked like. Lumpy and not a trace of any muscle tone. LOL!

April 21, 2006 at Kailua Beach in my new BuffMother tank top!

Mom, Dave and I went sea kayaking that day, and this was taken on Flat Island off the coast of Oahu.

On the back side of Flat Island with Kaneohe Bay in the background.

My hair looks like crap, but this was taken May 10th. I'm actually growing some muscle!!

These were taken yesterday, May 27, 2006. I wanted to see what my abs really look like, so N took the pics for me - he's the perfect height.

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C is doing well over in the Sands. He sounds SO tired; I don't think he's getting much sleep. We were supposed to have had our very first VTC (video teleconference) yesterday, but when the kids and I showed up at the location on base, we learned it was cancelled due to a communications blackout over there. =o(

June 8th will be 6 months that he's been gone. He'll get to come home in July or August for his 2 weeks of R&R.

The kids are doing well... only 5 days left of school!! Crazy! Then E's best buddy from South Carolina is flying out to spend 4 weeks with us, and she's all nuts with the planning and excitement.

Alright, well the kids are packing a cooler with food for our beach day! I think I need to supervise. Hopefully we'll have some new pictures.

Day 4 took us to the Dole Plantation during the morning time, and then to the Polynesian Cultural Center for the whole afternoon and night!

I happen to live right next to the Dole Plantation so we buzzed in there for a tour around the gift shop and we decided from there to take the train ride around the fields. It's a 20-25 minute ride going about 8mph thru the pineapple fields, while a narrated tour tells you a LOT of information about pineapples. LOL I did learn a lot, most of which was pretty interesting!

Here are a few pineapple plants with baby fruits on them...

The Polynesian Cultural Center is a HUGE, fantastic place to visit!! It's unbelievable how sprawling the place is, and it's all gorgeous and so well run.

There are different package deals that you can buy to get in and do various things around the park. Mom and Dave got us in on a big fancy package deal that gave us a guide to take us around the place so that we could do as much as possible. It also included the IMAX movie, the luau and premium seats for the night show, "Horizons".

The first thing we got to see was the parade of canoes. Each set of Polynesian islands was represented by a canoe with people from that area... dressed appropriately and playing/singing music. The represented island groups were: Hawaii, Marquesas, Fiji, Aotearoa, Tahiti, Samoa and Tonga.

Our next stop was to visit "Samoa", and the guy who was our entertainment was really funny! A Samoan with a sense of humor! Who knew?! Here he is:

We were then treated to a canoe ride ourselves. Our tour guide did the poleing, and we sat back and relaxed.

After our canoe ride we went to the IMAX movie that was about the Coral Reefs thruout the South Pacific.

Directly after the movie we had to go for the luau seating. We were all given orchid leis that smelled so nice!!

Once we were seated, the folks that ran the luau thought we'd like to see how the kalua pig was roasted...

Our dinner entertainment... music and hula.

The menu for this Ali'i Luau, or "Royal Feast" was:

Chicken Long Rice, Kalua Pig, Teriyaki Chicken, Island Fish, Poke (marinated fish), Lomilomi Salmon and Pipi Kaula (seasoned beef). Lots of sides and desserts as well.

After dinner there was time for shopping and wandering around before the night show began at 7:30pm.