Saturday, July 16, 2011

Dolphin Searching "Take 2"

If you've read my blog for a little while, you'll know that dolphin searching "Take 1" did not go so well for us. It resulted in us swimming across a huge bay and begging a tour boat to take us half way back so we didn't have to make that treacherous swim again. If you need a little refresher, please refer to the picture below.



Yes, we swam all the way to that little white dot at the top of the picture searching the water for dolphins that we thought we saw from a mile away. I've circled it in red for your convenience. 


We were utterly disappointed that we missed our one and only chance to swim with dolphins. Our dreams were crushed...


...for a short time until we heard that there were dolphins at Electric Beach! This was such a surprise for us. Last year we lived about five minutes away from Electric Beach and went there very often and had NO idea that dolphins are there frequently. How we never knew beats me. 


I am happy to say that our crushed dreams were uncrushed and we did finally get to swim with dolphins. 






It was SO cool! Some days I'm a little sad that we don't have a waterproof camera. That day would be one of them. The picture above is pretty much what we got to see though, and it was really neat. We swam with them for an hour or so and watched them jump out of the water and spin and play with each other. Absolutely loved it. 


Dolphin searching take 2 was definitely a success. 

Friday, July 8, 2011

The Great Debate

Last week I had a great debate going on inside my head…

                      THIS                    or                    THIS                                                               
                                                       

Last week for an outing our boss took the company sky diving. I have to be honest, I had the hardest time deciding whether or not I wanted to go. Not because I didn’t have a blast when I went last year, but because I have been before and I could have quite the shopping spree instead.

When I told Ry that I was thinking about going shopping instead of sky diving he told me that our grandchildren would be disappointed in me. He said that they would say, “Grandma, how come grandpa went skydiving so many times and you only went once?”

Todd, in my defense replied that our grandchildren would look at pictures of us and say, “Grandma, your clothes are sooooo cool!” He may or may not have said this sarcastically, I can’t be sure.

Ryan retaliated by saying that our grandchildren would say, “Grandma, you have a LOT of clothes you need to take to the D.I. Can we use some for our Halloween costumes?” Rude.

So long story short I debated about it for days. The morning of I still didn’t know. I had decided that whether or not I was going to jump I still wanted to go watch Ry. So I woke up, got ready, made sure I had tennis shoes on, and got in the car. By the time we got to the north shore I had made my decision. 


I did it! I jumped out of an airplane at 14,200 feet!  Last year we jumped at about 10,000 feet so the free fall this year was quite a bit longer. It was amazing. I’m not going to lie, I was pretty scared this time for some reason!  The airplane ride up seemed to take for-freaking-ever and they opened the side door and I was scared I was going to fall out…kind of ironic, huh?  I think my tandem guy could tell I was scared when I gripped the bench we were sitting on.

My tandem, aka Jo, and I jumped first. According to Ryan I looked pretty dang worried when I looked back at him one last time before I more or less fell out of the airplane.

It was amazing. I can’t even describe the beautiful view I saw or the feeling of free falling. I absolutely loooooooved it and I’m SO happy that I went. Ultimately, I chose sky diving over shopping because I knew I would end up regretting it.

Here are some of our fun pictures from that morning!






I guess my grandchildren won’t be disappointed in me after all.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Newsprint Nails

I don't remember how, but the other day I stumbled on a random blog and found this awesome idea! Newsprint nails! The first time it takes a little bit of time to get the hang of it and may take a bit of time, but it's easy as 1, 2, 3!



I had the hardest time trying to get a clear picture of them, but you get the idea, ya? I'll teach you how to do them :)



Supplies:
- ten pieces of newspaper (the newspaper should be paper with soy ink - supposedly this kind of ink is used on cheaper papers) cut into pieces big enough to cover your entire nail - my favorite nail was my thumb, I did a crossword on it. I've also seen people do a part of a comic on their thumb.
- rubbing alcohol and a small container to put it in (I used a shot glass that I found in the cupboard)
- a colored nail polish and a top coat

First paint your nails with the colored polish and wait for them to dry completely. Depending on how many coats you do, this may take a little bit of time. 
Second dip a piece of newspaper in the alcohol - make sure it is completely submerged and saturated - then place the piece of paper over one of your nails and push for about 30 seconds. The first nail I held it for two minutes thinking that the longer the better, right? Not true. 30 seconds is plenty of time and prevents the paper from sticking to your nail after you've taken it off. Repeat with all your nails. (I've also read that you can dip your nail in the alcohol instead of the newspaper - I've done both ways and dipping the newspaper eliminated the dilemma of the paper sticking to the nail.)
Third wait five minutes or so and paint your nails with the top coat. This really helps the letters show better. 

Kind of a fun idea :) I even did my toes! They're pretty difficult to see unless you're up close, but I still had fun with it.


The only complaint I would have is that I used cheaper nail polish and I went snorkeling the next day and half of my nails had chipped off :( I was pretty depressed about it. 
Overall, a fun idea!

Monday, July 4, 2011

So much to blog blog blog...

I have SO many things I want to blog about but I keep getting further and further behind!

So, I will try to catch up.

I would like to start with June 22 :) Yes, my birthday.

I lied. I would like to start with June 21. This would be my birthday celebration day thanks to my good friend Tarah (aka T-Rah).  We decided to go to Salvation Army to find legitimate Hawaiian tees. I have to say, I am pretty in love with mine. It’s a high school graduation shirt! I’m pretty excited about it too because it’s Class of 2011. It’s 2011 and school ended recently. I’m pretty sure this shirt has never been worn before. Anyways. After Salvation Army we cruised over to JAMBA juice. Tarah bought me a pink star. Mmmmmmm. Amazing. We then went to our favorite store, Ross. We found some adorable bright pink sweats that said LOVE down the leg in lime green. They were practically screaming my name. After shopping and playing we had to return to the real world of work.

Now, June 22…

The day started at 6am when I couldn’t sleep anymore because I was nervous I would wake up late (we were leaving at 7:30am to go golfing). I was getting ready when I heard Brandon and Ryan call my name. They told me to go sit on the bed. After a slight pause they changed their minds and insisted that I LAY down on the bed. They brought me breakfast in bed :) mmmmm. Sweet boys.


The drive to the golf course was interesting…to say the least. Brandon insisted that he break the law the WHOLE drive up (about a 45 minute drive). He accomplished this by not using his blinkers, speeding, crossing solid lines, texting and playing games on his phone, etc etc. Yup.

Golfing was a lot of fun! It was my first time so I technically didn’t play. Instead, I got to drive the golf cart and occasionally try (emphasis on ‘try’) to hit a few golf balls. I actually hit a couple pretty well! Most of them were quite ugly however. I had a ton of fun though and I would really like to learn how to golf! Ry played 9 holes and we took off while the other boys played the back 9. We went to the Volcano National Park and saw the crater of a volcano and walked through a lava tube and stopped by the museum. It was pretty neat :) I unfortunately was rushing out of the door and didn’t find my camera, so here is a Google image of a lava tube…


After golf we grabbed lunch from L&L, a yummy local place. We ate teriyaki beef and macaroni salad. Mmm. Hawaiians have a crazy obsession with macaroni salad. I’m starting to kind of like it a lot…we also stopped at Mc-eee-Dee’s to grab one of their new McFlurry’s, a rolo, ice cream, and caramel swirl of yumminess. We might have eaten dessert before lunch. Woops.

Then we got home and it was work time.

Tarah was super sweet and bought me a gourmet cupcake. Ry found a random candle in one of the drawers in the kitchen and wrapped the bottom of it in seran wrap and stuck it in my cupcake, lit it, and sang to me. Sweet boy, huh? You’d think that until as I wound up to blow the candle out he turned the fan behind me on.

 It blew out the candle for me.

Will my wish still come true?



After Tarah and I finished the things we needed to do we got bored and decided to do our hair. Tarah was kind enough to tell me that my curls weren’t that great. She gave me a brush and told me to brush them out and then re-curled them for me. She’s a good friend :)


When Ry got home I begged him to let me open at least one present; a lime green shirt I had been waiting to open for weeks and was especially excited for it now that I had awesome sweat pants to match it. He was disappointed in me for peaking in the suitcase earlier that day to make sure it was still there. He asked, “how would you like me to wrap it?” I answered, “grocery bags will do”.  I don’t think Ryan believes in wrapping paper or gift bags. He isn’t pleased when I purchase these items. So, grocery bags it was! and I was perfectly ok with it.

These three items I had shopped for and waited for and was super excited to finally have them be mine!





A while later before we went to bed Ry told me he had another present that was a surprise. He handed me two pieces of paper and said I could choose between A or B and that ‘none of the above’ was not an option.

A. Epilady. Weird, I know, but I have always wanted one! When I was in High School my good friend Emily had one and we would use it once in a while on our arms. Thanks to her, when I have a longer hair on my arm I pull at it until I get the dang thing out. So, and epilady would be handy.

B.  Laser hair removal on my lower legs. I couldn’t believe this was an option! I opened the piece of paper and immediately said, “no way”. Poor Ry, his face dropped and he said, “I worked hard on this…” I felt so bad! The only reason I said no so fast was because laser hair removal is expensive! I immediately told him sorry and that it is an awesome idea and that I love him so much and thank you so much for finding these for me, etc etc. I hope he feels better…it really was a really good idea…

I chose option A and it should be here next week!



Ry was super sweet and bought me a coconut crème pie so I could have a birthday pie. He’s so funny, he asked me if I liked coconut pie and told me he got that one because he remembered that earlier I had said that I wanted coconut something or other. I told him I wanted coconut curry. Such a funny kid. Love him to death! The coconut pie was very yummy nevertheless.

Ry went and got all the boys in the other house and brought them over to sing and have pie. Can I just say…most awkward 30 seconds of my life? NOW I understand why Ry hates people singing ‘happy birthday’ to him. I don’t remember ever feeling so utterly awkward and embarrassed while being sung to before! It was awful! 



Oh well. Maybe I’ll try to avoid it next year. Or maybe it won’t be so terrible because it will be family rather than a group of boys that I work with. Ah well.

As the group dispersed the boys went frog hunting.

Do I even need to say that some of them ended up inside my home?