Aloha - Day 1

The six hour flight from Phoenix to Honolulu was 6 hours and kind of long.  It was not a bad flight for someone who is absolutely scared of flying.  I made it through without panicking a lot.  The movie on the flight was The Green Lantern, not my kind of movie so I passed on watching it and preferred to read a book.  The short flight from Honolulu to Maui was a little more rough on me since it was a small plane, but I pushed through and was able to survive the short flight.

Once we arrived in Hawaii we got our Jeep and took off to Costco and Safeway to stock up on snacks, breakfast and lunch items for the week.  Since we were staying at the Westin Villas we had a mini kitchen in our room so we thought it would be best to do breakfast and lunch to help save on money. Especially since everything in Hawaii cost a lot more than on the main land.

The Westin Villas!

The first event that happened is I think I broke or sprained my big toe/foot.  When the bellman delivered our bags and groceries to our room he set the bottle water and beer on the kitchen counter on top of a pyrex cutting board.  When I went to move the items I didn't know the pyrex cutting board was underneath the water and beer so when I moved the items the glass board fell off the counter and landed on my left foot where the large toe connects to the foot.  It was extremely painful and I was concerned it was broken.  I have heard though that if you break your toe there is nothing you can do about it, or at least that is what I told myself to get me through the week so I could ignore the pain in my foot.  Of course the next day I could barely walk on it and my foot was black and blue and completely swollen.  Of course I just ignored it and pushed through since nothing was going to ruin my vacation.  I am not sure if that was the brightest idea since it is still puffy a week later and still hurts pretty bad.  I can't bend it on my own, so that is kind of concerning.  I will give it a few more days of relaxing before I decide to suck it up and go to the doctor.  Unfortunately I can't say it was from something as cool as a surf boarding, paddle boarding or a diving accident, but instead it was from a glass cutting board.  Oh well!

After the toe incident we decided to do the beach board walk to see where that would take us and to watch the sun go down.  It was absolutely beautiful and probably the time where I fell in love with Hawaii.  I see why people keep going back now as it is breathtakingly beautiful.

On the beach walk we passed a golf course with beautiful views of the mountains.

Beautiful sunset!

Kaanapalli beach

Toes in the sand!

I am in love!

After our walk we were exhausted and decided just to eat at the resort sports bar.  After dinner and drinks we were spent and went to bed.  The three hour time difference also didn't help our exhaustion.

Aloha!

Andy and I spent the past week on our honeymoon in Maui and it was absolutely beautiful.  We had a great time and can't wait to go back.  We flew out on Friday the 21st on Hawaiian Airlines and arrived back in Phoenix last night at midnight to a very nice 65 degrees.  We stayed at the Westin Villas in Kaanapalli...probably not spelled exactly right, but that's ok.  I will blog about our trip all week long as there is a lot to share.  Until then here is a video on the sights of Maui that we did see.  Some of the images include the Kaanapalli beach outside of our resort, the hike in Hana (including the bamboo forest and the waterfall) and the beautiful black sand beach in Hana.  There are many sights that I did not capture on the Flip as I kept forgetting about it, but I did take plenty of pictures that I will share in my upcoming posts.  Stay tuned!  Mahalo!  :)

 

It's Alive!

I finally feel better on this beautiful Sunday.  For the past week Andy and I have both been sick.  Andy not as sick as myself.  I personally felt like I was on my death bed for most of this past week.  That might sound dramatic, but it's truly how I was feeling. 

It all started last Saturday when Andy began sneezing, coughing, hacking and looking awful.  He called it "allergies" because he is never sick.  Ok, fine, I agreed it's allergies because who am I to judge when I don't have allergies so I don't know what it feels like.  Anyway, I then wake up on Sunday and I slowly go down hill and by the end of the day I was starting to look like Andy and his "allergies."  Monday morning I awake feeling like a bus hit me and I only made it through half a day at work and then completely stayed home on Tuesday.  I made it to work the rest of the week, but barely as I looked and felt like death.  I was just trying to get through the week and onto the weekend so I could rest and hopefully get better.

So, what does a girl do when she stays home from work sick.  Besides sleep I got to watch the Maury Povich show.  I was a fan of this show back in high school and now I only get to relive those high school memories when I am home sick...which is never!  Well the show has changed a bit since those good ol' high school days.  Now it's all about finding baby daddies.  I watched more than a hand full of Maury and by Wednesday I kind of felt more stupid for watching those shows.  I know I could have changed the channel, but it's like a train wreck where you just can't stop looking.  I kept yelling "You are the father" and since Andy works from home he wasn't exactly amused by my behavior.  He was ready to ship me back to work.  He wasn't the only one because I was so bored.  There is only so much a person can sleep no matter how sick you are.

I finally feel better today and I managed to get out of the house for a brisk walk around the mountain as I couldn't run since my chest hurt.  Then I got out to run errands and I finally got us a Costco membership.  Yes, I know, we are a bit behind the times in the Costco craze, but we never really felt like we needed it for just the two of us.  We will see how much we use it this year and if we don't then we won't renew.

Everybody in our house is almost 100% healthy again.  I think we still need a few more days of rest.  Sorry no pics this post.  I don't think you would want to see any pics of us sick and dieing anyway.

Wisconsin Vs. Nebraska

This past weekend Andy and I went back to Wisconsin for our annual Badger trip.  This was a big game as it was the Wisconsin versus Nebraska game.  Tickets were very hard to get, but as Andy put it "I am lucky to be married to him so I can attend Badger games."  Ha ha! 

We arrived in Badger town late on Wednesday night and my parents picked us up at the airport and we stayed with them until Friday afternoon.  While hanging out in SP Andy and I spent time with my grandparents, my good friend Bobbi and of course I got paraded around my mother's work as she introduced me to all of her co-workers as her "baby."  That was lovely.  I started to notice that the "big game" is all everyone was talking about.  It's all the news reported on, the newspaper headlines and everyone at my mother's work. It was crazy.  I guess that is what small cities focus on and I totally forgot about that.  However, it was fun because it got us into the mood for the game on Saturday.

The game was on Saturday and we headed downtown with Laura and our good friends for early tailgating before the game at the Stadium bar with the sea of red.  We started about one in the afternoon and the game didn't start until 7pm so it made for a very long game.  One great thing about this weekend is my friend Kelli was able to make it down from Minneapolis for the big game and stay with us all weekend.

Sea of red at the Stadium Bar.  Also, notice the nice weather.

Happily married couple at the Stadium Bar.

Then we headed to the game where the Badgers defeated Nebraska 41 to 14...it was awesome!

I took video of the infamous "Jump Around" shenanigan's right before the fourth quarter for those of you that have never experienced it before.  Before the fourth quarter begins they play "Jump Around" and the whole stadium goes crazy just jumping up and down.  It's pretty neat to see 80,000 people jumping up and down to the House of Pain song. The video is not great, but still thought I would share it and it might give you an idea of it.

On Sunday I went to my parents house where some family members stopped in to visit me while I was in town.  I also had our wedding video with me for those that wanted to see it.  I played it for everyone and it still brought tears to my eyes...and to many others as well. 

The weather wasn't too cold while we were there and actually it was a nice fall weekend where the weather was cool, but not cold.  It was almost perfect and made me think of moving back...but then reality hit as I was walking around on State Street Saturday night and I could see my breath because the temperature dropped to 38 degrees.   Brrr!  Nope, don't want to move back.  It was a good weekend though and we had a great time in Madison with friends and family.  We are not sure when we will make it back again as we are staying in Arizona for the holidays.  Maybe we will do a long weekend next summer.  Until next time Madison!

Drastic Cool Down

In other parts of the county our weather this weekend would not be considered a drastic cool down, but for Arizona it is a drastic cool down and I absolutely loved it.  It has been so hot for so long that going from a high of 115 degrees on a daily basis to a high of 99 degrees feels glorious.  The huge bonus is that the lows were 80 degrees this weekend which allowed me to get back into my routine of running around the mountain we live on.  I have not been able to do this since we got married because when I get up in the morning it's already 100 degrees outside.  I have been missing my workouts and my Jaimi time on the mountain that I have been watching the weather reports lately just waiting for an announcement of a cooler morning.  When I saw a low of 80 for Saturday and Sunday morning I was pretty excited.  I set my alarm for 6am so that I could get up and get going before it heated up.  It felt so good to get out on the mountain, see the beauty of where we live and enjoy some nice temps for the early morning weekend.  This was the highlight of my weekend.  Here are some pics I took.

 

 

 

Labor Day Weekend Camping

This past Labor Day weekend we went camping north of Payson in Woods Canyon.  This time I was actually looking forward to camping just to escape the heat.  It had been around 115 degrees in Phoenix for three weeks in a row so this temperature was making me excited for some cooler weather in the woods with some good friends.  Of course we did the usual beer darts, beer pong and corn hole games, but this camping trip was definitely different as the boys were determined to be able to watch football all weekend in the woods. 

Cutest Packers Fan!

Friendly game of beer pong while football played on TV!

Madison wanted to take a nap so she begged to go back in the tent. 
She laid in the tent for hours napping away.  She was a tired doggie!

Of course I thought TV in the weeks for football was absolutely ridiculous, but who am I?  To get this task accomplished we took our extra flat screen TV and one of our Direct TV boxes and the Campbell's rented a generator and brought up a dish that they borrowed from a friend who takes theirs camping as well.  The first night watching the guys try to get this working was comical as they couldn't figure out why it wasn't working.  By the end of Friday night it still wasn't working and we had three sad looking men around the camp fire because the next day was college football Saturday.  They got up and at 6am they started messing with the TV again and figured out they had it plugged in slightly wrong and the TV was working and we had three very happy campers all weekend.

Besides football in the woods I have never blogged about our fantastic meals we eat.  When we camp we don't just eat brats and burgers we always eat like kings in the woods.  Each couple is assigned certain meals and when it's your turn to cook you cook for everyone at camp.  We had one breakfast, one lunch and one dinner.  Our first meal was dinner and we made marinated pork tenderloin over the fire, chopped up seasoned red potatoes and corn on the cob.  This was excellent.

After dinner we served pumpkin cupcakes that I purchased from Heavenly Cupcakes.  They are awesome cupcakes by the way.

Our lunch consisted of our famous pesto chicken sandwiches on hoagie rolls with chips & dip and grapes.   Sorry, no pics of our lunch. For breakfast we served crepes with hazelnut chocolate, fresh fruit, sausages and mimosa's.  Quite delicious!


The other amazing meals that our friends made are hamburgers (with the fixings for a California burger...my absolute favorite) and specialty brats with potatoes and vegetables grilled over the fire.  Another breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs, sausage and hash browns.  Mike and AJ had lunch which was a very tasty chicken salad sandwiches with chips and for dinner they brought steaks and corn on the cob.  I swear when we camp we eat very well!  That is the best part about camping is the food; however, I am sure the guys would say football for this weekends favorite part about camping.

Izzy Update

Last week I posted a blog about Izzy's eye and how she had to wear a cone for a week, well, now I am going to give you the update on her.  Last week on Wednesday Andy too her back to the vet for a check up.  Since she had been wearing the cone she seemed to have been getting better.  Her eye wasn't puffy and since she couldn't reach it she was starting to look a lot better.  We thought it would just be a check up to make sure she is still healing, but Andy soon found out different. 

There was a new vet on call that day and took one look at her eye and thought she should look better than she did.  After the vet looked her over she found there was another eyelash growing in wrong. This time it was on the inside of her upper eye lid and the vet just couldn't pluck this one out like the last one.  She said we would have to take her to the animal eye specialist.  Uh?  Who knew there is an eye specialist for animals?  Well, Andy called the specialist immediately and got her in first thing in the morning.  They told us not to feed her past 10 that night just in case she had to have surgery.  Of course we were hoping not to have surgery, but we were prepared for whatever they were going to do to fix our sweetie.

After depriving our baby of her morning breakfast Andy took her to the specialist in Scottsdale.  They took a look at her eye and said we needed to have surgery to remove the eyelash and freeze it so it won't grow back.  They also informed us that this happens to young dogs and is extremely rare for it to happen to dogs after three years of age.  Really?  Izzy turns three in one month!  Anyway, she came home from the specialist at the end of the day all drugged up with a few stitched in her eye that kept is slightly closed.  The doctor said she would feel 100 times better in the morning and she was definitely right because Izzy was 100 percent herself when we woke up in the morning and started to get ready to go camping.  Yes, we left for a camping weekend on Friday morning and we just had to make sure Izzy took her drugs and tried our best to keep her eye cleaned.

Here is a happy Izzy camping with her one eye partially shut.  She was super happy not to have the eyelash scratching at her eye anymore and not more cone wearing because she never tried to itch at her eye.  Mommy and Daddy are also happy her eye is better, but not so happy about the excessive bill.  Izzy goes back on Thursday this week to take the stitches out.