Island Warrior!

ok, so the title is kind of lame. but i haven't told you all that it's what they refer to the Hawaii Marines... lame? yes..... but it's just the way it is... NOW ON TO MY POST!!!

i did neglect my blog a little the last few weeks but that was only because Riley was on pre-deployment leave so we were spending all sorts of time togeher, his parents flew in about halfway through leave so this will be my vacation update post. i will put up some pictures and then kinda give a few little stories about what we were up to!

 so Curt (pop-pop) wanted to try and get Deezul used to the ocean so he would be less afraid of it... he basically failed. but we will keep on trying!! this is the beach in our backyard, so it was about a 4 minute walk that first morning.

 we went to the blowhole, basically every time a wave comes up it spashes out of this little hole in the rock and it's like old faithful .. except completely different.

 This is Tripod, he only has three flippers... he lost one of his back flippers to a shark. his face was in this little puddle for like ever! we kept joking that he was trying to drown himself cause he was depressed... poor Tripod :)

 Riley and Curt were coming to check out the sea turtles.

 we watched this girl drag her fat body all the way back down to the ocean. it was pretty cool to watch!

 Riley is basically pretty skilled when it comes to trampolines and cliffs. he LOOOVES back flipping off of them. and people who don't know him too well get surprised when they watch him do it. and then they are impressed.. cause he's awesome!

 we had to go to pearl harbor while Curt and Shellee were here. it was an amazing experience, they were telling us that some of the survivors from the pearl harbor attack when they die have actually requested to be put back into the Ship with the rest of their ship-mates, that was something i had absolutely no idea about!

on the last day of their visit we were brainstorming something that would be awesome to go and do, and we couldn't think of anything so we drove the long way around the island to the north shore, and pulled into the temple in Laie and wanted to show them the grounds and everything. so we went into the visitors center, and we were talking to a couple of sister missionaries who were telling us how the temple was the 5th one ever built way back in 1919, and it's been closed now for the past 2 years for renovations they were starting the open house the next day but Riley's mom mentioned that they were flying out the next morning.... so they arranged for us to have a VIP tour of the temple, and it was GORGEOUS! they are dedicating it next month and i'm hoping i'll be able to go. i think President Monson will be there and it would be an amazing experience.

now if any of you have seen the movie "50 first dates" that is actually mine and Riley's "movie" kinda like our song... but it's our movie. anyway they meet in hawaii at the Hukilau Cafe. so we found this place and it's actually the placed that they based the cafe in the restaurant off of. so it may sound nerdy but we were SOOOO excited to go to this place. it was epic.


so that concludes our little staycation... is it still a staycation if i live in Hawaii? we had a fantastic visit with the in-laws and now we are just back to preparing for deployment. i'm not able to post any dates on here for safety reasons... however, it is close....

please remember to pray for our troops and their families. and i'd like to ask you to please pray for my nephew as well. we got a call the day that the in-laws flew home, and he's really sick. i'll post on that later this week, but please just keep him and his family in your prayers.