The Mayan Ranch

The weekend before last, we had a little weekend getaway with friends out in Murrieta, CA. The ladies spent the morning of Saturday shopping for our food supply and we may have taken a little longer than planned, but no one complained after the meals were on the table. We frantically packed and got to the ranch with just enough time to watch sunset from the beautiful deck and ride around on the John Deere haha. 

Most of us **cough Vi cough** had cheeseburgers that night with the american slices we found in the fridge... they were a few years old and tasty. No one got sick. Glen and I also made pineapple habenero salsa for a side/weekend snack. That night, we had a bonfire equipped with delicious s'mores. About an hour into it, we heard a coyote and it sounded pretty close. The guys got excited, grabbed the BB guns in the upstairs closet, and ran out the door with the Gator keys. They were gone for.e.ver. The girls stayed in and watched Lion King, did yoga, and had a massage party. Smiles all around.

Sunday, we went to church and it was an awesome ward! They were all asking incessantly if we were moving in to stay -- Mormons, always looking for some more people to serve on a long-term basis, ya know? Glen and I had to do laundry after church because in the scramble to pack, I left our garments on our computer desk. Yay, me! We read scriptures and talked gospel until it was done. We had an amazing dinner of carne asada soft tacos, Mexican rice, a bunch of salsas, and a really good watermelon! Most people had homemade peach cobbler and homemade whipped cream for dessert, but I'm not too into that, plus I ate like a billion tacos. Also, I knew there were s'mores in my near future because we were talking about them all day (fast Sunday will do that). After dinner, we shot BB's at water bottles, a wood plank, graham cracker box, and some unripe grapefruit as the sun went down. After the bonfire that followed the shooting, we played Idiot and watched Pocahontas. We found some night-vision goggles and wanted to play hide-and-seek with them, but never got passed creepy-face staring haha. 

I woke up early-ish Monday to do some yoga on the deck. It was peaceful and amazing and I want a ranch with a sweet deck and a Gator and a bonfire pit and all my friends living nearby. That'll have to wait until we all die though because that's just too much to ask for. Glen and I rode around in the Gator picking fruit and trying to remember it all before packing up and heading out.

A mighty thanks to the Mayan family and all of our old and new friends! Let's do it again in a month or two ;)
Aloha

Freedom Fireworks

We started off with some garden time because it was necessary for watering and stuff of the younger plants. After a slow-paced morning, we took Alex and some ads to the fireworks booths around the corner. TNT has been the main booth around here for forever and most of their fireworks have been less than awe-inspiring for forever (in my opinion). But this year there was a competitor -- Phantom. Since TNT is the lamest and we got an ad for Phantom to get a $25 fountain if we spend $70 there wasn't a competition.

By the time we got to the booth the $25 fountains were gone so we just got the money to get whatever we wanted. Which was really cool even though we were stoked on what the other fountain could do. Early bird specials have never been our strong point, but there's always something else you can get if you ask.

We had two barbecues starting at the same time; in the end, we chose to spend the day with my family and the night with his. We made biscuits and brought cucumbers and tomatoes from the garden to share with my family. As usual, there were four choices of meat and two choices of vegetables. And bacon rice, which is practically a meat, so five choices.

We played in the pool with Jaydyn and Bronson; Alex came over after the other barbecue had finished because he needed food he'll actually eat and more swimming. We left when the sun was starting to set so we could get back and clean up before the night party.

We had a ton of fountains and loved them all. Even the two-second ones. We shared our night with the Wolde's next door who are in town for the Summer before they move closer to USC. They have four children who are so adorable. They are all so nice to each other (at least when I'm looking) and they were also terrified of fireworks.

This is a super lame picture of the Jupiter/Venus super star after they separated (obvi). I bumped the camera when it was taking and then fireworks were happening so I didn't get another chance. Anyway, rainbow planets! Yay?

Glen has had fireworks stowed in his/our closet for like eight years or something! The planets aligned this year and we actually shot off most of them. He went with Bruce and Jeff to Nevada one weekend just to buy fireworks and got so many that his young heart couldn't get rid of them fast enough.
This is from a mortar rocketing up into the sky. Our neighbors the next cul-de-sac over were insane though! So many mortars, so many cakes, so many fireworks that they were lighting them off before we started and far after we had cleaned up our street.

We brought out the sparklers and everyone was excited about that -- even the kids! Here's Ana and Alex... he didn't really get the whole move it around and have fun part of sparklers. Oh well.

The square is Christine and this is when we brought out Glen's old sparklers that actually last longer than 5 seconds and spark. 

We usually go and watch the fireworks from the church parking lot, but we had so many fireworks of our own that it lasted for three hours! It was awesome. And the neighbors show was visible from our room, so we hunkered down in there and waited the last boom out.

Until next year, happy Independence Day!

Mormon Monday: Modern World

I've always loved children. Playing fun games and laughing at nothing. Even when I was in high school I'd still bring out the sheets, build a fort and play house with my younger cousins. So, now that my family has begun the next generation it's been awesome getting to know them. My cousin's daughter Jaydyn really likes playing with whoever she can find to boss around (me). When I'm at grandma's house, you can usually find me having a very exclusive tea party, playing hide-and-go-seek, or holding my brother's son Bronson.

On Christmas, Jay and I were sipping tea and eating heavily frosted cupcakes when she said this:

J: "Hey, I've never seen your phone...."
B: "Okay"
J: "Where is it? Can I see it?"
B: "Sure, it's in my coat on Grandma's bed."
Runs to the site and waits for me to get it out.
J: "Ooh! I like your buttons! Can I push 'em?

Glen and I both have dumb phones -- not smart phones. We love them and we love our bill even more ha. This experience with Jay made me feel a little judged and enormously flattered. I don't think she was meaning to pass on either of those, but I'm super glad she did (well, just the flattered part;)).

I realized as she pushed my buttons that she hadn't ever seen my phone because when we're playing... we're really playing. I don't need a device to keep hers or my own attention.

I'm not meaning this to be any sort of failure on any other person's way of playing with theirs or someone else's children. I just want to point out that it doesn't always have to involve those types of things. There are so many other options than scrolling through Facebook to watch other people's lives be so much better than yours in one picture. You do know they're doing the exact same thing and only post when something extravagant happens, right? We feed off of each other like parasites. Oh, Chris went to a party last night... let's do something fun and take pictures too! It's all about the selfie. Post it to instagram or it never happened. I need a pick-me-up, so let me just perk my boobs up and take a selfie for instagram so people I don't actually respect will tell me I'm hot. Yeah, that feeling is going to last.

Call me old-fashioned for actually being with people when I'm with them, I guess, but isn't that how it ought to be? Scrolling through those things takes away from your happiness because life can't be fully captured in a picture or 1,200 -- there will always be something you don't see in them. So, don't assume that other people are so much more happy/exciting/adventurous/pretty/whatever than you. We all chip our nail polish and have Top Ramen sometimes. Go and chip your nail polish and eat Top Ramen because you're actually doing things you love and don't have time to worry about it.

High Five for Friday: Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving weekend! Our countdown has become real and scary to move home. We have a bunch of crap to sell/give away and Glen has an ever-heightening pile of papers to grade. I hope through everything though, we're able to spend time with friends and this beautiful place as much as possible just like this week.

Here are my five favorite things:

1. I met this guy on the beach and we had a moment after he sneezed himself awake. You know, if you really want to just get away from the beach crowds on a beautiful day on O'ahu, it isn't very hard at all. You just have to be the one who stays on the beach while it rains, or walk further than others are willing, or yell shark. That last one's usually not the preferred route.

2. On Monday night, our friend Rinki came over to teach us how to make chicken curry -- Northern India style. Her and her husband are from Calcutta and just moved here earlier this year for schooling. The curry was so delicious and we are so grateful for Rinki having enough patience for our billions of questions.

3. On Tuesday, we had our friends Amy and Josh come over to teach us how to make Thai food! Amy is half Thai and we are fully aware of our love for Thai food, so it really works out. We had four dishes: Pad Thai, Tom Kha Gai, Laab, and Chicken Sate. It was beautiful food and company. Thanks Amy and Josh!

4. Glen and his grapefruit.

5. Thanksgiving was a wonderful day filled with plenty of food. We have a full turkey left over; no joke, the whole thing was untouched because there was just too much food! We had our unofficial ward Thanksgiving on the lawn in front of our buildings and enjoyed the breezy day turn into a chilly night. And Glen was in a food coma on the grass with blankets covering him for a while after everyone started packing up.

Aloha Friday

High Five for Friday on a Sunday

I was too busy napping at the beach or in business meetings this weekend, so I didn't get this done in time. So, I suppose what I'm really saying is life is good.

1. Being in a place of such diversity, it isn't very hard to find someone of a different culture who is willing to teach you about it. Prince is from Ghana, he was in a couple of my accounting classes nearing the end of my degree-getting days at BYUH. Him and our friend Shawn (who can be found here and is still single by the way) came over after church last Sunday and we cooked until way passed sundown. We learned how to cook Ghana-style Jollof rice and chicken. It was delicious and next-day-Jollof-rice is 10 times better if you can believe it. In true Ghana-style, you cook all of your food on the first night of the week and that's why our 25# bag of rice is now only half full. So amazing... we were afraid we wouldn't be able to use most of it before leaving. Two birds with one stone kind of deal. This is Shawn pretending like he did a single thing for this dinner haha. And Prince is behind him actually prepping and cooking.

2. I started decorating for Christmas. I know, it's completely shameful and so annoying, but I just had to. I was cutting out fall leaves and thinking about drawing some turkeys or maybe more leaves and just was not feeling it. Ya know? And then, we went to Walmart and bought Christmas lights... not even the white ones just straight up colors. You are not as surprised as I am, I can let you know that right now. It was so embarrassing when I put them up the next day too! And then, as I basked in their colorful light that night and all the nights after, I realized how happy I am about it. And then, I put up more decorations. Ah! But I am stalwart (so far) in not allowing Christmas music/movies to reign supreme. So, there's that.

3. We saw Interstellar on a mid-week date. Even though we had heard many favorable critiques on the film, low expectations always do a heart good. We were pleasantly surprised at how much we both liked it.

4. Last Saturday we went Leeward and had a wonderful day. I'll be posting about it a little later.

5. It was supposed to rain and thunderstorm pretty much all week and it didn't. Like not even for a minute, which is so weird. It was a little disappointing; we love both of those things, but it was mostly just amazing. I slept on beaches and played in the glorious rays of the day. It was a beautiful week.

Thanksgiving countdown is in four days. What the close!?

Aloha Sabbath :)

Mormon Monday: Having Fun, Part 1

This is the video I mentioned we made in my last post. Our friend was making a video compilation of a bunch of videos friends made for his wife's birthday and we made this for her! It was fun and a really great way to spend time together. So much of our "together" time right now is being spent campaigning or grading quizzes or sleeping or driving across the island that we don't get to do normal, fun stuff like this. And if I wasn't a member, I'd probably be thinking to myself what a Mormon does for fun because they can't dance, right?

In high school my best friend and I were Mormons; all of our friends knew it, it wasn't a big deal. We didn't drink or do drugs and everyone knew it. This one night in particular, we were at a friend of a friend's house celebrating our friend's birthday party. It was extremely fun and you know why? Jolie (my best friend) and I didn't have inhibitions, no need to drink them out of us.
We set up shop in the garage because it was equipped with couches and Brisk cans all over the floor. We sat down and began our talk show for the night -- this is where the cans come in, they were our microphones. We were extremely bad at the English accents, but no one seemed to mind (or remember). Everyone thought we were just as drunk as the next person, which may have not been the best example, but we were teenagers without testimonies. We were seriously having the best time over anyone, I guarantee it. Everyone else was moaning about some stupid drama here and there, but we were just in our huge dreamland in the one-car garage busting guts all over the place. We got yelled at several times for being too loud and for drinking the Brisk when we were specifically asked not to. Trouble is, we don't drink tea as Mormons and we were probably contracting infectious diseases from the real culprits, so who's got it worse buddy? It was the best party I had ever attended and remains my favorite memory of high school.

The point is, Mormons have fun, just not a lot of the same fun as everyone else. We make dumb videos and go on hikes and play sports every week; and if you grew up with/in a devout Mormon family, you probably still play Settler's of Catan every Monday week night out of habit.

We love having fun. Come to any activity and it's sure to be a hilariously-wholesome, good time with major treat action. It must be that we just have more time to bake and cook and craft because we don't clutter our nights with drinking, not sure though. We wake up and get on our knees, not in front of the toilet for sickness (besides that whole pregnancy deal), but to consecrate our day and dealings to the Master of heaven and earth. We are the way we are because of Him and I love it.

Aloha

High Five for Friday: Ideal

While my weeks are always filled with the mundane like work and laundry, there is just so much more that really brings life to my soul. I can already feel this HF4F thing lifting my spirit and love. Every night I think about my day while drifting between awake and asleep and gratitude sweeps over me for all the good that's in my life. I love it.

With that, my high fives for this week:

1. General Conference was awesome. I mean, it usually is, but this time it was just something else. Half-way through, Glen and I were excitedly planning our best reading/re-watching times together. Nerd alert.

2. Oh, and I made this during the viewing (like I said I was going to, oh snap). We're in Halloween territory, people. 2014 is in it's last quarter. Insane!

3. Glen's colleague (hahaha I really wanted to say that for some reason) recommended reading this book. When Glen brought the borrowed book home, I thought to myself why would anyone publish a book telling me how to make an atomic bomb? Also, why would anyone publish a book telling me how to make an atomic bomb!?! I completely forgot about it put a pin in it and shelved it. On a hammock outing, I shoved it in my backpack resolving to at least see what the ingredients were. Upon reading the first page, a swift realization came to me that it was not making, but the making. Words, huh? Anyway, a copy is on its way from Nebraska or something because it's that good.

4. I may have procured a job actually using my degree. I already work for the owner in a different capacity, but he likes me a lot (mostly because I'm Samoan -- we fist bump like every 20 minutes because we have an ancestor in common; it's hilarious) so he wants me to do more stuff for him. Mo' money, mo' money, or something like that.

5. Much of my week has been filled with this... let's just put everything on repeat for a while.

Seriously, if anyone has a repeat button I'm calling upon your good favor to just do me a solid.

Aloha

Hulina Lani: Pu'u O Kila

The friend that left this time was Jorey (you might recognize his name from when we helped him propose here to his now wife, Lauren). He has been reunited with his beautiful wife in Utah for about a week now and we miss them. Most of our friends are from Glen's classes (that whole thing about me not being good with friends... yeah) and I actually love it even though science ain't my thing. It's fun to see Glen be such an amazing friend to others. It gives me an example to fall short of follow. Jorey has spent many nights sitting on our couch talking about things over my head and eating freshly baked somethings because that's what I contribute to the conversation. Ha. 

This last outing with him was a hike in the heart of Kahana Valley. Kahana is a beautiful State park that is actually inhabited by families with ancestral ties to the valley. The people who live there now must have relation to those who inhabited the land before it was a State park. They don't get to just live there though, they must be willing to cultivate and foster the culture of traditional Hawai'i; it's called a living park for this reason. Glen and I have volunteered there a couple of times to help restore the fish pond in the bay and help in the lo'i (taro patches). They also have a gorgeous traditional Hawaiian garden where all of the plants are intermingled. There are no rows of papaya or banana trees; everything seems haphazardly placed, but the caretaker is keenly aware of their positioning. This form of farming not only sustains the health of the land, but produces more fruit per acre because plants are everywhere. Obviously, a machine cannot prune this garden and neither can a person without experience within it. I believe that if all of us would give more of our time and energy to be more self-reliant and responsible, this earth would benefit greatly from it. By no means am I an environmentalist in the extreme form that is used today, but I love this round planet.

On the afternoon we went to hike here, I thought it was extremely inappropriate for the children who were playing outside to be threatening our group just because we look white. As we walked passed them, they were shouting at us and calling the men names. The culture of Hawai'i and its people will never live on if we continue to discriminate based on outward appearance; it hurts me deeply whenever I hear or see this kind of behavior. 

Individuals are not characterized by their heritage or looks and we should especially not generalize characteristics within such bounds. One of my ancestors from Hawai'i was a murderer, so if we are to generalize based on his looks and ancestry, all Hawaiians are murderers and should be hanged. You might think that's an exaggeration and you're entitled to your opinion, but know that this is happening. Racism will not end until we can look at one another without judging based on historical acts or what we have heard. A person is a person, while we might inherit certain characteristics from being raised that cannot be seen in a glance or two. I cannot say that I am completely free of this kind of behavior, but if we could all just try a little harder to be kind and loving toward one another we could spread happiness like Coca-Cola commercials without the rotting teeth. I am surely not saying it is those kids who are to blame either, it is a culture throughout the world of racism and fear of differences. We all have the choice to be like everyone else or break free of idiotic traditions like racism. It is outrageous to see so many people discriminate against each other for not having the right skin color. If you think you're free of this, I beg you to search yourself again and often because it is not easy to uproot and will probably never stop being a struggle. And I'm not sorry for soap-boxing (mostly because a whopping two people will read this, but also because it's filled with truth. Okay, okay I'm done).

Pu'u O Kila

We started at the end of the main road through Kahana. There are many trails through this valley and it's easy to get lost on a different trail, pig trail, or just plain lost. I would suggest going with someone who has experience and is willing to lead the pack, Shawn was our pack leader even though he really didn't want to be the leader. 

The only river crossing is this and it is the remnant of an ancient aqueduct used to steer the rains from the mountains to the lo'i and gardens on the floor of the valley. We swam in this stream (except further along its bank) it after working in the lo'i because you just have to after working there. There's no way to explain the amount of mud that is embedded in your skin after a day in the lo'i. We opted out of swimming on this occasion because it was already pretty late in the day and we wanted to reach the valley again before night fall.

Despite the ease of losing your way, there are a surprising amount of signs and markers as you progress along the valley. The trail starts out easy enough, mostly level trail with a little elevation gain and loss, but nothing compared to what's coming. 

After you start the ascent, the valley continuously becomes more gorgeous. I don't know about you, but aerobic activities are not my strong suit especially when elevation is involved. Down is cake, but up is (I don't want to be dramatic, but...) like shoving a Brussels sprout muffin in my mouth while shaking pepper on my face. I hate sneezing. I don't need to say anything about the Brussels sprout thing because that's too obvious as it is.

The views were gorgeous and the conversation was heavily stunted by breathing (for me). As you reach the higher elevations of this hike, the trail becomes less trail-y and more walking on/through/in deathly sharp ferns. Glen swears they feel good and I swear he has the healing powers of Wolverine because I was bleeding from the beginning. There's a Geo-cache at the top that you can put your name in. It was getting dark and I don't do well with unstable-to-no-ground circumstances with full fledged sunlight, so most of us turned back to reach the valley before dusk (it was only another 15-20 minutes to the top, but I wasn't risking it). Glen and Jorey reached the top and put their names in the book, so if you're ever up there... their names are there with ya. And that's Shawn, our leader!

It was a great hike and we were happy to spend some of Jorey's last moments on the island with him. He came over for one last late night couch hangout with cookies and he was gone. We'll miss you, Jorey.

Aloha 'oe