Kaimalielani and Her Mommy & Daddy

I mentioned in my post about starting Hulina Lani Hikes + Photography that Thomas and Sharolyn came to O'ahu for a family reunion. It was the tops. We had never met their sweet, sweet baby Kaimalielani and we were so happy to finalllllllly be rid of that ugly truth. She is, as they say, the stuff.

Okay, so babies don't normally gravitate to Glen at first. It may be due to his height or maybe his perfectly straight teeth. I am the human children like first out of the two of us probably because I'm short and have crooked teeth :) But can we just talk about how much Kai loved Glen right from the beginning? It was interesting to have Glen hold a child and never once whisper something like, "Oh, Breanna! You wanna hold her? Take her, she wants you." I was so proud of him haha. Truly, I was. Don't get me wrong, I love holding babies and being relatively good with them, but it was fun to see Glen love a baby so much simply because she was content in his embrace. It is a prime-time embrace. She was rarely away from his body, the cutest.

 If you haven't figured it out yet, we went to PCC in the afternoon and had an awesome time! Thomas and Sharolyn's nephew came along with us. He got a much needed chief tattoo from the Fiji village on his leg and one on his face from the Tahiti village. He was very proud of them, and rightfully so.

A group picture with the island of the long white cloud. We didn't get around to all of the activities in the villages, but the company was superb and the laughter was rampant. We love them!

Look at her! She is so adorable and relaxed. Her name is a beautiful description of not only her parents' happiness to receive her, but of her sweet personality. We can't wait to visit with her again in December.

On a lame note, one of the coconut trees in the courtyard of our apartment building suddenly died. It seriously went brown and then frond-less in a couple days. Such a sad experience. We woke to the sound of it crashing to the ground.
That was our main anchoring tree for slacking; not that we could anymore anyway (housing forbade us to do it because it was too dangerous...excuse me, but you have rust holes in your playground equipment, I'm pretty sure my piece of rope is safer than that crap), but it felt like a piece of my experiences here was being chain-sawed and hauled away to a dump. Lovely.

Just look at Kai's face again; if you're as annoyed at the last part as I am it makes you feel better about the world. We were so happy to have met her and reunited with Thomas and Sharolyn. And if you can believe it, Kai is even cuter in person.

Aloha

A Bucket of Chum.

We've been really enjoying our time together. Glen is going to start medical school next year [somewhere], so time together will be hard to come by. I hope we've been utilizing this time as much as I think we have.
Other than hanging out with each other and friends, there isn't much to say about life that you probably don't already know.

What ensues hereafter will seem like chaos, but will hopefully end in a well-rounded collage of recent activities (probably ending up looking like chaos).

2014 World Fireknife Championships

Polynesian Cultural Center

'Aiea Loop Trail

On the drive to the trail the mountains were lush and overflowing with waterfalls. I'm surprised there aren't more collisions on days like this.

Pu'u Ma'eli'eli Trail

Crouching Lion Trail

 Brinley's 2nd Birthday Party

Hickham Airforce Base

 We went to Landon and Courtney's house after the Frozen mayhem; Lanny completed his ice challenge with freezing cold water! The slushy mixture hurt my fingers and my brain to watch him being drenched with it.

 The Fourth of July

Turtle Bay

Happy [insert holiday just in case we don't get to say it directly to you]!!! We'll be home in two months after we're finished calling this place home. 

Graduation!

We have walked that black robe & tasseled walk. You'd probably think it feels the same as before (like on your birthday when you're inevitably asked if you feel a year older and you don't) and you'd be right. The exciting part: FAMILY came! My grandpa, Uncle Robert and Ashley arrived and Glen's parents got here the day after them.

We went to the turtle beach (Laniakea) with our visitors! That is funnier only if you know how annoying the traffic is at this beach. Here and Sunset are the most prolific traffic stoppers on the North Shore; if that's what they're going for, they have exceeded expectations, I'm sure of it.

At the graduation celebration with graduating friends and wives/soon-to-be wives. We have met some of the raddest people alive here. We have definitely been blessed to hang out with really inspirational and all around cool people. They teach us how to be better, motivate us, and definitely make us laugh. Thanks friends -- (from left and not including the weirdys kneeling) -- Chase & Natalie, Whitney & Marcus, Zach & Sarah, Skyler & Brooke and Jorey & Lauren
P.S. The plates at this 'light dinner' celebration were hilariously small for poor, hungry college students.

Sawyer's Papa, Zach!

Glen was chosen to offer the closing prayer at graduation! He received an email about a month before asking him to contact the Vice President of Academics. The message didn't include any sort of reason warranting the need so we were kind of freaked out about it. Maybe they have evidence of Glen being a robot and robots can't go to this University; who knows? Anyway, he finds out it's just a prayer and can remain calm.
Turns out, Glen is one of the top three students in our graduating class and that's why we get a free, delicious graduation breakfast (including bacon), he gets to sit on the stand, gets an amazing lei, and says a prayer! Being married to him has some serious unexpected benefits -- bacon.
From left -- Chota, Elder Christensen, Glen, Bro. Christensen and Larissa

From left -- Dr. Lukov, Ben, Glen, Zach, Kaeo and Dr. Gold

Lindsey and Ben on the left. Ben was in a lot of my accounting classes and we studied our way through every test in freezing classrooms with my personal collection of Expo markers.

This is Lauren, the one that's getting married, remember? She's seriously pretty and I'm so grateful for her warm, welcoming spirit.

The graduated couple -- Glen: Bio-Chem with minors in Biology and Economics -- Breanna: Accounting (straight up)

I've got to say, having family come thousands of miles just for a boring graduation was one of the best feelings I've had. Looking back at my grandpa after getting my diploma was one of the best moments of my life. He was so happy just because I got a silly paper in a goofy robe wearing a still goofier hat. His face was flushed with pride and I could feel it pumping through my veins, settling in my heart.
I wasn't very proud of this "accomplishment" until I knew that the man who provided everything for me was so obviously showing it. Although I knew a college degree hasn't always been a given, the old adage 'everyone's doing it' really applies now. Because of that I was in denial that I've actually accomplished something significant.
My grandpa changed a lot of things in my life. For goodness' sake, the man is practically blind and he's in the business of sharpening saws for a living! How can you not learn from that kind of a person? But this most recent gift is one of the most precious; he is proud of me, which made me realize that I can be too.

We went to the PCC for some cultural activities. The culprits holding hands are Robert & Ashley :)

For the canoe ride, we decided to go to the bridge and take pictures of them instead of riding along. You'd think we would've captured at least one with everyone looking and smiling. I'm not even talking about the whole canoe. Just the four members of the canoe ride that actually belong to us. Obviously, that's a hard task.

It was awesome to have family here and graduate all in the same weekend. We had a good time. We're grateful.

The Year of the Horse has Begun.

Time has gotten away from us here. It is March. We have been busy. Mostly doing really fun things or really boring things. Exciting stuff.

The first week we were back from Christmas in CA, we went to the beach and made toes. Originally, we were going for an architectural wonder of arches with cool designs on them and whatever else came to fruition as we dug on. When it started getting chilly, we veered ever so slightly from that visionary masterwork and made toes.

Nailed it.

There was some crazy wave storm that was supposed to hit early January. It was not as big a deal as was expected, but it still produced surging seas and elevated tides. Glen and I were super busy that week or weekend or whatever it was, meaning we didn't get to see much of it.  We ended up going to La'ie Point for a sight of some action anyway and found some monstrous waves were still here.

These pictures kind of can't tell you what we saw if you don't know the Point and its usual sea level/wave action. Maybe it can, I can't tell. All I can say is, there was a ton of sea mist and deafening booms from the waves hitting the rocks (boulders? barren islands? I'm, not sure what to call them).

We play in our front yard, which we share with 30 other couples. None of which are shown in this picture because they are rarely out there. We're going to miss having those coconut trees to set up our slacklines and hammocks when we move.
By the way, that girl in the hammock and that boy closest to her are totally engaged now! Woohoo!

For the pre-med club on campus, we had an opening social at Hukilau park. We cooked all day for it and then finally were out of the house with this beautiful sunset.

This child is seriously the best one I know. The only thing I can compare him to is a honey badger. He just goes, you know?
"Oh you tripped and fell on your face into a bunch of pine needles and those deathly, tiny foot-penetraters?"
"Yeah, so? I got my tennis ball. Life's all right."
Inconceivable.

I babysat him for a bit while his parents were in between sitters and took him to the PCC. He didn't really get the whole picture time thing. I like to call this one the "Ah, forget it" photo. Beautifully choreographed by Sawyer and some Maori.

These birds! They are my third favorite. Right behind the red-butt/mohawk birds and Plovers. They're always in pairs, so adorable. Although, most birds here are in at least pairs. I'm pretty sure they think it's mating season year-round because the weather doesn't really change.

And I call this one the "I don't know what to do with my hands" shot.

As previously mentioned, that couple (Jorey & Lauren) are engaged!!! And we helped with the proposal portion of their date a couple of weeks ago. We set up a blanket with some dessert and floating lanterns on it with candles circling it. It was seriously romantic. And this shot of me was taken before I got my first mosquito bite.

This one was right after I got it.

Funny story to go along with that evening! Right when J&L were coming up the beach, this guy with 2 dogs comes traipsing along too. As he walked by, he saw me in a hole trying to take pictures of J proposing to L (Although, I didn't get any because the dogs came and barked at my face and then my camera battery died. High five!), which must have looked kind of weird. Not really though, right? I mean, there was a clear proposal going on! After all was done and Glen & I not-so-sneakily left the lovebirds, the dog guy came up to them and asked them if they knew there was some girl in a hole taking pictures of them... awk.

Until next time, Aloha.