Aloha!

Well it's been about a month since we went to Hawaii and I still haven't gotten to writing about it. I finally got some time so here is some of our trip. Enjoy!

When we arrived in Honolulu on May 7th I was ready for a vacation. The last time we went we used a travel agent and when we go anywhere again we will do the same thing. We had to change our tickets a couple of times due to the airlines moving around flight times and leaving us too little time to make our connection home. After retrieving our luggage that had been damaged so extensivly finally that my suitcase would no longer stand up because the bottom legs had broken off, we got our rental car and checked into the Waikiki Sunset. We had gotten a two bedroom suite this time because our good friend from work, Pam, came with Mom and I. What a view! The suite was at the end of the hall and when you walked in the sliding glass door and lanai looked straight out to Diamond Head. Then out of the two bedrooms you had extensive views of the ocean and Waikiki beach (through a few hotels). We ran down to the beach right away and the air was so warm that the water felt cool and nice. The waves were excellent too with quite a few large swells. We ate at Cheeseburger in Paradise that night which is right across the beach and 2 out of 4 walls are compleltely open. The birds come in and graze off the floor. After dinner we drove up to a Safeway in the Manoa valley and got water, breakfast food and snacks. I didn't find any road maps there so we drove down a little to a Long's Drug and I got a map there. This is because I am such an OCD navigator that I want a road map with actual road names on every street and not every fifth street like the one the rental car place gives you. I was going to buy one off Amazon before we went that was $4, but then it was going to cost $7 to be shipped to me. I looked at where it was coming from and it was voila! Hawaii! I thought it was a tad bit silly to pay to have a map shipped to me from Hawaii and then pay to take it back there. On the way back to the hotel I was metioning Lilo and Stitch to Pam and when Mom was channel surfing back in the room she found it on TV! I asked if maybe they have it on constant repeat in Hawaii. We watched the opening song which is our favorite and then went to bed at about 8:30, which is 11:30 our time. Before we went to bed I got some shots of the full moon and Diamond head. The picture was taken without a flash or long exposure the moon was just that bright. Funny story -- We almost missed our flight to Hawaii! The gate on our ticket said B5 and we get there and it says that gate is for a flight to Kahului, Maui. So I walk down to the next gate, B7, and it says the right flight to Honolulu. We were all like "Geeze, glad they told us the gates changed." So we sit there for two and half hours talking and then I say "...we should have been called for boarding.." so I walk over to the screen and they had switched to gates back! So we grab our stuff and run over to gate B5 and the lady has to unlock the door to get us onto the boarding ramp. Everyone was already on the plane and as we're getting seated a flight attendant comes up and asks us if we are the Menke party! Holy cow we almost missed the flight!!

The next day we took everything really slow. We walked down to the International Marketplace and priced new luggage, which I had been planning on buying but now really needed to buy. We ate a Dole whip and I listened to messages on my phone from our pet sitter that our rooster Parakeet had successfully escaped his enclosure and was free with his hens. Since he didn't come after her like our older rooster Dud it was all okay. Then we walked back to our hotel and got the car and went to an amazing Hawaiian Fabric store. Dangerous, that is very dangerous. Mom and I both spent about $100 on fabric, which is not light (think about how heavy our bags could have been if we hadn't been so reserved!). We also found the Walmart after some circling and picked up more sunscreen, an eggcrete pad for my bed cause it was already killing my back, some assorted macadamia nuts and ToffeMacs (yummmm). After we got back to the hotel we snacked a little and then went down to the beach again. We would stay in the ocean until we were shivering and that was the indication it was time to get out. After showering and resting a little we walked back down Kalakaua (the 3rd time that day!) to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. I detoured us to the Duke Kahanamoku statue on the beach and called Uncle Fred so he could see us on the live webcam. This didn't work the last time, but this time there was a crowd control officer that offered to take our picture. That let Fred find the website and let the time delay catch up so he could see us. It was a blast! (See Uncle Fred is in the picture too!)

Dinosaurs!!

I know you're thinking, "Two posts...in one day?!" And, "What's with all the titles ending in exclamation points?!" I'm an enthusiastic person, what can I say.

Last night Mom and I went to a show called "Walking with Dinosaurs" at the Sundome. It was freakin' amazing! I was a bit afraid because after all I was the 13 year old who went to Jurassic Park and watched it with my hands over my eyes. We had bought the tickets quite a while ago and got some of the highest priced seats, cause if you are going to see a show you might as well get a good view. So we get there and we are ushered down fairly close to the front of the arena and then told to climb up to row U. Really...row U...as in starting from A.... So we climb and climb and soon we're getting lightheaded from the low oxygen, but we find our seats. I look at Mom and ask "We paid how much for these seats?" and she says that they guy on the phone said for the best seats we wanted to be about eye level with most of the dinosaurs and she tells me that some of them come close to the tops of the lights. What?! These are full sized, part animotronic, part puppetry dinosaurs that move and breathe and blink and sound just like they predict each species of dinosaurs would have. Again Freakin' Amazing. The show started with a paleontologist taking you back to the Triassic period and then you moved through the Jurassic to the Cretaceous period. My favorite was the Brachiosaurus and they were huge with their heads almost hitting the lights. Of course the last dinosaur out was the T. Rex and I admit I cowered a bit when it came by and screamed at us. They let us take photos without flash so I put in the least blurry pictures I got. I would totally go see it again!

Baby Shower!

Well, the baby shower was two weeks ago yesterday. But what with work and life taking up most of my free time I hadn't gotten all the pictures onto my computer, and what's a blog without pictures. (Still a blog, but not a very interesting one...) So here's the baby shower scoop.

On Friday, Nicole drove up from Oregon with her friend Renee and they stayed the whole weekend at our house. Mom and I ran to grocery stores for all the fixings and then off to Good Friday service as they had planned to get to our house late. Mom baked the cake from scratch that night so it would be ready to frost the next day. Saturday morning we got up and had a big breakfast and I started the decorating. I had planned on a tea party/garden party theme but with it being early April there were no flowers blooming or trees leafing out. I bought flowers instead and we had enough to give it the garden atmosphere. I also made favors that looked like daisies in glass flower pots with a candle in the middle and I set these around with tealights on the tables. Nicole had shown me a "diaper cake" that you could buy and she thought that if they had added wash cloths or burp cloths it would have been better. The "cake" was too expensive but I googled around until I found one website where the person gave me the number of diapers that was in the cake (insert evil laughter "Mwaaahahaha"). I was going to buy burp cloths for the middle layer, but they were quite pricey too, so I bought some flannel at the fabric store and Mom made them. We put it on the coffee table as the centerpeice and it turned out pretty well if I do say so. Mom spent the morning frosting the cake. I had gone to Wilton.com and found this amazing cake that you use fondant on. We had never tried that out before so I bought all the items to do this cake from Wilton. We made the bow on the top a few days before so it would be hard and then did the fondant on the cake that day so it would still be soft enough to cut. Thank goodness my mother takes all my great ideas in stride because I think I would have been frustrated with the fondant. But never fear, she did it all and it turned out fantastic. While she was cake decorating I was making the food. I did it all as "baby" finger foods. We had cucumber sandwiches, scones with butter and jam inside, parmesan balls, creme puffs with chocolate and triple berry sauce, a veggie tray, a fruit bowl and of course strawberries dipped in chocolate. I also had a punch bowl and bottled water.

Nicole's mom and dad came over early and were thinking of leaving before the party but after guests started arriving they stayed. There was about 11 people at the party and we had a very good time. When they arrived everyone was given a bracelet with diaper pins and pacifiers on it and anyone who said the word "baby" had to give up one of their items with the person with the most at the end winning. We also played "diaper bag memory" where a diaper bag full of stuff was passed around and they had one minute to write down as many items as they could remember was inside. Nicole got the diaper bag as a gift at the end. Then we played "Guess how big Mommy is" where a spool of ribbon was passed around and everyone cut off a length they thought would fit around Nicole's tummy. The person who was closest won. After all the games Nicole opened her presents and was very suprised at all the gifts, especially the last one which was the stroller/car carrier system she had on her registry. Overall it was an excellent day and Nicole could hardly fit all the gifts into her car to take home.

Is it really April already?

So somehow I sort of missed March... I shouldn't have because it's my birthday month and all but life suddenly got ridiculously busy. I have been planning a baby shower for my best friend Nicole and was hand making the invitations. Great idea right? I mean if Martha can do it why can't I? Well they started out with a really cute stamp on the front that I was going to color and lots of borders. Well after making the first one I didn't really like it. And I was going to have to do this 15 more times. So I had purchased a Cricut that was sitting on the floor collecting dust and decided to look through the images that came in the two cartridges that were included. There happened to be a cute little baby in a blanket and a stork that went together on the front very nicely. So back to Craft Warehouse for more cardstock and away I went! That Cricut is sweeeeeet. It's so fast and all I did was cut and paste. The invitations went together freakishly fast and I got them sent out in time. I thought I had saved one to take a picture of for this blog but I can't seem to find it and randomly remember one more person being added to the guest list. I will try and get a picture from Nicole of hers. **Update: I finally got pics of the invitations!**

Then my birthday came! Happy Birthday March 19th as a relative of mine would say. I worked that day and everyone that found out it was my birthday was like "why didn't you take it off?" Cause then I wouldn't get all you people telling me happy birthday...duh. Mom and I went out to the Olive Garden for dinner which was very tasty and then I opened presents! I got a portable personal DVD player (which is pink!) for the plane ride to Hawaii and then I got a Kromski Harp loom. It is a rigid heddle, which means there are only two "sheds", up and down. With different colors and actually holding up certain strings you can make designs, but if you want just a really easy way to weave it's very nice. Here are the pictures of my first project I call "Pacific Sunset" cause of all the different blues you see on the ocean as the sun goes down in pinks and reds. More to come on trips and the baby shower!

Yeah! It's February!

I am so happy that it is not January anymore. It's just a depressing month. Now in February the days are getting long enough that I can come home and do some stuff before sunset. And I get to plan all sorts of fun stuff to get Mom for her birthday. This year we are going to go to Seattle for her birthday and eat at the Spaghetti factory, go through Pike Place Market, go down and walk through the piers and probably hit the Alderwood Mall cause it has a Yankee Candle store. I have also been thinking about getting my major plans for summer projects in order. We've got gardens to plant, a pergola to get up (finally!), and decks to clean and stain and move the stairs on them. Life for the most part here is boring and same old, same old and other than a mildly sore throat it's pretty good.

Good Grief!

Well my year has gone ridiculously quick already. After a great Christmas (Wii!!) and a few days off from work to enjoy it life ratcheted up a notch. Our set-up guy at work who receives all the new specimens and plates them, among other daily very important duties, took a leave of absence that may be permanent to go to flight school in Texas. We had known this for awhile and did manage to get a guy that had previously worked in set-up to come back for 3 months to fill in. The problem was he couldn't start until two weeks after our other guy left. That was okay. It would be hard but there were only a couple of days where there were only two microbiologists to run the entire day shift micro lab for a 220 bed hospital, most days there were three, which was ideal. Well then one of our micro techs broke her leg. So the first two weeks of the new year I got to put in between 1 to 2 hours of overtime everyday. And this last Thursday I was going to be the entire micro department (reading about 100 cultures and setting everything up) until one of our techs graciously came in to work an extra day. I have some great paychecks but no life. This, along with the holidays, set my blog back 5 weeks! My life consisted of getting up and ready, being to work at 6:30 in the morning, working until 4 or 5 pm, coming home and making dinner, playing some Guitar Hero and going to bed, all to be repeated the following day. One of the things holding me through all this was turning in the papers to schedule my vacations for the coming year. Starting in March I am going to the beach every other month and in May it's Hawaii!!! Warm sand, warm water, balmy breezes....

Christmas come early

This last weekend Mom and I and the puppies drove up to Spokane to visit my cousin David and his wife Leslie and two kids Justin and Tayla. We spent the night at their house and the next day visited my Aunt RaeAnn who is in a nursing home because she had multiple strokes which paralyzed her right side. The real reason we drove up was to bring her Christmas early. We bought a small fake Christmas tree and decorated it. I got some small tin cans that look like presents and we put some candy in them that she can eat or give away, whichever she feels. Then we had her Christmas presents with us and had her open them, which is the best part about giving gifts. She was so happy, mostly with just seeing us, but also with the tree and presents. David and Leslie helped us bring her back to their house and we sat around watching Harry Potter and talking, just being together, which I think she misses the most. Leslie made a great dinner that RaeAnn can eat. See the paralysis also affected her throat and her food needs to be a certain consistency for her to eat it and even fluids need to be thickened so she can swallow them. After dinner we all piled into Mom's van and drove around Spokane looking at the beautiful Christmas lights. Some of the houses really go all out up there, but the best house was a barn way out of town. The guy living there has all the lights on this barn, the trees around it, a whole row of small trees in front of it and an entire cast of characters hooked up to a computer. You tune your radio to the station posted in lights and listen to the music as the Christmas lights and characters "dance". It was a-freakin-mazing!!!!!! The characters would sing some of the songs and the best song (at least our whole van agreed) was the song "Sandstorm" by Darude. If you listen to it you get the gist of what the lights would be doing. After all this fun we drove RaeAnn back to the nursing home. She had told David that she was getting really depressed, but with all the joy we brought her, she thought that she'd make it. She was always a bit dramatic ;)