The Latest Adventures from Hawaii

Well, it's been a few weeks since our last blog entry--things have been busy. Brant is three weeks into teaching his class at BYU-Hawaii and he is loving it! I think the fact that he himself was a student only a few months ago (there are actually several in his class who are OLDER than he is!) really helps him connect with his students. It's been a great experience so far. Unfortunately...it also means that he has to work and has been gone more. His time spent teaching combined with studying for the CPA Exam means there have been fewer adventures...fewer, but still plenty.

Spencer's new favorite game: "Neigh!" Whenever we're sitting on the couch, Spencer will try to squeeze his way behind us on the couch, put his hands on our shoulders and yell "neigh!" After that, it's our job to run around the house and play horsey. He just laughs and laughs...we love it.

Spencer's other favorite activity in the house is to pretend to boogie board in the living room. We'll play the song "Wipeout" on the computer, then he stands on the board, pretends to surf and then randomly falls to the ground and pretends he "wiped out." I think he learned it from watching Brant boogie board at the beach. It's adorable.

Spencer still doesn't like the feeling of sand on his feet, but he does just great with shoes on. This was one of our frequent trips to Hukilau beach, just down the street.

We were at the grocery store last Saturday (creatively called "Foodland") and while we were checking out, the lady asked us "So, are you ready for Monday?" We didn't have any idea what she was talking about--had we not been invited to something? So, we asked her what she meant, to which she replied "well, there's a hurricane coming and it's supposed to hit us hard on Monday." I guess that's what you get when you don't have a TV and don't know anything about local news. So, as I got worried...Brant actually got really excited! He said he had always wanted to take pictures firsthand of the wind blowing over the palm trees like you see on the Weather Channel...(Un)fortunately, by the time Hurricane Felicia hit us, she had been downgraded to a tropical depression (just a little more than a normal thunderstorm) and there wasn't much to speak of. BUT, here are some fun pictures of our adventure with the tropical storm formerly known as Hurricane Felicia.

Brant made me put this one on here...the wind wasn't really blowing all that hard at all, we just thought it'd be funny.

It's odd; the national weather service had predicted 15 foot waves at our little beach here and yet...here was this little family boogie boarding while 30 mph winds buffeted the beach. I guess they were on vacation and didn't want to "waste" their time here.

One of Brant's students is a performer at the Polynesian Cultural Center here in Laie and got us free tickets! It was so fun. Our favorite part of the trip was this canoe ride around the complex to look at all these villages representing different islands from Polynesia. Our canoe pilots were hilarious and we included a picture of one of them below. Later that night, we were supposed to go to the new night show at the PCC called Breath of Life. It's a 90 minute production where all of the different islands showcase their historical dances--from the haka to fire dances! Brant was feeling sick, so he stayed home with Spencer and I went--can't pass up front row, free tickets, right? :) It was AMAZING. We're going to go again this week, we hope.

Finally, our latest adventure. After trying to convince our family to come visit us, we finally got word that one member of our family, Brant's sister, Danille, is coming for a week! She got here last night and we've got lots of fun activities planned, so we're excited. Today we drove to the swap meet again in Honolulu and picked up some more fun touristy things for ridiculously low prices. After that, we drove to Haleiwa, one of the world's top surfing towns, here on the North Shore of Oahu. It was a very fun little town and we had lunch at a great Thai restaurant. After we had our fill, we drove over to Laniakea Beach where we got to see some sea turtles! It was an amazing experience to see this HUGE sea turtle--225 pounds--come ashore.

The Fun Continues...

Our fun in Hawaii continues! On Saturday, we drove to Honolulu to the "Swap Meet" held at Aloha Stadium. There were 700 vendors selling anything any tourist could ever want--and at extremely low prices (e.g., 8 shirts for $20). It was a mad house, but Marcie was in heaven :)

One of our best purchases at the Swap Meet was this cheap boogie board (and when I say cheap, I mean both in price...and quality. After 2 trips to the beach, it's already broken!). We've already gotten our use out of it and, as you can see, both Spencer and Brant love it.

On Sunday, Church was at 8:00am (a wonderful time for Church, by the way) so by 11:00 we were home and wondering what to do with the rest of the day. So, we walked 2 blocks up to the Laie, Hawaii Temple! The pictures certainly do not do it justice. It is absolutely beautiful!

The time change (6 hours!) has been rather rough on Spencer's sleep schedule. Since he gets up between 3 and 4 am every morning, we have had lots of time to play in the morning! This morning, I had the idea to go see the sunrise at Hukilau Beach, just down the street. Again, the pictures do not do the scene justice. It convinced me that we need a better camera :)

As if the sunrise on the beach wasn't enough, when we were walking back home enjoying seeing the first light come over the village and reach the mountains, I looked to my right and saw this scene: flags waving in the breeze, misty mountains in the background, and a rainbow!! Wow, talk about paradise!

Hukilau

Well, our stay in Ohio was relatively short-lived. 10 days after we arrived, we heard about a temporary teaching position at BYU-Hawaii on the north shore of Oahu. We applied for it thinking it would be fun... and Brant was offered the position the next day! So, for the next six weeks, Brant will be teaching an introductory accounting class and we will be enjoying Hawaii :) Our apartment is one block away from Hukilau Beach which is absolutely gorgeous. So far, we've gone every day and have the sunburns to prove it. It still hasn't hit us completely that we are living in Hawaii, but we're loving life.

This is the view from the end of our street.

Hukilau Beach and our little Spencer!

Here's the story of the Hukilau and the song named after the beach.

Marcie and Spencer on the beach.

Brant and Spence in the waves. After this trip, Brant's back changed from white to a nice shade of red.

When we arrived at the airport, a faculty member picked us up and presented us both with these beautiful flower leis--handmade and the real kind, not the fake flower kind found everywhere on the mainland. As we drove back to Laie, we would see the ocean to our right and every time, I would ask "Wait...so that's the ocean?" It's pretty surreal.

The family and our flowers in front of our apartment!

This morning, we went to our first Hukilau! "Huki" means "to pull" and "lau" means "net with ti leaves." A boat drags a huge net across part of the ocean and then everyone helps pull it back in and you cook up the fish that you catch. It was a fun experience.

Here they are launching the boat. One guy (white shirt, top left of the boat) rowed against the tide to the far side of the bay.

Here's the group pulling in the part of the net lined with "ti" leaves. Apparently, the dark leaves serve to scare the fish into the middle part of the net so they can get caught in the net.

Marcie doing her part!

Brant helping pull in the nets (yes, that's him in the aloha shirt. It's sad, but true).

Kids picking the fish from the net. In all, I think we caught 40 or 50 fish this morning!

The guys said that in the old days, the fishermen would bite the head of the fish in order to kill them quicker...this guy was doing it just for show :)

We're Finally in Ohio!!

Well, after 10 states and 4,500 miles on the car, we finally arrived in Ohio! The vacations in between Utah and here were great, but it sure was nice to unpack. We can't get into our permanent condo until September 1, so this summer we are staying at Brant's parent's cabin just south of Columbus. The weather is wonderful and Marcie and Spencer get to play while Brant studies for his CPA exams. We are very grateful to be able to stay here in the summer and the weather is gorgeous.

We saw this city in the middle of nowhere in Arkansas and just had to take a picture.

Three generations of relaxation at the cabin :)

Everything Really IS Bigger and Better in Texas!

On the way to Ohio, we visited the Jones family just north of Dallas, TX. The Joneses were in Brazil at the same time as Brant's family and they are some of our very dearest friends. We got to spend the 4th of July in Texas (most likely the most patriotic state in the nation), went to a real Texas rodeo, rode horses, went waterskiing (more accurately, Marcie went waterskiing--and got up for her first time!!), ate lots of ice cream and just had a fantastic time. Spencer LOVED it and couldn't stop talking about the cows and the horses the entire time. It was a great trip and Texas lived up to all its hype!

Here's us and Amanda at the McKinney 4th of July Parade. It was 30 minutes--too short for Marcie, but perfect for Brant.

Brant helping clean, prep and saddle his first horse ever! Jeremy, of course, never took his eye off of what Brant was doing and gave him tips all along the way, but he did it!

Marcie and Spencer riding Lucas, a beautiful horse who only has two speeds: walk and run! Needless to say, the three of us were not on Lucas unless he was in "walk" mode :)

This is Brant (on Freedom, left) and Jeremy (on Lucas, right) enjoying some time on the horses on a blistering Texas Saturday afternoon.

A cowboy riding a bucking bronco at the rodeo! Spencer loved all of the livestock and was smiling the whole time.

This was perhaps the oddest and funniest (and saddest?) thing we had ever seen. The small creature you see on the back of the border collie below...is a monkey. Yes, a monkey. The monkey sits on the back of the dog and "drives" a few goats into a pen, all while the dog acts like a horse and runs back and forth. We were convinced that the monkey's legs (if not his hands as well) were tied to the dog to keep it from falling off...very sad, yet Jeremy and Brant couldn't stop laughing during the entire act!

Christensen Family Reunion

We had a super fun week in Los Osos, CA with Brant's parents and siblings for their family reunion. We enjoyed perfect weather all week and had a great time catching up with Brant's family. We spent some time at the tide pools (seeing starfish, crabs, and other sea creatures), on the beach (Pismo and Avila), playing in the sand dunes, kayaking and other fun things. Here are a few pictures.

At the tide pools with some of the family

Spencer hanging out with his new buddy, Owen.
Brant paddled us around Morro Bay

Spencer fell asleep in the kayak he was so relaxed

At the Botanical Gardens with Danille and some cousins

At the tidepools
Brant, Spencer, and his Dad at the tidepools
Starfish