Christmas and Such

After our amazing Hawaii trip, we came home to ever-welcoming Montana and a balmy -20 degrees. Having a 90 degree change in less than two days did not put me in a very good mood. For the first time ever, I actually considered moving away. It warmed up after a week or so as we came toward Christmas.
For Christmas, we went up to Henry's parents' house and spent a couple days with them and his sister Katherine and her boyfriend Logan. It was a nice relaxing time and we had a lot of fun.

Some pictures of cookies Hank and I made - I think we started a new tradition!


For New Year's, we went out with some friends and enjoyed a night on the town. We hadn't done that in a really long time and we had a blast!

Just before heading out for the evening:


Passing around the New Year's hat some very drunk people gave us.


My turn with the hat.


At the end of December, we put our truck up for sale and at the beginning of January, we sold it for our asking price! We are going to miss it very much - we loved that truck but it is going to free up a lot of money in our budget without the monthly payments and allow us to meet some financial goals we set for ourselves.

Our last days with the truck.


So far, 2010 has started off with a bang and we are anticipating our best year yet! Henry goes back to school tomorrow and it is really exciting to think about how our lives will have changed by this time next year. Happy New Year's Everyone!

The Last Hawaii Post!

Our last day in Hawaii was wonderful. We went on a zip line adventure with Kauai Back Country Adventures and had so much fun! We got to go on eight different lines down through a canyon. It was a little scary the first few times but we soon got the hang of it and were running and jumping with the best of them!

At the top of the course.


Amanda going across line two.



A view of the stream below Henry's leg. He's wanting to show how high we were.


Perfect shot of Henry as he goes on line four.


We were extremely lucky and got to see Mt. Wai ale ale on one of the very few days each year it's not covered by clouds.


Henry was able to take a video of line five, the longest line. It was about 980 feet long and our average speed on all the lines was about 30 miles per hour. Enjoy!


After the zip line, we had some time to kill before we met my step-brothers for dinner so drove around and went to Wailua Falls and the Spouting Horn to watch the water shoot through the hole.

Wailua Falls:



Spouting Horn:


That night we met my step-brothers for dinner at the Beach House and had a wonderful meal and a wonderful time spending time with people we don't get to see very often.

Thank you Dad and Karen for a wonderful trip to Hawaii! We had so much fun and hope we get to do it again someday!

More Hawaii...Finally

Good grief, Charlie Brown. I am having the hardest time catching up on this blog.

Back to our Hawaii trip - after the day of the helicopter ride, Henry had to spend a couple days doing homework. On Saturday, he did homework for about half the day and then we were able to go to Hanalei, the little town by our house and check out a craft fair/farmer's market. It was really fun and we were able to get most of our souvenirs. We were also introduced to Shave Ice (and yes, it drives me crazy that they don't call it Shaved Ice). Their claim that it is better than snow cones is true in our opinion. If you're really nice, they will even tell you the secret of putting a little bit of condensed milk on top which really takes it to the next level. Then we went to a beach and just relaxed, reading in the sun and sand.






On Sunday, we spent all day at the house while Henry did homework and I hung out on the beach at the house and read.

On Monday, we went snorkeling with the whole fam at Poi Pu beach on the southern side of the island. I saw so many beautiful fish and was even able to spot an eel. Henry was able to find a sea turtle of which I was very jealous. I did get to swim with turtles on our trip to the Big Island and I was really happy he got to do that too.

After snorkeling (no pictures, sorry. I doubt that anyone wants to see me in a bathing suit anyway), My Dad, Karen, Henry, Hailey and I all went to lunch at the Puka Dog place! It was so stinking good - I had to take a picture of it.



I have been craving them since we came back home and I wish we had found them earlier in the trip so I could have eaten one every day. My Dad bought us some of the sauce to take home and it is already gone. We love putting it on our bratwursts. So good. We are going to have to go to the website and order more because mustard no longer satisfies me. Must have mango sauce.

Then we went to the Kauai Coffee Plantation where we were able to get gifts for the people who took care of animals for us. We also got some gifts for ourselves! I even tried a little bit of coffee and enjoyed it. It was delicious.


The Coffee Plantation:



Some of the beautiful flowers at the plantation:

Bird of Paradise


Hibiscus


Some cool trees that Hailey calls "organized trees" since their branches are so even.


Ok, this post is getting long enough so I will have to do one more Hawaii post. Special shout out to Adam and Diana who went to Kauai on their honeymoon, discovered Puka Dogs and then told my Dad about them. THANK YOU!!!

Hawaii (Part 2)

Continuation of the Hawaii trip posts....

Scenic overlook on the way to helicopter trip.


The next day, we went on a helicopter ride with my dad and step mom and that was absolutely amazing. It was their birthday present to me and Henry and we so appreciated it. Henry and I got to sit up front with the pilot and we flew all around the island for about an hour. It was our favorite part of the trip. From now on, that is going to be something we plan into all our Hawaiian vacations. We bought the DVD of our trip so we can relive it when we are holed up in our house through the winter!

The Helicopter...



Henry and I in the helicopter. Before take off.



Some of the amazing views from the helicopter:

Napali Coast




Waterfalls in the crater in the middle of the island:


After the helicopter tour, we all met up and went to the Smith Family Luau. The grounds there were gorgeous, the food was delicious and the show was really good. We heard later this luau is one of the most authentic around and the materials used to make their costumes are all authentic and hand sewn. It was beautiful.

Me and Dad at the luau.



To be continued...

Hawaii!! (Part 1)

Ok, so I'm getting overwhelmed with all the blogging that needs to be done and that just means I'm not doing it. So I'm going to try a series of smaller posts to see if that helps!

November was a fun month for us. Henry and I both had birthdays and we got to go to Hawaii for Thanksgiving. For my birthday on the 19th, we went out to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants (Montana Ale Works) with some friends and I had my favorite fish tacos. I really can't branch out from those, they're the greatest. I've never found any better. On the 21st, I went to New Moon with some friends and had a blast. The next day, we left for California where we stayed for about three days before we left for Hawaii. We had a lot of fun going to In and Out Burger, the Squeeze Inn and Tex Wasabi's for Henry's birthday on the 24th. The Squeeze Inn was on "Diners, Drive Ins and Dives" and we've been wanting to go there since we saw that episode. Tex Wasabi's is Guy Fieri's restaurant and we had some delicious sushi there for Hank's birthday. I highly recommend both to anyone that goes to the Sacramento area.

On Wednesday the 25th, thirteen of us left for Kauai! Kauai is such a beautiful island and we had a wonderful time. We had a long day of travel and just as we were getting to our rental house, it started raining. It continued raining ALL NIGHT and it actually turned out to be a pretty major storm. We were on the north side of the island, past Hanalei, and there were some flash floods and the roads were closed. Then the power went out for several hours leaving us wondering how we would cook our Thanksgiving dinner! We were very lucky as we were having prime rib instead of turkey and the power came back on just in the nick of time. It was a wonderful meal that we all helped cook and was a lot of fun.

We're pretty bad picture takers so there are no pictures from the first part of our trip but we do have some coming up!

Paging Airport Security...

I got the pins taken out of my toes today! It was pretty darn cool to watch. Just went into the doctor's office, got a little numbing shot in my feet (wasn't so fun when he hit my nerves), a good wash down with beta dine, a small incision, a little fishing around, some work with the pliers and VOILA! I can now go through airport security again! Just in time for the trip to Hawaii!!

My feet are doing really well. They feel great and I'm just currently working on getting my range of motion back in my big toes. The swelling that is left should go down considerably now that the pins are out. Most importantly, the debilitating heel pain I was having is gone. I spent three hours yesterday cleaning the house, standing and walking the whole time. I used to not be able to stand for more than 15-20 minutes before I couldn't take it anymore. I'm so happy to not feel like an invalid anymore. I'm so glad I did both feet, even with the inconvenience of not having a leg to stand on. It's all uphill from here!

Saturday with Siri

Saturday was a lovely day - we spent about 12 hours changing the operating system on my computer from Vista to Windows 7. No need to go into why it took 12 hours; let's just say there were some extra stops a long the way. That's a whole different post.

While waiting for my computer to install one of the many operating systems we put on it that day, Siri and I had a fun adventure. I was laying on the ground relaxing, and he decided to get involved. The pictures will tell the rest.

Here I am, enjoying a relaxing moment on the floor:



Siri decides to get in on the action and rests his head on my face:



A little repositioning to be sure he is as comfortable as can be:



The start of a stretch where I end up with puppy claws in the back of my head:



Coming back in the frame to step on my hair:



Positioning himself to commence belly rub:



And here we go, getting the belly rub (which he loves) without having to lay on his back (which he hates):


I see your game now Sirius - you win my heart, step on my head and all just to get the tummy scratch.
I think it's clear who rules our house.


And in case anyone was wondering, I am loving Windows 7. Looks really cool, super easy to use, not having the problems I was with Vista and it's not hogging my resources. Well played Microsoft....for now.....