Hawaii!

Ok, so here's the deal: Jer and I went to Hawaii last week with almost his whole family, the problem is is that we are horrible at actually getting many shots of us on trips we take, we usually stick to taking lots of pictures of the kids and the scenery. We're doing better, but this trip we actually ended up taking WAY less pictures of everything, so you'll just have to deal with what I post.
When we left Salt Lake it was snowing, so that made us extra excited to get to Hawaii and enjoy the warm weather. We arrived on Maui on Sun. Oct 12 at night, and boy were we exhausted from our flight-although it was the best one so far. There were screens on the backs of all the seats and we could pick just about anything from the menu to watch for free. It was awesome!
So after gathering all our luggage, getting the rental cars, and picking up some groceries, we went to the hotel. It's the Marriott Maui Ocean Club (I think), and it's beautiful there. We made some sandwiches and then crashed. The only problem is is that just about everyone was waking up around 3 or 4 am because of the time difference (4 hrs behind us), so it was hard to sleep in (not counting Jer, he is a master at sleeping in).
I won't bore you with the details of each day, so I'll summarize instead. Every day we basically would hang out at the pool, then go to the beach, or vice versa. Then at night we'd go somewhere different for dinner. One night we went to Whaler's Village and saw a free hula show after dinner, another we went to a luau, etc. A few of the days we went to beaches away from the hotel so we could either snorkel, or watch surfers. My favorite part was riding/jumping in the waves, it's so much fun I could do it for hours!
Jer and my last day was a day before almost all the rest of the family, so we went and watched surfers, ate at a yummy organic pizza place (Flatbread in Paia), and headed to the airport with his sister and her family (they had to get back early). We were sad to leave before everyone else, but at the same time we got a head start on the long ride home, and this time we didn't even get the screens :( It was actually a really rough ride home because we were on the emergency exit row, and the seats don't go back AT ALL, and did I mention this is like a 5 hr flight and it was the red-eye? All of this equals exhaustion.
We finally made it back to Salt Lake at about 8:45 am (we stopped in LA both ways), and my wonderful brother, Rich, came and picked us up. It was sorta surreal to be home, but so nice at the same time. Once we got home Jer went to bed, and I unpacked and started some laundry, then took a lovely nap myself. The bed at the hotel was nice, but there's nothing like your own, and it was heavenly.
So, that was our trip, and now here are some pictures.
Don't mind how shiny I am in them, my skin has issues with humidity.

This was on the way to the luau
This was after the luau

Beautiful Hawaiian sunset

Us with the diminishing Hawaiian sunset
Hanging out with the fam watching the surfers. Notice my awesome fashion statement of glasses under my sunglasses.
These are just some of the many surfers that were out. It was a wonder they weren't running each other over there were so many.
This guy brought his dog surfing with him, it was so cute and fun to watch!
And since Jer is so on top of things, he recorded the dog surfing for your viewing pleasure...

Three!

Woohoo! We made it to 3! If you haven't guessed, today is our 3rd anniversary. I'm so lucky to be married to such a wonderful, creative, funny, loving, understanding man! We've been through a lot these past few years, and we've only become closer because of it. He is the perfect one to be by my side through all of life's ups and downs.
Here are a few pictures from the past....

Here are a couple from when we got engaged

This is one of our wedding announcement pictures

This is one of my bridals

and here are some shots at the temple

I love you Jer!

P.S. I will post about last week's trip to Hawaii later.

Ever wonder....

....what you'd look like way back when?
Well, Jer and I don't need to wonder anymore. I took this off of Lindsay's post, I thought it was too fun and cute, so I had to do it myself: I "Yearbooked" myself and Jer, enjoy!
Here I am in 1952:

I almost look like I belong in this hairstyle!

Here's Jer in 1952:

Only slightly goofy looking, I guess.

Here I am in 1966:

If it weren't for my hair's lack of body, I might be trying to pull this look off today,
too bad for all of you to miss out on such a sight! (j/k)

Here's Jer in 1976:

I must say, he looks P.H.A.T. (pretty hot and tempting),
especially in that turtleneck and hairstyle!

Here I am in 1994:

I guess I should feel lucky I hid all my 'real' pictures of me w/a perm from when I was younger!

and, last but not least,

here's Jer in 1990:

This makes me really glad that Jer doesn't have blond hair!

You can go try this out for yourself HERE, but I'm gonna warn ya, it'll suck up your time because you get so into it! Have fun!

I'm shocked, but flattered

Today in my internet surfing, I found THIS. You have to check it out or else this post won't mean much.
I thought it was hilarious, so I hope you do too.

Gilgal

When I post, I always seem to forget something, so I had to post again today.

Jer and I went to the Gilgal Gardens yesterday. I've been there before, and over the weekend we tried to see it, but it got too dark too fast, so we had to go back. That place is crazy by the way, very different art-work, etc. Plus, you get really hungry walking around because it's right by the Wonder bakery, so you're smelling yeast and bread baking, and it almost drives you crazy. I guess most of the statues/art have something to do with different scriptures, and LDS beliefs. This type of art isn't really my style, in fact it sorta creeps me out (especially when it's dark), but here are some of the pictures we took and what they're named....Captain of the Lord's Host

The Sphinx

The Monument to the Trade

The Monument to the Priesthood

Daniel II: King Nebuchadnezzar's Dream

There are a lot more sculptures in the garden than I posted here, and the story behind them about the artist is actually pretty interesting. You can see and read more at the website if you click HERE.

After checking out Gilgal, we went to the Gateway to the Apple store, then Office Max, then to Old Navy. This was a big sacrifice for Jer, mostly because he doesn't like Old Navy (not sure why, too preppy for him?). I got some new jeans and some REALLY cute tops. Thanks Jer for letting me shop and for going with me and enduring without complaining! He's so great!
That's all for now.

A mish-mash of events

I haven't posted for awhile, so I thought I would write about the YW activity we had last night. It was really fun, very much looked forward to, and well-attended. We had 3 YW come! Well, technically 2, 1 of them won't be 12 for another couple of weeks, but we invited her along anyway. We met at 4:15, left after 4:30 and drove downtown to see the Joseph Smith movie in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. After finding out about ticket information (they don't do tickets anymore), we wandered around the Mezzanine level where there's a chapel with an organ which has it's keys switched (white ones are black, black ones are white), and the President's room (which has pictures of all the Prophets in it). We needed to head back down to the theater, but started talking to a sweet old couple, and the older gentleman left to go somewhere and we heard him fall. We were all a little freaked out. Apparently he missed a step or blacked out or something and fell on his hip, I was afraid he'd broken it. He got up after a couple of minutes, seemingly fine, just a litte out of it. After making sure he was fine, we made it to the theater to see the movie. I've seen it before, but it's been awhile and let me tell ya, I think it hit me harder this time than the last. I was crying and sniffling (trying to hold it in a little), but at least I wasn't the only one. It was so hard to watch what he went through, and to know that it was so much worse than the movie even made it look. One of the girls was pretty emotional for awhile, it was so sweet to see how much it touched her.
When we left the movie we took the girls to the top to see the view, then out to find some food. We took a couple of pictures by the reflection pond, walked around a little (and found out the ZCMI center food court was closed) and went to Crown Burger to get food. I was starving, but burger grease makes me really sick, especially when I haven't eaten for awhile, so I didn't get anything and endured the ride home until I could get some food.

On another note, I went last week with my friend, Denice, to Ikea and I bought a TON of stuff to decorate our home more. I got a set of large canvas squares with different pictures of Orchids and put them above the bed. I switched the order from what's pictured below, though.From the picture, you'd think the orange would be too much, but they totally calm down our room (the bedding and curtains are red, not relaxing at all, but Jer's choice), Jer isn't so sure about them, but he's getting used to having them up. His exact words when he saw the pictures was, "flowers? why'd you get flowers?". This made me feel pretty bad, but I figure it's my room too, so he needs to just get over it and enjoy the feminine influence. I also got a cute apron for cooking, bedside table lamps for our room, new throw pillows and cases for our couch, coasters for our coffee table, and a couple of other odds and ends.

On yet another note, tomorrow I start my cake decorating classes. I'm SO excited, I can't wait. I'm going with an old friend, Charlotte (who I went to Middle and High School with and we were in the same home ward). It'll be fun to get out and learn about this, I've been wanting to for awhile, so I'm hoping I'll be at least a little good at it. If not, Charlotte pointed out that at least we'll be able to laugh about it. It'll be a good distraction, and it'll give me more to blog about, I'm sure (maybe I'll even include some pictures).