#13: Blog for 31 days consecutively. Check!

I have completed number 13 of my 101 in 1001 List! Blog for 31 days consecutively. I had tried this last year and failed about 1/2 way through... Maybe this being the New Year helped. If you've missed out on some of my posts over this month feel free to go back and check them out! Also quite a few of them have been posts on my Photography blog so go on over there to see and leave a comment! Thanks for those of you who have been with me, I appreciate your comments!



And because I don't want to leave you without a photo, here's a shot of a fruit stand in China town I took... pretty cool looking fruit don't you think?

UH vs. UH

The alumni game was fun! It was great to see some of my old teammates, I don't usually see. We had a fun time getting back in the pool and playing some polo. We didn't have all that many of us there so we enlisted the help of some guys who play polo... (one is an alumni's other half, another a volunteer coach for UH and a couple other friends of those guys.) Thank goodness we had their help! We wouldn't have lasted the 1st quarter without their help! We were up until the 4th quarter, then I think the refs decided not to be so easy on us.

Today's UH water polo team is full of HUGE girls with lots of experience! Many are international players from places like Canada, New Zealand, and Holland. While I was playing I couldn't find any weak links that I wanted to guard and maybe look good! It looks like they will have a great season! I wish them the best of luck this year!

GO BOWS!!!

The little things make me happy...

The other day I was looking at my live traffic feed from my PhotoBlog and noticed there were so many different flags showing! I get excited when I see these little things! And even the American flags are from random places like Maine, Florida and North Carolina!


Now if I could only get all these people to comment that would be AWESOME!!!

UH vs. UH

Alumni game tomorrow! Uh oh... I'm quite a bit out of shape and haven't touched a water polo ball since summertime! Good thing I carbo loaded tonight with my pasta... think that'll do the trick? I'm hoping so... I'm also hoping that there will be a lot of us so we can sub in and out every 30 seconds or so. Wish me luck and hope that I don't sink to the bottom of the pool!


Sorry no photo... I had a shoot today so those will be up sometime next week and I have another one tomorrow so there is stuff to look forward to... I'm super excited about it!

Go Bows!!! (the old lady Bows)

Fragile

Bubblegum Showers!

Stuart and I went on a date tonight... we were trying to get into Kaneohe after he got off work in time for the Benjamin Buttons movie. We didn't quite make it so we decided to see Bedtime Stories instead. We weren't disappointed! It was a great movie that made us laugh and smile! My absolute favorite part of the movie was here!



This picture doesn't do it justice, in the movie there is a close up that I absolutely loved! I wish that could have been me... or at least I could be there or recreate this type of scene! It was perfect! So much color... and the green truck couldn't be better! There were so many fun things about this movie! And we love his best friend! And want to keep seeing him in more movies!

Anyways... if you get a chance go watch the movie! Its really fun!


*Image credit goes to Google Images =)

Just for a laugh...

My Mom emailed this to me last week and I thought it was absolutely HILARIOUS!!! So I had to share! With all of you!




(Here's the reply the teacher received the following day)
Dear Mrs. Jones,
I wish to clarify that I am not now, nor have I ever been, an exotic dancer.
I work at Home Depot and I told my daughter how hectic it was last week before the blizzard hit. I told her we sold out every single shovel we had, and then I found one more in the back room, and that several people were fighting over who would get it. Her picture doesn't show me dancing around a pole. It's supposed to depict me selling the last snow shovel we had at Home Depot.
From now on I will remember to check her homework more thoroughly before she turns it in.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Smith

We miss the Meyers!

Remember our friends... Brett, Karen and Scotty? We do and we wish they still lived within yelling distance. Our neighbors probably got sick of Stuart yelling "Brett" from our doorway. Well we did get to see them for a VERY Short time while we were visiting California. And Scotty has grown quite a bit since last year when we saw him!



We were excited that he still remembered us because we weren't sure if he would. He's gotten so big, his hair has grown in, and he actually wears clothes (oh the good old days when he was always walkin around in his diaper)! He's a handsome little man now!




Oh who could resist those eyes??? Karen, I think he would get anything he wanted if looked up at me like that! Pretty soon you two are gonna have another cute little Meyer Monkey! Can't wait to see the little guy! We love you guys and miss you tons!

Anuenue

Last week we had such a fun session out at V-Land... everyone who was out we knew except for 2 other guys so it was super mellow and fun! At one point out on the horizon we could see the Biggest brightest Rainbow I had EVER seen! It was awesome! I was sad that I didn't get a photo of it to show you.





A couple days later I went with my camera instead of a board (I thought is was going to be too big for me... it wasn't) There was a nice rainbow that I got but the one from the day before was a million times better and blew this one out of the water... but I might as well share this one with you anyway.

More Scotty

As promised... here are some more shots from the day we had at the park. Erika had asked me if I would be able to take some photos of Scotty while I was in town so here they are! And what a cutie!

And wow! Look at those eyes! All of them!

Tried & True... Twice! But best to keep your phone dry!

So baking our phone was good and saved us from being phoneless for too long however, there were some issues that we had to deal with, so it wasn't back to normal... just working.



- after the (2) water incidents we had trouble getting it to charge without holding the charging chord just right.

- Sometimes we could hear the person on the other end... sometimes we couldn't.

- We had to put it on speaker phone and then it was really loud for everyone else to hear.

- Then even the speaker phone was kinda quiet.

- I figured the best way to talk to someone was to put it on speaker phone and then hold it upside down. The sound was coming out where you talk into... so I just help the phone so I was talking into the listening side and listening through the speaking into side. I thought that was pretty funny and was almost ready to just keep it like that... the hard to charge part was the deal breaker... that just frustrates me.




So here's the old phone with our new replacement! We really like it already. There are a few things we'll miss i'm sure. But this phone came with a bluetooth thing built in. It just pops out of the back!


I know the picture is blurry but I didn't feel like taking another shot and re-uploading it and all that jazz so this is what you get. I never would have just bought a blue tooth but since it came with the phone I tried it out and its kinda cool.

For Erika...

I know you've been patiently waiting... and there will be more to come I promise, I'm still working on some! But hopefully this will hold you over until then!

I know it's late....

...and not very exciting, but here's a quick New Years Card.




I had an idea for our New Years card that we never got around to doing (very sad) but I think we'll save it for next year! I hope everyone out there in internet Land is having a wonderful new year!!! We're enjoying life in Paradise together... as always!

Tried & True... Twice!

If your phone ever gets soaked and stops working, have no fear... all is not lost! A couple days ago, we left our phone on the kitchen counter next to the sink... a stream of water often runs across the counter from the sink so after finding our phone in a puddle on the counter we thought it was time for us to get a new phone. We opened it up dried off what we could and decided to let it sit over night to dry out. The next day I remembered that if you let it sit in rice over night, the rice will suck the moisture out so I filled up a bowl with rice and buried the phone in it. That day I talked to Kawika and he said you can actually bake your phone in the oven and it will work again. I was skeptical but was willing to give it a try.


I threw that bad boy in our toaster over and baked it for 20 minutes at 200 degrees. Voila! It works again! Who woulda thought?!



This morning I went out for a quick photo shoot and left Stuart sleeping soundly. When i returned home, he told me there was another mishap with our phone... apparently, there was an early morning phone call that stuart didn't want to take (sorry Kawika) so Stuart picked up the phone, pushed the silence button, and put back on top of the dresser... as soon as Stuart let go of the phone, he realized that he was holding it right above his cup of water. Thats right... phone + cup of water = a phone that doesn't work. I laughed at him, took the phone, opened it up and stuck it and the battery back in the toaster oven for another 20 minutes! Now I'm not saying I want this to be a Bi-weekly occurance, but it is nice to know that it will work even twice in one week!

The Girffith Park Observatory

Like I promised...

So we took a nice drive out to the Observatory in 2 vans. Our van had Evan, the Ferkins, Stuart and I in it and the other van had Michal's Family and Mom in it. Michal's van had to run to costco first so we got split up and drove through the park ahead of them. We found our way up to the observatory but were driving in a line of cars up to the little parking lot at the top. There were so many people going up there that we had decided that we probably wouldn't get a spot and would just go home. as luck would have it, a car right in front of us pulled out so we grabbed the spot and walked a little way up the rest of the hill.



We were playing on the lawn out front for a while waiting for the rest of our group. Then I started to play Photographer. We actually never even went inside and the above picture is the only one of the actual observatory.


I made Stuart be my model... then actually let him take some shots of me... there haven't been any of those lately!


*On a side note... I never have pictures of me so I didn't notice how many freckles I have until I was editing these photos! .... I have a ton of freckles!


Isaac, Flint and Alli.


Evan got this shot of Stuart and I! The sunset was beautiful!


Here Stuart was playing with the camera.



Here's the view of the Hollywood Sign from where we were. pretty cool. I'd never been that close to it.

Here's Evan with his cool camera! and cool where's waldo Sweater!

Like I said... a beautiful sunset! Look at that sky!!!


Unfortunately the other van was turned away and never made it up the hill. I never made it inside to see what the observatory was all about... I was just having too much fun taking photos... the light was beautiful up there! However... I was freezing! My fingers were all frozen and I couldn't just keep em in my pockets cuz I wanted to shoot! It was a different experience shooting in the cold for me!

Flint, Alli and Isaac

A beautiful day in California found us up at The Griffith Park Observatory in LA. We had beautiful blue skies but boy was it FREEZING! More to come about our time up at the observatory later but for now here are some shots of the Ferkins.

What's Christmas Dinner without....

SPAM MUSUBI???

That's right... we had spam musubi as a part of our Christmas dinner and it was delicious as always! Mom and Dad were going to be gone for Christmas so we decided to have a Christmas Dinner on the Sunday before. Dad made and amazing Exotic Mushroom Soup and we made Spam Musubi to add to the Dinner table... We couldn't have anything resembling Thanksgiving on the table due to an unfortunate Day after Thanksgiving Stomach Flu incident in one part of our family (I didn't mind that... I don't like turkey anyway!)

Yes, it was a beautiful Christmas Dinner... very low key and YUMMY YUMMY YUMMY!!!!

Happy Birthday Andie!

Andie I wish you the very best in this New
Year and your New Age! It was so good
to spend the day with you! Thanks
for finding me that cool brick
wall/alley I was looking for!
I'm glad we got a couple
good shots before the
sun left us in the
dark!
I Love you!
Happy Birthday!

~Malia

The Kids!

We were so happy that Michal, Jared and the kids were able to come down while we were visiting! The last time we saw them was almost 2 1/2 years ago at our wedding and since then they added Bronwen to the family! On a beautiful sunny (and cold) day, the boys got together with some old friends at the park to play a little football. I went with Michal and the kids down to the park so I could get some shots of them! They are such adorable kids!

Kimball:

Henry:


Ian:


Bronwen:






We had fun...
unfortunately, we never walked
over to see the guys playing football,
so I didn't get any pictures of Stuart
and his old friends that he rarely sees.
Oops!

100 MPH... 26 stories high... head-over-heels thrills... flying through flames...

I'm There!!!

Gavan took me to Six Flags Magic Mountain while I was visiting and we had a blast! I think we did it perfectly... we got up early and made the drive to get there just before the gates opened so we would be one of the first people in the park!

When you walk in, there are all these park photographers who rush at you to take your picture, I felt like we had made it past all of them but spoke too soon, just as I said it, one came running up to us so we stopped and smiled for her... then she said "Okay one more and this time how about a kiss" uhh.... "No, we're brother and sister" Sheepishly she says "oh ok, then a peace sign"

So we make it inside the park and run to Viper first, we run through the "line" all the way to where you board all lanes were open so we decided to wait one run to get in the front car.... 7 loops later and we're on to the next ride feeling good!

This is when we found Tatsu... if you get a chance to go to 6 Flags... this is a must ride!


You climb into the seat, pull the harness down over your shoulders, lock that in place and then the ride operators come and strap your feet down... when everyone is in and ready, seats rotate forward so you are face down to the ground! Like this:



Its such a smooth and enjoyable ride with lots of twists and turns and stomach dropping plunges! After Tatsu we ran over to Superman. It looked like it was closed because there was no one around, and the tunnel that the line would go through was dark we walked through the whole thing and hopped right in the car... no one else riding! 10 seconds later we were on to our next ride!

So we ran through the park and never had to wait more than 5 minutes for anything! It was crazy! Then we went to X2



This is like the most extreme Roller Coaster they have so this one we had to wait 45 minutes for but they had these TV's playing xtreme sports clips and all those wipeout clips (Not my Favorite thing to watch) I like watching the xtreme sports when they make it... I hate watching those painful spills. Anyways... this ride is complete with a little soundtrack playing in your ears, more than vertical drops, and flying through flame throwers! As we made the climb in the begining Icould feel how cold the air was getting with the wind picking up... but you could seriously feel the heat when we went through the fire!

So we made it onto every ride we wanted to and went back to a couple for seconds... by that time we were hungry so headed out to the car to eat the lunches we packed and make the drive home. We were out of the park by 2 o'clock having had enough fun! Plus you don't wanna go back on those kinds of rides after eating lunch.

Thanks Gavan for such a fun day!



*Image Credit goes to Google Images

The Girls....

While I was in California, I had the chance to get together with Andie and Camille! It was soo great to get together even if it was only for a few short hours.... These days it seems like we have an annual Christmas break lunch together! Last year we had one with the boys too (our husbands)... but this year it was just us girls! Now that I think about it we seem to have started a tradition of having lunch at a taco place... Last year it was Baja Fresh and this time it was Wahoos!

(Photo Stolen from Andie's blog)

Its always fun to get together with Andie and Camille because even though I live in Hawaii and only get to see them once a year (if that) it's like we can just pick up where we left off 7 1/2 years ago when we were in high school together (has it really been that long???). Where does the time go?? I kinda think we feel the same... and I think we pretty much look the same.... (besides camille's little baby bump!)

(So is this one... hope you don't mind!)

So... we had a wonderful lunch and then I wanted to do a mini photo shoot of these girls at the park just for kicks.

I Love you Girlies!!! It was great to get together and have more laughs like old times! You're beautiful inside and out and I am so grateful for the lifelong friendship that we have!!! I look forward to our next Christmas Lunch! Maybe next time you guys can make it out here... I know a lovely little place for lunch! And don't forget about our girls retreat out here in Hawaii! Love you lots! Happy New Year to all!!!!!